Friday Ephemera
Leaf-blowing drama. || DIY policing. (h/t, Julia) || Needs more dress. || Near miss. || A masterclass in stealth redistribution. || He does this better than you would. || That’s exactly how I would’ve done it. || How deep are the oceans? || “Do you see this?” || Today’s word is oversharing. || An educator speaks. “I’m not anti-white,” says she. || A virtual 1950s electronic music studio. (h/t, Things) || Just tap it, he said. (h/t, STG) || Can pigs jump? || The progressive retail experience (or how to undermine a high-trust society). || “The propped-up people in Victorian ‘post-mortems’ look alive for a much simpler reason.” || A game about a very long baguette. || And finally, because you’d never, ever tire of it.
Update:
I know its creators think it is clever but all I get from it is a sort of prequel to A Clockwork Orange.
Lifted from the comments, where Stephanie is unimpressed by the latest advert for John Lewis home insurance, shared by fellow commenter John. It has to be said, the advert in question does seem to be sending messages that its makers, and executives at John Lewis, don’t quite understand. Presumably, the urge to seem trendy and affirm transgenderism – while coyly hiding behind the fig-leaf excuse that, well, some boys just like to vamp around in their mother’s clothes, so, hey, we’re not really being political – blinded them to other, perhaps more obvious construals. Given the attempt at woke messaging, it does seem odd to associate transgender people with juvenile roleplay, antisocial self-absorption, and gratuitously destructive behaviour. It’s almost funny, in a dark kind of way.
The advert – a theme of which appears to be “I’m fabulous, so fuck you and your possessions!” – isn’t going down terribly well with the department store’s customers, who, it seems, aren’t amused by the thought of their homes being wilfully trashed by an incredibly spoiled child in bad drag. Apparently, we’re meant to find the boy in the advert adorable and affirming. Not, say, selfish and malicious, and old enough to know better. Which is the actual effect.
“The propped-up people in Victorian ‘post-mortems’ look alive for a much simpler reason.”
Er. This is news to people?
“Words fail me.”
At least four times in the comments, someone points out that this is clearly wilful damage and therefore a loss adjuster would laugh in your face, and every time JL posts the same stock reply that “you’re covered for a range of home disasters including unintentional breakages caused by children.”
When you’re in a hole, keep digging, right?
“She gets this condescending look on her face as if I’m the crazy one who doesn’t understand reality”
Oh, if I had a quid for every time I’ve seen that. In fact, it’s probably how the people in charge of John Lewis’s YouTube account look right now…
you’re covered for a range of home disasters including unintentional breakages caused by children
The operative term being “unintentional”. What was shown in that ad was not “unintentional” – that kid seemed to know very well what he was up to. Even if Mummy Dearest never told him no, when it comes time for JL to pay up, I have a sneaky suspicion that the word “unintentional” is getting a different definition that the homeowners think.
And here’s another thing about that JL insurance ad…I’ve never heard of this company but if I currently had insurance with them, I would switch to someone else. Not so much due to the woke commercial but I don’t see these people being in business much longer. They cannot possibly remain financially solvent when literally (ABLILML) begging people to rip them off. Someone has to pay for that one way or the other, be it higher premiums for normal customers or by tightening down on payouts for much more reasonable claims. But hey, I’m no expert insurance guy so what do I know…except maybe reality…
I have a sneaky suspicion that the word “unintentional” is getting a different definition that the homeowners think.
Assuming a rational civil legal system (big assumption, I know…see my previous post) this advert should be plenty of support for their meaning of “unintentional “. As I said, if you have this insurance get out ASAP.
WTF is this Ben Sixsmith guy again?
Englishman living in Poland.
I enjoy his writing- he has a nice way of dissecting items of popular cultural and skewering irritating Guardian-approved media and entertainment figures.
Leaf-blowing drama
I occasionally walk through a wealthy residential area where nobody appears to do their own gardening.
This time of year landscape gardeners clear the fallen leaves from the paths in front of their clients’ houses by blowing them in front of the neighbours’ houses. Whose own landscape gardeners do the same in their turn. A lot of money is spent shifting leaves up and down the street
I think the term she needs is severely educated. Pity she doesn’t read your blog, David.
A lot of money is spent shifting leaves up and down the street
I guess it depends on the landscaping service. The husband and I are not at all wealthy, but we do have a twice-a-month gardening service come in for basic up-keep. Yes, there is use of a leaf blower, but only to gather leaves and clippings into a pile, then outcomes the rake and bag.
