It has always been a part of the British (more particularly, English) character to find something amusing in even the most horrible times. A dark and ironic sense of humour is something shared by several cultures, but I understand it does not extend as far as those reaches of society who take politics seriously. The more dogmatic left, and of course the libertarians, are renowned for not having a sense of humour.
I’m with Eric. John’s a tosser. But then he is a Londoner.
It used to be a part of the British character to wait till the bodies were cold before taking the piss. Quite a civilised tradition, that.
When was that a tradition, then?
People take things too seriously these days. All is talk of risk, safety, not offending others, being correct. It’s crap, it’s stultifying and it’s washing the colour out of life such that we all are supposed to wear a uniform inoffensive dull grey.
John B,
You sir, are a complete wanker. At least you have the pleasure of knowing you’d get a punch in the face from one side if I met you.
It’s time to follow Israels succesful example and wall off the Islamic world from the civilised world.
Okay Rob, if you did that, that I’d smack the shit out of you. How stupid is that? Not as fucking stupid as your second comment.
John’s not a tosser, and I fear us Londoner’ are going to get a lot of advice on what we should think over the next few days from people who up to today didn’t have a good word to say for the place.
Rob – you’re a cunt.
Squander Two/Euan Gray
You both have good points. As is often the case, the truth is probebly between you both.
johnb – a good day to have a pop at the Daily mail, eh?
I notice above that your instincts also lead you to ferret around on LGF. What class.
Wanker.
I’m watching Working Lunch, where they are reporting on the selling of shares, with a 3% fall in the value of the FTSE 100. I wouldn’t be willing to put my money on a bet against a story about house prices and these explosions appearing in the Express or Mail over the next week.
Why shouldn’t he look on LGF and the like? When you have people on this site calling for ‘walling off the Islamic world’, it is important to know what sort of reactionary opinions are galvanised by events like this.
So, who has the least class, John, or LGFers? Or, John or Rob Read? John has a pop at the Daily Mail – which is a distingusting paper. Rob decides that the Islamic world needs to be walled off.
Doesn’t John live in Finsbury Park? How would this "walling off the Islamic world" work there, then?
Surprised you didn’t crowbar ‘tax slavery’ into your comment somewhere, Rob Read. You fucking little arsehole.
> When was that a tradition, then?
You have to ask? Sad, sad.
Rob,
The Israelis haven’t walled off the Islamic world. Plenty of Arabs and Muslims living happily in Israel. They’ve walled off the Palestinian world.
I actually came on here this morning to ask if John was all right, but then I saw that he thought petty point-scoring against people who disagree with his politics was the real priority right now, so fuck him. He just insulted a large number of people. Why it should be a surpise that he might get insulted back is beyond me. That’s not telling Londoners what to think; it’s retalliation, same as usual. And, really, are Daily-Mail jokes still funny? They’re like mother-in-law jokes these days. Oo, Daily Mail readers, eh? They’re so mean, they put a fork in the sugar bowl! Take Melanie Philips… please! I’ll be here all night, laydeesngenlmn.
The only thing we convincingly know about al Qaeda’s aims is that they want a proper war between the Islamic world and the West. If cunts like Rob were in charge, they’d get one. Fortunately, despite Tony’s many faults, they won’t.
I’m pleased to report that none of my close friends appear to be dead (which I didn’t know when I posted the original Mail headline. In the Blitz, our ancestors joked as the bombs fell, dammit). Hope other Londoners reading this are similarly lucky.
S2 – never mind calling it sad, how about answering my question? WHEN were the British/English ever so civilised and decent as to wait a while before poking fun?
Daily Mail jokes are still funny. This is England, we can laugh at the Daily Mail any time. Asylum seekers die from time to time too, and the Mail and Express are quite OK about it.
S2 – never mind calling it sad, how about answering my question? WHEN were the British/English ever so civilised and decent as to wait a while before poking fun?
