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Dave Coull
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Joanna Blythman in the Sunday HeraldProtesting against Israel doesn’t make you racist
by Joanna Blythman
Sunday Herald 8th March 2009
IS IT racist to criticise Israel ? Before we address that question, let's flashback to last year's Edinburgh International Festival. The scene is a concert in The Queens Hall attended by those solidly middle-class, older-than-average citizens who support live classical music, people of comfortable means who, though they complain about the cost, nevertheless stump up the hefty ticket price for an official Festival event. Douce and respectable, the audience settles down to a relaxing evening of Haydn, Smetana and Brahms, only to have the recital interrupted by middle-aged men and women, dotted among them, protesting about Israel's treatment of the Palestinians shouting things like "End the Siege of Gaza", and "Boycott Israel".
Members of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, these protesters have targeted this performance because it is being given by the Jerusalem Quartet. Before the concert, Marion Woolfson, the Jewish chair of the campaign group, had written to festival organisers asking them to rescind the invitation.
These musicians are not ingenues who have blundered into that awkward moral territory where culture meet politics, but musical ambassadors for the state of Israel. As soldiers who saw active service in the Israeli Defence Forces before being talent-spotted, their international appearances are sponsored financially by Israel's foreign ministry. When not performing abroad, their role has been to entertain the troops and generally boost the morale of the Israeli military, the self-same force that delivered the latest Gaza death toll of 1200 Palestinians.
As one Jewish news service puts it, by "carrying a rifle in one hand and a violin in the other" the Jerusalem Quartet makes "the ultimate Zionist statement".
Some audience members are curious about what the protesters are saying. "Our intention," says Sofiah MacLeod, one of the protesters, somewhat prophetically "was to highlight and therefore help prevent the atrocities being committed by the sponsors of the Jerusalem Quartet - the state of Israel".
However, this overwhelmingly conventional audience is largely fizzing and delighted to see the demonstrators escorted outside by the police and the concert continue. Subsequently, the protesters are charged with breach of the peace and told to appear in court at a later date. This is only to be expected and they won't be too bothered. It gives them a public platform for raising awareness of their cause, a familiar scenario in the honourable tradition of peaceful civil disobedience that stretches back from the Suffragettes, past the Holy Loch to the Greenpeace activists who scale the towers of power stations.
So far, so normal, but then comes a departure from the established script. Last week, the original breach of the peace charge was dropped, but the procurator fiscal indicated an intention to charge the protesters with a more serious one of "racially motivated conduct".
So there we have it, raise the issue of Israel's behaviour in Palestine and you become a racist. This charge is, of course, absurd. It's like saying that all those who criticised and boycotted apartheid South Africa were "anti-white", or branding those who want to see Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir indicted for war crimes as "anti-black" or "Islamophobes". It displays no appreciation of history, current affairs, or even irony. Accusations of racist motivation might more aptly be directed to the Israeli governments that have remorselessly pursued a policy of displacing native Palestinian people with waves of Jewish immigrants from around the world.
After watching recent television footage of Israeli soldiers "smirking" over the corpse of a dead Palestinian, Gerald Kaufman, the veteran Jewish MP who counts himself proud to be both a Jew and a Zionist, was moved to call time on those who try to quash criticism of Israel with off-the-peg labels like anti-Semite or racist. "It is quite easy to excuse attacks on the Israelis, or rather to explain them away, by saying this is anti-Semitism."
How right he is. In the context of Palestine, labels like these are akin to gagging writs whose purpose is, as Kaufman says, to "ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt among gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians".
But where does all this leave the typical apolitical concert-goer who looks forward to a soothing night out, only to end up on a sudden crash course on Middle Eastern politics?
Many were annoyed by the disruption of their sacred pursuit, classical music, which they believe is above politics. This is like the argument used by defenders of the controversial South African Springbok tour to New Zealand in 1981 that politics and sport (or in this case, the arts) don't mix.
But it's a cop-out. Fond though I am of classical concerts, I would have boycotted this one and put Haydn and co on hold for another evening. Noisy interruptions may have been a major irritant to the good burghers who turned up on the night, but it scarcely registers on the radar of human suffering when compared to the inconvenience of having your home flattened, with most of your family in it, or the stomach-churning whine and the explosion of Israeli shells flattening your children's school.
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jamesieboy
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Yeah, boycott M&S, boycott Jaffa oranges, boycott all Israeli products. This will really affect Israel. Not.
This is just posturing by the PC brigade and will achieve absolutely nothing.
Same as all the protests against South African sports teams in the 70's.
They achieved absolutely nada, zilch. Funny they never protested against Mobuto's regime which had a horrendous human rights record.
Selective protests will be seen as being just that - selective and the stink of hypocrisy will raise its ugly head again. They just look like PC fools, which is what they are.
