How boring are those curling stones matches at the winter olympic ?

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

It just doesn't move in me.

The declaration of independence is the better read. Now that is romantic

Good God, I'd forgotten you're into Yank history.

Strangely enough, it's not. For some reason {and ask the pwoppa experts, not me} the Yank revolution is seen as the last bit of full on Enlightenment while it's the Fr Rev that starts the changeover to Romanticism.

Thus I'd prefer the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man or, two years later, Olympes de Gourges Declaration of the Rights of women. {Mary Shelly's mum doing the UK one the following year, from memory.}

Oh, thinking about it, why is the US Revolution Enlightenment and the Fr Rev the start of the changeover to Romanticism? Slavery, imo.

1783, or whenever, Yanks have a constitution which allows slavery and says each one is 3/5th of a white man.

Fr Rev initially, abolishes slavery. Yes, Boney brings it back because of the economic warfare with us. But that's why Romanticism starts with the Fr Rev, and Wilberforce and Wedgewood's anti-slave pottery in the 1780s but not the US Rev from the 1770s.

[Peter]

Trouble is they don't want war, anyway not on their own turf and between their own peoples. Whereas everyone in the Old World knows this sort of thing is both inevitable and desirable and it's silly, pointless and naive trying to avoid it. It's how a nation refreshes itself. As dear old Fat Pete Clemenza explains, every once in a while you need a war, to get rid of the bad blood.

"Bad blood" here having the meaning bad vibes, bad feelings and bad people with bad genes; degenerates. My wife clarified that last bit to me. German, see. I had had no idea

Dear old Clemenza was also a harsh critic of appeasement. Values of the old world. A great man

Home advantage in war can be both an advantage and a burden. Mass civilian death being one of the burdens. Maybe they have a point.....

[Peter]

Good God, I'd forgotten you're into Yank history.

Strangely enough, it's not. For some reason {and ask the pwoppa experts, not me} the Yank revolution is seen as the last bit of full on Enlightenment while it's the Fr Rev that starts the changeover to Romanticism.

Thus I'd prefer the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man or, two years later, Olympes de Gourges Declaration of the Rights of women. {Mary Shelly's mum doing the UK one the following year, from memory.}

Oh, thinking about it, why is the US Revolution Enlightenment and the Fr Rev the start of the changeover to Romanticism? Slavery, imo.

1783, or whenever, Yanks have a constitution which allows slavery and says each one is 3/5th of a white man.

Fr Rev initially, abolishes slavery. Yes, Boney brings it back because of the economic warfare with us. But that's why Romanticism starts with the Fr Rev, and Wilberforce and Wedgewood's anti-slave pottery in the 1780s but not the US Rev from the 1770s.

The French ruthlessly plagiarised the Americans, who effectively paraphrased Locke. But with considerable style and flourish.

It stands today as the measure of American society, and a measure of their failures. It may borrow from Enlightenment philosophy but there is NOTHING more romantic than failure....

Maybe i spent too much time watching Woody Allen films as a youth

[redgunamo]

Dear old Clemenza was also a harsh critic of appeasement. Values of the old world. A great man

Home advantage in war can be both an advantage and a burden. Mass civilian death being one of the burdens. Maybe they have a point.....

Yeah, you spill too much good blood as well.

Captain Darling again, despite him having been a stumper

[Peter]

Yeah, you spill too much good blood as well.

Captain Darling again, despite him having been a stumper

As Sollozzo says, blood is a big expense. He may have been useful with a knife but only in matters of business, and with a legitimate grievance. Old school.

[redgunamo]

As Sollozzo says, blood is a big expense. He may have been useful with a knife but only in matters of business, and with a legitimate grievance. Old school.

That's why no-one cried for Santino; he enjoyed the bloodshed too much. A truly depraved degenerate, he needed to go.

[Peter]

That's why no-one cried for Santino; he enjoyed the bloodshed too much. A truly depraved degenerate, he needed to go.

Absolutely. A bad Don. Careless.

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

The French ruthlessly plagiarised the Americans, who effectively paraphrased Locke. But with considerable style and flourish.

It stands today as the measure of American society, and a measure of their failures. It may borrow from Enlightenment philosophy but there is NOTHING more romantic than failure....

Maybe i spent too much time watching Woody Allen films as a youth

Please don't confuse romantic and Romanticism. Romeo and Juliet was Romantic. It was not part of Romanticism.