Raking alone is not going to leave the yard as tidy as judicious use of the blower. Then again, CA Gov Newscum has also signed into law the banning of single-family residential zoning, so private yards are not long for the world.
Then again, CA Gov Newscum has also signed into law the banning of single-family residential zoning, so private yards are not long for the world.
This is the time to do donuts on his lawn – with a motor grader.
WTP
The John Lewis brand was for many years a byword for excellent service and quality in their up-market high street stores (clothing, furniture, electrics – you name it they sold it).
Then a few years ago it all started to unravel. Their once famous Christmas adverts (see below, a couple of the good ones) took a decided turn for the worst and became woker and woker. The brand image began to suffer and when Covid struck a disproportionate number of stores shut for good. Far from learning their lesson they got ever more stuck into the KoolAid and this latest monstrosity will be the final straw for many former customers.
https://youtu.be/jGY-T4W-BOc
https://youtu.be/iCmvz8rDYVU
So sad. They used to be really good.
“Needs More dress”
NEEDS more Circus Tent
FIFY
Sir David Amess was murdered yesterday by Somali “migrant”. Would it be too much to ask our ruling elites to reconsider the merits of massive immigration from incompatible cultures? Maybe even (a crazy thought) enforcing the borders?
Darleen: what’s ‘single-family residential zoning’? (Bernard Shaw comes to mind: you’ll recall that he described Britain and America as ‘two nations separated by a common language’.)
pst314: the reports describe the murderer as ‘a British man of Somalian origin’, which normally means that his parents, rather than he himself, are Somali immigrants. I’d guess that he’s one of a rather large class: the first generation born in the UK, and who are frequently more ‘radical’ – i.e. fanatical – than their parents.
pst314: “Sir David Amess was murdered yesterday by a Somali ‘migrant’.”
Thanks for filling in details not reported by the local Australian [left-leaning] ‘The Age’ newspaper which could only report “a 25 year old man has been arrested.” As I write the 7:00 AM ABC radio news – also tilted leftwards – only mention a ’25 year old man’. I guess the origins of the alleged killer don’t fit the PC story-line.
Darleen: what’s ‘single-family residential zoning’?
In California, it’s called “R1” zoning, meaning the neighborhood developed is restricted to building freestanding homes on a lot with setbacks for front/back yards and a minimal side yard passage between front/back. Usually garage space of 1 or more parking spaces also required.
That is now gone. Anyone can now buy a home in any neighborhood and immediately divide it up for multi-family dwellings on that single lot up to 4 units. Can be anything from a grannie flat over the garage to a two-story/2-3 apartment building in the backyard. Cities and counties can’t stop it.
NYTimes actually just covered this change (of course, THEY like it) in the north San Diego area. Interestingly, my husband grew up in the general area (he attended Clairemont High aka the fictional Ridgemont High).
John Stossel asks if they shouldn’t End Racial Preferences at Colleges?:
Stossel: “I don’t think they’re discriminating against Asians. But I assume they’re discriminating for Blacks and Latinos…”
Tosser: “I wouldn’t label it ‘discrimination’. I would label it as ‘levelling the playing field’.”
Stossel: “Isn’t that discrimination?”
Tosser: “No – it’s ‘race conscious assistance’!”
Sue,
In the US most cities and towns* are divided into zones, areas set aside by usage, e.g., commercial, residential, industrial, and so on.
Single family residential is an area for single family houses only, i.e., no apartments, condos, duplexes, etc. The noise from Gov Nuisance means that a developer could theoretically come in, buy a single family house, tear it down, and put up condos.
You will be surprised to learn that occasionally politicians in charge of zoning are persuaded to change zones, for example, Megalo Corp wants to put in a factory so by magic single family housing is turned into industrial. Amazingly this sort of thing generally happens where land is cheap, i.e., lower income areas.
*(In some smaller towns there is no zoning that you would notice – in my neck of the woods we have a couple houses between the fire station and a car repair shop next to a bar).
a developer could theoretically come in, buy a single family house, tear it down, and put up condos.
Nothing much theoretical when you read the NYTimes article I linked above.
“No – it’s ‘race conscious assistance’!”
This is just such infuriating nonsense. To give “preference” to the brown-skinned kid applying today because some OTHER brown skinned kid got a raw deal 50 years ago is like deliberately rationing food to white-skinned families today because some black-skinned families were kept out of grocery stores during Jim Crow.
ARGH.
This is just such infuriating nonsense.
Believing that there is such a thing as Good Racism is the foundation of Critical Race Theory, and much woke self-delusion.
