By God, She Can Leap
It’s been a while since we’ve had a classic Guardian sentence. Thank goodness, then, for Tracy Van Slyke, who can conjure elaborate grievance from a cartoon about sentient trains:
For the record, all the “villains” on Thomas and Friends are the dirty diesel engines. I’d like to think there was a good environmental message in there, but when the good engines pump out white smoke and the bad engines pump out black smoke – and they are all pumping out smoke – it’s not hard to make the leap into race territory.
You see, that “leap into race territory” isn’t hard to make because dirtier cartoon train engines producing darker cartoon smoke obviously constitutes a “message about race.” When she’s not explaining the devilish racial subtext of animated puffer trains, Ms Van Slyke “writes about the intersection of social justice and pop culture.”
Via Tom Foster in the comments here.
At last- peak Guardian has been attained.
I see someone in the comments has pointed out the difference between smoke and steam. Come to think of it though water vapour is much more of greenhouse gas than CO2, so obviously not only is steam racist but it’s killing the planet as well, she’s definitely on to something, or on something, one or the other.
Ms Van Slyke “writes about the intersection of social justice and pop culture.”
Translation: wasted years on joke degree, practically unemployable.
At last- peak Guardian has been attained.
Oh, I disagree. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in seven years of doing this, it’s that no amount of absurdity will stop a determined Guardianista signalling her concern for the issues of the day. And thereby letting us know how much better than us she is.
I think that ‘leap into race territory’ has ‘proved’ that opposition to coal-fired power plants is racist.
David: May I schedule Punishment Booth appointments for all those green racists? 🙂
All of which shows that the Guardian can troll at least as hard as the Mail when it puts its mind to it.
The grauniad is a left wing attempt to copy the Mail’s success.
“The grauniad is a left wing attempt to copy the Mail’s success.”
Is the Mail one of those newspapers famous for its Page Three women? Then I mortally fear what the Guardian might do to imitate that.
I used to read this sort of tosh in the graun and allow myself to feel irritated that such airhead views could result in any sort of employment for the writer, let alone circulation to a wider audience. Plus, one has to feel sorry for the author’s 3 year old child, burdened with such an angry, anal-retentive mother.
However, poor child notwithstanding, now I just throw my head back and laugh – it is just so deliciously beyond parody! But more importantly, the more extreme politically-correct nonsense such as this is chucked out by the lefties, the more marginalised and mocked they become. That the graun both publishes this bunkum while simultaneously advocating leftwing governments does absolutely no favours to leftwing MPs. With the help of Ms Van Slyke and her ilk, hopefully a sensible Tory government (?with UKIP pact) will be returned in 2015.
I like the trains that blow white smoke. I don’t like the trains that blow black smoke. I prefer white people to black people for all the reasons we all know about … namely violent behavior by blacks is far greater than the reverse.
I like conservatives better than liberals because conservative values make more sense and liberals seem to be very confused, and are always in contradiction because they lie too much and can’t remember what’s what.
The fact is that I listen to my innate urges … those are what developed over millennia to help us make better decisions and to keep safe from others. I do not deny those things and my decision making has been spot on for my 70 years so far.
I don’t particularly hate what I don’t trust or don’t prefer … I simply exercise the right to not have any of them in my life and to not support the phony multiculturalism that is nothing but a design to rid the world of white christian dominance.
Tracy Van Slyke is a fellow at the The Opportunity Agenda, where she researches and writes about the intersection of social justice and pop culture.
Phew – it’s an American organisation. At least she is not subsidised by the UK taxpayer.
It seems the dippy fool is writing about some American TV bowdlerisation of Awdry’s lovely children’s books. She does not seem to understand that it’s fiction. It’s a story. It doesn’t have to be PC. It doesn’t need a careful balance of genders and locomotion-ethnicity. It doesn’t have to be anything other than what the author wanted to write and people want to read. I do wish people like her could recognise that people should be free to read what they enjoy to their children, while I suppose she can be free to read: “The Fascinating Fairytale of Feisty Fatima’s Freetrade Felafel” to her little boy, poor child.
When she’s not explaining the devilish racial subtext of animated puffer trains, Ms Van Slyke “writes about the intersection of social justice and pop culture.”
We’ve gone so far past it I can’t even see the parody horizon from here.
