Just hold your noses

...then allow us to hold them for you.

Just hold your noses and vote Labour... Anas Sarwar in desperate plea to voters

A desperate Anas Sarwar has begged angry voters to ‘hold their nose’ and back Labour at Holyrood despite another disaster for Keir Starmer.

The Scottish Labour leader admitted there was ‘a deep unpopularity with the UK Labour government’ but claimed there was no ‘automatic read across’ to May’s election.

He said: ‘I get people’s frustration. I get people’s anger. But this is our best chance, perhaps our only chance, to end SNP rule.

‘So, whether you do it with enthusiasm, whether you do it with anger, or if you do it by holding your nose, let’s come together and back the only party that can get rid of this incompetent SNP government.’


I do not hold that the political and social system that creates an aristocracy of leisure is the best possible kind of human organization; I perceive its disadvantages clearly enough. But I do hold that a system under which most important public trusts, political and professional, civil and military ecclesiastical and secular, are held by educated men — that is, men of trained faculties and disciplined judgment — is not an altogether faulty system.

Ambrose Bierce - The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays (1909)

Thompsons we have known

Now Thompson, there is reason to believe, tried earnestly for some years to be a man. Alas! he began while he was a boy, and got exhausted before he arrived at maturity. He could make no further effort, and manhood is not acquired without a mighty struggle, nor maintained without untiring industry. So having fatigued himself before reaching the starting-point, Thompson Washington did not re-enter the race for manhood, but contented his simple soul with achieving a modest swinehood.

Ambrose Bierce - The Fiend's Delight (1873)

Counting Thompsons in the political sphere could present a problem, but perhaps Thompsons have always been with us and counting them is impossible. 

 

Once I dipt into the future

Weather maps reveal when four-day 'mini-heatwave' to bring balmy 19C highs to UK

A four-day spell of hot weather is set to bring balmy highs of 19C to the UK next week. Brits will soon enjoy warmer weather, with the mercury anticipated to rise across many parts of the country.

Weather maps from WX Charts indicate it will start to heat up as we approach the early May bank holiday. It comes after heavy downpours and harsh winds have been sweeping Britain lately.

There will be highs of 17C on Thursday, May 2. The Midlands is predicted to see between 15C and 16C, while the south of the country could feel the warmest of the weather.


There seems to be a widespread editorial policy of slipping in words such as 'hot', 'heat' or 'heating' into UK weather stories where the weather isn't undeniably cold. Those huge fans we see all over the countryside must be something to do with official cooling policy.

Weather
Once I dipt into the future far as human eye could see,
And I saw the Chief Forecaster, dead as any one can be--
Dead and damned and shut in Hades as a liar from his birth,
With a record of unreason seldome paralleled on earth.
While I looked he reared him solemnly, that incandescent youth,
From the coals that he'd preferred to the advantages of truth.
He cast his eyes about him and above him; then he wrote
On a slab of thin asbestos what I venture here to quote--
For I read it in the rose-light of the everlasting glow:
"Cloudy; variable winds, with local showers; cooler; snow."
Ambrose Bierce

A Commodity

source

A Statesman who attended a meeting of a Chamber of Commerce rose to speak, but was objected to on the ground that he had nothing to do with commerce.

“Mr. Chairman,” said an Aged Member, rising, “I conceive that the objection is not well taken; the gentleman’s connection with commerce is close and intimate. He is a Commodity.”

Ambrose Bierce - Fantastic Fables (1899)

The purpose of litigation

The Deceased and his Heirs

A Man died leaving a large estate and many sorrowful relations who claimed it. After some years, when all but one had had judgment given against them, that one was awarded the estate, which he asked his Attorney to have appraised.

“There is nothing to appraise,” said the Attorney, pocketing his last fee.

“Then,” said the Successful Claimant, “what good has all this litigation done me?”

“You have been a good client to me,” the Attorney replied, gathering up his books and papers, “but I must say you betray a surprising ignorance of the purpose of litigation.”

Ambrose Bierce - Fantastic Fables (1899)

Fond of lying

His talent for improvising useful falsehoods is innate; later on, at maturity, he is proud of this; he makes it the index and measure of "political superiority," and delights in calling to mind one of his uncles who, in his infancy, prognosticated to him that he would govern the world because he was fond of lying.