There isn’t. There’s just racism.
John Lewis ad: Having a kid that young vamping around is child abuse.
When people take the law into their own hands because the cops are missing or corrupt, things happen that liberals may not like. In the bad old days, lynching was common for this reason, and more white than black were hung. I read an account of a market in Nigeria. A merchant cried “stop thief” as a young man ran away. The crowd closed around the man and beat him to death. Did he really steal something? Did he get the death penalty for stealing a single mango? We don’t know.
like deliberately rationing food to white-skinned families today because some black-skinned families were kept out of grocery stores during Jim Crow.
Don’t give them ideas.
The Boston Pride organization celebrated a half-century-plus of existence by collapsing into social panic and cancelling itself.
The same thing is happening to the Romance Writers of America. The organization has been imploding for several years — more young romance writers are learning they could make far more money self-publishing — so membership has been going down. Courtney Milan started stirring the shit a few years ago accusing the group of racism, so when the new president came in, he convened the board and decided to ignore the bylaws and institute double secret probation on her. This came out, including the fact that the new president wasn’t qualified to run for office. Everybody resigned.
Then, the magazine came out with an illustration in it of a white woman helping a black woman by the hand, and that revived the mob. More writers left the group, or silently let their membership lapse.
The final straw was the last round of novel awards. After renaming the awards from the Ritas to one honoring a woman POC, the best novel prize was given to a very problematic novel, in which the hero participated in the Battle of Wounded Knee, regretted his act, and was redeemed. The book was written by a Christian woman.
The mob howled. The board, instead of backing the prize winner (whose book had passed through several layers of judging), self-immolated and withdrew the prize.
This was the final straw. A slow membership decline accelerated into free-fall. A number of local groups have disbanded. An informal poll of the remaining groups revealed that about half of them will follow.
Which is a pity. For a long time, the RWA was a powerful voice for authors. Recently, it backed the #disneymustpay movement (they’d acquired the Star Wars line of novels and told the authors, including Alan Dean Foster, “Royalties? Never heard of it.). They were probably the only author group that Jeff Bezos would have picked up their phone call.
But they kneeled to the woke mob and they paid the price.
…’a British man of Somalian origin’, which normally means that his parents, rather than he himself, are Somali immigrants…
Could be.
I would not, however, accept that as a legitimate argument against restricting immigration from Somalia, but rather the reverse.
Government policy would already have made immigration from such countries very difficult if those murdered by these “migrants” were primarily leftist politicians and intellectuals, and illegal immigration would be both very difficult and very dangerous. (And the penalties for all who facilitated that law-breaking would be equally harsh.)
This is just such infuriating nonsense.
But very necessary nonsense: If dark-skinned people still demonstrate inferior ability and achievement then they must be given special privileges so that they may reap rewards that they are not entitled to. The fact that this will harm them and those they will supposedly serve in their new professions matters not at all–not to them and not to leftists. Are you looking forward to ever more unqualified black professors, engineers, technicians, accountants, lawyers, police officers, firemen, pilots, and physicians?
Darleen: what’s ‘single-family residential zoning’?
See here for an overview.
Modest proposal: If we are to have racial quotas for skilled professions, then those who demand quotas should be required to get professional services from affirmative action hires. It would be the height of equity. 😀
Another modest proposal: It is a violation of international law for members of Oxfam and Amnesty International to defend themselves from violent assault. Not even to save their lives.
So sad. They used to be really good.
But…not at insurance? From an American perspective that seems like an odd service for a merchandise retailer. Not that similar odd combinations were not once prevalent here (thinking Sears & Roebuck way back) but not recently. The trajectory you describe sounds like something similar our major grocer in Florida and now much of Georgia may fall prey to. Publix was once top of the line and produced heart warming commercials especially around Thanksgiving/Christmas that were much like JL’s. But they’ve been pushing more and more organic stuff and making more woke commercials and wokeness in general while I notice the quality has slipped and they engage in more and more deceptive pricing/advertising. Our local Georgia (Ingles) grocer for whom I once held in low regard actually now has better sea food and produce than Publix. And better pricing. The corporate management can be iffy but if they get a clue and listen to their store managers more about what is selling and what isn’t, they could push Publix back.
Thx for those commercial links. I’m pretty sure I saw that first one before, probably because David linked to it.
