ME/CFS-afflicted novelist Philip Kazan. It’s better to burn out than it is to rust, and I wish somebody had told me that when I chose the rust option.
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An extraordinary evening at the Triethnés Music Festival in the old quarry of Mikrolimni above Lesser Prespa Lake the other night, including the remarkable polyphonic songs of ΧΑΟΝΙA. Their voices carried us across this borderland region in several languages. So powerful, so beautiful.
Wonderful- got me right in the genetics!
Trump is over 20 minutes late to his Oval Office address. Are they unable to reanimate him? lol
Waiting for Trump to come riding out like El Cid’s corpse
Tribute bands with a medical condition: Chronic Youth
Or John of Patmos. Absolutely off his head, random insane posts at any hour of the day and night, CAPS LOCKED
Augustine of Hippo would have been a poaster
Partly why I’m not remotely surprised that America’s finally gone fash. The institutional iconification, and commodification of patriotism, set up a framework for mindless nationalism that’s been in existence for decades. I’m only surprised it didn’t happen sooner.
The Stars & Stripes is everywhere in the US: you can’t move for it. And Americans are much more flag-worshippy than us. It has a genuine quasi-religious, iconic value. Like it’s blasphemy (for some people, very much not for others) to use it on clothing.
Good stuff from @jonnelledge.bsky.social: I feel this part should be obvious but doesn’t get stated often enough:
Basically. But thicker. Spoon lassi.
We need the community to parse this for us
British class AND food history in one easy Yank-supplied digest
He’s been! Father American/British Food Discourse has been!
We ought to think about the utility of "antiwokism" as a term. Like "antisemitism", it captures the idea of a set of prejudices being inflicted on people because of a mythology about their collective identity. Just as "semitism" isn't a real thing, neither is "wokism". But antiwokism is real.
God forgive my settler-colonial soul, but half a ripe mango blitzed with Greek yogurt is absolute 🔥🔥
Trouble is, the flag of St George has been claimed as the flag of (white) nationalism and the idea that it represents harmless patriotism is a deliberate part of the nationalist strategy.
…and of how it might randomly change, which you only find out about on social media. If you’re lucky.
…and not bothered to tell us - this was the explanation we got from actual Home Office staff. In the years since, with three kids who aren’t UK citizens, we have been treading a minefield of threats, misinformation and huge expense. The system is absolutely malevolent.
The Home Office is a combination of useless and malevolent. Before Mrs K, who’s American, and I got married in the 90s we spent weeks making sure she had the right visa. Then she got deported when we came back from our weekend honeymoon because she had the wrong visa. They’d changed the rules /1
Branded a settler-colonialist for my white supremacist use of ketchup
It’s very much starting to look like the endemic shitness that pervades pretty much all levels of public services is a choice, and that a decision has been made to double down on making things even worse.
I’m going to do a column in The Guardian and call it Wild Fish Finger Sandwich Making, and who’ll be laughing then?
Look, I was making do with what was in my mum’s fridge and freezer. I didn’t go out of my way to commit heresy, HERESY WAS FORCED ON ME BY CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND MY CONTROL.
Same in Italy. I desperately try to use my best (not altogether awful Italian) everywhere, and everyone, without exception (including street food-selling nonnas in Naples), replies in adequate to perfect English. Makes me feel like even more of a wally.
In the 1930s, fascists were pelted with potatoes with razor blades in them. Nowadays we learnt that the best way to deal with fascists is telling them that we, too, like flags.
“I think they’re patriotic and I think they’re a great symbol of our nation.”
Wasn’t there a Billy Bees Nest as well?
Using one photo already on your phone, what is the announcement tomorrow at 2?
Timeline, you aren’t even making an effort any more.
No, and I feel bereft. That kind of dogged dying-on-a-moronic-hill entertainment doesn’t come along every day.
And he blocked me.
He absolutely says what he says *without ambiguity and very firmly situated in the context of the interviewer’s questions*. It’s bizarre that you can watch the interview and deny the evidence of Starmer’s own words.
We need more strong statements like this from local leaders. Well done Lee:
I hope he comes back today. His awfulness is quite a tonic.
is it only asylum seekers our Labour Prime Minister would object to living next to or would the sentiment apply to black and brown people in general? if merely the former, would he like to explain how he knows people he sees, say, in the street, actually are asylum seekers and not citizens?
And by Starmer grovelling about flags and his children’s safety, and Reeves’ statement about immigrants’ families
Dispatches from the West Country: somebody’s painted 🏴s on a load of roundabouts in Penzance and the locals are furious because they also hate the English
Outed yourself there, old boy.
Now THAT is a point worth making.
RETVRN
Yeah I remember that feeling all too well.
Farewell then to the American progressive who has legitimate concerns about the ability of people of Pakistani origin to integrate into British society.
Hey Starmer Ultras, what’s up?
I mean strictly speaking it was the Ottoman Empire who crushed my people, but I’m pretty much over that, to be honest.
It’s SO difficult. And perhaps you don’t need to function too much for a little bit? Give yourself a lot of love.
