The Flat Earth Society

Other Discussion Boards => Philosophy, Religion & Society => Topic started by: Jura-Glenlivet on July 18, 2017, 09:53:44 PM

Title: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on July 18, 2017, 09:53:44 PM

In response to a recent argument between Rushy and various members of the sanity squad, it became apparent that there is a disconnect between what many Americans see as the rest of the world's circumstances, and how that world sees itself. This skewed world view only washes up rarely in news stories here when the hyperbole reaches truly hysterical levels, as when a "Fox expert on terrorism" said Birmingham was a Muslim city where non-Muslims just don't go. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11338985/Fox-News-terror-expert-says-everyone-in-Birmingham-is-a-Muslim.html).

So, to counter the impression that as you close your doors to foreigners, you leave behind Europe awash with sharia police, the few remaining whites, living in ivory towers wreathed in opium smoke, wishing we were the 51st state, I would like to present a series of articles on the UK and this continent to give, I hope a balanced view of what Europe was and is like.

Let's start with the basics. Where are we?
The UK is a collection of rain drenched rocks separated from the rest of Europe by the blessed moat (the English Channel), dug by Joseph of Arimathea at the behest of God when he (Jo') came to bury the Holy Grail here, and designed to keep the filthy French (his words) from sullying our shores (this failed, and Gods betrayal indirectly led to the spread of Protestantism and the formation of Hogwarts).

Europe, you will find by swimming straight out from New England, should take you a day or two, but is plainly visible on a clear calm day with an appropriately big telescope (In your dreams Tom).

Racially we are mongrels, the original Pict's were an early Celtic race who were supplanted by the Britons (more Celts) who confined them to a reservation now called Scotland where they thrive amongst the heather by making whiskey whilst wearing skirts. For a better understanding of these Picts I recommend the film Trainspotting and not the massive load of bollocks that is Braveheart.
Britain at this time was not united, the Celts (picts included) did a bit of farming, dragged big rocks about to make circles with, built hill forts, but mostly what they liked to do was fight, preferably naked covered in blue paint or from the back of a chariot, naked and blue.
The tribe where I now live were called the Coritani, we fought the Brigantes (bastards) to the north, the Cornovii to the west the Dobunni (wimps) to the south and the Iceni to the east. This fighting is now ritualised to football or bike gangs, but can erupt at any gathering where alcohol is consumed.

I will take a break before I carry on as it is late and I have to have a shower as my partner hates me getting blue on the duvet. Next time the Romans (bastards). 
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on July 19, 2017, 09:27:44 PM
Digression!
In re-reading the above, we can see how tribalism works. Despite 2,000 yrs. of intervening history, all the (as yet) unmentioned influxes of new genetic material, the demographics of my surname probably putting me amongst the Brigantes (bastards) and dalliances with that bloke that looked a bit like Omar Sharif that your mother had when Dad was having his hernia fixed. Yet here we are identifying with a tribe we almost certainly have only location in common?


So what have the Romans ever done for us? Ghostly & Bo will know the answer to this from the Pythons point of view. There are a few more though, Lead poisoning, underpants and erosion of women's rights being less savoury than the roads and the otters' noses snacks, but for this discussion we are interested in new blood.

Now there were never a lot of them during their occupation (about 2%), it was always trouble here, they never made it into the reservation, preferring to wall it off Trump style, and the weather can't have helped. By this time they had learnt to augment their army with auxiliary troops of the kind they didn't possess, chances are their cavalry were Gaulish or Germanic and their archers were probably Syrian. The famous 9th Legion that just disappeared, were raised in Spain, so the diversity of the British/European gene pool grew.

Digression 2.
I can't be alone in thinking when I first realised the Romans were Italians, what the fuck?
Don't get me wrong, Italy is one of my favourite countries to visit and the people are both beautiful, very kind and welcoming but I had been bought up with the knowledge that in the world wars they were a bit lightweight, Italian tanks having more reverse gears than forward, that sort of thing, but they beat the world, up close at the end of a short sword, wearing sandals. I think it was the underpants. Running into battle naked is all very well for the shock factor but when people start waving sharp things in the direction of your tackle, it's got to register. Hessian boxers may not be the best protection but not having your crown jewels flapping around making a target of themselves, has to be a factor, that and the armour.


Where is this all leading? To be honest, I've wandered a bit but I will bring it back. 
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on July 21, 2017, 10:20:19 PM

I'd like to skip a vast chunk of history that involves more invasions, changes in fashion, language, death and plagues, to reintroduce America. If anyone has any specific time I've passed they have questions about , please ask.

So, much of the first batch of European settlers to the new world were puritans. Puritans were a reaction to the corrupt, elitist money grabbing kiddy fiddlers called the Catholics, so at first they were a good thing, they bought new ways of thinking that revitalised northern Europe, but also ushered in a load of new wars, the reformation and then the counter reformation, that cleared them out of much of southern Europe.
 
I think the last crusade called by a Pope (Sixtus V) was against England, when Indiana Jones led the Armada, to remove the protestant Queen Elizabeth, it got truly fucked by Francis Drake's navy and the English weather, ensuring England remained protestant and demoted Spain from super power status.

But by the time the puritans hit American shores they were largely a bunch of killjoys that had sucked all the fun out of life, tired of listening to the parties everyone else was still throwing they moved to New England where they celebrated their new found freedom by burning witches and hanging Quakers. These people were to form the bedrock of American society and we threw another party. 
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on July 31, 2017, 03:11:23 PM

Chem-trails eh?
So, they found us, as if we don’t have enough madness here, another bunch of tinfoil hat wearers are trying to muscle in on our loons. I mean it’s plausible that thousands of pilots would want to use probably the most indiscriminate method of distribution possible to poison their families along with the rest of us, why wouldn’t they? Such a great idea!

I’m just worried that this is just a diversion from the real problem of the anti-Christ.
 Since the time of Pope Sylvester II, who trained in catholic sorcery at Seville and with the help of his demon lover, became Pope in 999 (invert it sheeple), thereby staving off the 2nd coming of Christ (Leif Ericson) in the year 1,000 by using Tsunami bombs (sent back in time by CERN) to divert his ships to America. The Anti-christ has been battling and winning against the forces of good (eh! Bo?)

If you think that is inconceivable, consider this. He died in 1003, his work done! 1003 is the designated number for Lilofee, an asteroid that some believe shifts around and will one-day crash into the sea, creating a huge tsunami (see above).
Lilofee is from a German folk song and was a malignant water spirit, it disappeared after first being found but cropped up again in 1923. A sign? Weird weather that year, a super storm in the Caribbean formed of four cells that some said announced the return of the four horsemen. who was born that year? Kissinger, Marcel Marceau, Alan Shepard and Robert Maxwell, you tell me.
 
More weird weather (in 1923), Giant hail killed 23 in Rostov, Russia.
23 is a mental number, a prime, factorial prime, Eisenstein prime, safe prime as well as others, and significantly, the sacred number of the goddess of discord Eris, the original malevolent fairy (ask them Trojans). Small Wonder Hitler’s career took off with the beer-hall Putsch this year, and the Hollywood sign went up.