A local bargain supermarket chain, No Frills, has been elevating their advertising game. No Frills is known for having standardized nondescript packaging[1] and no marketing…
https://news.yahoo.com/no-frills-animestyle-ad-takes-twitter-by-storm-231151645.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78feeBgCwkA
Many people have started pointing out that hip, clever advertising campaigns are in fact a Frill that adds to the embedded cost of their merchandise.
[1] Fun fact: the No frills package design was inspired by the product labels in Repo Man, which were themselves comped up quickly by the production crew because the film couldn’t afford the product placement contracts.
I’ve driven by several “No Frills” stores numerous times. And nothing would entice me to stop at any one of them. Cheap groceries mean crappy produce and meat. With the added attraction of having your car, or your person, attacked, abducted, assaulted, stolen, vandalized or robbed.
As the incomparable Cecil B. Mille famously said: “INCLUDE ME OUT”!
The product labels in Repo Man [were] comped up quickly by the production crew because the film couldn’t afford the product placement contracts
???? It’s the product makers that pay on those contracts, to have their brand displayed in the film.
Include me out
A famous Goldwynism: attributed to Sam Goldwyn
I know its creators think it is clever but all I get from it is a sort of prequel to A Clockwork Orange.
Heh. They do seem to be sending messages that they don’t quite understand.
Presumably, the urge to seem trendy and affirm transgenderism – while coyly hiding behind the fig-leaf excuse that, well, some boys just like to vamp around in their mother’s clothes, so, hey, we’re not really being political – blinded them to other, perhaps more obvious construals. Given the attempt at woke messaging, it does seem odd to associate transgender people with juvenile roleplay, antisocial self-absorption, and gratuitously destructive behaviour. It’s almost funny, in a dark kind of way.
@WTP: it seems that no one can defend anyone from anything in the UK anymore:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-humber-58930747.amp
He had an axe in a public place, refused to drop it, was Tasered four times without effect and finally dropped by an AFO in the act of sprinting towards a group of bystanders.
And the jury? They bring in a verdict of unlawful killing.
I just don’t understand the world any more.
Thanks to everyone who explained zoning to this clueless Brit. I don’t think we have anything quite like it over here, though there’s the famous Green Belt, which is meant to keep a ring of open land round large urban areas. If you want to make changes to a house, shop, etc, or build something new, you have to get planning pemission from the local authority, but that’s on an indvidual basis.
pst314: your argument re. immigration is sensible; my comment was only for accuracy’s sake.
Given the attempt at woke messaging, it does seem odd to associate transgender people with juvenile narcissism, antisocial self-absorption, and gratuitously destructive behaviour.
Well, reality has a tendency to break through virtue-signalling and woke posturing, albeit unconsciously. I’m just waiting for the Usual Suspects to leap on the advert as transphobic, and for the high-ups at John Lewis to retreat to their bunker beating their breasts in standard fashion (“deeply concerned…profound apologies…educate ourselves…lived reality of trans people…our commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion…” etc, rinse and repeat).
Ah, interesting. I’ve done a bit of Googling, and apparently it’s only transphobic people who dislike the advert: https://www.ok.co.uk/lifestyle/john-lewis-advert-boy-dress-25213890#comments-wrapper.
We’ll see how things develop.
Well, reality has a tendency to break through virtue-signalling and woke posturing …
This, and very much so.
As in so many other cases, the greater part of what passes for feminism has been in the forefront of this for a long time now, leading where others later follow.
Their demands when boiled down to roots pretty much divide into “Lift this heavy thing.”, “Get that thing down from the top shelf”, and “Buy that other thing over there”.
Hard to imagine a more stereotypically gendered set of demands than those.
(Of course, when asked, they would no doubt claim this was the application of some kind of dialectical method, turning the logic of Patriarchal chauvinism against itself in order for feminism to achieve some purer form of female autonomy. To which I can only really respond, “LoL”.)
Well, reality has a tendency to break through virtue-signalling and woke posturing, albeit unconsciously.
It’s perhaps worth noting that John Lewis recently felt it necessary to make a video on Black History Month, supposedly to enlighten its customers. Though quite why they might require such instruction before buying a new sofa or a pair of shoes escapes me.
https://youtu.be/fNkniZU4VsA
For WTP.
Speaking of feminism, it’s been on my radar again recently following the horrific abduction and murder of Sarah Everard.
And then also this, from Police Scotland, That Guy: Better Ways to be a Man.
Naturally, it’s gibberish, barely indistinguishable from an overwrought teenager’s Tumblr post from 2014.
And while across the site they repeatedly position “ex-cop of 30 years” and “expert in tackling men’s violence, Graham Goulden” as the masculine face of That Guy, it is abundantly clear where the gibberish has actually come from – not from 30 years of policing, but from 50 years or more of Angry Studies.