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Dave Coull
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| jamesieboy wrote: | | This is just posturing |
Posturing? You mean, like, when somebody tries to give the impression their General Studies qualification from Anglia Polytechnic is "a Degree in Geography from the University of Cambridge"?
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Lord Pitsligo
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| Dave Coull wrote: | | jamesieboy wrote: | | This is just posturing |
Posturing? You mean, like, when somebody tries to give the impression their General Studies qualification from Anglia Polytechnic is "a Degree in Geography from the University of Cambridge"? |
Oh dear, I think someone's credibility is in tatters 
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Dave Coull
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| Lord Pitsligo wrote: | | Oh dear, I think someone's credibility is in tatters |
As for me, I left school and started full time work in the summer of 1956. I never in my life had a job at which I got a salary, it was always a weekly wage. I didn't get a degree until FORTY TWO YEARS after I left school and started full time work. In all those years, while working as a bricklayer or whatever, I read books about history, and science, and stuff, just for the pleasure of studying them. Getting a fancy bit of paper was no big deal for me. I already knew I was a historian, even before my history tutors assured me I was. So, personally, I don't give a damn what qualifications Jamesie has, or doesn't have. That doesn't matter to me. What DOES matter is people telling the truth. In saying he had a degree in Geography "from Cambridge", Jamesie knew perfectly well that gave the impression he meant the University of Cambridge; and he quite deliberately did seek to create that impression. And that was
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jamesieboy
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I have never claimed to have degree from the University of Cambridge and you know it.
Anglia Ruskin College is a college in the city of Cambridge. There are many colleges in that city, some of them belong to the University, some don't. Why have you got a problem with that.
That old hoary chestnut of snobbery seems to be rearing its ugly head again. Who says one college is better than another. If you come out fluent in another language it must be worthwhile.
There is no such thing as a General Studies degree. You're moving into the realms of fantasy again, Dave. Trying to quote me, saying things that I obviously did not say.
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jamesieboy
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I also stood for the 'cooncil' on 4 occasions.
In 1986, when the party was averaging 13% in the polls my vote was 25%, which was no bad.
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Dave Coull
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| Jamesieboy wrote: | | snobbery seems to be rearing its ugly head again |
Terrible thing, snobbery. Like I said, I left school at the age of fifteen, in 1956, and I have had to fight against snobbery all my life. I never in my life had a "salaried" position, I was always a weekly-wage-earner. Of course, snobbery takes many different forms. One form that snobbery takes is folk pretending to be something they are not. For example, claiming to be the true, Jacobite Stuart, heir to the throne of Scotland. Or, more mundanely, pretending to have an academic background that they just don't. | Jamesieboy wrote: | | There is no such thing as a General Studies degree. |
There's also no such thing as a Geography degree, in your particular case. | Jamesieboy wrote: | | You're moving into the realms of fantasy again, Dave. Trying to quote me |
You mean my hypothetical example? Oh, I wasn't quoting you! If I'd been quoting you, I would have given your exact words, in quotes. No, what happened was that you talked about "posturing", and I just asked you if by "posturing" you meant something like.......and gave a purely hypothetical example......... | Jamesieboy wrote: | | I have never claimed to have degree from the University of Cambridge |
You claimed to have a degree "from Cambridge". You knew perfectly well that, for most people, "a degree from Cambridge" would be taken to mean "from the University of Cambridge". Knowing that perfectly well, you deliberately chose to use wording which would give that impression. You chose to create a false impression. | Jamesieboy wrote: | | Who says one college is better than another |
Lord Pitsligo? I think he might have said something like that. But the only comment I made on the subject of comparing universities related to my stepson's choice of university. I said he turned down the University of Cambridge. Actually, it wasn't just them, he also turned down offers from the University of Edinburgh, and from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). He decided that, for the particular branch of mathematics in which he wanted to specialise, the University of Warwick was the best in the world. Now, whether that choice was the right one or not, it's a statement of fact that was his choice. Oh, yes, and I also made a comment on the vagueness you'd shown on this forum with regard to geographical matters | I wrote: | | Even though Cambridge University may not have the very best of university Geography departments, I find it hard to believe they could be quite THAT bad. |
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Lord Pitsligo
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| Dave Coull wrote: | | Jamesieboy wrote: | | Who says one college is better than another |
Lord Pitsligo? I think he might have said something like that. |
Yes, I said it, and I stand by it.
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jamesieboy
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And your evidence is......?
Or just hearsay and snobbery.
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jamesieboy
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My academic record is sound. My lecturers were, again, some of the top people in their field and made a point of teaching at the 'non-traditional universities' because they were idealogically opposed to snobbery and so-called elitism.
Dr Bronwen Walter was one of the leading authorities on the history of Ireland and Irish women.
Dr Maureen Fitzgerald was one of the leading authorities on development in Ethiopia. She did our seminars in Human Geography and development in Africa. She's probably retired now.
