Protesters disrupt gender critical discussion at Oxford

[Igneococcus]

Has this been shared yet:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/437977a2-483b-43dc-bf6d-b111c44b9b08?shareToken=d987606e90e4778acb47a037cfd44702

But it wouldn’t have touched you if you’d been doing the right thing, Hermy: prostrating yourselves on the ground to worship the mighty phallus. Even if you’d just knelt down and bowed your heads it would have probably missed you.

Now I’m doing my tut-tut face🙁

I expect it would have, because gravity.

Pesky scientific reality again, curse it.

There's a style in British English pronunciation which has it that you stress the first syllable on many two syllable words when it's a noun and the second when it's a verb. Consider: record, produce,retake, contract and so on. Following this rule gived you "pruh-TEST" and "PRO-test". It's a thing.

Edit: Many Americans do not do this.

I tuned in to the middle of a report on Sky News last night, some earnest young people were talking about their urgent need for 'safe spaces' .

My eyes were halted in mid-roll as I realised they were talking about how frightened they were by the epidemic of knife-crime on the streets in their localities..

I was one of the last cohort to graduate from an English uni having all my fees paid and a full maintenance grant for my living expenses because of the financial situation of my parents. I even qualified for housing benefit and was eligible to sign on in the summer holidays if I hadn’t been bothered to get a summer job. The government had only just stopped us being able to sign on in the shorter Christmas and Easter holidays. None of my uni friends had term time jobs, we were actively discouraged by our tutors because of the disruption to studies, and financially we managed ok thanks to the grants and some strict budgeting. Lived in some complete shit holes though. I got a small talk from my mum when I got my first grant cheque, it was for £720 for the first term (half of which went to the halls of residence) and I’d never had so much money all in one go! She said that it was money from all our neighbours rates and represented their investment in me because they thought that I was going to do Something Useful with my life. And I should pay it back, either in tax because I’d end up on a higher salary with a degree, or by Contributing to Society. And I should remember that when I cashed each cheque. It was the only lecture I ever got from my parents, and it stuck with me.

Different world these days innit?

I didn't get a grant but in second and third year my accommodation and meals were free because I supervised school boarders and lived in. I ate my lunch at college not at the school which was a few miles away, so at the end of each year I got some huge sum equivalent to three terms of school lunches. I went completely mad with it (teenager, no sense) and bought ALL THREE VOLUMES of Harold Leask's Irish Churches and Monastic Buildings AND his Irish Castles.

Young people eh, no reasoning with them.

There's a style in British English pronunciation which has it that you stress the first syllable on many two syllable words when it's a noun and the second when it's a verb. Consider: record, produce,retake, contract and so on. Following this rule gived you "pruh-TEST" and "PRO-test". It's a thing.

I do that, but I'm not a native English speaker. I must have learned it at school.

I was trying to guess the fluid velocity, speed of float and potential pump force - but men can’t even wee in a loo without splashing all round it, so I never fancied my chances in the split second I got to try and avoid.

Again, a flag with a bit cut out REALLY doesn’t warrant a sensitive warning. You’ll see much worse, Chris.

As PPs have pointed out, on this side of the Atlantic, we protest at or about something, whereas the American version is just 'to protest something', and this - surprisingly - is the form used by the Oxford students “protesting transphobia”.

I learnt about transitive and intransitive verbs, as well as passive and active voices, in an overcrowded, dingy classroom in a National primary school in a provincial town in Ireland, when I was about 9 year old.

Clearly the Oxford students didn't have the benefit of learning grammar at the same overcrowded, dingy classroom in a National primary school in a provincial town in Ireland as me - I'm checking my privilege there

DeanElderberry · Today 18:25

I... bought ALL THREE VOLUMES of Harold Leask's Irish Churches and Monastic Buildings AND his Irish Castles.

As a completely irrelevant aside, there's a load of Leasks in South Shields. That's where my Gran went in 1938, as her dad had work in a ship yard there. She was born in Northern Ireland, but brought up in Belgium until 15.

GGrandad saw the writing on the wall and they got out.

A quick squint at the 1911 census reveals HL's father was born in Scotland (and HL was Presbyterian - never knew that).

My researches tell me Leask is definitely a Scottish surname.

(Which explains why it's not in my book of English surnames.)

