Back in the Day
Sep 10th 2022, 6:32 pm
#106
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Re: Back in the Day
Manning was an equal opportunities offender or - well anyone really, he was an absolute machine at it. The look on Esthers face when he said it was wonderous to behold.
I would maintain that comedy that offends nobody does work, but should the fact that someone is offended by it mean it should be banned, the books burned and the individual silenced? You realise such totalitarian measures have been responsible for much harm. Sure, muslims would like bacon banned, some religions insist on killing opposition or those who blaspheme. I am a firm supporter of the concept that while i may disagree with your words or view, i would maintain your right - and i do mean a right - to say it. If such comedy has no audience it will diminish, but suppressing it is in my view dangerous.
Can i recommend a book called 'What happened to you' by Dr Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey. [ [url]https://www.bdperry.com/about ].
Its in the US top sellers lists currently. Its an in depth exploration of trauma, and how it is now clinically and scientifically viewed. Among many subjects, It dissects racism and explains how it happens in the mind of a child or even baby.
Think of our brain in sections, the most primitive parts deal with breathing and sensation. The cortex is our intelligence rational thinking mind. The problem is that visceral things are in the less sophisticated areas. When you become frightened and the fight/flight response kicks in, your cortex is essentially shut down, you are much less rational and the primitive areas generate the chemicals that allow you to run away from the dinosaur. Becoming sullen, turning inward, being passive, is actually the other end of the same response.
Take a very young black child. He is in a car with his dad. The dad is stopped, searched, shouted at, and verbally abused by a white policeman. The young child may not be able to comprehend it all, but he knows the white man is bad, he hurt his dad. This learning will be stored in his cortex and in the primitive parts of his brain, but in stress he will use the primitive areas faster, these may overwhelm his cortex, he rationally normally hasnt a racist bone in his body, but he has a racist primitive brain stem... As you know babies are frightened of heights at birth, they acquire this from ancestors. Imagine what a black baby whose 10 generations back relative was a slave might be born with?
I would maintain that comedy that offends nobody does work, but should the fact that someone is offended by it mean it should be banned, the books burned and the individual silenced? You realise such totalitarian measures have been responsible for much harm. Sure, muslims would like bacon banned, some religions insist on killing opposition or those who blaspheme. I am a firm supporter of the concept that while i may disagree with your words or view, i would maintain your right - and i do mean a right - to say it. If such comedy has no audience it will diminish, but suppressing it is in my view dangerous.
Can i recommend a book called 'What happened to you' by Dr Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey. [ [url]https://www.bdperry.com/about ].
Its in the US top sellers lists currently. Its an in depth exploration of trauma, and how it is now clinically and scientifically viewed. Among many subjects, It dissects racism and explains how it happens in the mind of a child or even baby.
Think of our brain in sections, the most primitive parts deal with breathing and sensation. The cortex is our intelligence rational thinking mind. The problem is that visceral things are in the less sophisticated areas. When you become frightened and the fight/flight response kicks in, your cortex is essentially shut down, you are much less rational and the primitive areas generate the chemicals that allow you to run away from the dinosaur. Becoming sullen, turning inward, being passive, is actually the other end of the same response.
Take a very young black child. He is in a car with his dad. The dad is stopped, searched, shouted at, and verbally abused by a white policeman. The young child may not be able to comprehend it all, but he knows the white man is bad, he hurt his dad. This learning will be stored in his cortex and in the primitive parts of his brain, but in stress he will use the primitive areas faster, these may overwhelm his cortex, he rationally normally hasnt a racist bone in his body, but he has a racist primitive brain stem... As you know babies are frightened of heights at birth, they acquire this from ancestors. Imagine what a black baby whose 10 generations back relative was a slave might be born with?
Sep 10th 2022, 6:38 pm
#107
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Jul 2016
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Re: Back in the Day
I am white, married to a black lady from Grenada, where i live and have naturally biracial children. To understand how racism is able to be passed on in effect generation to generation where there may be no logical reason, and learned but quite possibly hidden, these were revelations to me, but understandable when explained.
I can confirm mel brooks offended plenty of people, springtime for hitler??
I can confirm mel brooks offended plenty of people, springtime for hitler??
Sep 10th 2022, 7:45 pm
#108
I still dont believe it..
