Happy Easter everybody.
I am no longer a church-goer, so I can’t remember the answer to this one. If Christ was crucified on Good Friday and rose again on Easter Sunday, surely that’s two days not three? Especially as he had vanished during the night as Mary Magdalen discovered when she turned up in the morning. He was crucified pretty late on Friday as there were a series of events that day beforehand, then rose again on saturday night/sunday morning? Isn’t that the next day rather than three days?
Speaking of timing, I told a friend a week ago that if the Tory lead increased to ten points (as it now has) then I didn’t think Brown would go for May 6 but rather wait till 3 June in case something turned up. New Labour would keep their money in store and not hold a national campaign for the May 6 elections, letting the Tories spend some of their powder. There are obvious disadvantages to letting the Tories build up momentum, but also the hope that Tory triumphalism after the council elections might put people off. There is nothing more unpleasant than a braying toff,
Don’t get me wrong – I think New Labour are toast, and good riddance. But I don’t think they’ll walk manfully to their doom. I think they’ll kick, scream, wet themselves and try to buy a few more seconds in the ministerial limousines.
Finally, I confess I do not share the outrage at Chris Graylings’ comments. I don’t think in general it is useful for the state to try to co-erce tolerance, except in preventing extreme and harmful intolerance. I am not sure where the line comes, but I am not really sure you increase tolerance by forcing bigots to give bed and breakfast to gay people. I think the ancient right of the publican, for example, to refuse to serve people without reason had something going for it. It’s his pub. I once got sacked as a barman for selling someone who ordered a Talisker and coke to fuck off.
On the other hand, if Christian establishments are gay free, where will paedophile priests stay on holiday? (Am I wrong, or were the Catholic priests concerned nearly all after little boys rather than little girls?) Maybe christian establishments should be allowed to ban gays, but only on condition that they erect a large sign saying “A Narrow Minded Joyless Bigot Establishment”. They could display an Ian Paisley mark, and be awarded from one to five Paisleys depending on just how bigoted they are.
Call me a bigot if you like, Craig. But frankly, I’m not keen on being the next occupant of a room and bed just vacated by male gays. The idea that the State can bully B&B operators into putting up with disagreeable practices in the own home is outrageous.
“Gatha-ka-hinka” is another good insult if anyone’s looking for an armoury: It means, “Donkey who is now part of the past!”
“Gatha ka thoom!”: “Tail of a donkey!”
I have loads of these, in different languages. There must a lexicon somewhere on the web.
“Bad pathur-i-lanat!” means “A curse, doom and all kinds of foreboding on your house!”
Sorry, I can’t stop…!
Woody,
I am curious – so do you refuse to stay in hotels? How do you know who was in the bed before you?
I don’t deny I would have the same feeling, except I presume they change the sheets…
ing.
Good on you, Arsalan!
What a strange song that must have been…
Do you know what I find really confusing about the cloth shop incident?
How is it possible to nick cloth?
I mean you can nick small things by putting them in your pocket. bigger things by sticking them under your clothes.
But how are you meant to steal two meter rolls of cloth?
Where are they meant to stick a two meter roll of cloth that ways about the same as a person?
I’ve been thinking about it for the past couple of years and still haven’t worked it out.
I’ve already ruled out the obvious things, because they cant just cut a bit off and stuff it in their pockets. You’d be surprised how much cloth it takes to make women’s clothes.
you need a good few meters of that two meter roll to make something. How were they meant to do that?
Perhaps the shopkeeper thought that Gypsies carry the Evil Eye around with them, in the back pockets, as it were.
Craig, the two heroes who are trying to put a nice B&B out of business are high profile LibDems in Huntingdon, one is party secretary the other a town councillor. If I were a party activist there I’d be cringeing with embarrassment.
These are your new political playmates, old boy. Do take extra care!
Actually I prefer staying in (nice) B&Bs rather than hotels partly because I know the owners are a bit choosy about their “guests”.
