What are the items you refuse to own on principle?

[Stanfordian]

Wigs or toupees
Anything light-blue
Wearing women's clothing inc. high heels /Cuban heels
Management speak / jargon
Trainers (as in shoes not of the personal type)
Tattoos
Harry Potter books
Wearing shoes without socks
Baker boy flat caps
Shaving items for body hair (not the face)
Lawn mower
Speedos
Anything to do with Oyston family
Body piercings
Vintage cars or motorbikes
Glasses like Elton John
Spending money on buying cut or ripped jeans
Skiing equipment or anything to do with snow and cold
Learning a second language
Anything pink
Monocle
Involvement in politics
Anything related to Dr Who
Shell suit
Big Brother / Love Island etc
Anything Lewis Hamilton wears
Sushi
World Music CDs - but it might change, who knows!

Yes, I realise most things are related to dress or image. Here are some more:

Anything connected to Madonna (the singer)
Leather trousers
Anything related to Tolkien’s Hobbits
Thongs
Cheap shoes
Shrimps or prawns
Facial hair
Programmes featuring Rowan Atkinson
Shoes with buckles
Anything related to Star Wars
Couscous
Alternative medicines - I've wasted many hundreds of pounds - they never work for me.
Lentils
Deerstalker hat
Snuff
Sports car
Programmes connected to DJ Steve Wright
Comedy ties or socks

[Globaltruth]

No World Music CD’s ... hmm. Sorry can’t imagine that.

Anyway, on principal I won’t own a SKY subscription.

[Stanfordian]

No World Music CD’s ... hmm. Sorry can’t imagine that.

Anyway, on principal I won’t own a SKY subscription.

I can't imagine living without my Sky subscription.

[zola]

A ticket to the Last Night of the Proms.

[cloughie]

A ticket to the Last Night of the Proms.

Any Sex Pistols album or any by other dire punk bands of the era. (Unfortunately odd tracks have dodged the radar in compiation albums)!
Jeans with holes in the knees, but if a pair is ageing I would wear them as ‘sawn off’ shorts for gardening and jobs around the house!

[teamsaint]

Why would anybody want dire punk albums ? Good ones, now that's a different matter.

( BTW Cloughie, there is only one proper Pistols album ).

Anyway, just as a discussion point, in a world chock full of bad guy, big money, power hungry corporations and company owners, many of whom have a lax attitude to everything from tax to bribery to workers rights and so on, I do wonder why certain companies/people get such stick, ( Murdoch, Dyson, etc) when there is an endless array of perfectly other decent targets. Not that Murdoch should get off lightly of course........

[cloughie]

Why would anybody want dire punk albums ? Good ones, now that's a different matter.

( BTW Cloughie, there is only one proper Pistols album ).

...

If there are any good punk albums they are not really punk, and there’s no such thing as a proper Pistols album!

[HighlandDougie]

Why would anybody want dire punk albums ? Good ones, now that's a different matter.

( BTW Cloughie, there is only one proper Pistols album ).

Anyway, just as a discussion point, in a world chock full of bad guy, big money, power hungry corporations and company owners, many of whom have a lax attitude to everything from tax to bribery to workers rights and so on, I do wonder why certain companies/people get such stick, ( Murdoch, Dyson, etc) when there is an endless array of perfectly other decent targets. Not that Murdoch should get off lightly of course........

Well, TS, we are speaking about principles so, in my case, I cannot bring myself to support anyone - in this case Dyson - who was in favour of the UK exiting the EU. I’ll say no more other than to wish you Hai! from Japanese Japan.

[teamsaint]

Well, TS, we are speaking about principles so, in my case, I cannot bring myself to support anyone - in this case Dyson - who was in favour of the UK exiting the EU. I’ll say no more other than to wish you Hai! from Japanese Japan.

HD, I do get that. And it's valid of course. But my point is just that one could very reasonably find good principled reasons to boycott an endless list of companies and organisations. It was the process of how particular people/organisations come to attract particular attention that interests me. Dyson of course was prominent and pretty isolated, so that is clear enough.


Anyway, thanks for the greeting ,hope Japan is good for you.

[alycidon]

I wouldn’t give a guitar houseroom - instrument of the devil, IMO.

[Demetrius]

You seen British rental costs recently, RB ?

Yes, I expect you have.

I read an interesting article recently about German pensions, which seemed to say that most Germans rely mostly on a very generous state pension.

Well, it is mostly impossible to get out of the pension thing, the office collecting that money shows about as much flexibility and kind consideration as your average crime syndicate. The idea is the "Generationenvertrag", meaning that you pay for the pensions of your parent generation, while your children will pay the pensions of your generation and so on. Nice idea with only two slight problems: declining birth rates and the continuing decline of actual jobs in the industries due to robots taking over .

Sooner or later the pensions will likely have to be covered with actual tax money. The general feeling among those younger than 40 is that the generosity of the state will end at that exact point leaving them with paying in much more than they will ever get out. Doing some private pension scheme on the side is tough when they take 18,6 % out of your paycheck every month for the one you don't trust to cover your own pension needs.