So now the fight goes on as it has through the ages, think, David Icke versus Bob Hope or Bill (the body count) Clinton’s murder of Princess Di (reincarnation of Mary Magdalene?), using Israeli attack vultures to tear out the eyes of her chauffer.

Forget the false flag of chem-trails, if you’re looking up, it should be to heaven.   
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on August 08, 2017, 08:50:27 PM

So that's how you grab a few bits of history (there are facts in there) and make a conspiracy, not watertight, but it only has to appeal to your targets prejudices and away you go.

Back to the history bit.
I think as I am a guest on a site that, jokingly or otherwise professes that the world is flat, we should have a quick look at what people actually thought back then. As mentioned before, Leif Ericson found his way to America within a few years of the first millennium, it's a fairly safe bet that as a mariner he was used to the fact that the horizon bends away in all directions and countries he was visiting appeared from the highest point first as Gecko has kindly pointed out, but he clearly wasn't afraid of falling off the edge otherwise he would have been a more stay at home kind of Viking, but this is purely anecdotal as far as evidence goes.

As we who have been here a while know, the round Earth theory is a NASA concoction, however Alfred the Great of  Wessex (849-899), who was a great believer in education for its own sake, commissioned a great deal of translations of classical works and treatise thereof, and he talks of the world in an unambiguously spherical manner. Comparing the earth to “the yolk in the middle of an egg which can move about (within the confines of) the egg. Similarly the world remains still in its station. Outside the play of  the sky and the stars, and the bright shell itself revolve around it every day – long has it done so”
Now clearly he could have done with reading his Copernicus and Galileo, but as this was the late 800's we can forgive him that.

So, either  NASA was conceived  by the West Saxons or these ancients had a lot more about them than some of the people that gather here of a night.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on August 22, 2017, 09:54:22 PM
So, in our attempt to find really cool places to visit, we ended up in Sintra Portugal. If you like weird architecture (see Pena Palace below)

  (http://i.imgur.com/YBHPXhA.jpg)

Moorish castles, gardens dedicated to to the Templar’s and plenty of history whilst being baked by the sun, go there. The Portuguese are friendly without being intrusive and the food & wine is wonderful.

We run on complete news black out while abroad so it wasn't until we got back that we saw that Trumps brown-shirts had drawn first blood and that IS inspired retards had committed  their sad acts, so the world goes on. 
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on August 30, 2017, 12:57:41 PM
What the fucking fuck!

I’m back at work after 2 and a bit weeks off, so it’s rant time! Not that I hate my job, far from it, I’m a bloody genius so I breeze through the day spreading inspiration and awe, so much so that when I take time off, the people I leave to do the various things I do, seem to think they can do it, as easily as I, the fools.

So, I breeze into work, smiling affably, sporting my farmers tan, exotic insect bites and tales of far off places, and they scatter like mice, and before I even read the don’t blame us email, I want to execute every mother fucking last one of them. (Deep breath). But I’m over that, and although I feel there is a space around me now you would give a junk yard dog, I have been plied with tea and grubby pears off someone’s tree and I just know some twat will say soon “got any photos then?”.
That, they will regret, I have 400 randomly downloaded beauty spots including some from Pandora and one of the girl from “The Ring”, ready on slideshow, friendship is a place south of hell.

6.5 million people watched “The great British bake off” it's time for a plague.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on September 04, 2017, 08:52:07 PM


Watched the film War Machine with Brad Pitt the younger and it left me a bit confused (not least you are saying, as you aren't putting it in the appropriate "just watched" thread, but in your self-obsessed bollocks thread, well there is more to this than a film report, so hold on). The confusion arises mainly from Pitt's performance vis-à-vis everybody else in the film, he seems to have been given a completely different MO, something along the lines of "Gurn like Popeye and move around like you have only just taken possession of your body".
I don't know much about US Generals, but just from my memories of "Stormin Norman" of desert-storm fame, they do tend to walk like a parody of John Wayne, and this film is a satire, in parts.
Ben Kingsley plays the part of Hamid Karzai for laughs but almost sweetly and Tilda Swinton's German heckler is brilliant, so why didn't they tone down Brad? Maybe he was going through some personal grief and they didn't want to get in his face, but he was awful.
The combat mission is played orthodox and stands in stark contrast to BP's buffoonery and makes you wonder if they could have made a more worthwhile film if he had played it straighter or they had given the part to an actor. It's worth watching for the message, what are we doing invading countries when we have a wealth of history to prove it's a bad idea.

There is one scene when some guy is explaining to Brad/Popeye why the Afghans are growing Opium rather than cotton, and it's here I would like to take a bit of a detour.

The official/standard reasons for invasions of Afghanistan are political. Anglo-Russo expansion for the 1st British invasion in the 1840's (We lost 16,000 soldiers and camp followers in the "Great shame" and then left killing a lot of Afghan's on the way). The same for the 2nd invasion in the 1880's, but with an agreement not to return if they played ball.
Helping a fellow communist government against rebels, Soviet-Afghan war (1980's), and finally the pursuit of Bin-laden after 9/11 in 2001.
 
Perhaps, but all these invasions of a country steeped in war, impossible to hold and destined to be a disaster, why here?

What if it was all about the opium, I know you have a war on drugs but the moment the US declares a war on things they tend to increase (see war on terror), now when we went in, we were exporting opium to China in vast amounts which precipitated 2 opium wars that coincided with the dates we had invaded Afghanistan.
We know the CIA and by implication the US government were involved in the cocaine trade in central America, what better way to get money and keep your underprivileged compliant, and here's the kicker. In early 2001, the Taliban destroyed the opium crop (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/apr/01/internationalcrime.drugstrade), then later that year they get invaded and boom, since then the opium harvest has not only been re-established but has grown (see graph), despite the war on drugs, and heroin use has increased 5 fold in the US, perhaps the whole thing is designed to get the right people in place to guarantee this lucrative trade as the Taliban had become undependable, just a thought.

Either way, Brad Pitt should be shot, but the film isn't all bad.

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/k0Ohy6VQejKpsxCnC7F8Jhuoey2frnlZqPmmvXemBMA4f5GSr4pj7La1EzAqRazQvxG3Sj4fFJNIWV8Z4glhE_Yfc2Cj-B86yvHqie1P2ZXctfGCGxh1T504YK_ahW3KuG_FIgwy)
UNODC 2016
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on September 20, 2017, 08:34:23 PM
Religion is a big thing here at the moment, from the gentle hippyish apocalyptical meanderings of Dither to the "End of days" ravings of Dr Boolittle. We have signs, and signs of signs, of things coming to a head, vis-à-vis our creator un-creating everything, weighing our souls against a feather (or some other such nonsense), and casting all into eternal damnation. All that is, apart from the Boo's, who get to live in perpetual smugness with each other (just one of the many reasons I'm not rushing to repent).

This Christianity isn't the one I know from the leafy lanes and quiet shires of childhood.

As a kid Christianity was (it seemed to me), just there to explain the existence of all the churches, to give the weird guy in the long black clothes a job to do and to provide simple stop-gap answers to difficult questions until you grew up and did science (or became another weird guy). It was the singing of "all things bright and beautiful", harvest festivals and the peal of bells on a Sunday.