Case in point: Richard Whiteley’s corpse was still warm when people started pointing out that ‘pneumonia’ is a nine-letter word with all the vowels.
(Actually, I get the feeling Whiteley himself might have appreciated that one…)
(obviously that goes for non-Londoners with friends & family in London, too. Much as we like to mock your provincial ways.)
S2 – who’ve I insulted? If you mean people who think we should wall off the Muslims and people who’ll use today’s tragedy as an excuse to rail about ID cards and immigration, then yes, and I stand by that. If you mean the victims and their families, then no, I haven’t.
However horrid the circumstances, life goes on. Even when people die, for the rest life goes on. One of the ways, perhaps the most instinctive way, of dealing with horrible things is to make a joke about it.
If you refuse to allow people to do this, then they internalise all the bad feelings and become bitter, twisted, humourless gits who will probably start looking for flats in Islington.
Remember – life is a terminal condition. Lighten up already.
John isn’t a tosser. "You’ve got to laugh" is a British tradition. We had humour right through the last two World Wars when the death toll was often incomprehensible.
Rob, walling of the Islamic world, how is that going to work then? Should we deport them, or save the plane fares and just gas them like badgers?
When Princess Diana died, Private Eye rightly took the piss out of the ludicrously OTT (and hilariously hypocritical) media coverage, and they were hit with a deluge of hate mail from the terminally humourless.
Looking back, that issue looks like one of the sanest and most rational responses to an outbreak of collective insanity – I defended them to the hilt at the time, and have seen no reason to change my mind since.
Your daughters been blown up, you say? What a perfect opportunity to slag off Daily Mail readers! Yay!
No, that’s not insulting.
Ah, fuck it; I’m off. I spent half an hour trying to figure out whether my father was alive earlier, and I’m not in the mood for the sort of petty self-absorbed spiteful shit that’s so popular here.
If you want to start a pissing contest, I’ve just spent the entire morning trying to find out whether five of my colleagues are alive. Not blood relations, admittedly, but I don’t think that makes much difference under these particular circumstances.
And John wasn’t slagging off Daily Mail readers, he was slagging off the Daily Mail – a small but crucial difference.
At least this site gets updated. There’s been nothing new on BBC News 24 for ages.
S2, I hope that you take the comments on LGF personally too, and any comments made over the next few weeks. I hope that you take Charles Clarkes inevitable use of these events as rhetorical support for ID cards as disrepectful to you.
Lots of people, including me, have been trying to find out where our friends and family are.
I’ve been trying to fucking *tell* my family and friends that I’m alive (I am) so I will also have a go at the moral high ground here. The business news will report the effect on the FTSE (which is meaningless, btw; all the genuine orders have been pulled and the 3% fall represents a very low volume of trades that had to be executed no matter what), the sports news will tell us what sporting events have had to be cancelled, the Daily Mail will tell us about house prices and scary asylum seekers and satirical news websites will continue to make jokes. It’s called "keeping a stiff upper lip" and it’s as British as you like. By the way if anyone wants to blind-punch John they had better bring some mates as I currently count five of us on his side.
This is the best thing I’ve read so far today, and I’m a Londoner, if that matters. Two of the attacks were on my mum’s route to work, one of the others is right next to where many people I know are today.
This diffusion of seriousness, the ability to get things in perspective, is much more important than most things in life. Us in the West today are the only people in human history, perhaps, who have not had to face massive mortality on a regular basis. Historically speaking, we just don’t have a decent sense of perspective.
If we can’t use these attacks to get things in perspective, to think about life in a way that is neither tub-thumping nor hyper-sentimental, then we’re all fools.
Besides, it’s fucking true.
John B,
Saw yr post shortly after spending a couple of hours trying to track down my wife, and nearly wet myself.
Spot on, mate.