Hippolyte Taine on Napoléon Bonaparte

The other day Grandson tried to explain to me how the gases from cars kill people and harm the world. He was very confused about the details but there is no shame in that, the BBC is confused too. I don’t know where he picked it up, quite possibly in the playground, but I was reminded of The Global Goals and The World's Largest Lesson. For example, here is an education target.

By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development

Directly or indirectly Grandson's car ideas came from an adult. Perhaps the notion is not entirely untrue, but for youngsters that isn't good enough. The falsehoods arrive too early.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the internet is where we gain that faint but unmistakable sense of just how extensive the global web of politically useful falsehood really is. Honesty is not common in the public arena, but behind the arena it seems to be rarer still.

Children have little chance of avoiding a cascade of syrupy lies, misinformation and misdirection, little chance of being non-attached in Aldous Huxley’s sense. In future they may have even less chance.

The City of Prosperous Obscurity

source

An Old Politician and a Young Politician were travelling through a beautiful country, by the dusty highway which leads to the City of Prosperous Obscurity. Lured by the flowers and the shade and charmed by the songs of birds which invited to woodland paths and green fields, his imagination fired by glimpses of golden domes and glittering palaces in the distance on either hand, the Young Politician said:

“Let us, I beseech thee, turn aside from this comfortless road leading, thou knowest whither, but not I. Let us turn our backs upon duty and abandon ourselves to the delights and advantages which beckon from every grove and call to us from every shining hill. Let us, if so thou wilt, follow this beautiful path, which, as thou seest, hath a guide-board saying, ‘Turn in here all ye who seek the Palace of Political Distinction.’”

“It is a beautiful path, my son,” said the Old Politician, without either slackening his pace or turning his head, “and it leadeth among pleasant scenes. But the search for the Palace of Political Distinction is beset with one mighty peril.”

“What is that?” said the Young Politician.

“The peril of finding it,” the Old Politician replied, pushing on.

Ambrose Bierce - Fantastic Fables (1899)

Ah - the City of Prosperous Obscurity. A fable for modern times, as so many fables are. I wonder if Clegg or Cameron know where it is? I suspect they do.

An Ingenious Patriot

Having obtained an audience of the King an Ingenious Patriot pulled a paper from his pocket, saying: “May it please your Majesty, I have here a formula for constructing armour-plating which no gun can pierce. If these plates are adopted in the Royal Navy our warships will be invulnerable, and therefore invincible. Here, also, are reports of your Majesty’s Ministers, attesting the value of the invention. I will part with my right in it for a million tumtums.”

After examining the papers, the King put them away and promised him an order on the Lord High Treasurer of the Extortion Department for a million tumtums. 

“And here,” said the Ingenious Patriot, pulling another paper from another pocket, “are the working plans of a gun that I have invented, which will pierce that armour. Your Majesty’s Royal Brother, the Emperor of Bang, is anxious to purchase it, but loyalty to your Majesty’s throne and person constrains me to offer it first to your Majesty. The price is one million tumtums.” 

Having received the promise of another cheque he thrust his hand into still another pocket, remarking: “The price of the irresistible gun would have been much greater, your Majesty, but for the fact that its missiles can be so effectively averted by my peculiar method of treating the armour plates with a new—” 

The King signed to the Great Head Factotum to approach. “Search this man,” he said, “and report how many pockets he has.”

“Forty-three, Sire,” said the Great Head Factotum, completing the scrutiny.

“May it please your Majesty,” cried the Ingenious Patriot, in terror, “one of them contains tobacco.” 

“Hold him up by the ankles and shake him,” said the King; “then give him a cheque for forty-two million tumtums and put him to death. Let a decree issue declaring ingenuity a capital offence.”

Ambrose Bierce - Fantastic Fables (1899)

Parentcraft

“My boy,” said an aged Father to his fiery and disobedient Son, “a hot temper is the soil of remorse. Promise me that when next you are angry you will count one hundred before you move or speak.” 

No sooner had the Son promised than he received a stinging blow from the paternal walking-stick, and by the time he had counted to seventy-five had the unhappiness to see the old man jump into a waiting cab and whirl away.