However, the doom-laden ending does bear a resemblance to what we were interested in, the Norse/Germanic/Celtic religions, the ones that gave us most of our day names and (we were told) the roots of Christmas (Yule), Easter (Eostre) and Halloween (Samhain). Cool gods with hammers and spears, ravens, drinking, giants, dwarves, serpents that wrapped the world, wolves that ate the sun and moon and Ragnarök.

Ragnarök, is the "end of days" turbo-charged via George Martin and Sam Peckinpah. All the gods so terribly rendered by Hollywood are killed, Thor poisoned by the Midgard serpent (seriously big snake), staggers 9 steps after killing it and succumbs, Odin swallowed whole by the Fenrir Wolf, but avenged by his son, Vidar. Loki, (incidentally the father of the serpent, the wolf and Odin's horse) is killed by, and kills Heimdall. Hel (the place) is opened by Hel (the goddess of death, another child of Loki) and generally, shit goes south. The Norse gods were massively fatalistic, they of all the pantheons were aware of their fate (although if Satan hasn't gotten hold of a copy of revelations by now and learned his fate, I would be surprised), but they did very little to cheat it, they had Fenrir tied up with the loss of Tyr's hand as payment, but didn't butcher it?  At the end, everything is consumed bar a few children of the gods and two humans who get on with re-populating. Much more fun.

Modern Christianity it seems, having absorbed the Holy days may have stolen the ending too, although the Edda's weren't written down until the 13th century, there are carving stones and such from at least as far back as the 1st depicting the legends, and the Saga's they came from, were old when they passed into Britain. Stolen not in the sense that it wasn't already there in revelations but in the pessimistic world view that seems to infuse latter day Christians.

As for the signs? Well, look up Skinner's box and superstition, look up apophenia or confirmation bias.

Anyway we grew up and left all that behind with the tooth fairy*, didn't we?


*(an old Norse superstition of paying children for their spare teeth to make lucky necklaces for battle, although I might of made that up)
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: devils advocate on September 21, 2017, 08:33:30 PM
Love it! As a fellow Brit I confirm you have captured our Island spirit prefect!
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on September 22, 2017, 11:17:16 AM
We are a dying breed DA (edit Doh).

I just made everyone in my office, a cup of tea. That’s not a brag just a statement of fact, tea is the leveller here, everyone must take their turn, and they are judged by their results. Expediency does mean we use tea bags, but they are Twinnings breakfast teabags. A teapot isn’t practical here because of the perennial split between teapot cleaners, those weird fuckers that maintain the inside of the pot should be kept clean and proper tea drinkers for whom the build-up of tannin is to be celebrated, and acknowledged with a satisfied nod when a flake of concentrated poison ends up floating in your brew.

I have seen people posting on-line the correct way to make this drink, and those people should be birch whipped.
There is no correct way to make tea, only personal preference, to be stated to the person designated as tea maker for that round and respected as such.

This round; 1 strong with a dash of milk, no sugar, 1 medium, milky, one sugar, 1 medium, milky (to the colour of He-man’s tan), two sugars, 1 milky, weak with honey (faddist) and mine, strong black no sugar. I didn’t have to ask and I nailed it.

People who forget to stipulate their preference, get a tea the maker thinks they would like from the cut of their jib. It is a matter of pride for the maker to correctly determine this, but it is on the drinker’s head for being remiss or too timid, sugar in this case is given as an option and never guessed.

If you ever come to England and decide to get a cup of tea at a tea-shop, and they bring you an actual cup of tea, knock it from their hand and demand a duel, it’s the law and you get to choose both weapons, it is considered bad form to kill them however, as the idea being is to teach them a damn lesson.
Tea in this instance should be a small pot with milk and sugar as options, ideally you should have another pot of boiled water as well for a top up. If you go into a chain coffee shop and ask for a tea, you are a fuckwit and deserve what you get.

That’s tea. 

*(edit) This is reversed in a cafe (no acute accent, pronounced "caff", full of people in hi-vis), here you will likely get a mug of tea, which will invariably be strong "Yorkshire" tea, any attempt at knocking cups out of their hand here, will end with you being buried under the footings of a motorway bridge.

Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: devils advocate on September 23, 2017, 08:40:35 AM
Haha this true, the decline of tea is equal to the reduction of satisfaction. Make tea not war! :-)
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on October 18, 2017, 01:25:18 PM
Englishness!

Is it a thing? Are we different from the rest of the world? Do we still have anything to offer now we have misplaced our empire?

In this increasingly homogenised world, national identity has become subservient to corporate hegemony. (I have just read that back to myself and I apologise for the pretentiousness, but I’m English and I love the language). The above poncey line has a kernel of truth, but that way of thinking leads to (amongst others) the nationalistic “golden-age” crap I have no time for, Brexit,  and our English equivalents of Trump; Boris Johnson (the first human/teddy-bear/psychopath hybrid to go to Eton) and Jacob Rees-mogg (the first Stepford-husband assimilated by the Borg to go to Eton). And to be honest if you let it be so, then you are a chinless swamp donkey.

As well as the Eton types* who seem to run the country, there is a myriad of kinds of English. We and most of the world are surrounded by our antiquity; dolmens, menhirs, burial mounds, castles, dykes and ruins of all ages, able to plug us in to the centuries past for a sense of perspective. That surprisingly few do this and instead follow the shallow footsteps of America, is a worry.

It is small wonder the US is the home of most of the worlds proponents of a 6,000 old Earth as when you had finished the genocide of the indigenous peoples, that, became your year zero. The remaining pueblos and spear heads are not yours, but a symbol of your shame and you suffer from history disconnect as a result, hence marvel, Christian science and your attempt to fill the resultant void with calories, to the extent when I visited 10 or so years ago I spent a good proportion of my time exclaiming “Jesus creeping shit look at the size of that!”  That you then exported obesity to the parts of the world that could afford it (do you want fries with that?), means now that it isn’t funny any longer, as rising sea levels in England (in part) from the number of homegrown fatties threatens to flood Norfolk, thereby drowning a good sum of said chunkiness. Locking us into a sequence of bobbing up and down in the North Sea until sense prevails.

Having failed to answer any of the three proposed questions I will have to return later, as I am supposed to be working (very British).


 * (and here we see the self-perpetuating problem with the UK “Public” school system. That is, if you take children (particularly boys) away from their parents, and hand them over to sadistic pederasts for their formative years/education, you get a stratum of society who are devoid of normal human warmth, and consequently have the singularity of mind to want to rise in power, as hierarchy is an exaggerated and pervasive portion of their lives, then when they decide to have offspring, armed with that lack of humanity, they see no problem in subjecting their issue to the same, as, (to them) it did them no harm!)
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: devils advocate on October 18, 2017, 03:25:45 PM
We have a few things left in the locker yet but maybe the golden day's are behind us. But what days they were, let's just sit back and list the historical accomplishments of the holders of the record; "Worlds largest empire"...What have the Brits ever done for us?

The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Pink Floyd, Monty Python, Shakespear, Dickins, Pratchett, Byron, The English language, The internet, Chedder/Stilton/Red Leicester Cheese, Roast Beef and Yorkshire pudding, Fish and Chips, Formula 1, Football, Rugby (The real man's sport your less macho American Football was stolen from), Tennis, Cricket, rounders (What our school girls used to play-you call it Baseball) Snooker, The Jet engine, The Telephone, theory of evolution, Stephen Hawkins, Richard Dawkins, Penicillin, Steam locomotion, Newton, and Ed the Duck.