Sorry, so rational adult people would have a problem staying in a hotel room where 2 gay men had stayed? Including, apparently, the owner of this blog (though it’s OK as long as they change the sheets) and someone called ‘Woody’?
What ‘disagreeable’ gay male practices could you be referring to, I wonder, Woody? Rearranging the decor? Marching in support of a victimised minority? Surely you can’t spend time in your straight male life dwelling on what gay men do in bed?
Actually, perhaps you should spend more. There are many, many ways to have loving sex between a same sex couple. How curious that you should find them so distasteful. How bigoted. How wrong.
Course it’s OK as long as they’re women, phnaar phnaar.
Yeah, it’s quite strange trying to fathom the thought processes of Woody and Craig who can’t seem to keep out of their minds what a gay couple must do in bed. Or maybe they’re just worried about “catching gay” from the bedsheets.
Presumably they don’t worry about sleeping in a bed that’s just been vacated by an elderly couple. Or would they prefer B&B owners bar them also to keep their pristine minds clear of any thoughts of geriatric sex.
And I haven’t seen any convincing argument being made for any distinction between barring a couple on the basis of their sexuality and barring a couple based on their ethnicity.
Oh, and you’re a bigot, Woody.
Craig, pissing on Christianity from a great height is the first sign of becoming a Muslim. Be very careful where your thoughts take you. You have been warned.
I think that sexual abuse is primarily about power not sex. Sexuality is a taboo, which makes it difficult to talk about openly. Abused people try to take control of the abuse by re-enacting it experimentally, and sometimes that clears the system and sometimes it doesn’t, in fact the abuse takes over and they become an abuser themselves.
Am I right in thinking that this Catholic abuse is mostly an Irish problem? When I think of Ireland I think of everything lovely. Like a local Uzbekistan. Irish women are soft, intelligent and lovely. Irish men are high-principled, hard-working and ultra witty. I have sworn an oath till my dying day never to believe one word from a Irishman. You feel so stupid at being taken in, you want crawl into a ditch and hide. And Celtic Christianity the closest in its simplicity and reverence for God to Islam.
Maybe there is a clue in the word Uzbekistan. As mentioned above, abuse breeds abuse. So where does this abuse come from? Ireland, being closest to the UK was one of the earliest and worst-hit targets of the UK’s violent colonial history. Being highly religious, like Muslim Asia, all forms of abuse get absorbed into the soul as Divine punishment. Even the Qur’an says that people sometimes attribute difficulties to God’s punishment, when they are coming from human beings.
God is in charge, and permits the abuse, the abuser being less religious than the abused. Does that go unobserved by God? No, it is all on file. The sheep will be divided from the goats one day . Anybody who thinks that UK abusive colonialism began with the Slave Trade, think back again to the crusades. Criminals were freed from prisons to march through Europe to the Holy Land. Does that remind anyone of US troops in Iraq? Vienna refused to open their gates to them. When they got to their destination the blood of the Muslims ran through the streets in rivers. Do you think UK abusive colonialism is going to stop with Afghanistan? Think again. Until the day of Judgement, this is going to go on, unless this country comes to Islam.
Maybe the Catholic sexual abuse is a transposition of colonial ruthless violence onto the weak and defenceless choir-boys. This week, yet another advisor to the government’s committee on drugs resigned. He was a social worker. He said that it was pointless just banning methodrone and then every other dangerous drug that comes along. At some stage you have to sit down and analyse the problem. Why are 14 year olds getting off their heads all the time?
Does New Labour or David Cameron have the humility to abandon their get tough on drugs macho stand? Never. Does the English Church or the Catholic Church have the humility to analyse the problem of sexual abuse of young children? Never. They are part of the hard power establishment which organises and participates in paedophile abuse on an industrial scale. Check out Aangirfan’s blog on the subject.