Joined: Oct 2013
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Re: Back in the Day
Springtime for hitler isnt that simple unfortunately - while the whole core of the gag was to make a completely impossible play, supporting nazis, so they could steal the money from backers [what could go wrong], the film makers also succeeded in annoying the jewish community, because the protagonists - were jewish con men.
Do you remember the furore after the monty python team made life of brian? John Cleese actually went on TV with an arch bishop and took the pi.. out of him. 'I mean - he and i share initials, JC'
Do you remember the furore after the monty python team made life of brian? John Cleese actually went on TV with an arch bishop and took the pi.. out of him. 'I mean - he and i share initials, JC'
Sep 11th 2022, 1:42 pm
#109
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Re: Back in the Day
Sep 11th 2022, 4:15 pm
#110
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Joined: Jul 2016
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Re: Back in the Day
Springtime for hitler isnt that simple unfortunately - while the whole core of the gag was to make a completely impossible play, supporting nazis, so they could steal the money from backers [what could go wrong], the film makers also succeeded in annoying the jewish community, because the protagonists - were jewish con men.
Do you remember the furore after the monty python team made life of brian? John Cleese actually went on TV with an arch bishop and took the pi.. out of him. 'I mean - he and i share initials, JC'
https://youtu.be/SGI9UevrzGc
Do you remember the furore after the monty python team made life of brian? John Cleese actually went on TV with an arch bishop and took the pi.. out of him. 'I mean - he and i share initials, JC'
https://youtu.be/SGI9UevrzGc
Sep 13th 2022, 4:48 pm
#111
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Re: Back in the Day
Back to the days of what we were and weren't allowed to say at the dinner table - or anywhere else within a grandparent's hearing... Older visitors to this thread will remember a topic that was so forbidden that none of us kids ever dreamed of mentioning: "shotgun" marriages. We could never ask what it meant that Betty the teenager or young woman from up the road "had to get married, you know!" Those of us who did not know, stayed ignorant until much, much later. "Poor girl!" or "silly girl!" These days: not to worry... What a change we've lived through - thanks entirely to "the pill". It freed up women and men to do what comes naturally, and to avoid what some English comedian described as "a fate worse than petrol rationing".
I have three grandchildren, but no daughters-in-law. One of the three is inherited, and there are two mothers, and all the brothers and sisters get on well and visit one another from time to time. It's lovely to see, but my Mum wouldn't have approved.
I have three grandchildren, but no daughters-in-law. One of the three is inherited, and there are two mothers, and all the brothers and sisters get on well and visit one another from time to time. It's lovely to see, but my Mum wouldn't have approved.
Sep 17th 2022, 9:42 pm
#112
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Re: Back in the Day
Digressing for a moment... The other day I sent a photo of a heavily over-crowded Indian train to a friend of mine who hitched from London to Singapore in 1964-5 and asked if he had ever travelled on "one of these". Here's his reply, verbatim.The Taki in the story is a Japanese chap he met up with in Spain. Linda and I bumped into them in Iran for a fifteen-minute conversation. Then they left for Pakistan and we for Iraq. He and I hooked up again in '95 when I visited Australia, and now we chat on WhatsApp once in a while. We were at school together, and met again in London in '63.
Yep! The first attempt we stood back and allowed the women & children get on, as you do, but when we were still on the platform when the train left, guess who was first on when the next train came in the next day.We slept In the waiting room that night and the guards wanted us to leave and then levelled their guns at us to move.All I could think is if they pull their triggers I would have a hole the size of a football where my stomach was. BUT the inscrutable oriental Taki managed to convince the guards that we would leave in the morning, for sure.So we slept there and when the next train came in we were first on.But once on you grabbed the best seat & we sat down.The locals laid down on the seats & did not give a hoot about the locals.First in best dressed attitude. But the other issue was we did not have tickets and when asked for them Taki replied in Japanese and I answered in bad German.but another passenger who was in the same carriage dobbed us in to the conductor saying we spoke English.The end was we travelled for free (yes I know we were tight arses but we were 1 day behind for doing the right thing). In the carriage it is ok to bring the chooks, pigs,children yes anything.I do not know where the toilets were and I dread to think but you could go out on the landing between the carriages and hang on ,,,,,they were very broad minded for that era. Mind you the first class was a lot better which is where we ended up because we did not speak English. That was the only train we took, it was trucks from then on as they were a little faster a little more dangerous, as the road rules had not been written then.