John B – Good on you, and don’t be intimidated by these sanctimonious, grubby schmucks. These people want to exploit the natural anger against this series of atrocities in order to bludgeon anyone who’s views are not Correct and Decent.
Fuck them.
By the way, checking on that LGF thread John linked to, we see that the commentators are not just calling for walling off the ‘Islamic world’, but for ‘killing them all’.
You cunts that can’t take a joke, can lick my hairy balls.
Cocks.
Lots of love
Damian
You’ve to keep everything in perspective people, small bangs on a creaky transport system won’t bring down the Western World (Read London). Metronet were doing quite well enough on there own. If that Blunkett or Clarke make any comments about ID cards or internship I think I’ll have to start my own Jihad aganist opportunistic cunts….
I presume you mean internment. Internship would imply that Clarke’s solution to the problem is to hire some young ladies to "work" in his office…
The thought of nubile young ladies working Big Ears is almost as nauseating as detention without trial based on skin colour.
Euan, this thread is back on topic
Matt, Ur a cunt 2.
Andrew Bartlett,
See you outside Aldgate-East Mosque anytime you want. I may get the shit kicked out of me but my pride is intact.
I may get the shit kicked out of me but my pride is intact.
Yes, you’ll still be able to look in the mirror and say ‘what a cunt’.
fuck me. why isn’t everyone down the pub? surely you’ve all been let off work?
"I presume you mean internment" Err yes, got slightly muddled as I was talking to the German interns at the office when writing the post. Doh!
Mind you good old Charlie ‘doing a Clinton’ would be comedy. Can you impeach (or equivalent) a cabinet minister in this fine land?
The terrorists must not be allowed to rob us of our right to take the piss out the Daily Mail whenever and wherever we want.
Enough of this politically correct crap. If I’d been caught in the bomb-blast, I would expect my death to be mercilessly plundered as a source of bad-taste comedy. But I would come back from the dead and haunt with all the gruesome terror I could muster any LGF-esque cunt who wished to turn it into "the West" versus "the Arabs" issue.
It used to be a part of the British character to wait till the bodies were cold before taking the piss.
Sanctimonious ignorant bullshit.
Glad you’re ok John. Best wishes to all in London.
The Liverpool Echo’s headline on the sinking of the Titanic was apocryphally "Wirral Man Feared Drowned".
I was almost certainly closer to being blown up today than anyone commenting here, so I’m going to have the definitive word, as I shake in shock while trying to consume beer as quickly as possible. John isn’t a tosser. If you can’t laugh now, when can you? And that was funny.
Apparently it was just on the news that France has surrendered.
Further sanctimonious cuntishness is available at the Drink-Soaked Trots website, btw, with at least a couple of "why the bombings mean we must support my politics" posts already in evidence.
You can laugh
or
You can cry
Makes no difference as long as you are able to punch the enemy between the eyes.
This thread contains even more potty-mouth talk than one of John’s posts.
Anyway, everyone knows the French Secret Service did it in a Rainbvow Warrior stylee, as revenge for the Olympic defeat. At this very moment their agents are swigging Calvados on board the aircraft-carrier Charles de Gaulle, so conveniently situated off Portsmouth.
I suppose we should be grateful they didn’t use Exocets.
I’m starting to believe it was the work of American bloggers. They’ve got the most mileage out of it anyway.
John’s joke was excellent. Within hours of the blasts I’d already thought of some sick jokes of my own, and have shared them with friends (even those who were actually in the vicinity and suffered smoke inhalation and shock). They weren’t half as funny as John’s, though, which is why I won’t repeat them here.
Not only am I a Londoner, but I have pretty strong views about what happened, and I’d appreciate it if anyone who wants to criticise me read my post first.
Well done, John. I’ll be lining up on your side against the humourless ones.
Jesus. I can not believe the comments on this post. Mate, you made a cynical joke regardless of others’ hysterical bandwagon-jumping. Good on you.
Tosser.
Not tosser.