However looking forwards, errrrrrrrrr, hmmmmmmm, gimme a sec......................................................................andymurray?........................bollox I'm turning the chair back around
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on October 19, 2017, 08:36:01 AM
I don’t like lists, they are inelegant, but I’ve fixed it for inaccuracies and spelling.

The Beatles (meh), The Rolling Stones(meh), Led Zeppelin(meh), The Who (shite), Pink Floyd, Monty Python, Shakespeare, Dickens, Pratchett (see the who), Byron, The English language, The internet, Cheddar/Stilton/Red Leicester Cheese, Roast Beef and Yorkshire pudding (the only meat allowed in here is fish, them’s the rules), Fish and Chips, Formula 1, Football, Rugby (The real meathead sport your less macho American Football was stolen from), Tennis(meh), Cricket, rounders (What our school girls used to play-you call it Baseball) Snooker (poking balls with a stick until they fall in a hole is nothing to crow about), The Jet engine, The Telephone, theory of evolution, Stephen Hawkins, Richard Dawkins, Penicillin, Steam locomotion, Newton, and Ed the Duck.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: devils advocate on October 19, 2017, 08:52:12 AM
I can NOT believe you red-scored Ed the Duck!  :o
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on October 19, 2017, 09:39:30 AM
When I finally go postal, (I am building a repeating ballista to be mounted on a google AI driven flatbed), at least one of my intended victims will be someone who made a career out of cramming his hand up some cute puppets arse and mewling cloying mawkish inanities designed to pull at the heartstrings of sickly children, thereby spreading corruptive sentimentality, calculated to undermine the spirit of England’s future warriors/canon-fodder.
You sir, by bringing to my notice this particular example of the wretched breed, may well have hastened his demise.     
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: devils advocate on October 19, 2017, 03:05:12 PM
England’s future warriors/canon-fodder.

Wow, a boiling kettle that must surely blow and spread the scalding steam of contempt upon those that offended!

I wonder if you could clarify the meaning the above canon fodder/warriors you describe? 

Are we to read that you refer to our soldiers and suchlike or that all current youths fall under that umbrella;

To fight, to kill and die for the nation in whatever chosen path life does select.
To live for England and for all things correct.
To strive in the factories until they can make no more, to toil in the fields until they can reap no further? Maybe to agonise over the arts to the point where the art consumes their soul?
 In the offices, the markets, the boardrooms and stalls. The studios the building sites, the hospitals and schools?
Is this the future for all?

Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on October 19, 2017, 08:13:02 PM


I wonder if you could clarify the meaning the above canon fodder/warriors you describe? 



Mmm, would there was a difference between the two distinctions, from feeding the poppies of Flanders fields, to patrolling those of Helmand, they fulfil both.

And in this I mean no disrespect, it has always been so.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: devils advocate on October 20, 2017, 07:27:00 AM
When you do go postal please kill me first as I want not to live in the world you would leave in your wake. Much obliged.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Rama Set on October 20, 2017, 11:39:31 AM
When you do go postal please kill me first as I want not to live in the world you would leave in your wake. Much obliged.

You needn't worry. By insulting The Who, Jura has hastened her own demise. Teams of bullet ants have already been dispatched.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on October 20, 2017, 01:16:51 PM
When you do go postal please kill me first as I want not to live in the world you would leave in your wake. Much obliged.

Ah how swiftly they change, but as you request your name is added to the list.



You needn't worry. By insulting The Who, Jura has hastened her own demise. Teams of bullet ants have already been dispatched.

There is an ocean between me and your bullet ants, death god.

As for the Who, they are pretty much the yardstick for absolutely no fucking taste whatsoever, whilst believing you’re cool. Such a handsome face, such a shame.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: devils advocate on October 21, 2017, 11:44:54 PM


Ooh she's making a list, she's checking it twice, she'll slaughter us all whether we're naughty or nice,

Like Ms A. Stark from Game of Thrones, she's gonna strip us to our bones

Jura-G is coming to town
Jura-G is hunting me down

Jura-G is tracking me far,
I hope she's as sexy as her avatar

Ne-ver en-rage an Eng-lish rose
Coz she'll burn bog roll in your toes

Even vegan Ladies will kill you

Give Boudicca a spear she'll run you through

I guess J-G what I am trying to write

Is that I do not like it that we fight

Can we please maybe just start again?

I'll be the cock if you're the hen?

Us Brits are few upon this site

I'm sorry if I was a shite

You're right my list was inelegant

I have not been an English Gent

So please J-G another chance?

And we'll unite the GB RE stance?

Or maybe you will choose to carry on the hunt?

After all I am a feckless southern C***


Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Boots on October 22, 2017, 01:29:56 PM
You're flirting with a dude, dude.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: devils advocate on October 22, 2017, 04:19:21 PM
Dang! Thought it was a bit odd having real female on a flat earth site... :-*
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on October 22, 2017, 09:44:12 PM

Awkward! synonyms:   embarrassing, uncomfortable, unpleasant, delicate, ticklish, tricky, sensitive, problematic, problematical, troublesome, perplexing, thorny, vexatious;
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Pete Svarrior on October 22, 2017, 10:07:16 PM
Dang! Thought it was a bit odd having real female on a flat earth site... :-*
They exist, and they're universally p. good js
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: devils advocate on October 22, 2017, 10:11:49 PM
that's a LOT of synonyms for a virtual reality.......its been fun but I think that demonstrates you take this a lot more literally than me! Enjoy your solo soliloquy..... Haha
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: devils advocate on October 22, 2017, 10:17:13 PM
Dang! Thought it was a bit odd having real female on a flat earth site... :-*
They exist, and they're universally p. good js

Great stuff Pete! No idea what "universally p. good js" means. But hope you're well and enjoying your day!  ;D
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on October 23, 2017, 07:27:55 AM
that's a LOT of synonyms for a virtual reality.......its been fun but I think that demonstrates you take this a lot more literally than me! Enjoy your solo soliloquy..... Haha

Well that’s what I was trying to do before you took this self-help group for the mentally ill, and confused it with Tinder.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: devils advocate on October 23, 2017, 10:17:32 AM
For some reason I seem to have more luck with the mentally challenged. Maybe opposites attract.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Rama Set on October 23, 2017, 11:50:46 AM
Dang! Thought it was a bit odd having real female on a flat earth site... :-*

Don't tell me... that line has never worked before. Yeah yeah. I know.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on October 31, 2017, 09:40:11 AM

Crazy as this may seem I love you people, just remember that.

So, the merger popped up again like herpes in a nunnery, raged a while and was promptly sabotaged or put out of its misery by the intervention of flag waving Indonesian hackers, or was it?!! (dun dun der!).

Someone is being a bad little Hector. Let’s look at the (usual) suspects;

Starting with us, TFES. More specifically those members who are capable and evil enough to commit this crime. Those that point the finger (usually while you’re not looking and then with a “not me, you misunderstood” rejoinder if challenged), favour pizza-boy or Parse’ as they are clearly the most evil, vile and degenerate, out of a pretty despicable and malevolent bunch.

