Making the news today....

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

55 minutes ago, Gimlet said:

How so?

Abuse does not preclude proper use  

55 minutes ago, Gimlet said:

 

As he's from a farming background

 

 

Im just guessing here..... Like yourself?

55 minutes ago, Gimlet said:

 

and has experience of that ministry and isn't an infantilised urban ecomentalist who thinks the countryside should be a Farthing Wood theme park, I'm cautiously optmistic

How utterly lame, boring and small minded is the oft trotted out mantra that “unless yome 8th generation farmer your opinion is worthless.” 
 

 It’d be like suggesting the entire, combined brain power of academia is dwarfed by the superior, objective analysis and brilliance of window licker....

 

Not a naturally ‘likeable’ man, I was cautiously optimistic with Gove. 
 

Useless Eustace, as he’s affectionately  known in his constituency, will be a puppet of the NFU and that has no foreseeable environmental advantage so far as I can see....

[Guest Gimlet]

 

25 minutes ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

Im just guessing here..... Like yourself?

You guess wrong. I'm not a farmer and I carry no torch for the industry. 

 

25 minutes ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

How utterly lame, boring and small minded is the oft trotted out mantra that “unless yome 8th generation farmer your opinion is worthless.” 

I didn't say any such thing. 

You may have wanted me to say it, in the pursuit of confirmation bias, but I didn't. You did.

Edited February 13, 2020 by Gimlet

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

8 minutes ago, Gimlet said:

 

You guess wrong. I'm not a farmer and I carry no torch for the industry. 

 

I didn't say any such thing. 

You may have wanted me to say it, in the pursuit of confirmation bias, but I didn't. You did.

It was just a guess. No offence intended. 
 

I didn’t say you did. I certainly didn’t want you to. 
 

Don’t confuse confirmation bias with an objective opinion. The 2 are distinctly different. 
 

What was the theme park reference you used again? ?

Edited February 13, 2020 by kevinjohnsonmbe

[Mark J]

 

Apparently Cummings has allowed Bojo to keep his job

Edited February 13, 2020 by Mark J

[Guest Gimlet]

The theme park mentality is evident everywhere you look with the anthropomorphising of animals, a woeful ignorance of the native species of these islands, both fauna and flora, and the idea that nature is a sideshow for human entertainment and the countryside a public playground, a place to use, abuse and consume rather than curate as custodians.

 

TPM is a reality. We live amongst it. It's in government, the media, represented in every newspaper letters page, and it saturates social media. When you live and work in the countryside, you don't have to go looking for it. It slaps you in the face every day. I was merely anxious to ascertain that another subscriber to baby-think had not been appointed to the cabinet. 

My cautious optimism was that, early indications were that in Eustace (regardless of his ministerial proficiency) it had not. I hope I am proved right. A useless minister who means no harm would be far less destructive than a gifted vandal.

 

 

[Mark J]

4 hours ago, lux said:

Noncery - good word. I shall add that to my vocabulary.
Sounds like it could of come from the Viz profanisaurus for those that remember Viz...

A mate of mine gave me the updated edition, entitled 'War and Piss', for Christmas. I think that Neptune's Kiss is my favourite to date:

[lux]

A mate of mine gave me the updated edition, entitled 'War and Piss', for Christmas. I think that Neptune's Kiss is my favourite to date:

A good book for the crapper. I don’t think my missus will find it quite so funny if I leave a copy there though [emoji23]

[Guest Gimlet]

It's on the shopping list. 

Reminds me of The meaning of Liff. Every home should have a copy.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

12 minutes ago, Gimlet said:

The theme park mentality is evident everywhere you look with the anthropomorphising of animals, a woeful ignorance of the native species of these islands, both fauna and flora, and the idea that nature is a sideshow for human entertainment and the countryside a public playground, a place to use, abuse and consume rather than curate as custodians.

 

TPM is a reality. We live amongst it. It's in government, the media, represented in every newspaper letters page, and it saturates social media. When you live and work in the countryside, you don't have to go looking for it. It slaps you in the face every day. I was merely anxious to ascertain that another subscriber to baby-think had not been appointed to the cabinet. 

My cautious optimism was that, early indications were that in Eustace (regardless of his ministerial proficiency) it had not. I hope I am proved right. A useless minister who means no harm would be far less destructive than a gifted vandal.

 

 

Fundamentally, I’d suggest, it depends on whether one’s opinion is based upon the view that agriculture, and those responsible for it, are perceived as ‘custodians’ of the countryside or as the culprits of The industrial exploitation of it. 
 

There are, obviously and inevitably, degrees of interpretation and areas of middle ground.

 

For my part, I certainly don’t have any optimism that Eustice will play the middle ground at a time when wholesale review and redirection of agriculture and countryside stewardship presents itself after Brexit. 

 

Next time you get that smack in the face, try asking yourself, Am I just casting my gaze upon that which I’ve become accustomed to seeing or should / could it actually be better if I opened my mind...

 

 

 

 

[Guest Gimlet]

My mind has never been closed. Nor have my eyes and I've never much liked what I've had to cast my gaze upon. You mistake me if you think I'm a standard bearer for super-industrial agriculture. Yes there is indeed a huge post-Brexit opportunity to de-politicise and de-corporatise an agricultural industry that has been driven into a productivity and environmental cul-de-sac by our imprisonment in the CAP. 

 

I'm not suggesting Eustice will be a good minister, nor do I support him because I know nothing about him. That was why I posed the question in the first place. I was guardedly relieved only that he didn't appear to be an urban fantasist. Whether he is a step in the right direction or the continuity candidate for subsidy-milking big agri I've no idea. But I will be judging by actions and results not third party opinion.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 13, 2020 by Gimlet