There’s no such thing as “social justice”. It’s an oxymoron(and contrary to what leftards would have you believe, an “oxymoron” isn’t an old bleached out republican, ie, old white guy…, but I digress). Justice is justice – no adjective is appropriate. “social Justice is an agenda, not justice, and the correct term is “social retribution”. Ie, somebody pays…
I must say I disagree with all this criticism of Ms.Van Slyk. I stand in awe of anyone who can type a sentence with their head up their ass.
I know I’m repeating myself, but to understand what they want, and what they mean by “social justice” you only need to add an “-ist” to the “social”.
… when the good engines pump out white smoke and the bad engines pump out black smoke – and they are all pumping out smoke – it’s not hard to make the leap into race territory.
I just can’t my head around which is worse: that she’s willing to win notoriety at any cost to her dignity and throws out outrageous click-bait in the hope that someone will notice her … or if she actually believes that what she’s saying counts as meaningful thought.
I think it might be the latter … could so easily be the former.
How is anyone supposed to tell?
I think it might be the latter … could so easily be the former.
If a person’s political persona is geared to signalling and pretension – being seen to hold the views one thinks one ought to be seen holding, at least by other, equally pretentious people – then maybe the distinction isn’t quite so clear. And if a person is accustomed to a certain kind of unrealism and dogmatic affectation, and often wins approval with it, and in-group status and a salary, where’s the incentive to register the absurdity of it?
As is so well-documented on this site, this is COMPETITIVE grievance-mongering. Interesting that so many of these airheads, all of them no doubt fully on board with anti-competition, anti-market ideologies, nonetheless strive so hard to outdo last week’s inanities. Those who, if put into positions of power, would not hesitate to use the state to crush markets are busy creating their own markets in ideological supremacy.
There is so much institutional racism, everywhere you look. Even in your electric wiring – in the US, the black and red wires are live and DEADLY, while the white wire is neutral and SAFE. And of course, we all use red lights to signify DANGER and yellow for CAUTION(an obvious insult to certain races).
Such a target-rich environment…
My guess is, she flunked out of the Diesel Mechanics course at trade school. After that, there was nothing left other than slinging trash in the pages of The Guardian.
A little OT, but for years on stories about pollution CBC News used stock footage of a nuclear reactor pumping out white steam on a subzero day. It was a spectacular shot with a huge column of vapour expanding in the frigid air. People would regularly write in to say that the illustrated “pollution” was actually water, but they just kept on using the shot for stories about oil refineries, paint factories, whatever.
And if a person is accustomed to a certain kind of unrealism and dogmatic affectation, and often wins approval with it, and in-group status and a salary, where’s the incentive to register the absurdity of it?
The relationship between reward (not necessarily financial; social matters as much or more I suspect) and motivation can be really quite engrossing. For instance …
… just the other day, I took two books out of a nearby university library, one was a book about Pierre Bourdieu, the other about Isaiah Berlin. OK, so far, so what? (You may well be thinking).
Well, it turns out both books were published in the same year and, of course, the subjects of both books were more or less contemporaries (while Berlin is about 10 years older than Bourdieu, they both came to prominence from the mid-60s).
I found it mildly amusing that the book on Bourdieu – quelle surprise – is absolutely riddled with pencil marks, underlinings, crossings out, highlightings, marginal notes etc. – a veritable ‘palimpsest’ as the jargon goes, of other readers’ writings. The Berlin book, on the other hand, is as clean and smooth as a baby’s bottom.
Now of course I accept that perhaps it is simply that Berlin has fallen out of fashion and is no longer relevant; but I am nevertheless willing to place a wager that if I go to the librarians and ask for a comparison of the number of times that books by the following …:
Bourdieu, Derrida, Foucault, Zizek, Spivak, Babha, Graeber, Lenin …
… have been taken out on loan by students and the number of times books by these others have been taken out …:
Berlin, Hayek, Smith, Ricardo, Hume, Burke, Malthus, Sowell …
… that the likelihood will be, evan across a wide range of subjects, that loans of the former group of authors will vastly outnumber that of the latter.
OK, so I’m willing to accept that there may be something rather pedestrian about this observation – even so, I think it demonstrates very vividly what the system of reward and motivation on a very wide range of the so-called ‘soft’ subjects of humanities and social sciences is based upon.
Surely, even if you were someone who loved Marx yet despised Smith (for example), you would still be capable of seeing the value of having your students study both of these writers as opposed to just one or the other? (Or even worse, obsess about really rather minor differences between e.g. Foucault and Derrida and then present them as if they were real and serious differences!!!)