An American couple Linda & I met in Vila in the 1970s (they stayed in our unofficial and illegal "youth hostel") said if we ever got to India we must NEVER buy a third-class ticket on the trains. Second class only, they said. They had ridden a motorbike through India. In Nepal they bought a beautiful local carpet and shipped it back to New York. We all roared with laughter at the prospect of their parents inspecting the carpet: it was decorated with swastikas, and they were all Jewish.
Yep! The first attempt we stood back and allowed the women & children get on, as you do, but when we were still on the platform when the train left, guess who was first on when the next train came in the next day.We slept In the waiting room that night and the guards wanted us to leave and then levelled their guns at us to move.All I could think is if they pull their triggers I would have a hole the size of a football where my stomach was. BUT the inscrutable oriental Taki managed to convince the guards that we would leave in the morning, for sure.So we slept there and when the next train came in we were first on.But once on you grabbed the best seat & we sat down.The locals laid down on the seats & did not give a hoot about the locals.First in best dressed attitude. But the other issue was we did not have tickets and when asked for them Taki replied in Japanese and I answered in bad German.but another passenger who was in the same carriage dobbed us in to the conductor saying we spoke English.The end was we travelled for free (yes I know we were tight arses but we were 1 day behind for doing the right thing). In the carriage it is ok to bring the chooks, pigs,children yes anything.I do not know where the toilets were and I dread to think but you could go out on the landing between the carriages and hang on ,,,,,they were very broad minded for that era. Mind you the first class was a lot better which is where we ended up because we did not speak English. That was the only train we took, it was trucks from then on as they were a little faster a little more dangerous, as the road rules had not been written then.
An American couple Linda & I met in Vila in the 1970s (they stayed in our unofficial and illegal "youth hostel") said if we ever got to India we must NEVER buy a third-class ticket on the trains. Second class only, they said. They had ridden a motorbike through India. In Nepal they bought a beautiful local carpet and shipped it back to New York. We all roared with laughter at the prospect of their parents inspecting the carpet: it was decorated with swastikas, and they were all Jewish.
Sep 18th 2022, 8:32 am
#113
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 20,711
Re: Back in the Day
Digressing for a moment... The other day I sent a photo of a heavily over-crowded Indian train to a friend of mine who hitched from London to Singapore in 1964-5 and asked if he had ever travelled on "one of these". Here's his reply, verbatim.The Taki in the story is a Japanese chap he met up with in Spain. Linda and I bumped into them in Iran for a fifteen-minute conversation. Then they left for Pakistan and we for Iraq. He and I hooked up again in '95 when I visited Australia, and now we chat on WhatsApp once in a while. We were at school together, and met again in London in '63.
Yep! The first attempt we stood back and allowed the women & children get on, as you do, but when we were still on the platform when the train left, guess who was first on when the next train came in the next day.We slept In the waiting room that night and the guards wanted us to leave and then levelled their guns at us to move.All I could think is if they pull their triggers I would have a hole the size of a football where my stomach was. BUT the inscrutable oriental Taki managed to convince the guards that we would leave in the morning, for sure.So we slept there and when the next train came in we were first on.But once on you grabbed the best seat & we sat down.The locals laid down on the seats & did not give a hoot about the locals.First in best dressed attitude. But the other issue was we did not have tickets and when asked for them Taki replied in Japanese and I answered in bad German.but another passenger who was in the same carriage dobbed us in to the conductor saying we spoke English.The end was we travelled for free (yes I know we were tight arses but we were 1 day behind for doing the right thing). In the carriage it is ok to bring the chooks, pigs,children yes anything.I do not know where the toilets were and I dread to think but you could go out on the landing between the carriages and hang on ,,,,,they were very broad minded for that era. Mind you the first class was a lot better which is where we ended up because we did not speak English. That was the only train we took, it was trucks from then on as they were a little faster a little more dangerous, as the road rules had not been written then.
An American couple Linda & I met in Vila in the 1970s (they stayed in our unofficial and illegal "youth hostel") said if we ever got to India we must NEVER buy a third-class ticket on the trains. Second class only, they said. They had ridden a motorbike through India. In Nepal they bought a beautiful local carpet and shipped it back to New York. We all roared with laughter at the prospect of their parents inspecting the carpet: it was decorated with swastikas, and they were all Jewish.
