The Night Mail

[Winslow Boy]

Got to mind your p's and q's haven't yer.

[monkeysarefun]

4 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Having lived for a while in the US, I can attest that according to US popular culture (Hollywood movies/TV/books and magazines) the US won World War II all by itself (with Britain in the role of the occasionally useful and amusing sidekick).

 

 

What!? You mean that the Home Guard WASN'T made up of a bunch of old American guys in WW1 uniforms over there defending England for you? 

 

 

Edited June 7 by monkeysarefun

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, bbishop said:

 The quote came from the manifesto of the Britain First party which I would describe as Reform UK with menaces.  They were deadly serious.  There wasn't a Monster Raving Loony candidate so I would describe Count Binface as the only joke candidate.

Farage's methodology fascinates me.  He has fronted a series of parties: UKIP, Brexit and now Reform UK which are funded by other people (Tice with the present manifestation) whilst Farage creams off millions of pounds, dollars and Euros from media appearances etc.

 

56 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

... and yet he produced the biggest upheaval in modern politics. He, more than anyone is the author of Brexit; but it could not have happened had the support not been there. 

Don't forget Johnson, he rode into number 10 on the back of Brexit.

[Tony_S]

49 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Ordinances are rules and orders or religious matters.

 

Ordnance is much more about about big bangs And the equipment to make them.

For example canons and cannons…

[AndyID]

19 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

For example canons and cannons…

They were quite popular with Bach and Beethoven.

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

As an ex Ordnance Officer, I have to take issue with this statement.

 

Ordinances are rules and orders or religious matters.

 

Ordnance is much more about about big bangs And the equipment to make them.

 

Precision of the finest quality, Sirrah, I salute.you.
 

Whilst it was a genuine typo (cos I know about ordnance and things that go bang) I have seen ordinance used when ordnance would have been correct - usually in a newspaper that should know better….

 

Anyway, whether you turned up 5 minutes late for your shift at the ordnance factory or 5 minutes late at the ordinance factory, the NKVD would still shoot you for “sabotaging the war effort”….

[Hroth]

21 minutes ago, AndyID said:

They were quite popular with Bach and Beethoven.

 

But not as much as with Jack Clusky*.....

 

* The bloke wot rit the 1812 ovrchure**

** Its an old joke about a Radio Merseyside quiz show....

 

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

What!? You mean that the Home Guard WASN'T made up of a bunch of old American guys in WW1 uniforms over there defending England for you? 

 

 

That is quite atrocious. 

 

A propos Johnson, he followed the Referendum. Farage created the conditions and the vehicle for the Blonde One.

 

[iL Dottore]

9 hours ago, rockershovel said:

I'd say the Americans DID win WW2, by any meaningful definition. By 1945 they owned pretty much all the money in the world, occupied a commanding strategic position in the Atlantic and Pacific; their industries were at their zenith; their currency was the new World standard. 

 

If that's not a win, it's a pretty good substitute. 

I didn’t say that the Americans didn’t win the war, I said that their biggest contribution was the war materiel produced from their immense industrial capacity and huge amount of natural resources.

 

It was inevitable that the US would come out “top dog” after WWII - it suffered relatively few casualties (in percent of population), it’s infrastructure - though stretched - was intact and modern and apart from Hawaii, had no meaningful incursions on and significant damage to the US mainland.
 

After deliberately bankrupting the UK through lend-lease and “loans” it emerged as the world leader because there was no other competition. Britain was bankrupt, exhausted, with an infrastructure that was barely holding together; France was pretty much the same way (and was having to deal with the aftermath of being occupied - with all that entails), Russia was counting its dead with much of its infrastructure destroyed and trying to play catch up (not an easy task in a dictatorship with a highly centralised state bureaucracy) and the Axis powers had been bombed flat.
 

So 80 years on, who did win WWII? I would argue the axis powers came out on top. Germany, Japan and to a lesser extent Italy, had rebuild from the rubble up and that allowed them to create:

• A modern infrastructure 
• A modern, democratic, political system
• A modern industry
• A modern social contract between the government and the governed.
• Freedom of speech
• Freedom of movement

When you look at indicators of national success and wellbeing* (such overall quality of life, access to and quality of healthcare and health care outcomes, quality of infrastructure, educational achievements of the population, work opportunities and work environment, infant mortality, public transport, life expectancy, amongst many others) the former axis countries have done far better than the UK, and - on many of those indicators of national wellbeing  - now even better than the US.

 

* a large state-of-the-art military does not mean that the other indicators of national wellbeing are also state-of-the-art. The PRC, until recently, being a good example.

[Hroth]

The Daily Star has a nice front page of Silly Rishi* as Private Pike...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj55ele8rglo

 

The more he does, the more I see a calculated effort to ensure his party is NOT re-elected.

 

* Its a pity that he doesn't have a proper name, like Ethelred...

