I came across a discussion on the subject of trigger warnings on the old TV programme, Terry and June and was somewhat amazed as to why it would need them, although I have to admit I was never an avid watcher of the programme but always felt it was a fairly innocuous sitcom and hardly one to cause offence.
The following is what I was finally allowed to post by way of a reply to a fellow called DS whose text I shall put in bold. This did take two attempts but all will be revealed in the text.
I think here is an example of exactly why we have trigger warnings on things like Terry and June as I tried to make a comment to someone called DS who had posted, the following, I imagine to rebut comments concerning the ‘wokeness’ of the youth of today.
And they’re off. The “It’s only Banter I blame the Snowflakes” Stakes. Favourite “Bi got but Doesn’t Know it Yet”
When I tried to post my reply to question what on earth they were trying to say, a message came up saying, Some members of the community may find your comment inappropriate. Try Again?
So here goes; I wonder if you could explain your comment, Favourite “Bi got but Doesn’t Know it Yet”. I’m afraid I don’t understand what it means? Even though I have just worked it out that it’s supposed to be bigot, I still can’t make sense of the comment. This probably explains the massive gap between the young and us older people and as an example, we never use the word banter. I think closing the chasm is a lost cause but you never know, for we too were young, once upon a time!
Now, I have another message saying to try again but with the same caveat that some members of the community may find your comment inappropriate, together with a red post comment box!
Now, to try to make sense of this, the original story provoked many comments with mention of younger folk being snowflakes and I imagine DS was attempting to defend them and even to go as far as suggesting they were not snowflakes. (At least, I think that was his point, it’s quite hard to translate what young folk say nowadays.)
Obviously, the bloody irony of the situation being that AOL whose site it was, intervened and initially stopped me posting, as my comment may cause offence and then warned me to publish and be dammed, so not wishing to be thought of as woke or a snowflake, that is exactly what I did.
What I am still trying to work out is; was DS a snowflake for complaining about being called a snowflake, or was AOL a snowflake for trying to stop me posting and finally, what on earth was so offensive in anything I wrote to cause AOL to have a snowflake moment in the first place?
Should anyone have any of the answers to these questions, please put your explanation in the comments box below.
I took one of my cars for a quick spin this morning as anything vaguely modern hates to be sitting around not being used, unlike a proper classic with no warning lights which could come on. Anyway, I went down the road towards the next village from ours where they often have a speed camera check, which is usually placed in the entrance to the village car park and is out of sight round the bend whichever way you enter the village. Sure as eggs is eggs, as I came round the bend I saw three civilians dressed in high viz jackets, two women and a man. The woman raised her arm and pointed what appeared to be a speed camera gun at my car, which was rather convenient as I had entered the village at 20mph just to be on the safe side. Having proceeded up the road for half a mile I turned round and came back, this time entering the village at an even slower speed, however the woman with the gun still raised it and pointed it at my car again. Now, this may sound petty to some, who knows, but I then pulled into the village car park and attracted the woman’s attention and asked in what I felt were fairly polite tones, why on earth she had pointed the gun at my car from both directions when it was blatantly obvious I was travelling way under the speed limit. It seems to me, if you can’t assess the speed of an oncoming vehicle perhaps you shouldn’t be pointing a speed camera gun at the car. I have to wonder if the Police supply these guns and on what criteria, for if they take the word of people like these that the traffic is travelling far too fast through their village, perhaps they are the ones who should be sent on a speed awareness course.
Rather belatedly I am uploading a couple of photos from our weekend in Morecambe.
I have very little to add except to say, The Midland Hotel has changed hands and is not up to its usual standard, one hopes they will listen to the feedback from visitors as we don’t want to see it slip quietly into a cheap pub/restaurant type of hotel.
We went at the weekend for one of our 40’s events at The Midland Hotel in Morecambe which is a fabulous Art Deco hotel and is not the cheapest hotel in the world but the service and ambience etc were well worth paying for, however the hotel in now under new management and some of the changes which have been implemented by the new owners didn’t go down too well with our group.
The following are two revues, one being mine and the other being from a complete stranger who stayed at the hotel with a completely different view as to the merits of the place. I shall leave a my thoughts at the end of this post and will upload some of our photos later, when I get a chance.
The following is my revue.