Why? Well obviously, as intrinsically malicious criminal types, they can’t help themselves, also they want to maintain hold of their tiny empire at all costs and would potentially lose their big fish small pond status in the amalgam.

Other reasons could be, euthanasia, the debate was fatally contaminated from the outset by its history, why watch it crawl painfully across the floor again, just butcher the damn thing and have done.

Impish humour, (I know, a long shot), John boy had been bigging himself up as computer wizard and then bam! You were saying John?

Then there is John boy himself, he hates the movers and shakers here, traitors who are responsible for the split, usurpers who he fears seek to supplant him, savants who make his site look like 5yr olds meccano project, so he waits until someone mentions his security issues and then calls in a favour, and it’s “well they are at it again” game over, I’m still the king of the castle.

Let’s not rule out the Indonesian collective, a group of hackers who think it hilarious to turn up every now and then and prove that the flat earther’s security is as backward as their beliefs, maybe, but there are hints (from John) that these attacks have some sort of pattern linked to known members, a relatedness that he has refused to illuminate, hinting that he has unleashed ninjas to hunt down the perpetrators and all will be revealed, time will tell.

An-other, a shadowy Keyser Soze figure, pulling strings, hatching plots, hiding in full view.
Now Keyser was a Turkish crime lord of mythical savagery, so who fits that bill?
No! I will not have you accusing Inti’, it couldn’t be him as the last bout of attacks coincided with his breakdown and eviction from here and temporary expulsion from there, so what possible motive could he have had, whilst this time he is the very voice of reason, and nothing has ruffled his feathers lately, in any case, it can’t have been him as he told us he wouldn’t have access to a computer all weekend. So, forget that, okay.
As to other denizens of the B site, they all seem perfectly sane (straight face). But I don’t go there much so I will leave it to others to ponder that.

NASA! In all this, nobody mentioned NASA. Done.

We may never know, bad luck, coincidental attack, spiteful sabotage or coordinated assault. What is clear is, the corpse is in the water and beginning to smell, what is also clear is, that any attempt at a lasting merger of paranoid conspiracy theorists will always be a source of unbridled amusement, I think we should try again in 4 months.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Dither on November 01, 2017, 01:12:38 AM
Now Keyser was a Turkish crime lord of mythical savagery, so who fits that bill?

I miss Inky   :'(
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on November 29, 2017, 10:23:32 PM
The Ghostly one asked (elsewhere) if I would recommend Lundy Island as a destination and here seems the best place to answer.

Yes! With certain caveats, do not go on a summer day-trip, the MS Oldenburg is a 2nd world war German shallow drafted sick bucket that takes 2 and a half hours to cross from either Bideford or Ilfracombe, you get about 3 hours on the island, 3 hours isn't nearly enough time before you have to go back down for the trip back with 25% of the passengers seeming to have no racial memory of being part of a maritime nation. On the plus side it is the cheapest and only method of travel in the summer when the Puffins and Shearwaters are nesting, but stay there for at least a few days.
The other warning I would hazard is, if you want comfort and modernity it's the wrong destination for you, the lights go out at 12.30 and the accommodation is comfortable but sparse.

With that out of the way, it's beautiful, a 400ft granite outcrop 12 miles from north Devon, 3 miles by 0.5 doesn't seem much but it will take you the whole day to walk to the north light and back via the coastal paths and you will still have missed stuff.

(https://i.imgur.com/V2lUBlj.jpg)

History wise (condensed), Neolithic settlements, owned at times by the Nights Templar’s, the Marisco family, pirates who were implicated in an assassination attempt on Henry III and built the castle, Barbary Pirates who captured Europeans and sold them in Algiers, a member of parliament who was entrusted with the shipping of convicts over to Virginia to take up the slack when the slaves were freed, but who took the money and dumped them on Lundy as his personal slaves  while he did insurance swindles with his other boats, the Heaven family who renamed it the Kingdom of Heaven, built a church that doesn't have the usual east-west alignment but instead points to the summer solstice and according to one of the stonemasons currently doing it up has strange carvings on the back of some of the blocks they have reset, which (because they are are stonemasons and weird) they have just returned without documenting.

It is surrounded by at least 200 wrecked ships, a selection of lifebuoys off many of these grace the walls of the Marisco tavern (the only nightlife), including a battleship HMS Montegu grounded there in 1906.

There is a plethora of wildlife, mountain goats, Soay sheep, Atlantic Grey seals, fishing, climbing and scuba diving (too fucking cold).

I go mainly in winter, as because I went to school with the Island manager I get concessionary tickets on the Helicopter that stands in for the sick-bucket during the winter season, which only takes 7 minutes and is fun, also I get free or cheap accommodation.
That aside, the bleakness and totally dark skies at night suit me, the tavern stocks some fine whiskey, good ales and a selection of rums and has a big roaring fire and closes only when you can't function anymore.

(https://i.imgur.com/UT2NUb1.jpg)
(My picture of some bendy light shit going on)

Go.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on November 30, 2017, 09:07:53 AM
Sounds brilliant. I had considered taking the telescope over and camping overnight. Glad to know it's worth considering.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on December 02, 2017, 09:58:04 PM
There are a few trends that are emerging regarding, new arrivals to "The Frankly Eccentric Swarm" of late that have caught my interest, amongst the angry and the lost we have an increasing number of "I am a student of such and such seat of learning, considering so and so aspect of FE, which of you mad bastards will indulge me" type of enquiry.

I actually responded to the first (I saw) of these and answered queries from an American youngster who seemed genuine, in that he rang me with a list of pseudo-sociological, why, when & what are you doing on this site kind of questions, his methodology was a bit suspect, no attempt to ascertain my demographic (antediluvian evacuee, if he had asked), and between the apparent cultural and linguistic divide there was a bit of confusion, but we got there, I just don't think, (even though I'd warned him) that I was what he wanted. Ideally, I think he desired a frothing rant about the lizard conspiracy through a voice distorter, instead he got me, who interspersed archaic English with an awful lot (I realised in retrospect) of fucks and fucking, poor boy I probably sounded like Stannis Baratheon with tourette's.

He was supposed to send me a draft for me to okay or amend before it was finished, that never surfaced,I was a bit piqued, and sat alone brooding, drinking and plotting revenge until I figured, being American he likely was shot by one of his peers, and got over it.

The thing is, as zombies are always attracted to Wall-Mart, so TFES is the siren-call to the inter-webs equivalent, as the neuron count drops below the critical level needed to distinguish between amusing fruit-loopery and genuine free thought, destroyed by bible reading, whatever they add to big Macs and masturbating over gun catalogs, they look for the simple and outrageous, and they are arriving here in greater numbers, mostly as groaning lurkers beyond the ice-wall but some inevitably break through, and this phenomenon has been noticed. We are being studied, are you prepared TFES, not for your beliefs to be questioned but your very existence to be couched in terms of a retrogressive cultural phenomenon?