As I say, don't ask me when I'm 2-3 cans of tramp cider in on a midweek night, but my whole course made clear US Rev = Enlightenment, Fr Rev = start of move to Romanticism. {Franklin is an Enlightenment figure par excellence. But there is not an ounce of romanticism in his slave owning body.}

It all made sense when I did the course. It all made sense when i watched Scharma half a decade later. It all made sense every other book I've read.

Email Scharma or some other boffin.

I could answer you tomorrow, but only if I spend all day researching it and you're prepared to spend your Tuesday night reading a 1-2k word essay by a crusty, Hindu mad-man.

The difference, and this is the essence of the change over 1780-1830, is the Yank revolution just took power for their own elite. Paupers and slaves stayed where they were.

The Fr Rev saw the elites of the 1st and 2nd estates {clergy and aristos} replaced by the third estate middle classes, with power for the sans-coulottes plebs, and freedom for slaves in the colonies.

Trust me on this.

Or if you don't, argue with the experts cos I'm too pissed atm.

But the whole academic consensus is that it's the 1780s with Wilberforce and the French rev, not the 1770s with the US Rev.

It's just the way it is.

[Peter]

Please don't confuse romantic and Romanticism. Romeo and Juliet was Romantic. It was not part of Romanticism.

As I say, don't ask me when I'm 2-3 cans of tramp cider in on a midweek night, but my whole course made clear US Rev = Enlightenment, Fr Rev = start of move to Romanticism. {Franklin is an Enlightenment figure par excellence. But there is not an ounce of romanticism in his slave owning body.}

It all made sense when I did the course. It all made sense when i watched Scharma half a decade later. It all made sense every other book I've read.

Email Scharma or some other boffin.

I could answer you tomorrow, but only if I spend all day researching it and you're prepared to spend your Tuesday night reading a 1-2k word essay by a crusty, Hindu mad-man.

The difference, and this is the essence of the change over 1780-1830, is the Yank revolution just took power for their own elite. Paupers and slaves stayed where they were.

The Fr Rev saw the elites of the 1st and 2nd estates {clergy and aristos} replaced by the third estate middle classes, with power for the sans-coulottes plebs, and freedom for slaves in the colonies.

Trust me on this.

Or if you don't, argue with the experts cos I'm too pissed atm.

But the whole academic consensus is that it's the 1780s with Wilberforce and the French rev, not the 1770s with the US Rev.

It's just the way it is.

I was deliberately confusing romantic with romanticism. Sorry, thought that was obvious

Hence the Woody Allen reference.....

[redgunamo]

Please don't confuse romantic and Romanticism. Romeo and Juliet was Romantic. It was not part of Romanticism.

As I say, don't ask me when I'm 2-3 cans of tramp cider in on a midweek night, but my whole course made clear US Rev = Enlightenment, Fr Rev = start of move to Romanticism. {Franklin is an Enlightenment figure par excellence. But there is not an ounce of romanticism in his slave owning body.}

It all made sense when I did the course. It all made sense when i watched Scharma half a decade later. It all made sense every other book I've read.

Email Scharma or some other boffin.

I could answer you tomorrow, but only if I spend all day researching it and you're prepared to spend your Tuesday night reading a 1-2k word essay by a crusty, Hindu mad-man.

The difference, and this is the essence of the change over 1780-1830, is the Yank revolution just took power for their own elite. Paupers and slaves stayed where they were.

The Fr Rev saw the elites of the 1st and 2nd estates {clergy and aristos} replaced by the third estate middle classes, with power for the sans-coulottes plebs, and freedom for slaves in the colonies.

Trust me on this.

Or if you don't, argue with the experts cos I'm too pissed atm.

But the whole academic consensus is that it's the 1780s with Wilberforce and the French rev, not the 1770s with the US Rev.

It's just the way it is.

Nobody trusts academia anymore; it's too obviously for sale to the highest bidder.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, but they swear blind they're not when they rather obviously are.

Cider is an excellent call actually, haven't had any in years.

[Peter]

Nobody trusts academia anymore; it's too obviously for sale to the highest bidder.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, but they swear blind they're not when they rather obviously are.

Cider is an excellent call actually, haven't had any in years.

Very few people ever trusted academia. It is worse now, people dont even trust 'experts'

Until they get ill.....

[redgunamo]

Very few people ever trusted academia. It is worse now, people dont even trust 'experts'

Until they get ill.....

