Yes I meant Airships ....they were being used during my national service time as the home for weather balloons etc....there was a small airship stationed there in my time (1952/3)...I think it was called AS Bournemouth....but that's my memory going back 70yrs. Cardington in 1960 when I passed through was just a kitting out depot....I was the last of the National Service intake .....so it would be for regulars signing on for a minimum of 3yrs plus. I did meet one of my fathers mates....a Master Technician Sgt who looked me up whilst I was passing through.....Cardington was the only post left in the RAF for him regarding weather .balloons....he'd already been there 20 yrs when I saw him. Of course others in the billet wanted to know why a Master Techniciam with ribbons and bits and pieces up and down his sleeve wanted to talk to me.....my father warned me never let Cpls etc know that my father had been a Station Warrant Officer...if I wanted peace and quiet because drill instructors where satanic evil types and they could of made my life hell if they found out. Luckily during my basic training at RAF Bridgnorth there was a feller in my hut who had two left feet and he couldn't swing his arms in the usual way...he did left arm left foot etc so he had all the attention...poor fella.
So he would have been there before that I think. Dad was in grammar school during WW2 and Clive was younger than him. Dad did his National Service (at RAF Church Fenton) before the Suez Crisis in 1956 because he told me they threatened to re-enlist him for that. Of course it was all over very quickly and that didn't happen. Clive went on to be a civilian engineering contractor at RAF St Mawgan before buying a pub, so he must have been a engineeingy sort of bod. There were various maintenance units at Cardington from 1938 to 1955 so that would fit.
MARY POPPINS RATING RAISED FROM U TO PG. The rating of Mary Poppins has been raised from U to PG over "discriminatory Language" ....60 years after the film's release. The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has now deemed parts of the 1964 classic about a magical nanny unsuitable for children to watch alone. The rating has been up graded from U...meaning it is suitable for all....to Parental Guidance (PG) because of the use of the derogatory term "Hottentot". First coined in the late 17th century refer to the Khoekhoe...a group of people who were among the first inhabitants of southern Africa...the term is now considered to be racially offensive. Admiral Boom.. a neighbour of the Banks family...says the word "Hottentot" twice in the film.....first about people off-screen and then when talking about the two children whose faces are blackened with soot. Daily Telegraph...27/02/2024. Shock horror....have we been allowing are children to watch this for 60 years without parental guidance.....no wonder are kids are in such a mess. PS....does the film tell our children at anytime not to try flying with an umbrella ....a case of don't try doing this at home....I don't think it does ? How is this film safer for children to watch because they are with an adult ? So why do we allow children to have mobile phones when an adult isn't present....far greater horrors can be found on a phone than ever in Mary Poppins.
Wokism and Political Correctness ? 1.....So the sacking of Tory MP Lee Anderson is seen as him being racial...after he said ...."Islamists have got control" of Sadiq Khan the Mayor of London......can you not state such a thing without it being seen as racism ?....many people agree with him regarding Sadiq Khan and what is happening in London. 2.....Now we also have Conservative MP Paul Scully suggesting that parts of East London and Birmingham are no go area's ....and it being labelled as a racial comment.....I would think many people would not feel safe in certain area's......A few years back I took Mrs Plym up to the Paddington/Euston area when she went up to Glasgow for a Course.....we were rather early so looked for somewhere to have a coffee....not liking the look of the station refreshment area...we went outside the station looking for somewhere else for a drink.....it soon dawn on us that there where no UK style shops anywhere around the station....and felt that we where being observed as fish out of water by even leaving the safety of the Station....so we went straight back inside the station...it was an uncomfortable feeling.....and I feel what Paul Scully said was true then and even more so now.
I had the TV on in the kitchen just now and Politics Live was debating the Anderson incident. As usual, there’s a Conservative, a Labour, a radical of some sort and a journo or something - in this case a white man in his 60’s who looked like a lawyer or businessman. The male Tory MP couldn’t bring himself to get off the fence: not condemning Anderson but criticising his choice of words. The radical made a valid point that if someone had said that Jewish groups had Westminster politicians in their pocket, that would definitely be considered anti-semetic. The non political type then said that he considered himself to be a Conservative to the right of the party and had voted Tory all his life. Increasingly though he could not vote for a party that harboured the likes of Anderson. As he said, if he was a mouthy back-bencher, that would be one thing but how he could be made deputy chairman he could not understand. Only to appeal to former Labour voters in the north he thought. Spot on mate, you and me both.
The radical of some sort is Iain Dale....on the programme quite often.... a broadcaster on LBC Radio ....a Conservative leaning politician and regular discussion show presenter....who has tried for Parliament in the past and was Radio Presenter of the year in 2013.
Been switching between THREE live games tonight...and its been nothing but dross....the thought of having to watch a possible 120 mins plus a penalty shoot out...doesn't inspire me for a moment.
The problem you have with this so called wokism stuff is that you agree with the racist comments and cannot see that any of it could possibly be offensive because it agrees with you. Sorry plymborn but that says more about you than the subject in question. When falling in a hole you haven't learned to stop digging yet and given your age are unlikely to at any time let alone soon. You never miss an opportunity to raise the issue do you. Anderson is a clear racist and should be thrown out of Parliament never mind the slap on the wrist response to pressure of having the whip removed.
Surely the problem is that any other view must be racist because it doesn't agree with what is politically correct. We are being suffocated in this country with the opinion that treats any other view... that is different must be racist.....you cannot query any opposite thought or idea because it must be wrong and therefore racial......isn't it possible to have a different point of view without claiming that that view because it is different has to be wrong so it has to be racial. Free speech is being persecuted by the political correct approach.... and there is no other view allowed when the subject is about race or colour.... and you are not allowed to debate such a subject because it makes you a racist if you do have another point of view.....what a boring place this world is becoming.
