Absent Friends & Missing Persons

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Getting back on topic, I still miss "smittims".

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Getting back on topic, I still miss "smittims".

Yes - he withdrew from the BBC Messageboards long before they were closed down, and (AFAIK) never looked in on us here. Like others, he decided that he wanted to use the time he spent on the 'Boards reading and listening to Music. I hope he continues to do so, and will continue for many, many more years to come.

[kernelbogey]

A complaint

Originally Posted by Alain Maréchal [No 1352]
I have for some time considered leaving the Forum. My interest in Radio Three has now dwindled to very few programmes, none of which are broadcast before lunchtime. Of course there are good concert relays, but France Musique presents just as many, and Iplayer, to which I can obtain access through some clever technology (certainly not my cleverness) gives me access to the BBC. Moreover Carrefour de L'Odeon is In Tune with more intelligent waffling. Also (I hesitate to raise a subject that may get me expelled) my interest in the U.K. has, through no fault of my own and because of recent events become rather peripheral. I've written you off as hopeless, and, to be honest, peripheral, more or less. However I think I will post as and when I can, if a particular subject (such as Bruckner 6) piques my interest.

N.B. re "recent events". Cave Hostem.

[No 1357]
The "you" is the U.K.: I thought that was clear from my previous sentence, but if not, then I wrote with insufficient clarity and careless syntax. I was not attacking the Forum (although from time to time I have been bitten in the leg by other posters and it stung). Perhaps "written off" is strong, but what seems to have happened in those Isles is that you seem more insular - how could you not? Geography dictates it. Discussion of a certain subject over here has now been relegated well down the pages, we have other much more pressing uncertainties* to worry about.

*Example: how much discussion is there in the U.K. press of the current and probably incendiary border dispute between a country on the edge of the E.U. and one about to join? We see a Casus Belli. You probably feel they are small countries a long way away and of which your people know nothing.

As there has been a complaint from a member about one of the posts of this thread in the last 24 hours (neither of the above) I have read the thread from Alain's post No 1352 onward. It seems to me that Alain's subsequent explanation in 1357 of his language in 1352 constitutes a fair corrective apology.

Speaking purely personally, my experience is that those in other European countries I have met (some of them relatives) do find the referendum result sad and inexplicable. From memory, the leave vote was about 37% of the registered electorate, which is not the same as 66 million of us. I think that, as a nation, we have indeed marginalised ourselves.

[vinteuil]

I think that, as a nation, we have indeed marginalised ourselves.

... that is also my perception, from my contacts across Europe over the last year. If you read the foreign press, brexit is now reduced to a minor item, and the presence of the United Kingdom as something of interest, let alone to be reckoned with, much diminished. So much of my working life was involved with how the UK is perceived that I find it beyond words sad.



.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Yes - he withdrew from the BBC Messageboards long before they were closed down, and (AFAIK) never looked in on us here. Like others, he decided that he wanted to use the time he spent on the 'Boards reading and listening to Music. I hope he continues to do so, and will continue for many, many more years to come.

[Barbirollians]

As there has been a complaint from a member about one of the posts of this thread in the last 24 hours (neither of the above) I have read the thread from Alain's post No 1352 onward. It seems to me that Alain's subsequent explanation in 1357 of his language in 1352 constitutes a fair corrective apology.

Speaking purely personally, my experience is that those in other European countries I have met (some of them relatives) do find the referendum result sad and inexplicable. From memory, the leave vote was about 37% of the registered electorate, which is not the same as 66 million of us. I think that, as a nation, we have indeed marginalised ourselves.

Alain's post 1357 clarified his 1352 . There was no need for an apology I would say .

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Point noted.

Now please can we get back on topic, or move to a different thread?

[Barbirollians]

Point noted.

Now please can we get back on topic, or move to a different thread?

More than agreed here.

[kernelbogey]

Point noted.

Now please can we get back on topic, or move to a different thread?

[teamsaint]

There are still some things about which it seems to be ok to be prejudiced. Britain and the British seem to be one of them .

We as a nation , have to answer for our actions, both past and present, but poisonous anti British hostility, of the kind you can see in the comments section of the Independent and the Guardian, is no better or worse than any other prejudice.
And much of it is based in class and intellectual snobbery .

If we are in a hole, it certainly isn't going to help us out of that hole.

(There is much poisonous nonsense in other newspapers too, but aimed elsewhere, of course).

Edit: yes,off topic, buts lets face it, everybody else has had their say.

[doversoul1]

Anna, I hope you are busy and happy.

[Barbirollians]

A much missed contributor .

[jayne lee wilson]

There are still some things about which it seems to be ok to be prejudiced. Britain and the British seem to be one of them .

