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Post by captainconfident on Oct 11, 2024 19:52:13 GMT
I've skimmed this threads current page to get a flavour of the debate.
What interested me was the 'We' of now and the 'We' of the Britain of the past. I can't associate myself in the whole hearted way others can in the "We won the Battle of Agincourt", "We had the first Industrial Revolution" way. In the same way as I don't feel 'You are responsible for the slave trade", "You caused the Irish Potato Famine".
I was born British, I see and read about the past of the country. But that doesn't make me proud, just because I was born here. I would be proud of the achievements of my country in my lifetime though, if any came to mind.
I would say "We won the Ashes in 2013. But not 'We won the Ashes in 1954". Because I wasn't there, I don't know enough about it, I'm not personally associated with that achievement.
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Post by bracknellboy on Oct 11, 2024 20:51:38 GMT
I've skimmed this threads current page to get a flavour of the debate. What interested me was the 'We' of now and the 'We' of the Britain of the past. I can't associate myself in the whole hearted way others can in the "We won the Battle of Agincourt", "We had the first Industrial Revolution" way. In the same way as I don't feel 'You are responsible for the slave trade", "You caused the Irish Potato Famine". I was born British, I see and read about the past of the country. But that doesn't make me proud, just because I was born here. I would be proud of the achievements of my country in my lifetime though, if any came to mind. I would say "We won the Ashes in 2013. But not 'We won the Ashes in 1954". Because I wasn't there, I don't know enough about it, I'm not personally associated with that achievement. Bathing in the reflected glories of the historic "achievements" of our ancestors is a depressing trait of far too many in this country. It is far too often a reason to ignore both the problems and the triumphs we have in the present, their causes, and to critically look at where we should be going. It was almost comically reflected in the last governments propensity, after Brexit, to stick "Great British..." in front of pretty much any new 'thing'. A trend continued, sadly, with Labour and "Great British Energy". Unfortunately, saddling it with that particular moniker makes me wonder whether it is doomed from the outset. It's become like the ultimate Orwellian double speak oxymoron. Unwittingly exposing the country's preference for surface perception and window dressing over efficacy. Still, I'm sure the crowds are happy singing Dambusters and BoB theme tunes at football matches.
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ilmoro
Member of DD Central
'Wondering which of the bu***rs to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing.' - Pink Floyd
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Post by ilmoro on Oct 11, 2024 21:07:55 GMT
I've skimmed this threads current page to get a flavour of the debate. What interested me was the 'We' of now and the 'We' of the Britain of the past. I can't associate myself in the whole hearted way others can in the "We won the Battle of Agincourt", "We had the first Industrial Revolution" way. In the same way as I don't feel 'You are responsible for the slave trade", "You caused the Irish Potato Famine". I was born British, I see and read about the past of the country. But that doesn't make me proud, just because I was born here. I would be proud of the achievements of my country in my lifetime though, if any came to mind. I would say "We won the Ashes in 2013. But not 'We won the Ashes in 1954". Because I wasn't there, I don't know enough about it, I'm not personally associated with that achievement. Bathing in the reflected glories of the historic "achievements" of our ancestors is a depressing trait of far too many in this country. It is far too often a reason to ignore both the problems and the triumphs we have in the present, their causes, and to critically look at where we should be going. It was almost comically reflected in the last governments propensity, after Brexit, to stick "Great British..." in front of pretty much any new 'thing'. A trend continued, sadly, with Labour and "Great British Energy". Unfortunately, saddling it with that particular moniker makes me wonder whether it is doomed from the outset. It's become like the ultimate Orwellian double speak oxymoron. Unwittingly exposing the country's preference for surface perception and window dressing over efficacy. Still, I'm sure the crowds are happy singing Dambusters and BoB theme tunes at football matches. Blame the TV companies ... the ultimate purveyors of the Great British everything ... baking, spelling, railway journeys ... started long before Brexit - govt just jumping on a trending bandwagon. I missed the Granny Bang 🤣 www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/mar/09/great-british-food-revivalAnd yes Great British Energy is doomed to failure given it comes from Ed of the Edstone rather than Edison.