Dr Anthony Morgan was a specialist in Spanish and Spanish History, as was Dr Leonardo del Castillo, a specialist in the history of Chile and who was himself a political refugee. He fled in the clothes he was wearing when that 'hijo de puta' Pinochet staged his military coup.
But I agree with you, Dave. Snobbery and elitism have no place in academia so we should form an alliance against Lord Pitsligo as he is obviously into that sort of thing.
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agentmancuso
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| jamesieboy wrote: | | Who says one college is better than another. |
I do. A college that teaches you to think via the traditional humanities is better than a college that trains you to get a job by filling your head with managerialist s***e.
| Quote: | If you come out fluent in another language it must be worthwhile.
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What if you come out as a fluent loudspeaker of another language? Or to speak some Portuguese bloke? Does that count?
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jamesieboy
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Let me explain to you carefully, Agent!
Many traditional universities, at least when I did my degree, concentrated on literature-based Mod Langs. Analysing, in the case of Spanish, Cervantes, Don Quijote, that sort of thing.
Nothing wrong with that, if that's what you want to do, and there's certainly nothing wrong with studying literature.
Much the same in English. Foreign students studying every minute detail of Shakespeare's works is fine, but how do you communicate with people if you find yourself stuck in a small village in East Anglia unable to understand what the locals are saying.
Learning the living language, the language on the street; the language in the world of work; the world of commerce and business is what I prefer to do and I'm glad I ended up going down that route.
And I would recommend others studying languages did the same thing.
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Lord Pitsligo
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| jamesieboy wrote: | And your evidence is......?
Or just hearsay and snobbery. |
Is it the Times Educational Supplement that publishes lists of such things?
Oh, and my time working at the University of Hertfordshire, when I realised it was run as a company to make money. It totally abandoned academic standards, and is the flagship of the new "business-facing" attitude that the government has encouraged in a lot of the newer universities.
Also the fact it produced you suggests its not the best of universities. Its a basic academic skill to list your sources after all, a skill you don't seem to have developed.
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jamesieboy
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Funny, I get the TES, being a teacher. And they don't have a list of 's***e' universities and colleges. And the Univ. of Hertfordshire teaching business? Don't Harvard and Yale do that too? Are they s***e?
It surprised me at first how some people on this list couldn't find the sources i gave them on a number of things.
It wasn't that difficult. The Gaza Convoy on the BBC News for example, citing corruption at the borders of Arab countries and refusing to let through humanitarian aid for their Arab brothers in distress. A chimpanzee could have found that source!
But then i soon realised it suited them to play dumb. They didn't want to hear this. It didn't fit in well with their pro-Arab agendas. Pathetic really!
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Lord Pitsligo
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| jamesieboy wrote: | Funny, I get the TES, being a teacher. And they don't have a list of 's***e' universities and colleges. And the Univ. of Hertfordshire teaching business? Don't Harvard and Yale do that too? Are they s***e?
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I never said the University of Hertfordshire was bad because it teaches business, I said it was bad because it was "business facing" - a buzz word for being privatised by the back door. Sorry if the difference was too subtle for you.
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It surprised me at first how some people on this list couldn't find the sources i gave them on a number of things.
It wasn't that difficult. The Gaza Convoy on the BBC News for example, citing corruption at the borders of Arab countries and refusing to let through humanitarian aid for their Arab brothers in distress. A chimpanzee could have found that source!
But then i soon realised it suited them to play dumb. They didn't want to hear this. It didn't fit in well with their pro-Arab agendas. Pathetic really! |
CAN YOU GIVE US A DIRECT LINK TO THE STORY?
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Dave Coull
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| jamesieboy wrote: | | Who says one college is better than another. |
| I wrote: | | Lord Pitsligo? I think he might have said something like that. |
Note, that was a simple answer to Jamesie's question. Statement of fact, Lord Pitsligo had said something like that. As for me, at that stage, I hadn't expressed any opinion, one way or the other, on some universities being better than others. The opinion I had expressed was that Jamesie had been less than truthfull with us, and I don't like people not telling the truth. | jamesieboy wrote: | | I agree with you, Dave. |
About what? About me saying you had been less than truthfull with us? | jamesieboy wrote: | | Snobbery and elitism have no place in academia |
I said I had fought snobbery my whole life. I didn't say just "in academia". But one college being better than another isn't necessarily anything to do with snobbery. As already mentioned, my stepson turned down offers from the University of Cambridge, the University of Edinburgh, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and accepted the offer from the University of Warwick. Why did he do that? Not snobbery. A snob would have chosen Cambridge in preference to Warwick. In fact, a snob would probably also have put Warwick lower down his preferences than either Edinburgh or MIT. Sam's choice was made on the grounds that, for the particular branch of Mathematics he was interested in, he thought Warwick was the best in the world. That's a value judgement, but it's not snobbery. | jamesieboy wrote: | | we should form an alliance against Lord Pitsligo |
I see no particular reason to do so, and anyway I'm very wary of getting involved in alliances if I suspect I'm being used for somebody else's agenda, which is different from mine. When Rinty wrote "Dave I suggest you get involved with the DEFEND TOMMY SHERIDAN campaign", I turned that idea down. I am especially unlikely to get involved in an "alliance" with anybody who I think has been less than completely truthfull with me.