Interested to know what I’m occupying, seeing as my grandparents came over here from Ottoman Macedonia and as a result had a VERY clear idea about the politics of occupation. Oh, and the other side of my family have lived within 20 miles of where I’m sitting since the 12th Century at least.
I don’t think popovers are made with beef dripping, so there’s that.
I’m not, but then I’m not an American accusing others of being settler colonials.
So all British are white but all Irish aren’t?
Are you Native American?
Are the Irish not white? That’s a niche racism you got there.
We go live now to the Number Ten flat.
Is it Turkey?
for a hundred years americans have told themselves, for liberal reasons as often as reactionary ones, that america is the best society that has ever existed. it is eminently clear this is hilariously false now, and they can't cope, so they keep inventing mythical ways in which other people are worse
And also Ramen (Chinese)
They have Yorkshire pudding in the States - they just call it a popover.
Fun discourse related fact - curries have been a part of British cuisine for longer than the USA has been a country.
I think I’ll take gyros back (not doner, though - I’m not entitled to that). Peripherally, they call kebabs ‘kabobs’ over there, and occasionally ‘kaboobs’ (a place I used to walk past in NYC which seemed blissfully unaware of the extra O)
"I just rubbed pea soup onto my lower regions at a tube station near Hammersmith." "Turnham Green?" "That was the plan, yes."
Twitter- in fact modern life, particularly the present edition of the USA - proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that engaging with non-progressive people with the intention of converting them leads to, eg, former MPs feeling free to post BNP-level racism on main.
It’s less the war than the nationalisation/centralisation of commodity foods like milk and pork, which lasted into the 90s: the Milk Marketing Board was dissolved in 1993.
That has happened in my lifetime, largely due to Neil’s Yard Dairy. Now British cheese is every bit as good and varied as French cheese.
“These are my principles. And if you don’t like them, I have others.”
I used to be a cook over there so I just. Can’t. Help. It.
I also find it offensive the ‘working people’ ableism and the constant attack on disabled and clinically vulnerable. People in our group continue to die due to lack of access to safer healthcare and vaccine restrictions. Labour don’t care about our human rights one bit.
…some people can’t afford a good scolding.
I’m guessing - food historians wade in - that Irish food is similar to what British food was before WW2, postwar rationing and nationalisation of food commodities.
People were getting scolded on here recently for this opinion (which I ferociously share), because it might be that there are those who need to start buying Christmas presents early, and they can’t do that without the prompt of wall-to-wall tat and animatronic reindeer.
The terrifying thing is that they must be absolutely surrounded by racists themselves to make the assumptions they do.
It’s like béchamel on moussaka. Did the Greeks *steal* it from the French, or did the French *colonise* Greek cuisine? Who cares? It’s there, it’s good.
Brie Encounter #FromageUnTitre
Yeah, I usually put my foot in it by accident because I just generally assumed *everyone* knew that shit. Everyone does not know that shit. And I do, to be honest, suffer from a certain, possibly neurodivergent bluntness when it comes to facts.
🖤
And that wasn’t me being all “Akchually, I think you’ll find…” it was about me having to provide information just to keep a conversation going.
There’s a self-sufficiency about American ignorance because it just makes for a closed system. The ignorance just bounces around unquestioned and uncorrected. I found people liked me less when I put them right about, for instance, the UK being a modern democracy.
I think Mexico has one of the world’s genuinely great cuisines. Once you start exploring the flavours, preparations, nuances, it’s extraordinary.
I mean there are lots of smart Americans but in my experience of living over there for a long time, it’s insane how many people just have no clue what’s going on outside their own state, let alone country. Mrs K is from Vermont and Americans are always telling her Vermont is part of Canada.
Hard relate. Unfortunately.
One of the underlying issues is that even fairly educated Americans know less than nothing about the world beyond America. They are the most solipsistic nation on earth. I’m sure many believe we’re an “isolated, whites-only culture” in the same way they believe we’re an absolute monarchy.
Just waiting for the Starmer Ultras to jump in and claim the government is the exact opposite of what its actions are telling us it is.
Isolated, whites-only culture? We’re talking about Britain, not fucking Pitcairn Island!
Wait a sec: so a) immigrants aren’t British, b) things they provide as services in their adopted country is theft, c) they've been brought here against their will so we can steal their culinary skills? I’m not sure how you think frankfurters came to the US but they weren’t invented by the Iroquois.
If my home had an area of 95,000 square miles and I desperately needed help with its upkeep, you mean? Yes, obviously.
The best meme for the worst post
This is so good! That foot is perfectly done.
RIP Lady Di, I carnt believe you is wiv da angles now.
I had an insanely good - and comically messy - pistachio cream cornetto from Il Botanico on St Aldates the other day. Wish I didn’t live 200 miles away.
‘“When the facts of our lives can never be fully known there isn’t just room for fiction, there is a moral imperative for it. To write it. To paint it – to light a candle in the dark then pick up your pen or brush. Even, and especially, when the world is ending.” A wee essay tinyurl.com/ct6w3ynf
You can make music on these. Like a tiny harp, or kora.
That this can be posted by a former MP shows how far we have sunk.
Marcus 🏳️🌈🇧🇧 