It has always been a part of the British (more particularly, English) character to find something amusing in even the most horrible times. A dark and ironic sense of humour is something shared by several cultures, but I understand it does not extend as far as those reaches of society who take politics seriously. The more dogmatic left, and of course the libertarians, are renowned for not having a sense of humour.
I’m with Eric. John’s a tosser. But then he is a Londoner.
It used to be a part of the British character to wait till the bodies were cold before taking the piss. Quite a civilised tradition, that.
When was that a tradition, then?
People take things too seriously these days. All is talk of risk, safety, not offending others, being correct. It’s crap, it’s stultifying and it’s washing the colour out of life such that we all are supposed to wear a uniform inoffensive dull grey.
John B,
You sir, are a complete wanker. At least you have the pleasure of knowing you’d get a punch in the face from one side if I met you.
It’s time to follow Israels succesful example and wall off the Islamic world from the civilised world.
Okay Rob, if you did that, that I’d smack the shit out of you. How stupid is that? Not as fucking stupid as your second comment.
John’s not a tosser, and I fear us Londoner’ are going to get a lot of advice on what we should think over the next few days from people who up to today didn’t have a good word to say for the place.
Rob – you’re a cunt.
Squander Two/Euan Gray
You both have good points. As is often the case, the truth is probebly between you both.
johnb – a good day to have a pop at the Daily mail, eh?
I notice above that your instincts also lead you to ferret around on LGF. What class.
Wanker.
I’m watching Working Lunch, where they are reporting on the selling of shares, with a 3% fall in the value of the FTSE 100. I wouldn’t be willing to put my money on a bet against a story about house prices and these explosions appearing in the Express or Mail over the next week.
Why shouldn’t he look on LGF and the like? When you have people on this site calling for ‘walling off the Islamic world’, it is important to know what sort of reactionary opinions are galvanised by events like this.
So, who has the least class, John, or LGFers? Or, John or Rob Read? John has a pop at the Daily Mail – which is a distingusting paper. Rob decides that the Islamic world needs to be walled off.
Doesn’t John live in Finsbury Park? How would this "walling off the Islamic world" work there, then?
Surprised you didn’t crowbar ‘tax slavery’ into your comment somewhere, Rob Read. You fucking little arsehole.
> When was that a tradition, then?
You have to ask? Sad, sad.
Rob,
The Israelis haven’t walled off the Islamic world. Plenty of Arabs and Muslims living happily in Israel. They’ve walled off the Palestinian world.
I actually came on here this morning to ask if John was all right, but then I saw that he thought petty point-scoring against people who disagree with his politics was the real priority right now, so fuck him. He just insulted a large number of people. Why it should be a surpise that he might get insulted back is beyond me. That’s not telling Londoners what to think; it’s retalliation, same as usual. And, really, are Daily-Mail jokes still funny? They’re like mother-in-law jokes these days. Oo, Daily Mail readers, eh? They’re so mean, they put a fork in the sugar bowl! Take Melanie Philips… please! I’ll be here all night, laydeesngenlmn.
The only thing we convincingly know about al Qaeda’s aims is that they want a proper war between the Islamic world and the West. If cunts like Rob were in charge, they’d get one. Fortunately, despite Tony’s many faults, they won’t.
I’m pleased to report that none of my close friends appear to be dead (which I didn’t know when I posted the original Mail headline. In the Blitz, our ancestors joked as the bombs fell, dammit). Hope other Londoners reading this are similarly lucky.
S2 – never mind calling it sad, how about answering my question? WHEN were the British/English ever so civilised and decent as to wait a while before poking fun?
Daily Mail jokes are still funny. This is England, we can laugh at the Daily Mail any time. Asylum seekers die from time to time too, and the Mail and Express are quite OK about it.
S2 – never mind calling it sad, how about answering my question? WHEN were the British/English ever so civilised and decent as to wait a while before poking fun?