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Lord Pitsligo
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| jamesieboy wrote: |
But I agree with you, Dave. Snobbery and elitism have no place in academia so we should form an alliance against Lord Pitsligo as he is obviously into that sort of thing. |
Oh goodness gracious, he's trying to raise an army against me now! 
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jamesieboy
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Dave, I actually like some of the comments you've said. You are against snobbery and are from a 'working class boy come good' background. I like that. You also have experience of life in industry so have seen life from a number of different angles. Unlike some others on this list who mock the colleges that others on the list went to from a condescending viewpoint. I apologise for some of the comments I made about 'condoning islamists'.
As you will probably guess, I witnessed a great deal of snobbery in Cambridge. But I met some great people and in my college there were people from all walks of life
Never let it be said that England is not a class-ridden country. There are certain pubs where you have to be from a certain social background.
Sometimes it operated in blatant ways, sometimes in subtle ways. I could name them. They were pigeonholes, not pubs.
I once gave a speech to the Cambridge Debating Society about the SNP and independence in Scotland. Downstairs in the main chamber the Rt Hon David Owen was speaking. I predicted to the assembled company that his party would be short-lived because the Labour Party would move to the right to make itself more electable in England and thus negating the need for the SDP. And that is what happened.
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Dave Coull
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| jamesieboy wrote: | | Never let it be said that England is not a class-ridden country. There are certain pubs where you have to be from a certain social background. |
Many years ago I was working as a bricklayer in central London, in fact, in The City. There were a number of building or conversion projects going on in the financial district of London at that time. During our lunch break a few of us went to find somewhere to have something to eat and drink. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw a sign on one pub which read "Working men in working clothes will not be served in this establishment". Their usual customers were city financial folk, who had, apparently, been complaining about these guys with cement on their boots and their clothing coming into their posh pub. We managed to find somewhere else which turned out to be doing a roaring trade from all those building workers who weren't getting served at any of the other places in the City of London. As for the first pub, the one with that offensive sign, I believe, soon afterwards, the premises suffered some considerable damage. How unfortunate.
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Dave Coull
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| agentmancuso wrote: | | What if you come out as a fluent loudspeaker of another language? Or to speak some Portuguese bloke? |
Them internet translation services can produce results that are a dead giveaway. My daughter got married in Barcelona, where she was living and working at that time. I decided to do my (short) "father of the bride" speech for the wedding reception in both Spanish and English. I did use an internet translation device to work on the speech, as my Spanish was rudimentary, but I didn't want to say anything too rudimentary, so I also got the help of my Spanish teacher of that time, a Colombian lady. As it happened, this Colombian lady had recently bought my daughter's flat near Dundee University, and she was well pleased with the deal. If she hadn't been, I might have said some dreadful things at my daughter's wedding reception. But people laughed at the bits I INTENDED them to laugh at, and not at the bits that weren't meant to be funny, and, after my part in the reception, a couple of wedding guests who were native Spanish speakers congratulated me, and were quite surprised to learn I was not a fluent speaker, so it seemed to go well. Mind you, in Barcelona, it might have been more appropriate for me to give my speech in Catalan. But my Colombian friend wouldn't have been able to help with that, and relying on an internet translation service might have had me sounding like a loudspeaker of some Portuguese bloke.
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Lord Pitsligo
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| jamesieboy wrote: | | Unlike some others on this list who mock the colleges that others on the list went to from a condescending viewpoint. |
You're damn right I mock them. Why? Because they're part of the debasement of education in this country. It used to be a degree meant something, now everyone can do one, they mean very little.
And that's not snobbery, its about people achieving something to be proud of, through hard work and their own merit.
Instead now, we have a whole generation conned into running up a mass of debt, just so they can have what they think is a good education, when in fact they've just been exploited to make money.
We also have universities becoming "business facing", like the glorious flagship in Hertfordshire, where every single course, from science to arts, has input from local business, where every single student will get training in "entrepreneur-ism" and where they pursue an aggressive marketing strategy, advertising beside mobile phone companies & retailers to try to pull in business.
It used to be a university education expanded your mind. Now it just leaves you in debt.
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Alasdair
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| Lord Pitsligo wrote: | | It used to be a degree meant something, now everyone can do one, they mean very little. |
I have to agree with that. At one time it was only the brightest and hardest workers that would have been able to get into university and actually compelte a degree. Now they seem to be an extension of basic education.
