Umm

A whiff of Homophobia???

He was treated with bloody kid gloves, hailed as a hero, stunning and brave. Even his catamite allegedly received a hefty payment for something or other which definitely wasn’t an NDA.

Imagine instead he was caught regularly shagging a girl one third his age who he’d “known” since she was 15 and then leaving his wife and kids. I doubt if Ant and Dec would be piping up to applaud his bravery or if the bbc would be interviewing him as the days most important news story on “Today”.

@RichardT

A very astute observation

Slightly off topic, but about discrimination.
I embrace this wholeheartedly.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/03/anglo-saxons-arent-real-cambridge-student-fight-nationalism/
Anglo-Saxons aren’t real, Cambridge tells students in effort to fight ‘nationalism’
University aims to ‘dismantle the basis of myths of nationalism’ by explaining that Anglo-Saxons were not a distinct ethnic group.

The department’s approach also aims to show that there were never “coherent” Scottish, Irish and Welsh ethnic identities with ancient roots.

Follow the logic here. So it’s not necessary to recognise there’s anything can be called a Jock, Mick or Sheepshagger culture. Or those abortions of national languages. We don’t have to acknowledge Pikeys have “Traveller” needs. They all are British just like us.
Further, if English doesn’t exist, then the Ni**ers & Pa*is can’t be discriminated against on racial grounds because if whites don’t have a race, how can they? Black Lives truly do not matter.
More I read it, better it sounded.

@ bis
Interesting thesis. So how long does it take for a group of people isolated from other groups by physical barriers (e.g. the sea or high mountains) and/or warfare and deep mutual suspicion (the two tend to reinforce each other) to become ethnically distinct? It’s possible that 600 years is not enough, but I’ve long understood that the Angles, Saxons and Jutes were distinct ethnic groupings before they invaded Britain?
I think that there has been some scientific analysis of DNA that will show that the “woke” claims are wrong. I *know* that there are firms claiming to identifythe source of individuals’ DNAs and this would not be possible if the ethnic groups were not distinguishable.
The DNA analysis of remains at Vindiolanda claims to identify the original homes of the legionnaires buried there – that would be a bit difficult if the groups were not ethnically distinct.
Let’s hear it for the frizzy-haired Irish and the red-headed Nigerians!!!

BiS – Interesting.

So, Jews aren’t real according to Cambridge.

The idea that the various pirate boats that attacked Roman Britain had crews who were purely Angles, purely Saxons, or purely Jutes is pretty silly. The idea that those crews, and their successors, then settled in distinctive places and kept themselves to themselves is potty. But since the ancient DNA chaps claim to be able to distinguish the German invaders from the Romano-Britons pretty clearly then you want a term for them. I call them “Germans” and their language Insular West Germanic. Nobody else does.

“Anglo-Saxon”, a later term used to distinguish the Saxons who lived in what became England from those still on the Continent, more or less does as a label; it seems mad to change it now, especially if the reason is just wokeness rather than a search for precision.

Of course they didn’t call themselves that. In fact one historian I’ve read remarked that there is no record of any individual German invader or settlor of the period ever referring to himself as a Saxon. “Saxon” started as their enemies’ name for them.

The legendary founders of Wessex had British names suggesting that the crews of the pirate boats weren’t even all Germans. Why would they be if some pirate mob found themselves a superior skipper who happened to be British? Or a British freebooter recruited a crew who were principally German?

Mind you, there is one potentially bogus bit in the name of that Cambridge department: “Celtic”. No classical writer referred to the inhabitants of the British Isles as Celtic and several said explicitly that they weren’t. It’s true that the languages that theirs evolved into are now said to be in the Celtic language group but that’s a plain different thing. No one calls the Jamaicans “English” because they happen to speak English.

@ dearieme
Not that silly if each was crewed by folk who trusted each other because they knew each other.
Also the fairly ancient names referring to East Saxons, south Saxons, west Saxons (but no north saxons) and east Angles implies that groups of boats did pick different bits of coastline.
I don’t know enough to dispute the rest of your post
Re: your last paragraph – I have read that “Celtic” was a cultural grouping not a racial one.

@john77
“So how long does it take for a group of people isolated from other groups to become ethnically distinct? ”
According to superbly educated academics at Cambridge U, the concept is redundant & always has been. Bearded Albanian children are true sons (or daughters) of John Bull whilst they are still standing on the beach at Calais. So if you fancy clocking one of the tinted round the head with a cricket bat tonight, it’s in no way a racial attack. You were just driving to long leg.

Bravefart
Does Murphy inspect his stools each day or is he just going through the motions?

Sunak was responsible for Eat Out to Get Covid. People died as a result.

Schofield was, I hope, merely unwise

Jesus Christ – what a piece of complete and utter garbage. I’d rather give Putin a chair at a British university. How many have died thanks to the lockdown that he would prefer we are in still? Pure evil.

@ Van Patten
The only benefit therefrom would be watching the contortions of the “woke” mob as they tried to simultaneously maintain their links with LGBTQ+ and their funding from Putin’s hardline anti-Gay Russia while he is actually in the UK

Charles… Is that remark of yours based on “Sound Knowledge of the Theoretical Principles Involved”, or have you actually tried to cross actual rivers ( not even starting on the sea…) by either swimming or something simple, like a log or bark canoe?

Just a curious cloggie who is positively intrigued by your notion.
Especially since those “connections” claim 20-30 lives annually over here.
Funnily enough almost always Foreigners who chose to muck around where we very much don’t, and have big signs out warning Tourists not to try.. Usually we can find the remains… eventually..

Oh, I know BiS… It’s more the “A river is not a barrier” bit I object against.

It very much is, in many ways. Rivers aren’t tame, and in many ways more dangerous than the sea..