Hilary Mantel makes a good point

[juneau]

She shouldn't have said it, since it's bitchy and uncalled for (and I actually find HM rather odd, if I'm honest), but after a good couple of years in the media spotlight I struggle to think of one thing the Duchess of Cambridge thinks or believes in. She never gives an opinion, she barely speaks, she just looks pretty and smiles.

Global warming is just an example to prove the point that however much the media and the great and the good may try to create an idol or something for the people to believe in, they are not successful because the people are able to see through it.

In the same way the media and the great and the good find it difficult to fool people about idols, since the people can recognise really praiseworthy people from the ones created by the media and the spin doctors.

In the same way, the great and the good try to elevate themselves as people to be admired by the people. But the fact that we call them the "great and the good" shows that we know the reality and know their game.

But the people do elevate some rare individuals above the fray - people such as Diana. Some of the great and the good don't like that and they try to knock Diana, but that didn't wash with the public, because they know the tricks of the great and the good.

Are you saying global warming isn't happening? (Why am I asking this?)

:D jimjams

Are you saying global warming isn't happening claig?

My interpretation is that Claig is saying that global warming is an attempt at manipulation by the media which has failed because people have seen through it.

If that is what is being said I think there's all sorts of things wrong with that analysis, but I may have misunderstood what was meant.

Of course it is not

www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released--chart-prove-it.html

But the great and the good don't publicise it.

They knocked Diana, they rolled out some of their Sirs to try and smear her in their news rags, they knighted Savile and others like him, they trumpeted global warming, but the public saw through it all.

There are some things offend the public's sense of justice, that offends their sense of good manners and fair play, and that is attacks against people who cannot defend themselves such as Kate.

There may not be honour among thieves, global warmers and the great and the good, but there is honour among the people.

you couldn't make this up, starting with the Daily Mail's complete mockery of misinterpreting Hilary Mantel's essay and now ending up with 'proof' the global warming is not happening with an article from....The Daily Mail. Oh Jesus.

Are you aware you've linked to a Daily Mail article showing temperature changes between 1997 and 2002?

'you couldn't make this up'

You most certainly couldn't, but the people are wise to it.

www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/28/windfarms-risk-free-millions-for-landowners

The conclusion of that, er, Daily Mail article you linked to.

'So let?s be clear. Yes: global warming is real, and some of it at least has been caused by the CO2 emitted by fossil fuels. But the evidence is beginning to suggest that it may be happening much slower than the catastrophists have claimed ? a conclusion with enormous policy implications.'

So it is real then. Though there is a theory it is happening more slowly than before [very conveniently meaning the government doesn't have to do anything]

Conversely, the arctic sea ice is melting more rapidly than ever before. Is that just a media conspiracy then ?

oh ok so you don't like wind farms. Right.

'oh ok so you don't like wind farms. Right.'

It's not about whether I like windfarms or I like Kate; it is about the fact that the people don't like windfarms and do like Kate.

' the arctic sea ice is melting more rapidly than ever before. Is that just a media conspiracy then ? '

But the Antarctic isn't.
But global warming is not the topic of this thread. Climategate and Climategate2 were the nails in the coffin for the great and the good's plans. It is now just a matter of time until the great and the good tell the people the truth.

Yes it is

from that article

"We can state definitively that both Greenland and Antarctica are losing mass, and as [the] temperature goes up we are going to lose more ice."

Eventually there will be an inquiry and we will be told how much the public paid the rich landowners to subsidise their windfarms and how much the public paid the bankers to subsidise their losees.

There'll be a report of thousands of pages and there will be lots of redactions, the same old actions, there'll be people shuffled in their jobs and golden goodbyes and the public will pay for it all, but eventuallt the truth will out and the empire will fall.

'from that article'

It sounds like that article was not up to the usual high standards we have become accustomed to with the Daily Mail. It sounds like the researcher may have missed some key facts.

bonkers.

That was the article YOU linked to to prove global warming isn't happening claig. at The Daily Mail's 'usual high standards'

Poface Your comment of 19:54 last night most certainly was addressed at me. So don't try and pretend it wasn't.

" I am not doing any nasty objectifying"

Yes you did. In your post of 20:13 you returned to the 'painfully thin' claim. How can you not see this is none of your business? If you want to say the papers hold her out as an Icon of feminine perfection and that is a crap thing to do because she is the child and wife of millionaires so she can bloody well afford to look decent then I'd be the first person to support you. To make a nasty vicious and clearly wrong statement aout her size is just nasty objectifying. The fact that you went on to justify your right to do this by reference to events in your life not only demonstrates that your point was entirely agenda driven, it also means you have no grounds to object when other people comment on what you posted. Your issues are your issues and do not in any way absolve you from the norms of decency in commenting on the physical appearance of other people.

"I think it is rather disingenous to try to make out that those who feel the essay has been completely misinterpreted and object only to personal attacks as part of a Mantel fan club."

The essay has indeed been widely misinterpreted, I agree. I've made that point too. You have not objected only to personal attacks on Mantel since you specifically objected to my post and then admitted that I hadn't made a personal attack on her. So clearly, you object to anyone disagreeing with Mantel. I am beyond disappointed with Mantel because she allowed her personal agenda to derail an otherwise excellent speech and article, and because her personal agenda appears to be as objectifying as the agendas of the papers she was claiming to criticize.

It's the refusal to acknowledge any fault at all on Mantel's part that denotes membership of her fan club in this instance, not ability to read (because anyone who can read can see that most of the comments 'about Kate' were legitimate elements of her case against the media and were in any case about the media constructed image of Kate rather than the woman herself). If you can't grasp that the painfully thin comment was not relating to the media's image of Kate but Mantel's own value judgement of Kate's appearance therefore completely out of place in the piece and out of order in decent polite human relations then I really can't help you.

Russians what on earth are you on about. The only thing I said about 'painfully thin' is that it is a subjective thing and not unreasonable to say. It seems you have issues, if you really take so much umbrage at that. And all this knee jerk outrage really does not lend itself to discussion and accusations that i have an agenda is RIDICULOUS.

I actually said the observation in the article I linked to that Mantel's comments were a mix of 'sympathy and savagery' was a good one. I really don't get what you are going on about.

the irony of you first being outraged a comment about Middleton, then being outraged at my saying it was not an unreasonable comment and subsequently being very personal in your attack Russians, is pretty clear.

If you read Mantel's original lengthy and quite brilliant essay in London Review of Books (I think it was) it's not a personal attack on the Duchess at all, but an attack on the media portrayal and hounding of royals, how celebrity images are created and how royalty, especially females, have been portayed and treated through the ages.

Of course a lot of people only read the Daily Mail interpretation. Yes Mantel is eccentric - well good - how boring life would be if we all thought the same. Her work won't appeal to everyone but I think she's a national treasure and I'm glad she gets the recognition she deserves. I hope she relishes the (falsely created) notoriety and it doesn't diminish her.