It certainly doesn't help business to sort the wheat from the chaff when everyone and their dog has a wee bit of paper saying how great they are. It's part of Labour's asprational society, unfortunately not everyone can have a high paid job in business and having such high levels of education simply puts people off taking work they believe to be 'beneath' them.
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azzuri
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| Alasdair wrote: | | Lord Pitsligo wrote: | | It used to be a degree meant something, now everyone can do one, they mean very little. |
I have to agree with that. At one time it was only the brightest and hardest workers that would have been able to get into university and actually compelte a degree. Now they seem to be an extension of basic education.
It certainly doesn't help business to sort the wheat from the chaff when everyone and their dog has a wee bit of paper saying how great they are. It's part of Labour's asprational society, unfortunately not everyone can have a high paid job in business and having such high levels of education simply puts people off taking work they believe to be 'beneath' them. |
Hence so many 'minimum wage slave jobs' being unfilled. These are then inevitably filled by illegal immigrants, who are usually willing to work longer and harder for less money, but pay no taxes so it harms the tax coffers twice, paying benefits to someone who won't take a job they believe is 'beneath them', and the immigrant who is paying no income tax or NI contributions on their earnings.
I didn't work particularly hard during school or university, but still came out with a degree in a subject which is pretty useless in application to the real world (Scottish Politics). I wouldn't change it for the world; however, as it opened my mind up to new possibilities and led me down a different path, one which I believe I'm a better person for. My primary interest was in learning for learning's sake; not writing essays and taking exams on a particular niche subject. I enjoyed reading and pursuing my own interests rather than the ones I was told to, which ultimately led to the creation of this site (applying the subject to the real world!) and the fury of my lecturers/tutors.
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Aventinian
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| Alasdair wrote: | | At one time it was only the brightest and hardest workers that would have been able to get into university and actually compelte a degree. Now they seem to be an extension of basic education. |
I disagree. There have always been thickies at university who either got in through the determination of their parents or schools, or just saw it as the thing to do as a result of their social background.
If you really want to show off your abilities, then go to a better university. Obviously getting into an ex-polytechnic is not great task, but getting accepted to Oxbridge or something does show you to at least have something a bit special (although, as I recall, there were - and probably still are - crap subjects in crap colleges that will admit you with reasonably mediocre results).
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Alasdair
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| Aventinian wrote: | | Alasdair wrote: | | At one time it was only the brightest and hardest workers that would have been able to get into university and actually compelte a degree. Now they seem to be an extension of basic education. |
I disagree. There have always been thickies at university who either got in through the determination of their parents or schools, or just saw it as the thing to do as a result of their social background. |
You may be right to a point, however, they were presumabley only thick by comparison to their peers at university. Even if you are right, they would never make it to the final year without a bit of 'something'.
And, btw, some ex-poly-techs are (or were) excellent in their particular fields ... without actually being an Engineer I understand that Paisley has (had?) an excellent department.
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Dave Coull
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| Alasdair wrote: | | At one time it was only the brightest and hardest workers that would have been able to get into university |
| Aventinian wrote: | | There have always been thickies at university who either got in through the determination of their parents or schools, or just saw it as the thing to do as a result of their social background. |
Amazingly, I agree with Aventinian. This agreement will probably be a very temporary phenomenon. Of course your chances can be affected by your parents. And of course some schools are in a stronger position to ensure THEIR pupils will go to university. If that wasn't true, nobody would ever pay Eton, or Harrow, or Fettes come to that, a single penny. And of course it is true that, in the upper reaches of society, going to university is far more likely to be seen "as the thing to do as a result of their social background", whereas at the lower end of society it can look decidedly odd to a lot of folk. Consider the members of the Royal Family. Can you, Alasdair, with hand on heart, state that all members of that family of great intellectuals, past and present, who received offers of places on courses at prestigious universities, received these offers purely and simply on their individual merit, and they would have received exactly the same offers, with exactly the same number of highers/A levels/O level art appreciation, if they had been Joe Bloggs? Now, contrast that family's experience with my own. I left school in 1956, a bit before the great expansion in the number of universities and of university places. Can you really insist the only reason I didn't go to university back then was because I was "thick"? Yes, the great expansion in university education has, in some ways, been a fraud perpetrated on a gullible populace. They were, in effect, told that we could all aspire to a higher status within class society. But of course the truth is that class society can not function without large numbers of folk ready to get their hands dirty, for the "managers" to "manage".