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Oct 11, 2024 21:31:37 GMT
Bathing in the reflected glories of the historic "achievements" of our ancestors is a depressing trait of far too many in this country. It is far too often a reason to ignore both the problems and the triumphs we have in the present, their causes, and to critically look at where we should be going. It was almost comically reflected in the last governments propensity, after Brexit, to stick "Great British..." in front of pretty much any new 'thing'. A trend continued, sadly, with Labour and "Great British Energy". Unfortunately, saddling it with that particular moniker makes me wonder whether it is doomed from the outset. It's become like the ultimate Orwellian double speak oxymoron. Unwittingly exposing the country's preference for surface perception and window dressing over efficacy. Still, I'm sure the crowds are happy singing Dambusters and BoB theme tunes at football matches. Blame the TV companies ... the ultimate purveyors of the Great British everything ... baking, spelling, railway journeys ... started long before Brexit - govt just jumping on a trending bandwagon. I missed the Granny Bang 🤣 www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/mar/09/great-british-food-revivalAnd yes Great British Energy is doomed to failure given it comes from Ed of the Edstone rather than Edison. Man U supporter?
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Post by bernythedolt on Oct 11, 2024 22:28:05 GMT
I've skimmed this threads current page to get a flavour of the debate. What interested me was the 'We' of now and the 'We' of the Britain of the past. I can't associate myself in the whole hearted way others can in the "We won the Battle of Agincourt", "We had the first Industrial Revolution" way. In the same way as I don't feel 'You are responsible for the slave trade", "You caused the Irish Potato Famine". I was born British, I see and read about the past of the country. But that doesn't make me proud, just because I was born here. I would be proud of the achievements of my country in my lifetime though, if any came to mind. I would say "We won the Ashes in 2013. But not 'We won the Ashes in 1954". Because I wasn't there, I don't know enough about it, I'm not personally associated with that achievement. With respect, you’re not personally associated with any notable achievement of modern times, so this argument isn’t particularly logical. Just because you happened to be alive in the UK when DNA profiling was discovered, the world wide web was developed, the first SMS was sent, or the first covid vaccine deployed – all recent British innovations – none of them involved any of us here. You were as far removed from them as you were the first locomotive, the jet engine or the television. So there’s no inherent reason there to be proud of any one above the other. Personally, I’m very proud of everything our forefathers achieved for our benefit. I don’t understand how any Brit cannot be. The Victorian sewer system still holding up well beyond its design brief, the magnificent bridges they constructed back then, immensely strong yet absolutely beautiful in design compared to today’s eyesores, the railways and undergrounds, canals, all fantastic achievements by brilliant engineers, still serving us well today, whole centuries later in some cases. Why can’t we be proud of those achievements by our forebears? I certainly am.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Oct 12, 2024 7:56:31 GMT
Just because you happened to be alive in the UK when DNA profiling was discovered, the world wide web was developed, the first SMS was sent, or the first covid vaccine deployed – all recent British innovations – none of them involved any of us here. Hmm, let's look at the reality of those "firsts"... DNA - originally isolated by a Swiss physicist in 1869. RNA's structure identified by a Russian-American in 1909, who went on to further discoveries in 1929. Inheritance via a double-helix first described by a Russian in 1927. Location in cell nucleus identified by a Belgian in 1933. X-Ray diffraction showing structure by a Briton in 1937. Major steps forwards by two Canadian-Americans, an American, and an Austro-Hungarian American in 1943. Then the usual "eureka" Nobel moment - Crick (UK)/Watson (US)/Wilkins (NZ/UK)/Franklin (UK). But before profiling was possible, there was another Nobel - two Americans and an Indian-American. DNA sequencing was first done by a Belgian team in 1972, then developed by Sanger (UK) and a team at Harvard. WWW - yes, a Brit... working on a pan-European project in Switzerland, building on top of what was originally a US defence network. SMS - yes, the first message was sent by a Brit... working for an Anglo-French company contracted to a phone network that was a joint venture between a UK comms company and a Swedish-American one, six years after the concept was defined as part of the GSM standard by a Franco-German-led pan-European GSM standards body, incorporating functionality that was well established via radio pagers that were developed in the US three decades earlier. Covid vacc - there was, if you recall, a global race to get the first to market. Yes, the first to mass market was from a UK/Swedish pharma company's Oxford research institute, together with some US-funded spinoffs from the university - while China and Russia had already released vaccines locally in restricted quantities. That AZ vacc was fairly quickly withdrawn from the market due to the effectiveness and side-effects having led to it being totally surpassed by others. The Nobel prize went to an American and a Hungarian-American for their mRNA work, while the first vacc to actually get to clinical trial and then to be approved was US-German developed. As you say, still holding up well beyond their design brief - because successive governments have failed to properly invest in infrastructure... As for the beauty of bridges - how about Millau? A British architect's work, Norman Foster. So perhaps the question should be why bridges in the UK are so leaden, in comparison? Because of an unwillingness to invest in style...?