She said that it was money from all our neighbours rates and represented their investment in me because they thought that I was going to do Something Useful with my life. And I should pay it back, either in tax because I’d end up on a higher salary with a degree, or by Contributing to Society. And I should remember that when I cashed each cheque. It was the only lecture I ever got from my parents, and it stuck with me.

That's quite some thought provoking speech!

I suspect at the age I might have brushed it off or filed it at the back of my mind.

But irrespective of whether telling students you can go to university by taking out a loan you will have to repay makes financial sucess, it must surely change how students feel about being at university.

So is Chris Step Richards? Because all these posts about this flag seem to mirror Steph’s tweets.

Sorry that should be ‘channeling Steph Richards’ because wasn’t Richards banned from MN?

Thats quite some thought provoking speech!

@IwantToRetire yes, Mum was a closet socialist with strong views but I only pieced that together later in life. Mum and Dad followed the old rules of never discussing politics or religion in public, which included in front of us kids. I think that’s why it stuck in my mind, because it was so unusual for either of them to express an opinion like that.

I was quite the little feminist even when I was young and thought it was fantastic we had a woman prime minister in 1979, and couldn’t understand Mums reaction the day after the election and I read the headlines in the paper and got all enthusiastic - I remember her lips pressed together and a loud “hmmm” as she put breakfast on the table. I didn’t really grasp party politics for another few years.

I'm re-reading Georgette Heyer a lot at the moment - obviously she is always good at depicting trying if fundamentally lovable young people, and I enjoyed this: Eleanor had not consorted with adolescents for six years without learning when it was useless to persevere in the attempt to convey to them ideas that were wholly alien to their minds, and she now made no further attempt to bring Nicky to an appreciation of her own sentiments.

My thoughts immediately leapt to a wonderful book called 'Giggling in the shrubbery'- a collection of reminiscences from women who were at boarding school in the first half (ish) of the 20th century.

A teacher happens upon a group of girls puffing away on cigarettes and 'fancying themselves frightfully grown up'. The teacher, instead of berating them, merely says "I cannot tell you how fearfully silly you all look" before moving away, leaving the girls somewhat crushed. (not an exact quote, but close enough).

Obviously the 'young things' in this incident are probably thicker-skinned, but the attitude of the teacher rings very true for me- a weary acceptance of tedious youthful behaviour coupled with the knowledge that one day those students will grow up and 'do better'.

When did that pragmatic mid 20th century attitude give way to the present fad of pandering to their every whim? Given that annoying know-it-all youngsters have been around for millennia.

It's very hard to answer that without lapsing into 'in my day we mined our own iron ore and brought it to the blast furnace to produce steel to make needles to sew our own clothes...'
but in my day..
parents were not expected to be 'best friends' with their children, there was a different interpretation and manifestation of love between parents and children, and it included socialisation and guidance.

Like 'Don't put your feet on the bus seats, you'll dirty the seat and somebody's coat will get ruined'. Made sense, so we didn't. But somebody had to tell us, and our parents believed that teaching us those little snippets of how to be a social being, and how not to be a little pest, was part of loving us.

That was the recent past - it's not THAT long ago since I was a child - does it seem unrealistic today?

I think it's what I think of as toxic femininity. Which is about status seeking through social action and keeping down others - mainly other women.

Teens often do it with clothes, music, etc, older teens and young adults (and grown women) do it through asserting social norms. A lot of social justice is basically establishing your place in the social hierarchy.

https://www.gurwinder.blog/p/the-outrageous-rise-of-neotoddlerism

I’ve started reading Gurwinder’s blogs. The concept of the neotoddler seems to fit well in this kind of activism.

Wow, good for your mum.

When they became the customer purchasing their learning via a loan whose repayments will hang over them for years.

Caught a bit of the Radio 4 Any Answers I think, and it seems that any questions have been all about selfish baby boomers who have stolen young peoples future and money. So it isn't just them thinking it, there is a whole media push to present boomers and having wrecked young people's futures.

Whereas it is obvious that those who are pushing this narrative are the politicians who dont want to admit that their decisions and priorities have impacted the future of this country for both young and old.

ie why are house prices so high? Because without access to what was once a standard source of housing, ie social housing, there is not only a shortage but the ability to endless hike prices. No one ever talks about this. Blaming boomers is one thing, but allowing your brain to be spoon fed Thatcher like aspirations of everyone must be a home owner without looking at the consequences of that, is as bad as falling for Blair's everyone must have a degree, without counting to cost of doing that.