Yep! The first attempt we stood back and allowed the women & children get on, as you do, but when we were still on the platform when the train left, guess who was first on when the next train came in the next day.We slept In the waiting room that night and the guards wanted us to leave and then levelled their guns at us to move.All I could think is if they pull their triggers I would have a hole the size of a football where my stomach was. BUT the inscrutable oriental Taki managed to convince the guards that we would leave in the morning, for sure.So we slept there and when the next train came in we were first on.But once on you grabbed the best seat & we sat down.The locals laid down on the seats & did not give a hoot about the locals.First in best dressed attitude. But the other issue was we did not have tickets and when asked for them Taki replied in Japanese and I answered in bad German.but another passenger who was in the same carriage dobbed us in to the conductor saying we spoke English.The end was we travelled for free (yes I know we were tight arses but we were 1 day behind for doing the right thing). In the carriage it is ok to bring the chooks, pigs,children yes anything.I do not know where the toilets were and I dread to think but you could go out on the landing between the carriages and hang on ,,,,,they were very broad minded for that era. Mind you the first class was a lot better which is where we ended up because we did not speak English. That was the only train we took, it was trucks from then on as they were a little faster a little more dangerous, as the road rules had not been written then.
An American couple Linda & I met in Vila in the 1970s (they stayed in our unofficial and illegal "youth hostel") said if we ever got to India we must NEVER buy a third-class ticket on the trains. Second class only, they said. They had ridden a motorbike through India. In Nepal they bought a beautiful local carpet and shipped it back to New York. We all roared with laughter at the prospect of their parents inspecting the carpet: it was decorated with swastikas, and they were all Jewish.
Reminded me of the multiple train journeys in India from 1970s onwards. The overnight 6 tier- second class. When we got to three children I always got a top bunk--it sways--leading to nausea! The toilets ---easier for women to wear a skirt rather than usual salwar kameez, once forgot that I had all our spare money tucked in my blouse for night safety, came back and realised I could have dropped all of it down the hole! (Fortunately hadn't).
(The swastika was an ancient Sanskrit sign meaning 'good will' used in India long before Germany.)
Sep 18th 2022, 2:36 pm
#114
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Re: Back in the Day
He (the boy - can't recall their names after all this time!) said the hardest thing to get used to in India was the sheer number of people. He may have been making up this anecdote, but he told us that when the girl wanted to have a pee they rode on and didn't stop until there was nobody in sight for miles around. Then he'd stop, and by the time she got her pants down there were fifty people watching. He could never figure out where they came from! Does that sound real?
Sep 18th 2022, 8:47 pm
#115
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Re: Back in the Day
[QUOTE=Gordon Barlow;13142001]Yes, thanks, Bipat. I forgot to mention that!
He (the boy - can't recall their names after all this time!) said the hardest thing to get used to in India was the sheer number of people. He may have been making up this anecdote, but he told us that when the girl wanted to have a pee they rode on and didn't stop until there was nobody in sight for miles around. Then he'd stop, and by the time she got her pants down there were fifty people watching. He could never figure out where they came from! Does that sound real?[/QUOTE]
It doesn't sound real! Certainly cities, towns can be overwhelming to new visitors with the number of people, even large villages but not open countryside.
Would just be occasional people walking or cycling. Nowadays with good roads, car drivers avoid long distance open country areas if they can, as if they break down no help for miles.
Years ago, when overnight bus journeys, they just stopped and men would use the side of the bus! Women just 'waited' or a group find some bushes to go behind!
Now there are service stations!
He (the boy - can't recall their names after all this time!) said the hardest thing to get used to in India was the sheer number of people. He may have been making up this anecdote, but he told us that when the girl wanted to have a pee they rode on and didn't stop until there was nobody in sight for miles around. Then he'd stop, and by the time she got her pants down there were fifty people watching. He could never figure out where they came from! Does that sound real?[/QUOTE]
It doesn't sound real! Certainly cities, towns can be overwhelming to new visitors with the number of people, even large villages but not open countryside.
Would just be occasional people walking or cycling. Nowadays with good roads, car drivers avoid long distance open country areas if they can, as if they break down no help for miles.
Years ago, when overnight bus journeys, they just stopped and men would use the side of the bus! Women just 'waited' or a group find some bushes to go behind!
Now there are service stations!
Sep 18th 2022, 10:12 pm
#116
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Re: Back in the Day
It doesn't sound real! Certainly cities, towns can be overwhelming to new visitors with the number of people, even large villages but not open countryside.