Why does the Queen employ homosexual staff as eunuchs for the royal household? Abuse = power. So long as we have establishment power controlling this country, sexual abuse will carry on. The Church is part of the aggressive state machine. To maintain that extraordinary two-faced position, as defender of morality and excuser of the aggressor, something has to give. Usually that is the next thing down the food-chain that can’t complain.
I have never pissed on anyone, Christian or otherwise.
I have been pissed on though, while changing nappies.
Being a modern man isn’t easy.
Boys are worse than girls for that. You have to have the reflexes of Alan Knott.
I wish that gay still meant
joyful
carefree
bright and showy
as in Easter bonnets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay
anno:
“Celtic Christianity the closest in its simplicity and reverence for God to Islam”
Yet Celtic Christianity was in many respects a continuation of Druidism, which itself was based in part on Mosaic law.
“We believe it [the Torah] is the remnants of what was once a revealed book”
Some parts of the Torah, eg the stories of Adam and Eve and the Flood are clearly based on much older mesopotamian writings. The story of Jacob and his brothers, found also in the Koran, is believed to be based on an ancient mesopotamian treatise on astrology.
Forgive my blasphemy, but the relationship betweeen ancient pagan beliefs and the monotheistic faiths is a rather complex one.
Ancient Mesopotamia – modern day Iraq – was of course the home of Abraham and is believed to be the location of the graves of some of the hebrew prophets, including Ezekiel. No wonder perhaps that Zionists consider Iraq to be part of “Greater Israel”, thus bringing ancient history rather abruptly and chillingly up to date with current events.
Re: B&B and bigotry. For me, when you offer a service to the public it seems obvious that you must be able to comply with the law. Compare:
“I want to be a brain surgeon, but my hands shake and I’m not very bright”.
“Tough, mate, but you really need to look for work in a different occupation”.
with:
“I want to be a B&B proprietor, but I don’t want to comply with laws on discrimination”.
“Tough, mate, but you really need to look for work in a different occupation”.
rob: yes but on the other hand shops, clubs, pubs and restaurant all have the legal right in refuse entry to whoever they please. The Daily Mash’s take on this matter is rather well-balanced I feel, as well as being very funny.
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/b%26bs-forced-to-offer-gay-breakfast-201003222578/
‘Some parts of the Torah…..are clearly based on much older mesopotamian writings’
MJ, me old fruit of the loon, like myself. Thank you for reading the Torah, the Flood, the story of Jacob ( Israel ) in historical Egypt a few generations before the persecution of his offspring ( the children of Israel ) by Pharaoh.
One of God’s creations is time, and our existence in time permits successive generations to inhabit this earth consecutively. The books that God sent, The Torah, the Psalms, the Injeel and the Qur’an were not copied from eachother through old manuscripts transmitted through the generations. Our prophet, peace be upon him was illiterate, and although he had travelled to Syria for trade as a young man, he did not derive any part of the Qur’an from the previous Judaic scriptures. I didn’t enjoy yesterday’s toast for breakfast so much that I thought I’d eat it again today. I took out a couple of new slices and made some new toast, almost exactly the same. I particularly like Tesco’s 27p breakfast marmalade, because it is my nearest big supermarket and I particularly like the Holy Qur’an, because it is the most recent revelation. The Qur’an is sufficient for Muslims because ot contains all of the contents of the other three books in similar or better form.
I see the gay mafia are working overtime this Bank Holiday, with technicolor even suggesting we spend more time “dwelling on what gay men do in bed”. No thank you.
Remember that B&B proprietors often have their own families staying in the same rooms when visiting.
Somebody called Neal Lawson from the LibDems has just emailed to urge me to sign a petition to Cameron to sack Chris Grayling. The LibDems should be ashamed of jumping on this grubby bandwagon, and Cameron would do well to treat the fuss with the contempt it deserves.
This argument is not about discrimination on grounds of ethnicity or even sexual orientation – it’s about what conduct is acceptable under one’s own roof and what isn’t.
“I once got sacked as a barman for selling someone who ordered a Talisker and coke to fuck off”.