Not much in this about Britain though. So for any of you who are interested in our royals (and god knows I am not). The Archbishop has stated that it would be good for diversity if young George grew up gay, the Palace has countered that they are way ahead and propose to remove all his limbs and rear him as a Dolphin.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Boots on December 03, 2017, 05:11:05 PM
Are you sure it wasn't dauphin?
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on December 18, 2017, 09:32:32 PM

So, Christmas is upon us and I love it. Not from any religious understanding, I mean happy birthday to baby Jesus if he exists and goodwill to all men/women and all that.
For me it's more a festival of the turning sun, the 25th being the date that if you set up indicators (I do permanent marker dots on my window at work with my chair at a particular position on the patterned carpet), that it is apparent the Sun is heading south again, I actually miss the day but extrapolation and all that suffices, as the solstice is the 21st.
The days (sunlight) will now lengthen (less than 8 hrs here now, Gayer & Beardo can do shorter, I know). Family will gather, and I will get a week off work, drink and eat too much and attempt to work it off by walking the dogs further.

As you may know, Christmas as the birth of Christ was pasted over existing festivals (Saturnalia, Yule etc) in the 4th century, presumably as they saw people having a bit of fun and there is nothing a Christian likes more, than fucking up a good party.
Fortunately, most of the good bits survived;

Mid-winter, you could look at your stock and think, bloody hell I am going to make it, slaughter some of your livestock as hay & chicken food would be running out, drag out the autumn beers and ciders which would be fermented and ready, have a feast and get bladdered, wake up to a longer day, job done.
Presumably if you didn't think you would make it, you slaughtered all your animals, as they were either competing for food with you or their feed would be gone anyhow, and you would possibly be able to freeze them, the beers were ready anyway, so you gorged, got pissed and hoped it all looked a bit rosier when you woke up to the longer day, if it didn't, you doubtless had a new best mate and/or had gotten laid. Job done.

Trees, Holly, Ivy and Mistletoe, have precious little to do with Jesus-land, but are celebrated pagan symbols of winter life. I have read that Xmas baubles signify the apples in the garden of Eden, that has got to be the most shoe-horned piece of Christian codswallop ever, they clearly represent the testicles of defeated enemy's, garnered through the year and hung as talisman to ward off fimbulwinter.

Watching "Zulu" whilst feasting on peanuts and port however, is the one of Gods 11 commandments I do religiously follow, unfortunately it is only in the UK versions of the bible.

Father Christmas is a bit of a strange one, how a Turkish saint famous for chucking bags of gold through young girls' windows, ends up as a white bearded chortling imbecile, living in Lapland, spying on children, breaking into houses and eating my mince pies, is beyond me. Other than they both sound a bit suspect and in need of a background check. Something to do with coke-a-cola, apparently.

Finally, there was a curious custom in Tudor England of nominating a “Lord of Misrule” a lot was drawn, and the winner was appointed as a master of the ceremonies for the Christmas period, these revelries were oftentimes called the Feast of fools and frequently degenerated into drunkenness and anarchy, it was abolished by the puritans (who else) but has now apparently been revived and adopted by the US as a system of government.

Anyhow, however you intend to spend your Christmas I hope it is a success.

Love to all, Jura.   
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on December 21, 2017, 04:29:23 PM
Edit; Kindly moved by Junker when I strayed into serious land,   https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=8206.msg136103#msg136103


To say that the questionnaire is trying to pigeon-hole FE’ers as stupid when the range of options Has three degree levels and an option to add whatever else you like is disingenuous, rather it smacks of Thork thinking this is what the survey will reveal, against I might add superficial evidence to the contrary. Those of us who have any history here will be fully aware of the prodigious brain power and educational accomplishments of Pete/sexpest, as at one time there was barely a post where he didn’t mention it. Parsifal (our leader) has a back to school thread that lists his proposed schedule, which so impressed me, as I had no better idea after reading it, what he was to study than before. Thork himself is no shrinking violet in enlightening us as to his achievements since his return either, so why the negativity?

I deduce your honour, that this site is a sham! I furthermore propose, that when this place was conceived, it was so, as an ironical send up of what was at that time an extreme marginal belief, that it has burgeoned since to include a proportion of the general population that is almost measurable, has not only come as a surprise to its creators but presented them with a dilemma. That being, if they turn their backs on the current crop of devotees, they abandon not only their satirical high ground, where they can look down on both sides of the dispute and say, “we’ve had you all” but also risk losing a community they are integral to and thrive in, something they are unlikely to achieve in the real world due to its proclivity for social skills and facial symmetry.
 
Hence, Thork’s denouncement of the education question makes sense, as it is apparent that those who do truly believe have to band together in large numbers to form an idiot, should they manage to complete the survey it would be glaringly obvious that those above, are leaders of a crusade of fools, fatally undermining the pseudo-scientific foundations of the wiki and everything that Tom says.           
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Dr David Thork on December 21, 2017, 05:06:23 PM
something they are unlikely to achieve in the real world due to its proclivity for social skills and facial symmetry.       
>:(

I'm not an ugly man, Jura.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on December 21, 2017, 09:29:34 PM

Within the confines of this rant you have to be, the words came unbidden as I channeled my inner bitch (the child, having got right on my tits).  Roll with it.

Outside of here I am willing to grant you all the status of Adonis and promise to go for Jedi next time.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: juner on December 21, 2017, 09:56:46 PM
To say that the questionnaire is trying to pigeon-hole FE’ers as stupid when the range of options Has three degree levels and an option to add whatever else you like is disingenuous, rather it smacks of Thork thinking this is what the survey will reveal, against I might add superficial evidence to the contrary. Those of us who have any history here will be fully aware of the prodigious brain power and educational accomplishments of Pete/sexpest, as at one time there was barely a post where he didn’t mention it. Parsifal (our leader) has a back to school thread that lists his proposed schedule, which so impressed me, as I had no better idea after reading it, what he was to study than before. Thork himself is no shrinking violet in enlightening us as to his achievements since his return either, so why the negativity?

I deduce your honour, that this site is a sham! I furthermore propose, that when this place was conceived, it was so, as an ironical send up of what was at that time an extreme marginal belief, that it has burgeoned since to include a proportion of the general population that is almost measurable, has not only come as a surprise to its creators but presented them with a dilemma. That being, if they turn their backs on the current crop of devotees, they abandon not only their satirical high ground, where they can look down on both sides of the dispute and say, “we’ve had you all” but also risk losing a community they are integral too and thrive in, something they are unlikely to achieve in the real world due to its proclivity for social skills and facial symmetry.
 
Hence, Thork’s denouncement of the education question makes sense, as it is apparent that those who do truly believe have to band together in large numbers to form an idiot, should they manage to complete the survey it would be glaringly obvious that those above, are leaders of a crusade of fools, fatally undermining the pseudo-scientific foundations of the wiki and everything that Tom says.         

Let's keep the ramblings in the proper fora. Split/merged.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on December 21, 2017, 10:51:04 PM

Damn it Junker! Ramblings? I thought I had “concise” nailed there.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Dither on December 22, 2017, 11:11:40 PM
Merry Christmas Jura, Junker, Pete, Tom, Rama and everyone else :)

Love the holiday snaps Jura, my wife wants an Olympus now.
With the way the worlds heading, I'd like to have a holiday in a place like that and go MIA.
The Wildlfe Officer's can chase me round the island, it will relieve the boredom.