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Post by crabbyoldgit on Oct 12, 2024 8:22:08 GMT
Because the victorian's did not have or were not ruled by accountant's who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.If you do not believe that just look at the buildings and beauty of Victorian water pumping stations compared to the flat roofed falling apart  we have built. |
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Oct 12, 2024 8:30:07 GMT
Is it not possible to both celebrate the amazing things this country has done, and acknowledge and deplore the more unsavory aspects of our history?
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Oct 12, 2024 8:30:30 GMT
Because the victorian's did not have or were not ruled by accountant's who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.If you do not believe that just look at the buildings and beauty of Victorian water pumping stations compared to the flat roofed falling apart we have built. Exactly. Other countries invest. The UK spends the bare minimum it can get away with. But look! Let's be really, really proud of cherry-picked things from previous centuries! It's all a distraction tactic.
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Post by crabbyoldgit on Oct 12, 2024 9:56:23 GMT
Just up the road from me is a new estate being built, it looks like old Victorian terrace's. The internal units came on the backs of trucks pre built including all internal pipes and wiring ,kitchen units etc and stacked to make homes a bit like containers.In it's self not a bad thing , constructed in a dry controlled factory , with one would hope quality control. However they then sat there in the rain unprotected for months. Now the outer skins walls have been done, brick , well not exactly brick . Plastic embossed sheets to look like bricks, then toothed out around the doors and windows and a few real bricks pieced in. So I looked on line to see where this magic new building process came from to see pictures from unfortunate home owners 3 or 4 years down the road with the brick finish peeling off but we still have kept building this rubbish. Around me homes only 8 to 10 years old are being reroofed the nails holding the tiles have rusted out and in one estate they are also tearing down the complete outer skins to rebuild up from the dpc. But it's fast cheap and homes for the future. I was bought up in an asbestos sheet prefab , this rubbish will not last as long as they did, slums of the future.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Oct 12, 2024 10:02:38 GMT
Just up the road from me is a new estate being built, it looks like old Victorian terrace's. The internal units came on the backs of trucks pre built including all internal pipes and wiring ,kitchen units etc and stacked to make homes a bit like containers.In it's self not a bad thing , constructed in a dry controlled factory , with one would hope quality control. However they then sat there in the rain unprotected for months. Now the outer skins walls have been done, brick , well not exactly brick . Plastic embossed sheets to look like bricks, then toothed out around the doors and windows and a few real bricks pieced in. So I looked on line to see where this magic new building process came from to see pictures from unfortunate home owners 3 or 4 years down the road with the brick finish peeling off but we still have kept building this rubbish. Around me homes only 8 to 10 years old are being reroofed the nails holding the tiles have rusted out and in one estate they are also tearing down the complete outer skins to rebuild up from the dpc. But it's fast cheap and homes for the future. I was bought up in an asbestos sheet prefab , this rubbish will not last as long as they did, slums of the future. There was an estate went up near here a few years back - steel framed... 