We stayed at The Midland on the weekend of 01/04 March 2024 where we enjoyed our 30’s/40’s weekend with Mark and Hoc Ewing and I have to say all aspects of the weekend which they had control over were up to their usual standard.
Unfortunately, other aspects of our stay were definitely not up to par and the feel of the place had been spoilt, which is a great shame for one of the best Art Deco Hotels in this country.
Having to collect a table number and go to the bar to order food is not what one expects from a four star hotel, especially when paying four star prices for the food, this is after all the sort of service one might receive when eating at a down market pub/restaurant establishment.
Having previously stayed at The Midland on numerous occasions we were very aware of the lack of staff which tended to put a bit of a dampener on our Saturday evening entertainment especially. On previous events when the band had finished, we would all retire to the bar and continue our drinking and socialising for some time and one would have thought the takings in the bar would have been more than enough to justify the staff cost to cover this service. Regardless of the fact that we were taking part in a special event, it is not de rigueur to close the bar at 11.00pm to residents of a four star hotel.
Personally, there are two more 40’s events taking place in Morecambe later this year where we would have normally stayed at The Midland but if this is the standard of service, we are going to receive we may have to look for alternative accommodation which would be a shame as in previous years, to stay at The Midland has been a delight.
Please do not spoil the ship for a ha’peth of tar.
And now for a rather different revue of the same hotel.
I visited for a 2 night stay, during my stay I found all staff very attentive, professional and welcoming. The room and establishment was spotless throughout. At busy times staff remained calm and efficient. Table service is present at breakfast, however you do order at the bar on an evening. I feel the times of table cloths and service have moved on, ordering at the bar creates a more friendly, relaxed atmosphere, hospitality staff have a very difficult job, they are not servants and should not be treated as such. The warm, welcome, friendly, family service is what Morecambe needs to bring families back to the holiday destination it once was Thank you to all the staff at the Midland. You are all superb.
Now, call me a sceptical old so and so, but this second revue seems to me to have the feel of something a management team might have put up in an effort to encourage others to embrace the “Bernie Inn” style of dining.
I was also slightly amused by the comment that hospitality staff have a very difficult job and they are not servants and should not be treated as such. Whilst not wishing to be too picky about their comment, I would have thought the job description of someone who waits at table must contain reference to serving food, now whether one who serves is a servant is obviously open to debate and no doubt will be fiercely debated when I have posted this and the more woke readers have read this post.
How can this be, he has made the place one of the most unfriendly and expensive places to own a motor car, where you have to pay to park in the road where you live and with all his bus lanes and bicycle lanes has left very little space for drivers to actually drive the damn things when they do leave home.
Should you be brave or foolish enough to venture forth in your car there is the added hazard of the ridiculous 20 mph speed limit and its associated speed cameras, let alone the problem of finding somewhere to park when you get to the end of your journey due to the multitude of double yellow lines which have been added over the years.
Now he seems to be making a pigs ear of Policing in London too, all I can say is I’m bloody glad I don’t live there anymore!
I make a point of avoiding London like the plague, which is a shame as I used to enjoy going there, however it is a bonus for the other towns and cities which I visit and spend my money.
Susan Hall has said she will abolish the ULEZ should she get elected and I say good luck to her, although I’m not holding my breath waiting on her winning and in the meantime, I’m off to Morecambe for the weekend which is a lot more fun than London.
I am a little late posting these photos of our trip at the weekend to the rather lovely See you at Sywell event which took place at the Art Deco Aviator hotel at Sywell aerodrome. Very good!
There has of late been some speculation in the press of late as to what would happen if World War Three were to break out with apparently over thirty percent of the youth of today not willing to volunteer or fight if called up.
This is a rather worrying statistic as I feel the shortfall would then have to be made up by people of advanced years like myself who might be more suited the likes of Dad’s Army, however if they need men to sacrifice themselves in a futile gesture I’m sure the older generation would be only too willing to step up to the plate.
I have to say this trend to be more “woke” in all aspects of life is not a modern phenomenon as can be heard in Noel Cowerd’s song of the 1950’s; what’s going to happen to the tots which you may find moderately amusing.
I was somewhat surprised when I read of this story which reported that the Police are investigating the first case of rape in the metaverse after a girl under the age of 16 whose digital character was raped by a gang of online strangers.
