[mdavidford]

Everything seems painfully slow this morning – is that just me, or is it like that for everyone?

Topic

[Rendel Harris]

pbu?

pbu?

[Hirsute]

There are only a couple of
There are only a couple of trolls at the moment and one pbu.
Best the ignore unless they go anti semtic or equivalent.

[Rendel Harris]

OK, but as a paid subscriber

OK, but as a paid subscriber (be interesting to know how many others pay) to a website I care about I’m not going to stop challenging rightist trolls who stink up the joint. Everyone’s free not to read their rubbish or indeed mine.

[mdavidford]

Discussions and whatnot, sure

Discussions and whatnot, sure. It was the mutual abuse and insults I was referring to.

[Rendel Harris]

Isn’t it okay, and indeed

Isn’t it okay, and indeed interesting, for discussions to develop and go in different directions? Or should t’internet be like a work meeting where nobody deviates from the agenda?

[Rendel Harris]

Steve K wrote:

It must be that – my comment on baggy shorts seems to have gone, and not even our Nige could have found a political angle to that.

Oh I wouldn’t bet on that – highly political shorts can be. Possibly my favourite lines in all of Wodehouse are when Bertie Wooster attacks Roderick Spode, who has set up a group of fascists called the Blackshorts (because when he came to do so all the coloured shirts were taken):

“The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you’re someone. You hear them shouting “Heil, Spode!” and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: “Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?”

[Rendel Harris]

You talk as if he volunteered

You talk as if he volunteered to live in Berlin; he was arrested as an enemy alien when he was living in Le Touquet when the Germans invaded and spent a number of months in internment camps run by the SS, being shifted from one to another in cattle trucks. While he was in these internment camps, incidentally, he met a number of Canadian prisoners of war and took the names and addresses of their families, and wrote to his American publisher saying he owed them $5 and could they please send it to them. This was the first notification many families had that their sons were alive, and Wodehouse risked severe penalties if the Germans had realised what he was up to. Eventually he was moved to Berlin and freed when he turned 60, as was the case with any civilian internee. However, unlike with most civilian internees he was not allowed to return home and was forced to stay in Berlin, until he persuaded the authorities to allow him to move to Paris, where he was when the city was liberated. What exactly did you expect a 60 year old man transported to Berlin by the Gestapo to do, fight his way back to Blighty through the German army? 

The fact that he faced no charges in the aftermath of the war (there is an interesting piece by Malcolm Muggeridge, incidentally, about his experience as a young officer being sent to question Wodehouse in Paris), when people would quite rightly have been feeling vengeful against anyone who had been in any way a collaborator, speaks volumes.

Did you know, by the way, that the CIA, for many years after the war, used the recordings of the broadcasts Wodehouse made as exemplar material of how to subtly use what the enemy think is propaganda for them as a tool against them? The transcripts are available online, I suggest you read them and see what you think is treasonous in them.

[wtjs]

Wodehouse was totally

Wodehouse was totally exonerated of any charge of collaboration

We’ll have to disagree- one man’s exoneration is another’s ‘finding excuses’. Living in luxury in Berlin while pretending to be a bewildered old buffer is no way to behave during a total war. Orwell died in the 40s, so doesn’t count- information has improved since then. Very bent and dodgy people do get knighthoods- Fred Goodwin, for a start

[Rich_cb]

I notice you haven’t actually
I notice you haven’t actually challenged my point.

You routinely use inflammatory language on this forum and then criticise others for the same behaviour.

You’re an obsessive hypocrite.

[Rendel Harris]

You’re just making yourself

You’re just making yourself look a little bit silly, not to mention obsessed, now, do carry on as much as you wish. I appear already to be living rent-free inside your soulmate Nigel’s head, perhaps I can use yours as the weekend cottage.

I’m sure other people find this extremely boring though, so unless you actually want to address anything about cycling rather than simply miserably failing to show I’m a troll, this is the last response you’ll get on the matter from me.

[Rich_cb]

I enjoy pointing out your
I enjoy pointing out your hypocrisy Rendel.

What was the definition of trolling you were touting a while back?

Something about inflammatory language?

You seem to make a lot of inflammatory posts for one so dedicated to ridding this site of its ‘trolls’.

[AlsoSomniloquism]

As with alot of things,

As with alot of things, Ogmios covered that in an extract on one of his Zen videos with him stopping to let cars come across and commenting on the Personalised Plate guy ahead who didn’t.

[brooksby]

It’s not just stopping on a

It’s not just stopping on a pedestrian crossing, but not leaving a gap so pedestrians can conveniently access a refuge/island.  In a long line of stationary traffic, you’d think that leaving a two metre gap wouldn’t be such a big deal and yet…

[ktache]

Even though stopping on a ped

Even though stopping on a ped crossing is an offence, 3 pointer I think.

[chrisonabike]

Looks like I missed most of

Looks like I missed most of the excitement.  I had just tried to post a summary of where we’d started from before the shouting when the site fell over. I blamed myself for posting an incendiary comment like:

We have a story of two politicians here – we elect them to choose where our money gets spent, to choose the priorities. Otherwise we wouldn’t care what they said and thought. We currently spend billions on “specialist” motor vehicle infrastructure and a rather small fraction of that on cycling and walking. Our story starts with one who is getting a new bike. The second politician then enters and the first comment he makes is that the first one should wear a helment because otherwise he’s setting a bad example.

[Author]

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