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Lord Pitsligo
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| Dave Coull wrote: | | Alasdair wrote: | | At one time it was only the brightest and hardest workers that would have been able to get into university |
| Aventinian wrote: | | There have always been thickies at university who either got in through the determination of their parents or schools, or just saw it as the thing to do as a result of their social background. |
Amazingly, I agree with Aventinian. This agreement will probably be a very temporary phenomenon. Of course your chances can be affected by your parents. And of course some schools are in a stronger position to ensure THEIR pupils will go to university. If that wasn't true, nobody would ever pay Eton, or Harrow, or Fettes come to that, a single penny. And of course it is true that, in the upper reaches of society, going to university is far more likely to be seen "as the thing to do as a result of their social background", whereas at the lower end of society it can look decidedly odd to a lot of folk. Consider the members of the Royal Family. Can you, Alasdair, with hand on heart, state that all members of that family of great intellectuals, past and present, who received offers of places on courses at prestigious universities, received these offers purely and simply on their individual merit, and they would have received exactly the same offers, with exactly the same number of highers/A levels/O level art appreciation, if they had been Joe Bloggs? Now, contrast that family's experience with my own. I left school in 1956, a bit before the great expansion in the number of universities and of university places. Can you really insist the only reason I didn't go to university back then was because I was "thick"? Yes, the great expansion in university education has, in some ways, been a fraud perpetrated on a gullible populace. They were, in effect, told that we could all aspire to a higher status within class society. But of course the truth is that class society can not function without large numbers of folk ready to get their hands dirty, for the "managers" to "manage". |
And this is all probably why labour trashed the university system in the UK by debasing university standards. It satisfied their ideology to lower everyone's standards, a bit like when school sports days got scrapped for being too competitive. As well as that, it kept lots of people off the dole for a few years, it brought in money and put half the youth into debt, making them effective little economic units for years to come, trapped in debt slavery.
Of course, they could have allowed free university education for all who were bright enough for it and brought back grants. They could even have brought back polytechnics & technical colleges who serve a different, but just as valuable purpose. Instead of which, they've done the usual labour thing of screwing up everything.
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Holebender
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| Dave Coull wrote: | | Consider the members of the Royal Family. Can you, Alasdair, with hand on heart, state that all members of that family of great intellectuals, past and present, who received offers of places on courses at prestigious universities, received these offers purely and simply on their individual merit, and they would have received exactly the same offers, with exactly the same number of highers/A levels/O level art appreciation, if they had been Joe Bloggs? |
Trivia quiz... who was the first member of the British Royal Family ever to attend a university?
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Lord Pitsligo
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| Holebender wrote: |
Trivia quiz... who was the first member of the British Royal Family ever to attend a university? |
No idea! But I know a lot of them have been chinless wonders best kept away from the public or have gone to Sandhurst, so it may be more recent than I first thought.
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jamesieboy
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Lord Pitslimy - I agree with your assessment about some of our business-based universities/colleges.
I am not in a position to make an expert decision as it has been 20-odd years since I was a student in-a-college-in-a-city-by-the-name-of-C********-which-lies-on-the-River-Cam.
However, when I was there the students from Chelmsford went to Spain to do an assignment on a company called Hero (they produce jams and stuff) in Murcia where yours truly did the translation. It wasn't a bad thing. The experience of visiting a Spanish-based business broadened their minds, IMHO, so isn't that a good thing.
PS - apologies for another anecdote but it seems I'm not the only one.
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Dave Coull
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| jamesieboy wrote: | | apologies for another anecdote |
The Our Scotland forum does not have a rule against telling anecdotes, nor should it have. It would be ridiculous if all discussion had to be conducted on a purely theoretical basis. Personal experiences can be relevant. So there is no need to apologise for telling anecdotes.
Lying, now, that's a different matter. Since you were caught out in a blatant attempt to give a false impression, with your "Geography degree from Cambridge" tall tale, I do think you need to apologise for lying.
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jamesieboy
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If you really want to know the truth then ask the f***** college, Dave!
My academic record is a matter of truth. I am a teacher, therefore I had to have got a PGCE and before that a degree in Geography & Modern Languages. You really have a chip on your shoulder over this one.
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jamesieboy
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Anecdotes are, as you said Dave, relevant and valuable.
I, Jamesieboy, have lived in Sweden, Peru (during a revolution) Spain, Cambridge and have travelled (on holiday, work and with the tartan army)widely so my anecdotes may be of interest to the people browsing this site.
And if you are lucky, I may tell you about a guy I know who, no names revealed, almost brought down the capitalist system in his employ as a top 'financial' expert with a leading money institution.....
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Holebender
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| Lord Pitsligo wrote: | | Holebender wrote: |
Trivia quiz... who was the first member of the British Royal Family ever to attend a university? |
No idea! But I know a lot of them have been chinless wonders best kept away from the public or have gone to Sandhurst, so it may be more recent than I first thought. |
It was actually Prince Charles, the present Duke of Rothesay. I don't suppose there was much of a need for a degree when you had a job for life for the whole of your life.
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Alasdair
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| Holebender wrote: | | ... I don't suppose there was much of a need for a degree when you had a job for life for the whole of your life. |
No, I imagine the educational requirements would be somewhat broader, not that an education in how to think effectively should be something anyone is denied.
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jamesieboy
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A guy I know had very little formal edumacayshun, as a Labour coon'slur
in Lanarkshire one called it.