 

Edited June 8 by Hroth
a Thort

[Happy Hippo]

Portland seems to have a lot of Seagulls. Waking up here  was not dissimilar to waking up in Llandudno, although the gulls do have different accents.

[Tony_S]

13 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Portland seems to have a lot of Seagulls. Waking up here  was not dissimilar to waking up in Llandudno, although the gulls do have different accents.

Something to do with the shape of their bill?

[GMKAT7]

Good morning folks,

 

When my son was 4 he and my wife stayed with friends in a flat at Beaumaris by the green.

 

The gulls there seemed to be pretty vocal, so much so that the two mums ended up taking the children's Calpol (baby paracetamol for those who don't know) in order to get some sleep.

 

When I picked them up the following weekend one of the first calls was at Boots to get new supplies 😂

 

Cheers, Nigel.

[WessexEclectic]

4 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

So 80 years on, who did win WWII? I would argue the axis powers came out on top. Germany, Japan and to a lesser extent Italy, had rebuild from the rubble up and that allowed them to create...

Looking back 80 years, somewhat agree (they also all had a little help from their friend...).

Looking forward, all 3 have demographics approaching terminal velocity.

[Tony_S]

23 minutes ago, WessexEclectic said:

Looking forward, all 3 have demographics approaching terminal velocity.

Fortunately all of them are attracting people who are prepared to cross oceans and continents to join them. 

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

Portland seems to have a lot of Seagulls. Waking up here  was not dissimilar to waking up in Llandudno, although the gulls do have different accents.

You have not been truly woken up by bird sounds until you have been woken up by a cockatoo!*

 

 

 

*And if you think you are being hilariously original by using the sentence "being woken up by a cockatoo" in a Finbar Saunders style smutty post, fnarr fnarr , sorry but  its been done to death  by Australian comedians since probably 1879..

Edited June 8 by monkeysarefun

[Happy Hippo]

6 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

You have not been truly woken up by bird sounds until you have been woken up by a cockatoo!*

 

 

 

*And if you think you are being hilariously original by using the sentence "being woken up by a cockatoo" in a Finbar Saunders style smutty post, fnarr fnarr , sorry but  its been done to death  by Australian comedians since probably 1879..

And UK music hall wags from even earlier🤣

[monkeysarefun]

14 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

And UK music hall wags from even earlier🤣

 

 

 

Do NOT think you can out  do us by  using Australian words in a comedy routine.

 

 

 

 

[Steamport Southport]

15 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

What!? You mean that the Home Guard WASN'T made up of a bunch of old American guys in WW1 uniforms over there defending England for you? 

 

 

 

Slightly based on fact. They did have a form of Home Guard which was bolstered during WWII in case things didn't go as planned.

 

The term Home Guard is an American idea.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_guard

 

And is still active.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_defense_force

[Winslow Boy]

2 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Something to do with the shape of their bill?

Oh don't you discriminate against southern gulls. It's not there fault they can't speak proper gullaneese like they do in Land of the Leek- was going to say something more 'robust' but thought the better of it this being a 'family' thread. 

[Steamport Southport]

21 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

Oh don't you discriminate against southern gulls. It's not there fault they can't speak proper gullaneese like they do in Land of the Leek- was going to say something more 'robust' but thought the better of it this being a 'family' thread. 

 

That would be baarmy!

[rockershovel]

2 hours ago, WessexEclectic said:

Looking back 80 years, somewhat agree (they also all had a little help from their friend...).

Looking forward, all 3 have demographics approaching terminal velocity.

You need to bear in mind that the Germans and to a lesser extent, Austrians and Dutch had a surviving system of state intervention and guidance for both vocational training and support of industry. Try doing business in Germany if you are not German! 

 

They knew exactly where they intended to go after 1945. Their historic aristocracy and banking class had been destroyed in 1914-20. 

 

We didn't have that. We had a surviving political and financial class which persisted in attempting to return to some form of Empire until 1956. We had a system of vocational training which had no coherent State support outside the nationalised industries - look at the reinvention of the coal mining industry, or the rapid advances in the rail sector.

 

We didn't benefit from Marshall Aid because our ruling class didn't do what was necessary. That's still the case; look at the way the once-only windfall of North Sea oil and gas has been squandered, and we have no meaningful presence in wind farms construction. 

[Tony_S]

34 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

Oh don't you discriminate against southern gulls. It's not there fault they can't speak proper gullaneese like they do in Land of the Leek- was going to say something more 'robust' but thought the better of it this being a 'family' thread. 

It was one of my attempts at humour assuming HH was in Portland and near Portland Bill…

[Happy Hippo]

I've just passed an assorted covoy of WWII era American vehicles heading for Weymouth harbour.

 

We used to joke about the Americans always showing up late for the party, but 80 years?

 

That's taking the mickey!

[Steamport Southport]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

It was one of my attempts at humour assuming HH was in Portland and near Portland Bill…

 

 

 

I bet most people have forgotten that programme or weren't watching kids TV in the 1980s!