Would just be occasional people walking or cycling. Nowadays with good roads, car drivers avoid long distance open country areas if they can, as if they break down no help for miles.
Years ago, when overnight bus journeys, they just stopped and men would use the side of the bus! Women just 'waited' or a group find some bushes to go behind!
Now there are service stations!
Would just be occasional people walking or cycling. Nowadays with good roads, car drivers avoid long distance open country areas if they can, as if they break down no help for miles.
Years ago, when overnight bus journeys, they just stopped and men would use the side of the bus! Women just 'waited' or a group find some bushes to go behind!
Now there are service stations!
Sep 23rd 2022, 5:36 pm
#117
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Re: Back in the Day
Okay, back to the topic (post 111 above) of words we weren't allow to say in front of our parents, back in the day - or read in the paper. There were no asterisks! Either the "magic word" was spelt out in all its glory - in books on the top shelf of the public library - or it was replaced by a more acceptable word. Or a blank space with a line underneath it. In these quasi-liberal days, we get asterisks; and that's a cop-out if ever there was one. We all know what f*** means. We never confuse it with f*****, unless the writer has really c***ed things up. And we can all easily distinguish between p**** and p**** by the context. Right? You see how silly it is. I was once threatened with expulsion from BE for using p***, so I will never take a chance with that again! As we say here in the Caribbean, "heavy manners, man!"
Sep 29th 2022, 6:04 pm
#118
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Re: Back in the Day
On the topic of language-change... There's an interesting Australian word from my long-ago youth, that I haven't heard anybody from Oz use recently - except people my age. Back in the day, the word "boof" was a slang term for "big". The headmaster of my school was called "Boofhead", and even our parents referred to him as "Boof". An over-weight baby boy was called "a boofter kid". (There was no female equivalent, only the dry observation "she'll be a great help to her mother".)
I wonder if "boofter" is still kosher. Or has it been ousted by its closeness to the P- word? I need to know: it's a risky world we live in, in this Age of Woke.
I wonder if "boofter" is still kosher. Or has it been ousted by its closeness to the P- word? I need to know: it's a risky world we live in, in this Age of Woke.
Oct 5th 2022, 2:24 am
#119
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Re: Back in the Day
Here's a question for visitors to this thread... About when did seatbelts become compulsory, around the world? Of course not all countries brought in a law at the same time, but I can't even recall the decade. I did a lot of driving in the '60s and '70s, in 30-odd countries before coming to Cayman in 1978, and I have no recollection of using the things in any of them. So I have to guess it happened to me after 1978; but then I don't remember their being brought in here, either. If someone has a better memory than I have, please help me out! Thank you!
Oct 8th 2022, 10:45 pm
#120
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Re: Back in the Day
Gosh, this thread is beginning to look like an autobiography! It's attracted a thousand visitors in the past two weeks, which is pretty good; but no posts besides mine. Never mind, I suppose; it's open to all...
Back in the day, thirty years ago, I became a financial consultant to a local supermarket, and sat in on the weekly Directors' meetings. I was brought on board to criticise what others might hesitate to criticise; The boss was a nice fellow, but didn't suffer fools gladly. On one occasion I tore into the sales chart. "This can't be right", I grumbled. "You say your sales are going up every week, but the chart is all over the place. It's up and down like Father's pants!" A lovely expression, which I'd learned as a child in Australia. It was new to the locals, and the boss thought it was hugely funny. I could get away with pretty much anything after that.
These many years later, the next generation is running what is now a supermarket chain. I still sit in on the meetings, and any up-and-down chart still gets the same criticism as it did then, from all of them. "As Gordon would say..."
Back in the day, thirty years ago, I became a financial consultant to a local supermarket, and sat in on the weekly Directors' meetings. I was brought on board to criticise what others might hesitate to criticise; The boss was a nice fellow, but didn't suffer fools gladly. On one occasion I tore into the sales chart. "This can't be right", I grumbled. "You say your sales are going up every week, but the chart is all over the place. It's up and down like Father's pants!" A lovely expression, which I'd learned as a child in Australia. It was new to the locals, and the boss thought it was hugely funny. I could get away with pretty much anything after that.
These many years later, the next generation is running what is now a supermarket chain. I still sit in on the meetings, and any up-and-down chart still gets the same criticism as it did then, from all of them. "As Gordon would say..."