Anyway, Have a great Chrissy with lots of food and ale.  :)   (And no mayo)
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on February 16, 2018, 04:23:30 PM
So Murica is broken, its children have realised the futility of existence under the guidance of grown-ups, who from the comfort of their armoured bariatric buggies, saw fit to swap a lean erudite capable leader for an orange amphibian who had realised the path to godhood was as easy as letting dumb people vent their hatred for the world, for well, changing.
So, they take their parents guns to school and swap a life of perceived despair for a spike in fakebook traffic, in droves.

Now before ya’ll rise out of your corn syrup filled baths to point out the obvious fallacies and downright lack of empathy in the above, I was being a tit for a purpose, as my sympathies lie to the left it does echo the gut reactions I felt listening to responses from certain parties, to the recent school killings, especially those that didn’t fit into my view of the world, and here lies a problem.

These weekly (daily, hourly – pick according to how far in the future you are reading this) atrocities are invariably attended by the venality of the media willing to encourage and interview just about anyone to bump their ratings so adding to the circus.
The roots and reasons for the actions of the perpetrators range, according to your bias, and include guns/not enough guns, liberals, homosexuality/gods wrath, Nazi’s, atheism, video games, heavy metal, the internet and girls who won’t fuck nerds, so spanning the gamut of available experts/crazies.

Something needs to be done, is it a case of restrictive gun laws and a redress of balance between the rich and the poor or arm the teachers/janitors/kids and reinstate classroom prayer. When I hear some of the remarks by the gun apologists, I want to shoot them in the face, thus proving that though I would undoubtedly pass any psychological test you could throw at me, I shouldn’t be allowed a gun. I would argue that (like joining the police) as soon as you express the wish you should be barred, especially AR15’s which seems to be the weapon of choice for the cowardly self-promoting suicide shooter.

Reconciliation of the opposing views with respect of hammering out a credible response is not going to fucking happen..soo..get packing, either in the sense of an arsenal or do a Dave and head off to a sane country.

Or, third option, split the country along the meme line, pacific states, north-eastern and great lakes states fusing with the Canucks as the United States of Canada, thereby joining a country that can handle guns without going batshit. The rest becomes Jesusland, Cornacopia or Dumbfuckistan, and walls itself off to await the rapture clutching its guns/cousins.         
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Dr David Thork on February 16, 2018, 05:18:06 PM
Murica has never not been broken. It is still the wild west and a man can still pull out a gun in a bar and shoot you, because he doesn't like your boots. Yeehaw!

The British tried to give you all some manners, but you chose freedom instead. Enjoy your freedom.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Cain on February 16, 2018, 05:36:10 PM
Ouch, my national pride. I might never recover
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Dr David Thork on February 16, 2018, 10:49:31 PM
(http://mrclark.aretesys.com/red%20coat%20waving.gif)
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on April 11, 2018, 02:16:56 PM

Not only have I neglected this thread (and indeed FES in general) but I left it with Thork in colonial mode waving his twatting flag, sorry, but Molette should have stepped up with her musket and shot him in the face, it’s the American way and would have been fitting.

So, spring is here in merry England, actually it isn’t, the dates say it is, there is green in the hedgerows, the dawn chorus is growing day on day and my Camellias are blooming but spring is not here. It has rained since November, Leicestershire is a shallow lake, my disposition is bleak, and I would burn god and kill your children for some sun.
 
Before any of you lightweight desk jockeys decide now is the time to capitalise on Jura’s mood, or point out that Rain defines the UK, I would like you to consider a few things; I am outside a lot, I have big dogs that need big walks and I cycle to work, consequently I have lots of wet weather gear and the elements are not usually a problem, but my soul is sodden now and I need respite, it will come soon and I shall be reborn, in the meantime avoid me and remember the dogs.

On the subject of rebirth, Easter has passed but I would like to mention a curious incident pertaining. My partner, bless her forbearance, was walking past one of the churches of our community when she was accosted politely by a man with a bag lurking in its portico, he gave her a box as a present and requested only that she should read the message contained and reflect on its meaning. The gift was an Easter egg, the communication therein, “The true meaning of Easter” a badly drawn cartoon of the crucifixion and subsequent resurrection. She offered it to me with a smile that not only conveyed her beauty but also her endearing inner cruelty.

I know Christianity has successfully wiped its collective memory of all the pagan roots of its high days but to blithely pass out the true meaning of Easter pamphlets is just abusing the privilege to be stupid. To her credit she vetoed my plan to go and smash the egg on the aforementioned mans forehead whilst screaming “look up the fucking origin of the word Easter shit-for-brains” lest I break the conditions of my injunction, and she listened with admirable tolerance to me ranting on about how could they reconcile eggs and bunnies with the zombie Jesus story without question (some nonsense about the egg representing the empty tomb), what can I say, she keeps me sane.

Anyway, spring is here, rebirth of the year with eggs being laid and bunnies being born, I just wish it would stop fucking raining.       
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: juner on April 11, 2018, 03:54:36 PM
and I cycle to work     

I hope to start doing this soon. Although where I will be living has about 80% sunny days, so I can't relate to your misery.

Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on April 11, 2018, 08:22:17 PM


An admirable intention, make me one promise, do not wear Lycra. Nobody who drives a car to work wears racing leathers and a helmet, so what on earth possesses cyclists to dress like Lance Armstrong? There are only two kinds of people that can in anyway pull this off without looking stupid, they are athletes and nubiles. 
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on May 15, 2018, 09:59:44 PM
Well I am happy to report that the sun has arrived in style, I am wearing shorts much to the amusement of my better half, who maintains that my legs look like threads hanging from my undergarments. If you ever need to confirm the identity of an Englishman, get them to drop their trousers if they look like they're carved from lard sprinkled with cat hair, then God save the queen.

Anyway, I realise that you are all dying to know more about Leicestershire, well it's not that big a deal, we're kind of on the way to other places, so no one stops here much.

We are where the land rises from the coasts and fenlands of East-Anglia and Lincolnshire, so we have an affinity born from holidaying there by dint of proximity.
However, should those areas be inundated by climate change seas, we will happily remember other bonds, draw a line across the high ground between Tilton and Harborough and cast the evacuees back into the flood.

Leicester itself is one of Britain's oldest cities, the Romans settled on the site of former settlements due to its centrality, a stopover (again, see) for troops coming from Colchester and the south heading for Chester and the north. Do not expect however the city to show much of this, industrialisation and the brutalist building regime from the 50's - 70's put paid to that, shit, we built a car-park over the grave of Richard III.

Two of the most famous people to hail from Leicester were Joseph Merrick (AKA the Elephant man) and Daniel Lambert a gaoler/bear wrestler who grew to 50 stone (320kg), the US reader will not be impressed (yo mamma's fatter) but for the late 1700's that was big. So, Leicester had the fattest and ugliest people in the realm, if you visit the clubs of this fair city of a weekend you will see the genes still endure.
Fortunately, the people of the shire are cut from a different cloth, sylph like with a radiant beauty.