We as a nation , have to answer for our actions, both past and present, but poisonous anti British hostility, of the kind you can see in the comments section of the Independent and the Guardian, is no better or worse than any other prejudice.
And much of it is based in class and intellectual snobbery .

If we are in a hole, it certainly isn't going to help us out of that hole.

(There is much poisonous nonsense in other newspapers too, but aimed elsewhere, of course).

Edit: yes,off topic, buts lets face it, everybody else has had their say.

As a longterm Guardian subscriber who reads the Comment and Debate section every day: I simply don't recognise this description. It is not "anti-British"; it is, quite explicitly, anti-Brexit; and it is no prejudice but a series of carefully reasoned objections, from a wide range of international contributors from many political compass points, to a vote, a decision and a large-scale legislative, geopolitical and cultural change which seems to them impulsive, foolish and ill-considered, not thought through on any rational level of Poitics or Economics; an emotional decision based on an already mythical view of what England (rather than Britain) ever was or could ever become.

Guardian Comment articles are part of the continuing democratic debate about what "Brexit" means, whether in its promotion during or since the Referendum, or its implementation over the next few years; and in its analysis of the anti-democratic, bullying, dissent-suppressing behaviour of the Tory Right and the increasingly powerful rightwing press (Mutineers! Saboteurs! Enemies of the People! Etc.); which to many people, Guardian-readers or not, seems a very dangerous alliance.

So now I've had my say too. Perhaps the very worst aspect of this whole passage of British History since June 2016 is what seems to be an un-healable wound, a terrible divisiveness.
"Divide and Rule" as so often under a Tory government, but in a newly incompetent, almost inadvertent variant.

[Petrushka]

As a longterm Guardian subscriber who reads the Comment and Debate section every day: I simply don't recognise this description. It is not "anti-British"; it is, quite explicitly, anti-Brexit; and it is no prejudice but a series of carefully reasoned objections, from a wide range of international contributors from many political compass points, to a vote, a decision and a large-scale legislative, geopolitical and cultural change which seems to them impulsive, foolish and ill-considered, not thought through on any rational level of Poitics or Economics; an emotional decision based on an already mythical view of what England (rather than Britain) ever was or could ever become.

Guardian Comment articles are part of the continuing democratic debate about what "Brexit" means, whether in its promotion during or since the Referendum, or its implementation over the next few years; and in its analysis of the anti-democratic, bullying, dissent-suppressing behaviour of the Tory Right and the increasingly powerful rightwing press (Mutineers! Saboteurs! Enemies of the People! Etc.); which to many people, Guardian-readers or not, seems a very dangerous alliance.

So now I've had my say too. Perhaps the very worst aspect of this whole passage of British History since June 2016 is what seems to be an un-healable wound, a terrible divisiveness.
"Divide and Rule" as so often under a Tory government, but in a newly incompetent, almost inadvertent variant.

- but I do wonder if ts meant the public comments sections below articles rather than the opinion articles themselves? Most of the public comments on BBC news articles, on any subject, seem to be penned by certifiable lunatics.

[teamsaint]

As a longterm Guardian subscriber who reads the Comment and Debate section every day: I simply don't recognise this description. It is not "anti-British"; it is, quite explicitly, anti-Brexit; and it is no prejudice but a series of carefully reasoned objections, from a wide range of international contributors from many political compass points, to a vote, a decision and a large-scale legislative, geopolitical and cultural change which seems to them impulsive, foolish and ill-considered, not thought through on any rational level of Poitics or Economics; an emotional decision based on an already mythical view of what England (rather than Britain) ever was or could ever become.

Guardian Comment articles are part of the continuing democratic debate about what "Brexit" means, whether in its promotion during or since the Referendum, or its implementation over the next few years; and in its analysis of the anti-democratic, bullying, dissent-suppressing behaviour of the Tory Right and the increasingly powerful rightwing press (Mutineers! Saboteurs! Enemies of the People! Etc.); which to many people, Guardian-readers or not, seems a very dangerous alliance.

So now I've had my say too. Perhaps the very worst aspect of this whole passage of British History since June 2016 is what seems to be an un-healable wound, a terrible divisiveness.
"Divide and Rule" as so often under a Tory government, but in a newly incompetent, almost inadvertent variant.

Perhaps we sometimes see what we are looking for. And to answer Pet, yes I was specifically talking about the comments section, not the editorial.

Some of the comments, on both sides ( and not everybody is on a side) are well thought out and reasoned. And some, on BOTH sides, are hostile, prejudiced, ill thought out, poisonous. And the class and intellectual snobbery that I mentioned is there, like it or not. It makes for very sad reading for this lifetime ( got the credentials) liberal.