Re: Britain produces nothing but bull***

MM wrote:
I wasn't going to bother with this, because it's eating into my
programming time and I want to get my MIDI gizmo finished.

But I'm reading another interesting book called Fantasy Island. It's
about Britain in the Blair/Brown Alice in Wonderland world we've
endured for the past eleven years.

Chapter 4 "Bull*** Britain" starts like this:


"We all know what the Germans are good at. They do precision
engineering: all those quietly humming washing machines and the cars
with their gleaming chrome and sleek bodywork. We also know that
Germany is a country in serious trouble, failing as it has to embrace
the need for flexibility in the tough new global environment. We know
this because Gordon Brown has told us many times over the past ten
years that the European model is washed up.

Germany was so abysmally competitive last year that it ran a record
trade surplus and was the biggest exporter of any country in the
world."


...then the authors go on to describe a similar effect in Japan:


"Poor, washed-up Japan ran a trade surplus of around £50 billion last
year as it found a ready market in China for its exports."

"The French have an ultra-competitive manufacturing base that
specialises in food and drink; the Scandinavians are a dab hand at
mobile phones; the Americans do computers, aircraft and Hollywood;
even the poor, benighted Italians have the world of upmarket designer
clothes."


....here it comes...


"So what is Britain good at? Where does the UK fit into this world of
changing economic geography...the answer is simple. We count the money
and we do the bull***."


The authors then describe Britain since Tony Blair as employing the
gift of the gab to earn its crust. "The Germans may have the
engineers, the Japanese may know about how to organise a production
line, but the Brits have the barristers, they have the journalists,
they have the management consultants and the men and women who think
that making up jingles and slogans in order to flog Pot Noodles and
similar products is a serious job."

"The four iconic jobs in 21st century Britain, according to a think
tank called the Work Foundation, were not scientists, engineers,
teachers and nurses, but hairdressers, celebrities, management
consultants and managers...... But, when you get down to it, this
[Britain] is a country that tries to make its living from talk, talk
and more talk.... the fact is that bull*** is what we do and... we
are mightily good at it."


And then, further on into the chapter...


"That [the bull*** production] is not the way the government sees it,
naturally. Labour believes that Britain is at the cutting edge of the
knowledge economy and that Britain's well-educated (sic) [the authors'
sic is meant here], highly skilled (sic) and entrepreneurial (sic)
workers are ready to kick German, American, Japanese and Chinese ***
all around the global village. The essence of successful bull*** is
that the really top-notch exponents not only manage to convince others
but also manage to delude themselves."


This is only a small extract to give you the flavour of this
marvellous exposé of British bull***. We are mired in the stuff.
Increasingly, I switch over when the TV or radio news starts, because
I know that 90% of it - on any channel - will just be the same old
sanitised pap consisting largely of soundbites, library footage, and a
30 second interview with Nick Robinson or his equivalent. In other
words, bull***. When the Today programme starts at 6 am, roughly when
I wake up, I groan and roll over. Oh, no! I am drawn to it like a moth
to a flame, but I know that the presenters will help shovel another
load of bull*** into my ear drums, ably aided and abetted by dozens
of politicians, pundits, and other paid bullshitters. About the only
time I sit up and start listening is on the rare occasions when an
ordinary member of the public is asked for his or her opinion on
something, and suddenly I hear the true voice of truth for a change. I
might not agree with what's being said, but it's refreshing to hear
something from an untrained, random mind and know it has not (yet)
been manipulated by the editor or the legal department or the
political adviser or any one else who doesn't like "the truth" as it
comes and wants to put some kind of spin on it.

This is why I believe that a Britain isolated from the rest of the
world by withdrawing from the EU would suffer a very bad fate. It
would, of course, serve a useful purpose in dragging the British in
front of the tricksters and fraudsters - themselves, us, in many cases
- and be forced to confront the bull*** that has just about kept the
country fed and watered since 1945. The Americans and British in
Germany in 1945 took hundreds of people from local towns near to the
liberated concentration camps and forced them to walk past the piles
of rotting bodies to shock them into at last accepting what had been
done in their name. This kind of enforced shock is long overdue for
the British. We are just living in cloud cuckoo land. We have become
rich, largely because of the spiralling value of our houses that
enabled us to take out second mortgages and fool ourselves into
believing that the new Beamer in the drive represented solid effort on
our part. We have been constantly cajoled to take out massive loans,
on a buy now, apply for an IVA later basis. We are even using one
credit card to pay the minimum payment on another, and so on. We are
in debt to the tune of 1.3 trillion pounds, but now our houses are
losing value month by month (Nationwide this morning).

There's hardly a day that goes by without some new "initiative" (i.e.
bull***) from the government, some new manipulation of the truth to
make lies seem honest. This morning, John Humphrys attempted SEVERAL
TIMES to get Liam Byrne to answer a straight question: Are there too
many immigrants in Britain? He failed. The slimy limey slipped away
and in that very polished way that British politicians have perfected,
just kept answering his own preferred question.

Last night on This Week we were regaled by Fatty Gaunt (oxymoron? Or
just moron?) from The Sun, as he tried to persuade us viewers to
reintroduce the death penalty. His pathetic, unhealthy mien was
desperately embarrassing as one felt one was in the presence of a
truly dangerous person given the "right" kind of government. This chap
is a key component of the bull*** factory that Britain has built in
the past couple of decades. He couldn't even convince Michael Portillo
of his case, and poor Diane Abbott had the discomfort about her as if
she was trying to disentangle herself from a particularly large pile
of poo.

And some need to ask, why is the Euro gaining strength?

MM

Excellent. I would very much like to be able to disagree with much of it - unfortunately I can't (especially the last paragraph)!
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