Monday, July 26, 2010

But if I remember to shave my forehead in the mornings, I can almost pass for a member of the Stock Exchange

Yes, well fuck you too, Rory Stewart, you may have written a pretty good book about Afghanistan, but that doesn't let you off on a first degree charge of being an arse to joskyns. As it happens, while playing with my cousins as a boy, I may have on occasion used a bit of baler twine as a makeshift belt myself on occasion, and I certainly knew people who made a habit of it. But they let me go to university, and now I am not only more or less immune from being patronised by floppy-haired tools, I am able to patronise a few of them myself! I suppose that the point is that there's a category of toff which considers Pashtun tribesmen and Penrith farmers to be more or less indistinguishable - anyone less posh than them is basically in the category "peasants", and there's no real sense in making distinctions between them any more than knowing the difference between a phytoplankton and a paramecium when looking at pond life. Ironically this is often experienced as the legendary "common touch"; the very posh indeed really do talk to their gardener in the same way they talk to a doctor.

Bonus bile: Dear Penrithians, there's no point acting all pissed off now, you knew he was a Tory when you voted for him, love, DD.

26 comments:

  1. Also interested to see from that article that former Leeds United hardman David Batty is writing for the Guardian these days - if you click on his profile page you can see he's lost quite a lot of weight and grown a beard.

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  2. I can't see David Batty's photo on there, though I can see a link to an article by Julian Glover reinforcing my previous impression (not that it needed reinforcing) that he was an arrogant twat.

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  3. If his constituents are thick, this doesn't reflect well on the fact they chose him, does it? From Prince of the Marshes to Idol of the Cumberland Dolt.

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  4. See Dave Renton's comments here

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  5. I'd been expecting this too, ever since the moment when Rory humbly asked the FT interviewer whether she thought he should be Prime Minister.

    Glossary urgently needed: 'an arse to joskyns'? Who or what is Joskyns?

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  6. Joskin SA is a Belgian manufacturer of agricultural equipment; in particular it's the brand leader in liquid manure spreaders. This is presumably the root of it being local slang in North Wales for the kind of person who keeps his trousers up with bailer twine. I only just found that out when looked it up and found it was spelled "Joskin"; the spelling with the y is closer to how it would be pronounced phonetically by a Welsh speaker, although I realise that isn't much help to anyone else. So yes, anyway, joskyn=joskin=hillbilly.

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  7. Thinking about it, there's no point in putting the Welsh "y" in there because there isn't a J in the Welsh alphabet. So as you were with that one and I am now prepared to accept the Belgian spelling as canonical.

    "Joskin.co.uk" is a company that will translate English into Welsh for you (there is a surprisingly large demand for this, created by the Welsh Language Act). I cannot vouch for their translation services, never having used them, but they are clearly top lads for choosing the name.

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  8. Cheers Danny but.

    (...Though 'but' is South Wales, especially the Valleys, innit but? What do you say in North Wales but?)

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  9. That would be "bach", but most commonly "yeah". The Encyclopedia Holyheadyeah is a great site.

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  10. It's close, but none of my relatives fall into Penrith rather than Workington, so thank God for that.

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  11. It's 'bach' in the West of the South, where they actually speak Welsh - as opposed to the East ('Welsh Wales') where they may understand a bit but don't speak it at all (unless they're English incomers intent on Making An Effort).

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  12. An actual joskin would probably say "washi" (short a, it's a contraction of "fy ngwas i" - "my boy"). But that would be really rural and quite archaic - in nearly every case I can think of, if someone was calling you washi, you would be a loooong way from where you probably wanted to be. On crap roads, too.

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  13. Somewhat related to crap roads, long ways, and unpronouncable languages, this got me thinking about the great Mexican film Herod's Law, in some way a comment on the Rory Stewarts and their success.

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  14. Penrith seems to have a habit of electing North British quasi-gentry: before Stewart it was David Maclean, and before him it was Willie Whitelaw's constituency for nearly thirty years.

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  15. This: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jan/14/rory-stewart-tory-mp-penrith is both toe-curlingly bad (what struck me at the time) and oddly predictive of both the Guardian's mysterious fondness for the Tories (see today's editorial) and Stewart's propensity for getting into trouble (what strikes me now).

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  16. Fitzroy Maclean got himself elected MP for Lancaster and then went off and spent the next four years mucking around with guerrillas. I would commend this order of doing things over Mr Stewart's.

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  17. In order to be released from the FO to join the army, let's not forget.

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  18. Wouldn't an elected representative ideally be available to represent their constituents?

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  19. Wouldn't an elected representative ideally be available to represent their constituents?

    Like proportional representation or republicanism, this idea of yours has many theoretical attractions, but doesn't really fit into the traditions of the British system. I hope it gets tried one day though.

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  20. PR is good and local representation is also good, but they do conflict slightly, don't they? And occasionally, being able to vote out a specific useless bastard, as opposed to a party list, is a useful tool (naming no Portillos)

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  21. I am happy with your and ajay's suggested model, whereby MPs are elected on a party list system, then the majority of them are packed off to a disaster area somewhere. There were many pisspoor '97 intake Blairites who would have made excellent sandbags.

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  22. I'm forwarding this to the Daily Caller

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  23. Seems a bit harsh on the disaster areas, dd.

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  24. There were many pisspoor '97 intake Blairites who would have made excellent sandbags.

    Actually that was very much their function

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  25. Possible book title: Windbags, Sandbags, Moneybags and Carpetbags: The Decline And Fall of Parliament in the 21st Century

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  26. Strength Through Unity: The Parable of the Bundle of Twiggs

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