I blame electromagnetic radiation…
Even in your electric wiring – in the US, the black and red wires are live and DEADLY, while the white wire is neutral and SAFE.
I thought green was ground, white was poz, and black was neg.
Only one way to find out…
dicentra | July 23, 2014 at 01:53:I thought green was ground, white was poz, and black was neg.
120VAC (single-phase) wiring: black is hot, white is neutral, green (where it appears) is ground.
240VAC (two-phase) wiring: black is hot, red is hot (opposite phase), white is neutral, green (where it appears) is ground.
Thanks, Rich.
My foray into electronics was brief indeed. Glad I got the green wire right.
Even the comments in the Guardian in reaction to that…. um…. article are over fifty per cent on the side of the author being loopy or intentionally writing nonsense.
I’m calling it for what it is – it’s a piss take. Has to be….
Being a father of a son who, at one time, adored Thomas and all the other trains on the Island of Sodor, I want to say with a great deal of passion that – “Thank God that people like this don’t have an real power, especially to decide what my children can and can’t watch”.
I think it might be the latter … could so easily be the former.
Having been mocked relentlessly by tens of thousands of people, Ms Van Slyke now claims her article is a “funny takedown of Thomas the Tank Engine” and she’s apparently pleased with its “controversial” status. By which she means near-unanimous derision as incompetent claptrap. Which is odd, given how closely the mocked article matches her other writing on “the intersection of social justice and pop culture.” Presumably, we’re supposed to believe that the inaccuracies, dogmatism and general failures of reason were somehow of no importance – to a “progressive” activist, researcher and writer – and that therefore the Guardian is now trolling its own readers.
I just don’t know what to say anymore.
Interesting that her reaction is a lot like those wretched pomo artists who have copped their fair share of ridicule.
Maybe there’s a course you can take…
Interesting that so many of these airheads, all of them no doubt fully on board with anti-competition, anti-market ideologies, nonetheless strive so hard to outdo last week’s inanities.
The irony is that Ms Slyke and the like are a product of competitive market capitalism. It is because the Graun is desperate to make a profit, or at least a vague turn towards one, that they publish this sort of dreck. Ms Slyke is what the market does to journalism in the internet age. She earns her keep.
It’s an oxymoron(and contrary to what leftards would have you believe, an “oxymoron” isn’t an old bleached out republican, ie, old white guy…, but I digress).
It doesn’t mean ‘contradiction in terms’ either. It seems there are tards in both directions.
Ms Van Slyke now claims her article is a “funny takedown of Thomas the Tank Engine”
Yes… it was all a joke, you guys! Tee hee! I mean… lulz.
More of Tracy’s comedic japes:
http://tracyvanslyke.com
“Is Jem the latest in Hollywood’s string of fake “strong female” characters?”
You know, Jem… the 1980’s cartoon for little girls, about a pop star and her friends. She had pink hair and probably solved mysteries or something.
So apparently they’re making a film based on Jem, and Tracy frets that it won’t be as “layered” as the 1980’s Saturday morning cartoon was.
And.. All male development team? ALL MALE DEVELOPMENT TEAM? [..] this is making my blood boil.
Um.. lulz?
Here, Tracy applies her master trolling skills to the weighty issue of little plastic toys:
I would like them to add the spectrum of Lego women who are rock n’roll stars, teachers, adventurers (Indiana Jane), karate experts, Presidents, reporters, artists, and more. Let’s also make them some ladies of color.
I want this for the girls, but also for the boys to show them lady Legos can do as much (if not more) and be as much fun as the boy Legos.
And Tracy was a fan of Pixar’s delightful children’s films, until – uh oh! – she found out that Pixar is run by white (“pale”) men:
Of the eight people name checked and quoted in this piece (also authored by the male head of Pixar)—surprise—all eight of them are men!
I am not the first or probably the last person to question the male domination train at Pixar […] this is probably why most Pixar movies (except for their recent film Brave) is dominated by the XY chromosome even if that looks like a rat, a car, a boy, a toy or a monster.
My advice to Tracy’s son: run, kid. Run.
The irony is that Ms Slyke and the like are a product of competitive market capitalism. It is because the Graun is desperate to make a profit, or at least a vague turn towards one, that they publish this sort of dreck.
Eh, it’s the fault of capitalism that anti capitalists spout gibberish ?
Rafi – Translation: wasted years on joke degree, practically unemployable.
Joke degree? JOKE DEGREE???
I’ll have you know she holds “a double BA in Journalism and Mass Communications and Literature, Science and the Arts from the University of Iowa.”
