Conker wrote:
Pseudo intellectual Guardian-ista poseurs with a deluded view of their influence on world affairs [...]
Got me to a T.
Conker wrote: [...] 'gritty working class' is hardly the term I would use to describe the Lund and Orton road show person as I have read them on here.
Although I would not claim to be working class, I am certainly from working class stock and retain many gritty working class habits and attitudes (ask my wife). One grandfather was, at various times, a clicker in the shoe industry, the caretaker of Leicester Secular Hall, and unemployed. The other was a blacksmith who later became a winder at a colliery in Nottinghamshire. I grew up with a strong (probably gritty) East Midlands working class accent, traces of which can still be detected even after forty-three years living in poncy London.
In my case, "gritty working class" is entirely tongue in cheek. Even the Manchester / Rochdale side of my family would have thought of themselves as middle-class.
leenewham wrote:I'm from the Midlands too Robin (Beeston, Nottingham to be precise), my dad was a sparky and my mum a home help. Do you ever say 'ay up doook'?
Gosh, I never realised - 'Newham' doesn't sound a very Midlands name somehow! My Auntie Florrie (great-aunt, really) lived in Beeston.
I can't say I've had any occasion to say 'ay oop dook' recently. But I still mash the tea, wash the pots rather than the dishes, refer to the footpath between London Road and Derby Hill as the 'jitty', eat (but only very occasionally) buttered pikelets rather than buttered crumpets, call a larder a pantry, and (unless on my best behaviour) pronounce 'grass' and 'pass' with a short a.
The most annoying bit of my working-class heritage is that I still feel very anxious in restaurants - I can never stop wondering, 'Is this place too posh for the likes of me?'
No wonder then that folk are fleeing South London in droves, what with all these foreigners from north of Watford coming down smothering the world with their pantrys full of eehoops me dook, breaking the silence of a Sydenham dawn as they clatter off to the tram stop in their clogs.
What has the world come to. I blame the EU.
I expect you feel uncomfortable in restaurants because you are not used to either abundant food, or to have to eat off a china plate as opposed to licking out a wooden bowl, and not having gravy over ones mushy peas?
If I may, I reckon Conker hits at least one nail on the head for The Pub - there's isn't enough humour. Most "Pubs" or "free-from-topic-restriction" forums are about 50:50 light:serious - it's the former - laughter - which seems to draw people to read them and join in willy nilly regularly. Tim Lund asks a fair question as to whether there should be a separate Town Seminar - why not? Most topics of that nature take a fair amount of time to read, absorb, consider etc .
The Town Hall is rather different. I feel slightly intimidated by it as it's public and read by "important people" so feel it's implied that any topic I start should have suitable gravitas and certainly not be frivolous. The trouble is that there's surely a natural limit to how many newsworthy topics crop up every day for what is a relatively small area.
I suppose I'm asking what is the incentive to post regularly? As a total website It's certainly a go-to place for reading information, rather different from "rushing into print".
mosy wrote:If I may, I reckon Conker hits at least one nail on the head for The Pub - there's isn't enough humour. Most "Pubs" or "free-from-topic-restriction" forums are about 50:50 light:serious - it's the former - laughter - which seems to draw people to read them and join in willy nilly regularly. Tim Lund asks a fair question as to whether there should be a separate Town Seminar - why not? Most topics of that nature take a fair amount of time to read, absorb, consider etc .
I agree about the shortage of humour in the Pub. On the other hand, I'm very ambivalent about Tim's idea for a Town Seminar Room, certainly under that title - it sounds too elitist for a local forum.
Perhaps the best answer is for more of us to follow Tim's Lenten example and not to post on controversial but (to most readers - I took Rachael's comments to heart) boring topics. Perhaps we should find some other forum (but which?) to show off our learning and dialectical skills.