But one section did catch my eye: 10 characters in film and TV who are perfect examples of THAT GUY.
In order, they are:
(1) James Bond
(2) Danny Zuko (Grease)
(3)’Sick Boy'(Trainspotting)
(4) Tony Soprano
(5) Biff (Back to the Future)
(6) Peter Venkman (Ghostbusters)
I have to confess that one made me double-take. Venkman? Surely not?
Dr Peter Venkman is a bit of a sleaze-ball academic who takes advantage of his position.
Early on in the film, we see Dr Venkman conduct an Extrasensory Perception (ESP) experiment where a young male student is zapped with electricity despite correct answers and a young female student avoids punishment, whilst Venkman lies about her performance.
It looks like Bill Murray’s character is trying to get her on her own by shocking the young man senseless, which eventually works. Thankfully he’s interrupted by fellow Ghostbuster, Ray.
Venkman can later be found hitting on the Ghostbusters’ first customer Dana, even when she’s clearly possessed by a demon.
OK then!
(7) Supervillain Translucent (The Boys)
(8) Moe (The Simpsons)
(9) The male cast of Game of Thrones)
(10) Quagmire (Family Guy).
It’s this kind of thing that makes me want to take money away from governments and put it back into my own pocket.
And to think people used to say there were no career opportunities for Angry Studies graduates.
Forgot to put the links in:
That Guy: Better Ways to be a Man
10 characters in film and TV who are perfect examples of THAT GUY.
I just don’t understand the world any more.
Tell me about it.
I just don’t understand the world any more.
My wife is having an increasingly harder time processing this idiocy. Between the two recent completely unrelated stories of the 15 yo girl who (it looks like) was raped and the Virginia local school board seems to have both covered it up and called on Biden to sic the FBI on her distraught father and the story that through all this supply crisis our Secretary of Transportation has been on a 2 month paternity leave with his husband, and a few other local oddities even up here in MAGA country, she’s starting to question everything.
Well, we’re off to the highest point in GA for what will either be Raptor Rendezvous or the Rapture Rendezvous. If I’m not back soon, well it’s been fun and it’s been real but it hasn’t been real fun. I keeeeed, I keeeed…about the real fun part. Though if I do return, which one way or the other seems rather likely, curious to see if y’all or I will be the ones more disappointed.
pst314: your argument re. immigration is sensible; my comment was only for accuracy’s sake.
And accuracy is important!
And the jury? They bring in a verdict of unlawful killing.
I just don’t understand the world any more.
Maybe I should see witness testimony and CCTV video, but that does seem very screwy.
Compare and contrast:
From the BBC: “reports of a man carrying an axe.”
From the Daily Mail: “a man armed with, and waving, an unsheathed axe”
I do, by the way, know many people who seem to think that ever more accommodation should be made for crazy people and criminals. Because anything else would be “unjust”. Well, how about justice for us peaceful citizens?
Between the two recent completely unrelated stories of the 15 yo girl who (it looks like) was raped [by a transsexual kid] and the Virginia local school board seems to have both covered it up…
Don’t get me started on the Rocky Horror fans who “explained” to me that it was praiseworthy for Dr Frankenfurter to rape Brad and Janet because they were sexually repressed squares who needed to be liberated from all their inhibitions.
Given the attempt at woke messaging, it does seem odd to associate transgender people with juvenile roleplay, antisocial self-absorption, and gratuitously destructive behaviour. It’s almost funny, in a dark kind of way.
Hard to tell who should be more offended. 🙂
It has just occurred to me that there are similarities between the current Loudoun County Virginia cover-up and the widely reported events at Steubenville several years ago. In each case authority figures, mainly within the political and education systems and allegedly including law enforcement at Steubenville, banded together to protect the guilty parties. It is a sign of societal regression that the Steubenville high school “rape team” jocks have now been superseded by the Virginia dude in a dress.
‘Odd’ isn’t perhaps the correct word.
‘Apposite’ comes to mind.
After a number of citizens phone the police to warn of an obvious lunatic waving around an axe in the street should the police:
1) Do nothing. Any jogger is perfectly entitled to wander around public spaces brandishing an axe and screaming about “the end times”.
2) Ask him to put down the axe. And shoot him if he doesn’t. Then charge the police marksman with murder.
3) Send in the
clowns, er, social workers.4) Wave their hands in the air like they just don’t care.
5) I don’t know any more 😢