So she’s practically scientist.
Eh, it’s the fault of capitalism that anti capitalists spout gibberish ?
It’s the fault of capitalism that they do it in thee public prints instead of their bedrooms.
Thornavis – “it’s the fault of capitalism that anti capitalists spout gibberish ?”
Sort of.
I saw a Spanish TV show from the 1970’s that shed some light on this. It was called Mundo de Mierda…
In a pre-industrial society like what the Greens dream about they’d be too busy digging ditches by hand and barely subsisting on organically grown GM-free turnips to spend time on Comment Is Free.
In the Soviet Union they’d have been assigned labour based on what the State wanted of them. The worker’s paradise had no use for communications degrees, it’d be the shoe factory for Our Trace.
So capitalism is to blame for creating the excess wealth that allows differently useful people to make a living out of crying about the iniquitous system that puts food in their bellies and an iPad in their ethically-sourced canvas satchels.
If you’re really, really good at it, you can become a multimillionaire like Michael “capitalism is evil” Moore.
And now here’s Minnow to tell us why Michael Moore isn’t a tosspot. Because Capitalism.
The worker’s paradise had no use for communications degrees
Well, quite, it’s the free market that gives us those. Ironic.
I didn’t know the meaning of “bored to tears” until I saw this show for the first time. Oh my god.
“Carriage A asked carriage B to go on a drive. They went from here to there.
Then they came back.
Then they said “what a jolly trip”.”
The only thing that comes near in the boredom stakes is the Lego cartoon.
I didn’t know the meaning of “bored to tears” until I saw this show for the first time. Oh my god.
Try reading them aloud. It’s worse. That’s one more thing I find mystifying about this article, avoiding the Thomas stories doesn’t require ideological motives, it just requires that you don’t have a tin ear and/or Ghandi-like reserves of patience. They are sooo wordy. Also, ‘Sodor’ is the most sinister place name in children’s fiction.
I’ll have you know she holds “a double BA in . . . .
. . . . which gives her a timestamp of mid to late nineties, as I recall.
For a time before that there was the bit about one being seen being in college, then one being seen getting a double major, before moving on to the fad of the recent few years where college is where one does one’s extended high school or etc, before moving on to the diploma mill variety of getting my masters . . . and where, about two, three years ago, the diploma mill fad shifted to my one year masters . . .
The next shift has already started, where emails have been turning up from rather prosaic administrators who clearly reflexively sign their names as Dr. Firstname Lastname . . . .
The related funding bubble got noted ages ago, and has been ready to pop for some time . . . . . Here as well, with everything else noted of the pretentious;
Originally, when one would particularly study some subject, in time one would be able to demonstrate in all applicable circumstances that one knew the studied material. In time, a variety of shortcut was developed, where the study and certain knowledge was—and actually is still—required, but as a result one could get a college degree, a masters degree, a PhD, and the degree would serve that shortcut demonstration of capability. However, actual study is not what the weak or deluded are capable of. Actually working towards and earning an actual college degree, an actual masters degree, an actual PhD is not what the weak or deluded are capable of. Instead, what the weak and deluded have been demanding is that the piece of paper be separated from the original meaning of actually having skill and knowledge. At the same time, while the weak and deluded have been able to wave about more and more amounts of fake money—that fraudulent credit—more and more of the same sort of weak and deluded have started diploma mills that they call colleges and universities. The only purpose of any such diploma mill is to print a cheap piece of paper for a massively large amount of money, so that the weak and deluded will then claim to have such a college degree, or masters degree, or PhD. Totally unsurprising, the next occurrence after the creation of the wallpaper bubble is when it pops. All fake academic wallpaper printed after a particular date or from a particular source entirely is quite correctly be declared worthless. There is much enraged screaming and fuming from all the weak and deluded, but such histrionics are no replacement for someone who matter of factly demonstrates the genuine and actual knowledge of the actual subject.
All in all, at all times, the only success that is ever achieved by the weak and the deluded is to be extremely arrogantly proud of having a definite je ne sai pas, all while vehemently insisting that everyone recognize this at all times. And yes, such recognition is particularly demanded of those with even only the slightest understanding of colloquial French.