Well done! That is what I call a stand on principle. And a blow for decency.
MJ:
“but on the other hand shops, clubs, pubs and restaurant all have the legal right in refuse entry to whoever they please.”
Is that really true? Can a shop/club/pub/restaurant owner say – “Sorry I’m not letting you in, you’re the wrong sex/colour/religious persuasion” – I don’t think so. I’m sure they can refuse entry on some grounds (they are drunk, violent, etc), but a blanket ban on the grounds of sex, race etc: no.
Put it like this: someone wants to open a B&B but doesn’t like people with a brown/black/yellow skin and doesn’t want them under their own roof. They do not have the legal right – or in my view the moral right (although of course that’s irrelevant) – to refuse entry on those grounds. They need to consider a different occupation. Tough, but discrimination on those terms is not allowed. Running a B&B and expecting those conditions is not compatible with UK law. The options are limited: runa B&B somewhere where the law alows you to discriminate, or look for another occupation. Simple.
Mary
I agree, some of the ones I have met were real miserable bastards. It seems like an abuse of the English language to call those ones gay?
MJ
What you said didn’t blaspheme against Islam but confirmed it. Monotheism states that their is only one God. If this is the case that one God would be every bodies God, not just ours. It would be the God of people in different times and different places.
So similarities in different scriptures in different times and places is a confirmation of monotheism not a negation of it.
Differences would be the result of deterioration of earlier ones, and mistakes and heresies creeping in over time.
“Is that really true? Can a shop/club/pub/restaurant owner say – “Sorry I’m not letting you in, you’re the wrong sex/colour/religious persuasion””
Of course. It’s private property. No need to give a reason.
arsalan: Thank you for your generous time in providing me with a very full answer – I am puzzled no longer about why you celebrate Passover.
“but on the other hand shops, clubs, pubs and restaurant all have the legal right in refuse entry to whoever they please.
– Is that really true? Can a shop/club/pub/restaurant owner say – “Sorry I’m not letting you in, you’re the wrong sex/colour/religious persuasion” – I don’t think so. I’m sure they can refuse entry on some grounds (they are drunk, violent, etc), but a blanket ban on the grounds of sex, race etc: no.”
I have been refused service in a shop. A Spar, IIRC. It had a pretty handwritten copperplate sign in the window, “No Hippies Served Here”. I hadn’t eaten all day and wanted to buy some food, so I went in & tried to. The counter-person informed me that I was A Hippy and should therefore leave. I showed that I had some money to pay, but the manager repeated the demand, threatening to call the police. I don’t know whether it was legal, but I definitely didn’t have a good feeling about getting an opinion from the local police. In spite of not being drunk, violent or even etc.
As I wandered hungrily out of town, I fell in with a bunch of longhaired weirdos, who fed me. On milk they’d very likely nicked off someone’s doorstep …
Glastonbury, very early ’70s, before they discovered there was money to be made from festivals.
That’s groovy, Richard, man, truly far-out, bad karma-Spar, Head, that shop was The Man, man. Here, man, have a cup of tea with the tea company…
Are you two OK?
Cheers, Suhayl. Do you remember Gong ? Flying Teapots. Quite mad.
Oh, Arsalan – thanks for the mention of the Gospel of Barnabas, way up top. That looks like the version I’d heard, I wasn’t sure where it came from.
I think it’s unfair to Judas. Because, if the whole thing was any more than gruesome and meaningless, it needed him to make it happen, he must have been part of the plan.
“Do you remember Gong ?”
I saw them only last November. Original line-up. They were great.
Original lineup Gong ? Cor, I didn’t know they were back. Where was that ? Id travel, oooh, at least a few miles to hear them. I was never too clear on their lineups, was that the Camembert Electrique bunch ? The reeds player was clever. (I heard Daevid Allen (sp?) with some pickup bunch, in Leeds a dozen years back, it was rather embarrassingly sad).