Anyway, just as a discussion point, in a world chock full of bad guy, big money, power hungry corporations and company owners, many of whom have a lax attitude to everything from tax to bribery to workers rights and so on, I do wonder why certain companies/people get such stick, ( Murdoch, Dyson, etc) when there is an endless array of perfectly other decent targets. Not that Murdoch should get off lightly of course........

Because boycotting every company that deserves to be boycotted would inconvenience one to such a degree that most people (and most people definitely includes myself) will just pick a few pet peeves and swallow the rest.

I would not own a gun in this country, even if I could find a legitimate way to own one.

There was a time when I might have gone to live in the US. I've sometimes wondered if I would have been able to adhere to that ethical position had I lived there. Today that would be an even more tricky conunudrum....

Got to use one in the army, which drove home a point: handguns are lousy self-defense weapons, especially for those who have little actual experience in high pressure situations. If your target moves fast, if you are scared, if your target is more than maybe 15 m away from you, or closer than 5 m, for that matter, you are more likely to hit an innocent bystander or possibly your neighbors cat than whoever you want to shoot. So I wouldn't buy one, even if I were to move to America, it is pointless. I would go through the gun laws of the state in question, though, just to see how likely it would be that I get to be the innocent bystander.

[Dave2002]

I wouldn’t give a guitar houseroom - instrument of the devil, IMO.

Acoustic, or otherwise? That's your opinion and you're welcome to it. Is this really based on religious or anti-satan grounds?

Beecham might have added a harpsichord to your list.

I was struck recently that there are some instruments which add tonal "colour" to music, or can even function as solo instruments in their own right, and they can make music considerably less bland. I would include guitars amongst these, but my thought was triggered by hearing a cimbalom in Kodaly's music - it would be horrid if every piece had to include one, but used sparingly such instruments do have a role I feel. Boccherini wrote at least one chamber work including a guitar - e.g. this quintet - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpYEfXzpYSk - which some people enjoy.

Also, in the case of the cimbalom, watching a cimbalom player can be a fascinating and exciting experience.

Are there other instruments which you or others would not wish to have? Of course the reasons for denial could be simple, and relatively non-judgemental, such as "I can't play, or will never be able to play it." - a view which I had recently when looking at an accordion in an auction sale. That would hardly be a very principled objection. Another practical reason would be space/size. Who would want to have a church organ or a cinema organ in their house? [There are people who do, and have ...]

[MrGongGong]

Acoustic, or otherwise? That's your opinion and you're welcome to it. Is this really based on religious or anti-satan grounds?

Beecham might have added a harpsichord to your list.

I was struck recently that there are some instruments which add tonal "colour" to music, or can even function as solo instruments in their own right, and they can make music considerably less bland. I would include guitars amongst these, but my thought was triggered by hearing a cimbalom in Kodaly's music - it would be horrid if every piece had to include one, but used sparingly such instruments do have a role I feel. Boccherini wrote at least one chamber work including a guitar - e.g. this quintet - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpYEfXzpYSk - which some people enjoy.

Also, in the case of the cimbalom, watching a cimbalom player can be a fascinating and exciting experience.

Are there other instruments which you or others would not wish to have? Of course the reasons for denial could be simple, and relatively non-judgemental, such as "I can't play, or will never be able to play it." - a view which I had recently when looking at an accordion in an auction sale. That would hardly be a very principled objection. Another practical reason would be space/size. Who would want to have a church organ or a cinema organ in their house? [There are people who do, and have ...]

I would refuse to have anything with a "Beecham" connection (including drugs)

Instrument wise ?

There are too many tambourines in the world. They are like branches of "Subway", you could get rid of 80% and there would still be enough to go round.

I do sometimes advance the idea of a 10 year guitar ban.
Male teenagers should need a licence before being allowed to own one.

[Richard Barrett]

I do sometimes advance the idea of a 10 year guitar ban.
Male teenagers should need a licence before being allowed to own one.

An ex-teenage guitarist writes: if I hadn't taken up playing it around the beginning of the punk rock revolution my life might have taken a very different course. Make of that what you will. Good punk albums: come on, there are hundreds. (There are hundreds just by the Fall!)

One of the unforgettable lessons learned from my principal composition teacher was "you have to be able to do something interesting just with a pair of bongos." I've extended that to mean that there isn't any instrument that one couldn't potentially write music for. Recently the commissioner of an ongoing project mentioned an instrument I've never written for before which he'd like, if I was into it, to add to the instrumentation, because he'd found an interesting player he wanted us to work with. My initial response was what a ridiculous idea, but within a few minutes I could see how it might be done and wrote back to say yes, it's possibly exactly what the original concept was missing.

[cloughie]

Instrument wise ?

There are too many tambourines in the world. They are like branches of "Subway", you could get rid of 80% and there would still be enough to go round.

I do sometimes advance the idea of a 10 year guitar ban.
Male teenagers should need a licence before being allowed to own one.

I think I partially agree with you (now there’s a first!) and the idea of a guitar ban, or maybe just take the amps and speakers awayas there is too much, too loud playing covers badly or poorly written songs. I like the fairly minimalist (instrumentally NOT the genre) approach of voice and piano, no drums and maybe a gentle bass, though that could be covered by the piano.

As for Hundreds of Good Punk albums, RB, as Johnny Mac would say.... Mind you he may, bearing in mind who is married to, possibly agree with you!