Whilst trying not to be too controversial I have to state that I wonder why anyone would want to venture into the pretend world of avatars in the first place let alone stay there long enough to be gang raped when presumably one could leave at any moment by switching off and removing the headset.
The Police stated that the victim had suffered no injuries as there was no physical attack, which I rather thought was stating the bleeding obvious but said she had suffered the same emotional and psychological trauma as if she had been raped in the real world.
Hardly surprisingly, this is the first time Police have investigated a virtual sexual offence which leaves me wondering how long will it be before we hear the Police are investigating a crime of murder in the virtual world as I know from experience of watching my grandchildren that it is quite common for there to be absolute carnage in some of these virtual games with dead bodies strewn about all over the place.
In similar vein I see that the British Film Institute in London has placed trigger warnings on a number of James Bond films in their current season, stating that they contain language, images or other content that reflect views prevalent in its time, but will cause offence today (as they did then). I have to wonder if the statement in brackets (as they did then) was added by the writer of the article as I have no recollection there being an outcry at the time of the films release.
One would have thought that an audience who would be going to the British Film Institute would be sophisticated enough to have some idea of what a James Bond film might contain, or at the very least have the intelligence to research the film for themselves without the need of trigger warnings from the Institute.
Rather sadly I’m surprised to find a 2021 survey conducted by the British Board of Film Classification found that almost two-thirds of teenagers polled supported trigger warnings on films which might negatively affect their mental health.
The research showed that anxiety (50%), stress (38%) and depression (34%) were the key issues of concern for the 13-18-year-olds, followed by body image issues (30%), suicide (20%) and self-harm (20%).
Now, I’m no mathematician but if you add all these issues together it comes to 192% so I assume vast numbers of the youth of today must suffer with two of these conditions which I have to say seems exceedingly sad when I compare it to my youth and the joy and excitement we had growing up.
Rather like today it was a time when everything was new and ground-breaking from fashion to music to technological inventions. Unlike today especially with fashion and music, Britain was at the forefront, the Beatles ruled the world, Carnaby Street was an Underground tube trip away with all the modern fashion at our fingertips.
The first man took a rocket ship to space, a satellite went up too and we watched on television as the first rather crackly television picture was sent by it, then later men on the moon and the discovery which debunked the nursery rhyme that it wasn’t made of cheese.
Then getting our first job, a motorcar and freedom of the road, the first wage packet at the end of the week in a small brown envelope, the chance to learn how to budget for once the contents of the small brown envelope were gone there was no more money until next week, it was not common practice to visit the bank of mum and dad as is the practice nowadays.
We had the ability to be punctual due to the lack of a mobile phone, so if we were meeting our friends to go to the pictures (cinema) we didn’t have the chance to phone to say we were going to be late, so should you turn up at the meeting place and your friends were gone you would have no idea which cinema they were in, was it the flea pit or did they plump for the Majestic? A very good lesson in punctuality here.
Another major advantage we had and this will seem strange to modern youth was not having the internet, we learnt of fashion and music from a weekly magazine aimed at teenagers, for anything else we had documentaries and pop programmes on the television or the local library for serious research. We were not exposed to whatever the youth of today are exposed to that make them full of anxiety about so many things, we may have at some time become involved in a fracas with another youth but it would generally have only involved fisticuffs, this was not a time when vast swathes of young men went about carrying a machete down their tracksuit trousers, nor were girls in danger of being drugged and date raped after leaving a night club.
Sadly, I can see where a lot of the anxieties of the young people of today come from but I have to say, that being the question with all the real dangers they are exposed to why on earth would you enter into a virtual world where far worse things could happen?
Lastly, should any young person happen across this post, (unlikely as it is) please heed this advice, enjoy the real world, I’m sure there are more than enough things to amuse yourself contained within it and this may seem obvious but it seems not to some; should you venture forth in the virtual metaverse and you are feeling anxious or afraid, remember it is not the real world you do not have to stay there, please take off your headset and turn off the machine.
I DON’T KNOW ABOUT FINISHED WITH 2023, I HAVE TO SAY I ENJOYED EVERY MINUTE OF IT AND WOULD LIKE TO WISH ALL OUR FRIENDS A HAPPY NEW YEAR AND LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING THEM AGAIN NEXT YEAR WHEN WE CAN DO IT ALL AGAIN!
The Diary of a Country Bumpkin 