Case in point: Richard Whiteley’s corpse was still warm when people started pointing out that ‘pneumonia’ is a nine-letter word with all the vowels.
(Actually, I get the feeling Whiteley himself might have appreciated that one…)
(obviously that goes for non-Londoners with friends & family in London, too. Much as we like to mock your provincial ways.)
S2 – who’ve I insulted? If you mean people who think we should wall off the Muslims and people who’ll use today’s tragedy as an excuse to rail about ID cards and immigration, then yes, and I stand by that. If you mean the victims and their families, then no, I haven’t.
However horrid the circumstances, life goes on. Even when people die, for the rest life goes on. One of the ways, perhaps the most instinctive way, of dealing with horrible things is to make a joke about it.
If you refuse to allow people to do this, then they internalise all the bad feelings and become bitter, twisted, humourless gits who will probably start looking for flats in Islington.
Remember – life is a terminal condition. Lighten up already.
John isn’t a tosser. "You’ve got to laugh" is a British tradition. We had humour right through the last two World Wars when the death toll was often incomprehensible.
Rob, walling of the Islamic world, how is that going to work then? Should we deport them, or save the plane fares and just gas them like badgers?
When Princess Diana died, Private Eye rightly took the piss out of the ludicrously OTT (and hilariously hypocritical) media coverage, and they were hit with a deluge of hate mail from the terminally humourless.
Looking back, that issue looks like one of the sanest and most rational responses to an outbreak of collective insanity – I defended them to the hilt at the time, and have seen no reason to change my mind since.
Your daughters been blown up, you say? What a perfect opportunity to slag off Daily Mail readers! Yay!
No, that’s not insulting.
Ah, fuck it; I’m off. I spent half an hour trying to figure out whether my father was alive earlier, and I’m not in the mood for the sort of petty self-absorbed spiteful shit that’s so popular here.
If you want to start a pissing contest, I’ve just spent the entire morning trying to find out whether five of my colleagues are alive. Not blood relations, admittedly, but I don’t think that makes much difference under these particular circumstances.
And John wasn’t slagging off Daily Mail readers, he was slagging off the Daily Mail – a small but crucial difference.
At least this site gets updated. There’s been nothing new on BBC News 24 for ages.
S2, I hope that you take the comments on LGF personally too, and any comments made over the next few weeks. I hope that you take Charles Clarkes inevitable use of these events as rhetorical support for ID cards as disrepectful to you.
Lots of people, including me, have been trying to find out where our friends and family are.
I’ve been trying to fucking *tell* my family and friends that I’m alive (I am) so I will also have a go at the moral high ground here. The business news will report the effect on the FTSE (which is meaningless, btw; all the genuine orders have been pulled and the 3% fall represents a very low volume of trades that had to be executed no matter what), the sports news will tell us what sporting events have had to be cancelled, the Daily Mail will tell us about house prices and scary asylum seekers and satirical news websites will continue to make jokes. It’s called "keeping a stiff upper lip" and it’s as British as you like. By the way if anyone wants to blind-punch John they had better bring some mates as I currently count five of us on his side.
This is the best thing I’ve read so far today, and I’m a Londoner, if that matters. Two of the attacks were on my mum’s route to work, one of the others is right next to where many people I know are today.
This diffusion of seriousness, the ability to get things in perspective, is much more important than most things in life. Us in the West today are the only people in human history, perhaps, who have not had to face massive mortality on a regular basis. Historically speaking, we just don’t have a decent sense of perspective.
If we can’t use these attacks to get things in perspective, to think about life in a way that is neither tub-thumping nor hyper-sentimental, then we’re all fools.
Besides, it’s fucking true.
John B,
Saw yr post shortly after spending a couple of hours trying to track down my wife, and nearly wet myself.
Spot on, mate.
John B – Good on you, and don’t be intimidated by these sanctimonious, grubby schmucks. These people want to exploit the natural anger against this series of atrocities in order to bludgeon anyone who’s views are not Correct and Decent.