He started off sweeping the floor of a certain financial establishment and rose quickly through the ranks until he was, up to very recently, the highest paid individual in the company.
He gave the entrepreneurs what they wanted - ie loans of money, and lots of it. He assumed that the housing market would keep on rising and lent on the strength of that (he assumed wrong!)
He enjoyed the trappings of his lifestyle though lived very modestly in a semi in a rather down-at-heel town in the west of Scotland.
He was invited to celebrations at very exclusive venues which the high-flying business types paid for (with the money this guy lent them).
One bash was for the son of one of the UK's biggest retail tycoons (whose surname is a colour) in the south of France. Robbie Williams and Destiny's Child sang at the do.
When this certain financial institution ran into trouble last year it was taken over by another one, a move that was encouraged and pushed through by a certain Prime Minister.
The institution that took it over never knew about the bad loans (or debts) and had to be nationalised to the tune of nearly 70% when it all went pear-shaped recently.
He is known as the guy who nearly brought down the capitalist system. And a nicer guy you could not meet. So nice he once bought me a pint.
Latest reports, and bearing in mind the press have been hounding this guy and camping outside his house, is that he is on an island somewhere in the Indian Ocean.
Who is he?
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agentmancuso
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| jamesieboy wrote: | | a degree in Geography & Modern Languages. |
Surely, a degree in making a tit of yourself with an online translator? 
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Dave Coull
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I forwarded an article from the Sunday Herald in which | Joanna Blythman wrote: | | Protesting against Israel doesn’t make you racist |
Disliking Joanna Blythman's article, | jamesieboy wrote: | | just posturing by the PC brigade |
Unfortunately, Jamesie had forgotten the good advice that "people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones". He got a reminder..... | Quote: | | Posturing? You mean, like, when somebody tries to give the impression their General Studies qualification from Anglia Polytechnic is "a Degree in Geography from the University of Cambridge"? |
Now, it could be argued that wasn't directly relevant to Joanna Blythman's article. But I would say if X accuses Y of "posturing", it is legitimate to point out a prima facie case of posturing by X.
What I care about is people telling the truth. .As it happens, I couldn't care less what qualifications Jamesie has, or does not have. But the discussion then wandered further away from both the first topic, Joanna Blythman's article on "Protesting against Israel doesn’t make you racist", and the second topic, the need for people to tell the truth. So far as I can make out, Jamesie's latest offering has got becquerel to do with either of these. True, | I wrote: | | Personal experiences can be relevant. |
But note that word "CAN". This means it is POSSIBLE for personal experiences to be relevant. It does NOT mean that all experiences are sure to be relevant. Jamesie's latest offering is just rambling anecdotage for its own sake. It has nothing to do with either the original theme of this topic, or the secondary theme. If you want to start a thread on "Jamesie's Ramblings", then have the honesty to do that. It's a mistake to try to introduce them where they aren't relevant.
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jamesieboy
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Dave - You are indeed a super pedant. You talk in riddles and get so caught up with matters which mean nothing.
I was talking to some English guys the other day. One had been to Strathclyde Uni. and the other had been to Glasgow Caledonian Uni.
They told their friends down south at the time they were studying 'at Glasgow'. Not Glasgow Uni. but the aforementioned institutions. They weren't telling lies, they weren't boasting, they had been at Uni. in the city of Glasgow.
I showed them this site and pointed out your posting and some of the others. We all had a good laugh at how someone could be so small-minded; at how something so unimportant could occupy so much time and space.
As for you Agent Mancuso, I haven't a F***** clue what you are talking about!!!!!!! Write in plain English and explain in language that everyone can understand instead of all this pseudo intellectual nonsense.
Translating in a Portuguese guy? Que quieres decir???? What do you mean and why are you talking in nonsense speak rather than about the individual I told you abbout?????????????????????
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Dave Coull
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| jamesieboy wrote: | | how something so unimportant could occupy so much time and space. |
The person responsible for something relatively trivial occupying so much time and space is yourself, Jamesie. You're the one who got caught out seeking to create a false impression, yet you still had the nerve to accuse others of "posturing"! Your own hypocrisy has created a major diversion from what we ought to be discussing. This topic was supposed to be about an interesting article by Joana Blythman. But Jamesie accused Joanna Blythman of "posturing". So it is relevant that Jamesie has himself been accused of exactly the same thing. Jamesie claiming to have a "Geography degree" (which turned out not to be a degree in Geography) "from Cambridge" (which turned out not to be Cambridge University) was one example of what could be regarded as "posturing". Another example which could be regarded as "posturing" was Jamesie using an internet translation service to try to give an impression of greater fluency in languages than was in fact the case ("four hundred million LOUDSPEAKERS of Spanish......" ) | I wrote: | | Personal experiences can be relevant. |
But note that word "CAN". This means it is POSSIBLE for personal experiences to be relevant. It doesn't mean that all experiences are sure to be relevant. Jamesieboy's post which begins "A guy I know....." has nothing to say, one way or the other, either for or against, Joanna Blythman's proposition that "Protesting against Israel doesn’t make you racist"; nor does it have anything to say, either one way or the other, about the suggestion that Jamesie himself indulges in "posturing". That post of Jamesie's which begins "A guy I know....." is just rambling anecdotage for its own sake.