Its not all bad, we have gentle rolling hills, cute villages and cheese, Stilton cheese, blue mouldy and just gorgeous. Others may wax lyrical about the Melton Pork-pie, but it's just offal with a crust, avoid.
Other people of note are David Attenborough and;

Steam the founder of the sport Extreme ironing.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Extermeironingrivelin.jpg)
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Boots on May 16, 2018, 01:35:05 AM
Well I am happy to report that the sun has arrived in style, I am wearing shorts much to the amusement of my better half, who maintains that my legs look like threads hanging from my undergarments.
TMI LOL
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on July 23, 2018, 08:37:30 PM
 Treks around the Isle 2;

For our wedding anniversary we took a break in another of the Landmark Trusts properties (look them up), a tale of weather and history.

The journey from our home to Purton Green in Suffolk took nearly an hour longer than it should have, but it was in many ways a blessed relief.
You see since I put my shorts on in the last post it hasn't rained, not a drop (on my home at least) and it has been hot, really hot and we don't do air-con in England except in cars, so the probable reason the A14 & M11 was one big slow moving car park is that much of the population had just gone out in their cars to get cool, if the trend continues I predict that the English will evolve into mechanised gypsies.
The property had been billed as remote. Remote means something different in Britain to what it does in the US, Canadia or Aus', there are no vast distances to get lost in here just twists and turns in the landscape, forgotten corners. We drove out of one village and a mile down a narrow road was a footpath sign pointing down a rutted track, we trundled down there for half a mile, over a ford (dried up, see above) until the track ended at a fence with three wheelbarrows lent against it, we loaded one with our stuff and set off up the footpath. Getting out of the car and loading the barrow took a minute, by which time we we were soaked in sweat, it was still hot.
The instructions, the man we had been told to ring before we set off had given, was to follow the track until you come across the house, after 400 yards we were starting to doubt, imagining we were being pranked by one of those hideous TV programs where we are filmed slogging up a hill with a barrow full of crap in the boiling heat until a manic presenter jumps from the hedge with a camera crew shouting surprise! and I punch him in the face and set off back down the hill.
However as we get to the top we turn to our right and there it is.

(https://i.imgur.com/a6KmyBX.jpg)

There's a narrow path mown through a vast bank of thistle, dock and Willowherb to a lawn with a Walnut tree, the key the man said, is under a stone, it is. The huge oak door creaks open, this is the door you hear in all those old films where a creaky door is requisite, undoubtedly. 
The hall runs from where the thatch fans out on the right to just past the big door on the left, all the way up to the roof and is beautifully cool, a stone floor and one small window at the back, simple air-con.
The original house was built in the 1250's , a minor lords house and what makes it special is the beams that support the roof, at this time they used simple cross beams that could only span the width you see, the outer walls as they are now were actually open supports in a broader hall which was six foot wider, the thatch would have come down to head height. When better methods capable of  holding bigger spans were introduced instead of ripping this out and rebuilding they built another further up the road (now gone) and this was downgraded in status and ended up as three cottages for farmworkers, plastered over, bricked up, chimneys and hearths and more doors added, when they bought this in the sixties they ripped it back to the skeleton replacing like for like where the wood had degraded too much. Anyway it's grand, not for arachnophobes though, the bare thatch in the hall is home to hundreds of spider webs.
Oh, there were several ponds surrounding, remnants of the moat (there were wolves back then) and I got bit to fuck by mosquitos watching bats at dusk.

(https://i.imgur.com/MR7z691.jpg)

Now the English flag showing the cross of St. George was much in evidence during our trip, we were due to play Sweden in the world cup (another story). George being our patron saint is a strange one, as he was a Turkish or Palestinian member of the Roman army who was killed for his beliefs, so he never graced our shores.
We went to Bury St Edmunds where the first patron saint (of England) St Edmund, (yes you guessed it) is interred, somewhere, probably beneath the tennis courts if the slightly dotty lady who got talking to us in the cathedral there is right, little is known about Eddy other than he was in all likelihood, a local king/chieftain chopped up when the Vikings (Ivar the Boneless?) swept through East Anglia in the late 800's, whatever had been written about him at the time was destroyed in the sacking, burning and high jinx, the Vikings were not big on books.
So we made him a saint as we didn't like the Vikings, he was a Christian (probably) and he came to a sticky end, at least he was English.   
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on July 25, 2018, 03:08:55 PM

Next stop Sweden, thinking payback for Edmund.
Title: Re: Soliloquies
Post by: Jura-Glenlivet on November 27, 2018, 09:37:26 PM
Fuck Sweden, necro-posting, apologies.

So, we end up going out to Lundy again. Only this time the weather has taken it personally, amber warning of wind and rain, a last-minute decision to give it a go in a helicopter the same make as the one that, the week before ended up as a fireball in Leicester city's football club car park, killing all aboard including the chairman, sweet.

I'm on the MET office weather report as it comes in, 30mph wind gusting 45 mph, but he's ex-navy, and after scuttling the herd of sheep (seriously) he drifts it down the field and lands it like a feather.

No problem, they load all the baggage and do that run first, visible with binoculars all the way to the island 12 miles of the point, it's back 20 minutes later, lands, sheep scattered, like a feather, one of the guys in a fire suit comes in and announces a delay, there is an intermittent warning light on the fuel feed, they are investigating! Why not say the pilot has cramp, fuel feed? Fuck off.

10 minutes later, same guy, "Just going to do a test flight to see if it's fixed!" a few of us brave the wind and rain to watch navy guy throw it around the sky. Lands like a feather, sheep getting surly, MET office winds 35mph gusts at 50mph.

We are trip number 4, the waiting room is in a hut that has become steamy and over hot for people dressed for a November landing in Lundy, there is an undercurrent of hysteria, I find a sheltered (relatively) spot round the back of it to smoke and watch for the helicopter coming back, as the birds have largely given up trying to fly, the sheep are in a square formation at the top of the field, executing practice charges against a bale of hay, the aircraft comes in sight, flying at 45 degrees to its heading, MET office winds at 45mph gusting at 55.

There's been a delay, for refuel and the pilot to have a tea (!), sheep have mysteriously disappeared, ground crew looking edgy, some passengers openly praying, last look at MET office, winds at 48mph gusting at 65, island no longer visible.

We are ushered out and into the helicopter, the only discernible difference under the rotors is the wind direction, two of the ground crew are mounted on quad bikes with what look like lances, watching the brow of the hill, the buildings are evocative of Rourke's Drift, the smell inside the passenger compartment would remind Colonel Killgore of victory in the same way it reminds me of immolation.

One passenger in the back (me) is given headphones and mike should the pilot need to convey information of import to us, I say "Breezy" he replies "Yeah wouldn't have started if the winds were as bad then, but all the bags are over there now"  This is information I do not pass on, two of the others are hiding behind their hands.

We rise, a leaf in the wind, turning gaining height, swinging level with the cliff edge a surge of wind picks the craft higher, the navy man leans it into the squall and we leave, seven minutes to the island, aboard a bucking bronco, I enjoy it for what it is and the view, others are less sanguine, one woman does not look up or out the whole trip. As the island resolves itself, the whiteness of old light, the stone buildings huddled round the tavern the restored church, navy guy drops us down making us light, clearly enjoying himself, 200yds out from the H he drifts us in sideways and lands, like a feather. Word comes through on the radio, the sheep have taken the helipad.