Fuck them.
By the way, checking on that LGF thread John linked to, we see that the commentators are not just calling for walling off the ‘Islamic world’, but for ‘killing them all’.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5124244,00.html
Heheh. I love the gag.
Britain is famous for gallows humour.
You cunts that can’t take a joke, can lick my hairy balls.
Cocks.
Lots of love
Damian
You’ve to keep everything in perspective people, small bangs on a creaky transport system won’t bring down the Western World (Read London). Metronet were doing quite well enough on there own.
If that Blunkett or Clarke make any comments about ID cards or internship I think I’ll have to start my own Jihad aganist opportunistic cunts….
I presume you mean internment. Internship would imply that Clarke’s solution to the problem is to hire some young ladies to "work" in his office…
The thought of nubile young ladies working Big Ears is almost as nauseating as detention without trial based on skin colour.
Euan, this thread is back on topic
Matt,
Ur a cunt 2.
Andrew Bartlett,
See you outside Aldgate-East Mosque anytime you want. I may get the shit kicked out of me but my pride is intact.
I may get the shit kicked out of me but my pride is intact.
Yes, you’ll still be able to look in the mirror and say ‘what a cunt’.
fuck me. why isn’t everyone down the pub? surely you’ve all been let off work?
"I presume you mean internment"
Err yes, got slightly muddled as I was talking to the German interns at the office when writing the post. Doh!
Mind you good old Charlie ‘doing a Clinton’ would be comedy. Can you impeach (or equivalent) a cabinet minister in this fine land?
The terrorists must not be allowed to rob us of our right to take the piss out the Daily Mail whenever and wherever we want.
Enough of this politically correct crap. If I’d been caught in the bomb-blast, I would expect my death to be mercilessly plundered as a source of bad-taste comedy. But I would come back from the dead and haunt with all the gruesome terror I could muster any LGF-esque cunt who wished to turn it into "the West" versus "the Arabs" issue.
It used to be a part of the British character to wait till the bodies were cold before taking the piss.
Sanctimonious ignorant bullshit.
Glad you’re ok John. Best wishes to all in London.
The Liverpool Echo’s headline on the sinking of the Titanic was apocryphally "Wirral Man Feared Drowned".
I was almost certainly closer to being blown up today than anyone commenting here, so I’m going to have the definitive word, as I shake in shock while trying to consume beer as quickly as possible. John isn’t a tosser. If you can’t laugh now, when can you? And that was funny.
Apparently it was just on the news that France has surrendered.
Further sanctimonious cuntishness is available at the Drink-Soaked Trots website, btw, with at least a couple of "why the bombings mean we must support my politics" posts already in evidence.
You can laugh
or
You can cry
Makes no difference as long as you are able to punch the enemy between the eyes.
This thread contains even more potty-mouth talk than one of John’s posts.
Anyway, everyone knows the French Secret Service did it in a Rainbvow Warrior stylee, as revenge for the Olympic defeat. At this very moment their agents are swigging Calvados on board the aircraft-carrier Charles de Gaulle, so conveniently situated off Portsmouth.
I suppose we should be grateful they didn’t use Exocets.
I’m starting to believe it was the work of American bloggers. They’ve got the most mileage out of it anyway.
John’s joke was excellent. Within hours of the blasts I’d already thought of some sick jokes of my own, and have shared them with friends (even those who were actually in the vicinity and suffered smoke inhalation and shock). They weren’t half as funny as John’s, though, which is why I won’t repeat them here.
Not only am I a Londoner, but I have pretty strong views about what happened, and I’d appreciate it if anyone who wants to criticise me read my post first.
Well done, John. I’ll be lining up on your side against the humourless ones.
Jesus. I can not believe the comments on this post. Mate, you made a cynical joke regardless of others’ hysterical bandwagon-jumping. Good on you.