Basically, the all time fantasy of what the hipster would like to be able to be imagined as mistaken for is a grand and uniform combination of the likes of Richard Feynman, George Patton, Rudolf Nureyev, Peter Cook, Dwight Eisenhower, Norman Rockwell, Al Grey, Richard Burton, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Albert Einstein, Dudley Moor, Salvador Dali, Omar Bradley, and Peter O’Toole—or the female equivalent—, whereas the reality of the hipster since before being called the preppy, through the yuppy, on to the hipster, and whatever may follow, is, has been, and always will be, a sort of piss-poor, watered down blend of Edward VIII and Douglas MacArthur.
Also, ‘Sodor’ is the most sinister place name in children’s fiction.
Well it’s a real place, sort of. Give the Rev Awdry his due, whatever you think of the books he went to quite a lot of trouble to work out a decent backstory, based on actual history and geography. An intelligent child might find it quite instructive to learn something of that.
the all time fantasy of what the hipster would like to be … Richard Feynman, George Patton, Rudolf Nureyev, Peter Cook, Dwight Eisenhower, Norman Rockwell, Al Grey, Richard Burton, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Albert Einstein, Dudley Moor, Salvador Dali, Omar Bradley, and Peter O’Toole
Norman Rockwell?!
Presumably, we’re supposed to believe that the inaccuracies, dogmatism and general failures of reason were somehow of no importance – to a “progressive” activist, researcher and writer – and that therefore the Guardian is now trolling its own readers.
Snork.
I was nervous when I posted this thing that it’d turn out to be a parody & I’d have egg on my face… seems not.
The race line was a knee-slapper, but more interesting is the Freudian slip at the beginning: the author says the show has “enough subversive messages to make me turn it off for good”.
Subversive, huh?
She’s a “fellow”.
Snork.
Hal – you’ve got to hand it to her. Most people doing two degrees would probably stumble on at least one useful subject. But she rolled the academic dice and came up with snake eyes.
I can’t imagine people with her qualifications from the University of Iowa are in great demand. Despite that, she has a husband and a child, so she’s doing something right.
Minnow-oh-oh, little China girl – ‘Sodor’ is the most sinister place name in children’s fiction.
It’s a pleasing portmanteau of Sodom and Mordor.
But is it more sinister than Castle Greyskull, the totenkopfk-themed home of the goodies in He-Man?
It’s a pleasing portmanteau of Sodom and Mordor.
Steve wins cake.
I’m going to go beat the hell out of my car battery for being racist.
The black cable is negative….
”Sodor’ is the most sinister place name in children’s fiction’.
Whereas ‘the Desolation of Smaug’, ‘Tashbaan’ and ‘Cybertron’ are positively homely …
The worker’s paradise had no use for communications degrees
Well, quite, it’s the free market that gives us those
Not unless you define ‘free market’ as any economic system with less than total state control. In America at least employers are forbidden from attempting to measure job applicant intelligence themselves because racism, so they’ve had to substitute requirements for credentials signifying educational achievement. It turns out that not everyone is capable of educational achievement as classically understood, so other credentials have been invented for them.
Communications degrees are a response to government-inflicted distortion of the free market.
Steve “…and barely subsisting on organically grown GM-free turnips…”
Since the thread topic is racism, I recently learned via Terry Pratchett that ‘swede’ is a British synonym for ‘turnip’. So is that raaaacist? Or is it impossible to be racist towards people who are so blonde?
Enoch Powell commented that “putting the word _social_ in front of another word, gives it its opposite meaning.”
“…gives it its opposite meaning”
Thank you David. Well said.
Steve, don’t listen to David.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVInBsib04M
The Evil That Cartoon Trains Do (lives after them?)
… when the good engines pump out white smoke and the bad engines pump out black smoke – and they are all pumping out smoke – it’s not hard to make the leap into race territory.
When I was a kid watching those Westerns, I couldn’t help but notice that the good guys wore white hats, bad guys black.
That there were never any blacks in these movies at the time made it hard to see how it was all about race.
But if you squinted enough, it became perfectly clear.
The irony is that Ms Slyke and the like are a product of competitive market capitalism. It is because the Graun is desperate to make a profit, or at least a vague turn towards one, that they publish this sort of dreck.
The Graun’s inability to make a profit proves once again, as if further proof is needed, that the market for collectivist rubbish is very small indeed.
The Graun is still digging.
She fills every requirement for the Graun fem beat:
✓ Shrill
✓ Smug
✓ Harpy
✓ Judgmental
✓ Killjoy
ReasonJust want to mirror the thoughts of others who noted that Tracy’s “about face” after a massively negative reaction to the article is reminiscent of modern artists who do something “shocking” (i.e.: complete crap) and then claim that the almost universal condemnation of their work is in fact an affirmation of it. In short, it’s a shameless attempt at saving face.