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ilmoro
Member of DD Central
'Wondering which of the bu***rs to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing.' - Pink Floyd
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Post by ilmoro on Oct 12, 2024 10:30:04 GMT
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Oct 12, 2024 11:03:26 GMT
"Most states recognise that the Human Rights Convention is being exploited by economic migrants, who know that by demanding asylum the doors of a European state automatically open for them and the costs for the host country start running"Actually, asylum is governed by UN conventions... The EConvHR doesn't mention asylum at all. "The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found that the Cyprus Republic had violated Article 3 of European Convention on Human Rights, prohibiting inhuman or degrading treatment, in its treatment of two Syrian asylum seekers.""The government has no choice but to persist with the policy of pushbacks, even if this is a violation of the human rights convention"Yeh, there IS a choice as to whether a government treats people humanely or not... Cyprus stats on asylum: www.unhcr.org/cy/wp-content/uploads/sites/41/2024/04/UNHCR_Cyprus_Statistics_2024.03.pdf1.36m population, btw... So 1.8 people awaiting asylum decisions per 1,000 population. Compare to the UK, with 1.9 per 10,000...
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Post by bernythedolt on Oct 12, 2024 11:31:34 GMT
Just because you happened to be alive in the UK when DNA profiling was discovered, the world wide web was developed, the first SMS was sent, or the first covid vaccine deployed – all recent British innovations – none of them involved any of us here. As for the beauty of bridges - how about Millau? A British architect's work, Norman Foster. So perhaps the question should be why bridges in the UK are so leaden, in comparison? Because of an unwillingness to invest in style...? I've spent some hours at the Millau Viaduct, viewing it both from afar and directly underneath and then driving across it. It is a beautiful and magnificent structure from every angle, as you say. Absolutely breathtaking. Having said that, right up there with it (for their day) are the Clifton Suspension Bridge, the Tamar Rail Bridge and the Forth Rail Bridge. I agree completely about today's unwillingness to invest in style, resulting in functional anodyne at best. I didn't appreciate what a bridge geek I really was before today...
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michaelc
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Post by michaelc on Oct 12, 2024 12:10:54 GMT
Just because you happened to be alive in the UK when DNA profiling was discovered, the world wide web was developed, the first SMS was sent, or the first covid vaccine deployed – all recent British innovations – none of them involved any of us here. Hmm, let's look at the reality of those "firsts"... DNA - originally isolated by a Swiss physicist in 1869. RNA's structure identified by a Russian-American in 1909, who went on to further discoveries in 1929. Inheritance via a double-helix first described by a Russian in 1927. Location in cell nucleus identified by a Belgian in 1933. X-Ray diffraction showing structure by a Briton in 1937. Major steps forwards by two Canadian-Americans, an American, and an Austro-Hungarian American in 1943. Then the usual "eureka" Nobel moment - Crick (UK)/Watson (US)/Wilkins (NZ/UK)/Franklin (UK). But before profiling was possible, there was another Nobel - two Americans and an Indian-American. DNA sequencing was first done by a Belgian team in 1972, then developed by Sanger (UK) and a team at Harvard. WWW - yes, a Brit... working on a pan-European project in Switzerland, building on top of what was originally a US defence network. SMS - yes, the first message was sent by a Brit... working for an Anglo-French company contracted to a phone network that was a joint venture between a UK comms company and a Swedish-American one, six years after the concept was defined as part of the GSM standard by a Franco-German-led pan-European GSM standards body, incorporating functionality that was well established via radio pagers that were developed in the US three decades earlier. Covid vacc - there was, if you recall, a global race to get the first to market. Yes, the first to mass market was from a UK/Swedish pharma company's Oxford research institute, together with some US-funded spinoffs from the university - while China and Russia had already released vaccines locally in restricted quantities. That AZ vacc was fairly quickly withdrawn from the market due to the effectiveness and side-effects having led to it being totally surpassed by others. The Nobel prize went to an American and a Hungarian-American for their mRNA work, while the first vacc to actually get to clinical trial and then to be approved was US-German developed. Largely parroted from Wikipedia but at the very least you would say the British were either sole or co-inventors of these enormous advances in medicine, science and technology.
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we have built.