My (female) in-laws is all witches, the sort "experts" used to drown or burn or both.

I trust them

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

I was deliberately confusing romantic with romanticism. Sorry, thought that was obvious

Hence the Woody Allen reference.....

Sorry, I didn't get the Woody Allen ref. Don't really watch any films. I'll have to go back to look to see if it makes sense to me.

It's just if you don't know your history, most people wouldn't understand why the US Rev of 1775-1783 is the height of the Enlightenment but nothing to do with Romanticism, while the Fr Rev of 1789 is also the pinnacle of the Enlightenment as well as the birth of Romanticism.

It's why Stendhal in his {post-Waterloo} Life of Napoleon {written in response to Mme de Stael's book attacking Boney} says that his excuse for Boney reintroducing slavery is that he was the epitome of "the second age" {the Enlightenment - Andrew Roberts described Boney as The Enlightenment on Horseback} while the Rev gave birth to the "third age" - Romanticism.

[Peter]

Sorry, I didn't get the Woody Allen ref. Don't really watch any films. I'll have to go back to look to see if it makes sense to me.

It's just if you don't know your history, most people wouldn't understand why the US Rev of 1775-1783 is the height of the Enlightenment but nothing to do with Romanticism, while the Fr Rev of 1789 is also the pinnacle of the Enlightenment as well as the birth of Romanticism.

It's why Stendhal in his {post-Waterloo} Life of Napoleon {written in response to Mme de Stael's book attacking Boney} says that his excuse for Boney reintroducing slavery is that he was the epitome of "the second age" {the Enlightenment - Andrew Roberts described Boney as The Enlightenment on Horseback} while the Rev gave birth to the "third age" - Romanticism.

I got half way through the Sharma documentary.

I'm really torn on it.

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

Nobody trusts academia anymore; it's too obviously for sale to the highest bidder.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, but they swear blind they're not when they rather obviously are.

Cider is an excellent call actually, haven't had any in years.

But that's not true in my experience. Yes, my LSE degree was '89-92, but the history OU BA and UKC MA were in the last decade.

All my OU tutors were sound as ****. One did his BA, MA and PhD at Oxford and Cambridge and came to the OU cos that's what he believed in. Another had a couple of books and had done a couple of BBC docs about the slave trade.

The WW1 section of my Total War course was controlled by Annika Mombauer, one of the top experts globally on the Fischer Thesis and the organiser of the 5`0th anniversary conference at the IWM in 2011, and one of the 4 experts in the Brit Library debate on the centenary of WW1. {She was on the sensible side along side Gary Sheffield.} I spoke to her after both events.

My UKC tutor was one of the country's very top experts on WW1 - book published by CUP as the post-grad handbook on the BEF on the western front. He got into it as a ten year old and had just spent his whole life studying WW1.

And none of them would have been for sale to the highest bidder. They were all into it for the pwoppa academic reasons of just objective historical understanding.

I know what you read in the press about these former Polys doing anything the Chinks want etc.

But the idea that all academics are like that is just silly. As I say, all the ones I've studied with have been the complete opposite. And I spent a lot more time than the other students talking to them cos not only did I have all the free time cos I don't work, I was generally the brightest in the group and therefore the one they enjoyed speaking to.

In short, I've spent loads of 1-2-1 time with most of my tutors and they are exactly what you'd expect of an honourable British academic. I would trust their academic integrity with my life. {Just like they trusted me when occasionally I'd tell them some assumption about India would be wrong cos they knew I knew what I was talking about and would be objective in my analyses.}

But you can't say all academics are like that just cos some of them are.

Cider is lush. I've started using it instead of white wine in creamy recipes, just cos a can of cider is cheaper than a bottle of wine.

With mussels etc. Or the glw's invention that I cook, fresh spag with scallops and prawns in a cider, cream and garlic sauce with fresh parsley. Or a chicken casserole with cider, cream and chicken stock, with leeks, shallots, shrooms, spuds, pancetta cubes etc.

What I like about cider is you can get the tramp stuff I drink at 7.5-9% - for crusties too poor to afford Spesh {back when it was the real recipe at 9% before Cameron ****ed it up with his 4 units per can limit.}

Or you can get normal, Strongbow style. Or the sweeter Irish ones like Magners and Bulmers. Get a can/bottle and raise a glass to Arsenal having the most successful of seasons.