@ Jeff Guinn re: the Princess article. That’s Australia’s very own Myf Warhurst, long time employee of the ABC, on both television and radio. Of *course* she’d write for the Guardian. There are no right-of-centre people employed by our national broadcaster. Not a one. (OK, except Amanda Vanstone, but that’s on “Counterpoint”, the only radio program that nominally offers a different viewpoint to relentless and prevailing orthodoxy).
Whats she going to say when she learns that they use white smoke at the Vatican to signal the Pope’s election?
And another thing. Isn’t it just a teesny bit hypocritical for Myf to say that girls shouldn’t aspire to attain some kind of exhaled position? Substitute the word “Princess” for “pop star” or “celebrity”. Every teenager wants to be famous, but almost none get to live that particular dream. And the “cattle call” auditions for shows like X-Factor cynically exploit the naive aspirations of young people. Nonetheless, some do indeed become pop stars, famous actors, and, yes, even occasionally, princesses.
So here’s Myf, who for several years was a TV star and fixture of ABC’s “Spicks And Specks”, and I assume she still has her national radio gig on Triple J. So clearly, she has a high profile, ordinary people know her by sight and by name, she gets to meet and mix with all kinds of A-listers, and, due to her celebrity status, she gets the kinds of opportunities that all of us ordinary folk would only ever dream of (hosting The Big Day Out, profiles in glossy weekend newspaper colour supplements, and even op ed pieces in The Guardian). Oh but noooo, the rest of us mustn’t get ideas above our station!
Steve, don’t listen to David.
Steve, don’t listen to ac1. That footage from the Guild of Evil’s rendering plant… er, I mean, processing centre… has been forged, obviously.
The cake is real. I repeat, the cake is real.
…and the processing centre makes shoes for orphans?
(Perhaps I spent too much time with LEGO space sets. The figures were all in space suits. Kindo of difficult to tell their gender that way.)
Oh man. I can resist anything except cake. Even if it’s under a grand piano precariously suspended by fraying rope, with a sign pointing at the cake saying “Obvious Trap”. It’s how my wife tricks me into giving the baby a bath.
pst314 – It’s not easy being racist against the turnip-fondling, flatpack-furniture-dealing, chunky-knitwear-enthusiasts of Sweden. But I am prepared to give it a go. We should invade Sweden in retaliation for Mamma Mia.
Patrick Chester – Did you not know that Lego is racist?
Not surprising since it comes from South Sweden, which they annoyingly try to obfuscate by calling it Denmark.
Cake, racist, Sweeden. All you gotta do is Google, people. It’s like a corollary of Rule 34
http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/04/but_is_it_art_swedish_culture_minister_in_worlds_most_racist_cake-cutting_scandal.html
WTP –
“According to sources Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth was invited to declare festivities open by performing a clitoridectomy on the cake, which she did by removing the cake woman’s labiums
Well, I no longer want cake.
“turnip-fondling”
I laughed out loud at that, Steve. Excellent!
“I can resist anything except cake.”
Here, have this cool portal gun.
I recently learned via Terry Pratchett that ‘swede’ is a British synonym for ‘turnip’.
Terry P is wrong. These are two different beasts although Scots sometimes use ‘turnip’ for both, being parsimonious sorts. Swedes are what I think Merkins call ‘rutabagas’.
“Terry P is wrong”
It is very possible that I am the one who is wrong–that I simply misremember what I read some years ago.
I’m late to the party, but let me remind people that Thomas was in trouble several times before. First and foremost, it’s sexist because all the engines are male and the only females were Clarabel and Annie (Thomas’ coaches). The makers sought to remedy this by creating Daisie the DMU who couldn’t or wouldn’t pull a truck. Of course such stereotypical female behaviour only went to prove how sexist the series really was.
Before that though the books were trouble because we have a world in which the fat controller was the ruler, the engines the upper classes, followed by the middle class coaches and at the bottom of the pile we had the trucks. Lots of them and they were dirty and unruly. Just like the working classes. No one can possibly fail to see that the story is an allegory for the class system. However the artist’s failure to challenge the social hierarchy makes it inherently bourgeois and reactionary.
Believe it or not I read something along those line 30 odd years ago in one of the SWP/IMG/RCP papers. Even my sympathetic mind was struggling to not laugh.
If Scots use turnip for both aren’t they instead being parsnipmonious?