Sprezzatura

There is a famous anecdote that during a Conservative Party policy meeting, Thatcher removed her copy of Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty from her handbag, slammed it down on the table and declared, “This is what we believe.” Oof, it's been a while. It's been over three years since I wrote an intro to the blog - technically my second post, but the first post where I thought about what the fuck I was doing on a long-term basis. I've gone on a lot of tangents since then, and taken a LOT of breaks, but since I'm going to try and get back into writing on a more consistent basis around here I thought I'd go back and check what still rings true and what's no longer important to me. Let's see how I did. I'm going to do things in a weird order, but hopefully it will be clear why once I have finished. 2. On Sprezzatura The key to this entire blog is not JUST Sprezzatura. That gets first billing because it's a particularly snazzy name. The key is what I'll...

" I 'ate Muslims . 'Ate 'em wiv a passion. More than I 'ate West 'am. And I 'ate them bastards." - Colin, 'Angry, White, And Proud' lol turns out they're both trash That quote up there sums it all up. To Colin, a centuries-long clash of civilisations, a disagreement on how you should act on this earth, what happens to your soul when you die, who created the entire universe, is only one step above which blokes you like to see run round after a ball. If you get it, you get it; if you don't, you don't.  In the before-times my friend Nathan told me his mum asked him why we watch football, and passed the question onto me. As we sat watching Lancaster City lose to - I think - Ashton United, I couldn't answer. I have a better idea now, having had a year to sit inside and think about it. The short is answer is that football is life in microcosm. The long answer is the rest of this post. It might not ring true for everyone but it's t...

There's a chapter in Freakonomics where they go through the process by which a first name moves from being classy to trashy. I don't remember much about it, because I read the book five years ago and absorbed little, but it always comes to mind whenever I see a football player with a double-barrelled surname. Time was, a double-barrelled surname was a surefire indicator of class. The landed gentry of this country would keep both their parents' surnames as a symbol of their various titles as people intermarried , and things could get very fucked up very quickly - check out how many titles and surnames belong to Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos for example. Rick's coat of arms needed 719 different quarters Now, though, the class association has diminished somewhat, since loads of people have parents who divorced/never married/didn't change surnames because they think it's a dumb tr...

Serious work deals in facts and truths. Check the Wikipedia for South London and you will read of our extensive train links and temperate maritime climate. My work deals opinions and vague feelings - like a comment on the last post said, I'm "fuzzy on the specifics," but by the end of this post you will have a much better understanding of what being in South London entails than if you were to solely read the wiki. You can never get the whole story from facts and figures alone, otherwise poets would just do econ and Ronaldo would be universally acknowledged as better than Messi, which you guys know is wrong because I've been subliminally reinforcing it for months now. James C. Scott makes a distinction between metis , a localised, experience-based form of knowing things, and episteme , the more abstract, generalized, theoretical knowledge, and Samzdat writes about the ramifications of that here . This post will provide you with the metis that Wikipedia cannot. You ...

Wow, I love Banksy This new HSBC ad campaign? It's Not Good . Let's go through why, step by step. Think of this post like an expanding brain meme in essay form. Here's the actual ad, by the way: Broke: "The ad is good because it's against Brexit!" Let's get this out of the way: "That's the bad argument? Yikes, fam, didn't realise you were a Brexiteer..." I'm not a Brexiteer. I know I said I was against globalisation in the last post , but I'm not particularly opposed to the sentiment expressed in the adverts. I like chicken tikka masala (and sweet and sour chicken, doner kebabs, etc.), I enjoy a continental lager from time to time, and the only reason I don't currently support a Belgian striker is Benteke 's injured and Freedman won't pull the trigger and bring in Batshuayi . I may have my reservations, but I also accept I live in a thoroughly globalised world and that isn't going to change anytime so...