I think Anderson is a racist and his presence in the Conservative Party, together with high taxes and a rag-bag of Brexit nutters are why I’m unlikely to vote in the upcoming General Election. Having said that, whilst poorly phrased so that it’s open to interpretation, I’m not sure this particular outburst is in fact racist. Firstly, nobody is going to deny there are extremists in all sections of the population including neo Nazis in the white community. Criticising them is not a criticism of the whole white population. A statement has come out of No 10 saying Anderson was wrong to conflate all Muslims with Islamic extremists. Did he say that? He said Sadiq Kahn was under the control of Islamists as far as I’m aware. That’s not the same thing. It would be better in a very volatile and emotionally charged situation for Anderson to keep his big fat mouth shut if all he wants to do is score points off his political enemies. But that’s the trouble with trying to get a political advantage by taking loose cannons into your party rather than making a strong but compassionate line yourself. Nigel Effing Farage here we come if we aren’t careful. It’s laughable that the white far right are taking to the streets to oppose what they would call Islamists. Does that mean they support Israel? No, do they hell, it’s just an opportunity to get publicity for them. If Hitler had got the atomic bomb first and the means to deliver it to the USA, both of which the Nazis were working on, who do you suppose he’d have turned on once he’d finished off the Jews and the Slavs? I’ll hazard a guess and say it would have been anyone with - darker skin tones who don’t go to church on a Sunday. Let’s not forget racists hate anyone and everyone who doesn’t fit their model, not just the particular group they’re victimising at present. That’s where the extreme right differ from extreme left. At least the latter are committed to a set of political and economic beliefs that can be held by anyone. The former just hate anyone who doesn’t look like them and doesn’t go to the same church no matter what they think or do.
Why is it that everyone who hails from Liverpool has to think they are a Comedian? I have just read a story on the beeb football site of an interview with Wayne Rooney who thinks that by getting back on the treadmill management wise will give him a platform for the Man U or Everton job in the future. You really couldn't make it up could you.
Illusions of grandeur....that is the problem with Rooney.....just because he had a successful playing career.... he thinks the game owes him a career as a manager....well results are the requirement needed for that judgement. Schumacher also is finding out that it is judged by present results.....not what you did yesterday......he is forgetting the tremendous support he got at PAFC that helped him get those results.....Stoke owe him nothing....they're paying him good wages and he needs to earn it....or else he's out the door like all the other ex-managers of Stoke.
It shows what a well run club Argyle is. We won’t have a big budget but what we have isn’t frittered away by having the chairman dabble in signing players. That seems to be a suspicion at Stoke although the Director of Football got the chop for poor recruitment. The ones we do sign are assessed for their character as well as their ability. They spend all hours travelling together and have to get on with each other. Schumacher has at least one senior player training with the youngsters because of disciplinary issues. At the end of the day. Argyle fans are little different to those at the other 91 English clubs. If performances was poor for long enough, they’d become restless. But at present, they haven’t forgotten we nearly went bust and see a young exciting players trying hard and to be honest, not doing too badly considering what they’re up against. They see a club that’s open and honest with them, even if some would like us to splash more cash on players. Reading comments from Stoke fans suggests they continue to support their club despite its management not because of it. I thought it was a daft move for him to make at the time. Apart perhaps from being closer geographically to Liverpool and a few more quid in his pocket, what did he gain from it? Surely another year or two at Argyle without getting relegated could have seen him go directly to the Premier League or more likely. an ambitious upwardly mobile top 10 Championship club with a good chance of gettting there? Football management is very much like surfing. Bear with me. Catch a wave right and you have an exhilarating ride, upward and forward. Get it wrong and you get smashed into the seabed at an uncomfortably high rate of knots with several tons of water smashing down on you. Stoke City always looked like the latter didn’t it?
George Galloway easily wins the Rochdale by-election.....that is one of the most depressing results I have ever heard. Add to that all the sex grooming of young girls/women that has happened in that area over the years....and is still going on we're told....Rochdale must be a place of total misery. Politics in this country needs a major re-booting....and not towards the likes of Galloway who has fed on the fears of the Muslim electorate.
I agree the last thing we want is more polarisation. I heard someone say on Radio 4 yesterday that that rot set in when the so called Millennial generation came to adulthood during the Iraq War and particularly in its aftermath. Their argument was that the wise-after-the-event focus on WMD's and what knew what when rather than how evil and dangerous Hussain was destroyed faith in politicians and mainstream politics in general. What we don't need is George Galloway and his equivalents on the right stoking the flames. I fear with an election coming up at the same time as the war in Gaza and the Rwanda debacle, it's going to generate a lot more heat than light and possibly create an impotent hung parliament with extremists dominating the agenda.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has definitely lost it....an unprecedented lectern address outside of 10 Downing Street is a rarity.....but Sunak in attempting to make us think that he is strong called for one to tell us that we must not allow extremism to take control.....which played directly into George Galloways' hands and gave him more publicity regarding this mad Rochdale result. It also showed that Labours selection of their candidate was totally flawed.....leading to Starmer having to ditch their candidate and then not to be able to select someone more suitable because of lack of time.
I think it’s a very valid warning. Unfortunately though extremism is not limited to demonstrators. He has some unsavoury characters in the right wing of his own party and beyond into the entirety of Reform. Labour has always had extremists and anti-semites on the left but it now has flowed back into revitalised militant unions and the nationalists in Wales and Scotland. Leaving that aside though, and despite the fact he’s shining a light on Starmer’s problems, in fact what he’s saying is exactly what a Prime Minister should.be saying. That is warning us of a clear and present danger of the country tearing itself in half just as the USA has done.