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jamesieboy
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Most of what Joanna Blythman wrote was correct, as far as I'm concerned.
Dave, for the last time, my degree was in honours in Humanties and Social Studies at Anglia College whch was located in the City of Cambridge. It was not a part of the university, but that, as far as most folk are concerned is neither here nor there. What is important is that the exams were under the Council for National Academic Awards - a government body.
I'm sorry if I have offended some of you by being a fork-lift truck driver in a factory who went to Cambridge (and Barcelona..and Lima..and Madrid...and Stockholm, Bromma )as it seems some of you are clearly offended.
Dr George Bursa (a Czech emigre), Dr Peter Taylor, Dr Maureen Fitzgerald were all my GEOGRAPHY lecturers. As I've already pointed out they were all experts in their academic fields. Dr Morgan is still there, and he is an expert in Spanish and Mexican History.
For those of you unfamiliar with academia, some colleges DO offer you a combination of subjects and are not rigid. At least that was the case in 1987.and i grabbed it with both hands.
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Alasdair
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james, I only ever get offended by people who talk s***e ... such is life.
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Dave Coull
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| jamesieboy wrote: | | Most of what Joanna Blythman wrote was correct, as far as I'm concerned. |
Then why did you describe her article as | Quote: | | just posturing by the PC brigade |
? | jamesieboy wrote: | | I'm sorry if I have offended some of you by being a fork-lift truck driver in a factory |
Well, a fork-lift truck driver on a building site did nearly kill me, when he was using his fork lift for lifting a concrete lintol up onto a scaffold I was standing on, and he lost control because of the weight of the lintol and because he was on a bit of a slope, and he pushed the wall I'd been building over, and dropped the heavy concrete lintol onto the scaffold I was standing on, narrowly missing me, but splintering the scaffold boards, and leaving me hanging on by my fingertips, but no, despite that, I don't have anything against fork-lift truck drivers in general. Just as i wouldn't expect folk to be prejudiced against ME because of an unfortunate experience with some other bricklayer they'd met. No, the thing that offended me , Jamesie, was nothing to do with any job you have ever done. The thing that offended me was, I considered that, to begin with at any rate, some of the things you said were misleading to the point of being deliberately false. Despite your protestations of innocence, and despite you correcting things since then, I still think that, to begin with at any rate, some of the things you said were misleading to the point of being deliberately false.
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agentmancuso
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| jamesieboy wrote: | | As for you Agent Mancuso, I haven't a F***** clue what you are talking about!!!!!!! |
(Wearily) As you're so determined, I'll spell it out.
For example, you attempted to say there 400 million Spanish speakers in the world. This came out as 400 million parlantes de castellano. Now parlantes does mean 'speakers', but in the sense 'loudspeakers'. The word you were looking for was perhaps hablantes.
Equally, you attempted to say (in Spanish, oddly) that you speak 'some Portuguese'. Unfortunately while algun portugues does mean this, it means it in the sense 'some Portuguese (male) person'. algo de portugues would have been better choice.
You do not have a degree in Modern Languages, and you are not a teacher of Modern Languages. If you did, and if you were, you would know that relying on an on-line translator is deeply hazardous, as the results are inevitably too literal to be of any use. I know this because I do have a Masters degree in Modern Languages and I am a teacher of Modern Languages.
I am equally certain that you do not have a degree in Geography, or in anything else. You are clearly not all that bright. I'd be willing to bet you'd never even been to (the city of) Cambridge, not that it matters.
So on the whole, you're a waste of space jamsieboy, and the advice I would give to the audience here present is to ignore you completely from now on. I know I will be. Adios..
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jamesieboy
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Mancuso - you are pathetic. Accusing someone of not speaking a language is simply pitiful and small-minded.
I have named my lecturers and as far as an online translator is concerned I have, hand on heart, never used it and i never will. Not for castellano, anyway.
Obviously, you are used to using all these aids. I am used to speaking off the cuff in a foreign language.
You can say parlantes OR hablantes, the former being more utilised in the Barcelona region. The latter is used more in the region around Madrid which is where the language originated - Castellano = Castilian = from Castile, which is where the whole Spanish culture originated.
If you still don't believe me, we will meet in Tennents Bar on Byres Road next Friday where I'll introduce you to the teachers I work with, some geography, Some Mod Languages and I'll bring a copy of my certificates.
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jamesieboy
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And if you are proved wrong, you owe me a pint of Deuchars.
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