Ambrose Bierce - Fantastic Fables (1899)

A Moral Principle gets wet

Tarr Steps - Exmoor

A Moral Principle met a Material Interest on a bridge wide enough for but one.

“Down, you base thing!” thundered the Moral Principle, “and let me pass over you!” 

The Material Interest merely looked in the other’s eyes without saying anything. 

“Ah,” said the Moral Principle, hesitatingly, “let us draw lots to see which shall retire till the other has crossed.” 

The Material Interest maintained an unbroken silence and an unwavering stare. 

“In order to avoid a conflict,” the Moral Principle resumed, somewhat uneasily, “I shall myself lie down and let you walk over me.” 

Then the Material Interest found a tongue, and by a strange coincidence it was its own tongue. “I don’t think you are very good walking,” it said. “I am a little particular about what I have underfoot. Suppose you get off into the water.” 

It occurred that way.

Ambrose Bierce - Fantastic Fables (1899)

One of Bierce's many word cartoons where the reader supplies their own image. A great alternative for those who can't draw. My mental image for Bierce's two chaps on the bridge is in the style of a Punch cartoon by Sir John Tenniel. For me it maintains the vintage aura.

Mind you, although there is a vintage aspect to Moral Principles fighting Material Interests on a bridge, the outcome is bang up to date.

From Wikipedia

A horror of annihilation

Annihilation - the 3D version

When a man says that everybody has “a horror of annihilation,” we may be very sure that he has not many opportunities for observation, or that he has not availed himself of all that he has. 

Most persons go to sleep rather gladly, yet sleep is virtual annihilation while it lasts; and if it should last forever the sleeper would be no worse off after a million years of it than after an hour of it. There are minds sufficiently logical to think of it that way, and to them annihilation is not a disagreeable thing to contemplate and expect. 

In this matter of immortality, people’s beliefs appear to go along with their wishes. The man who is content with annihilation thinks he will get it; those that want immortality are pretty sure they are immortal; and that is a very comfortable allotment of faiths. 

The few of us that are left unprovided for are those who do not bother themselves much about the matter, one way or another.

Ambrose Bierce

Not altogether faulty

Ambrose Bierce - from Wikipedia

I do not hold that the political and social system that creates an aristocracy of leisure is the best possible kind of human organization; I perceive its disadvantages clearly enough. But I do hold that a system under which most important public trusts, political and professional, civil and military ecclesiastical and secular, are held by educated men — that is, men of trained faculties and disciplined judgment — is not an altogether faulty system.

Ambrose Bierce

A telling phrase that - important public trusts. It's a pity we drift away from such phrases because so often we are the poorer for it.

It seems to be a common feature of mainstream media - casually dumping useful bits and pieces of language as the elite shy away from everything but ambiguity.

A comprehensive philanthropy

“I hate snakes who bestow their caresses with interested partiality or fastidious discrimination,”  boasted a boa constrictor. “My affection is unbounded; it embraces all animated nature. I am the universal shepherd; I gather all manner of living things into my folds. Entertainment here for man and beast!” 

“I should be glad of one of your caresses,” said a porcupine, meekly; “it has been some time since I got a loving embrace.” So saying, he nestled snugly and confidingly against the large-hearted serpent — who fled. 

A comprehensive philanthropy may be devoid of prejudices, but it has its preferences all the same.

Ambrose Bierce

A passive disciple

A bear, who had worn himself out walking from one end of his cage to the other, addressed his keeper thus: 

“I say, friend, if you don’t procure me a shorter cage I shall have to give up zoology; it is about the most wearing pursuit I ever engaged in. I favour the advancement of science, but the mechanical part of it is a trifle severe, and ought to be done by contract.”

“You are quite right, my hearty,” said the keeper, “it is severe; and there have been several excellent plans proposed to lighten the drudgery. Pending the adoption of some of them, you would find a partial relief in lying down and keeping quiet.”

“It won’t do — it won’t do!” replied the bear,  with a mournful shake of the head, “it’s not the orthodox thing. Inaction may do for professors, collectors, and others connected with the ornamental part of the noble science; but for us, we must keep moving, or zoology would soon revert to the crude guesses and mistaken theories of the azoic period. 

And yet,” continued the beast, after the keeper had gone, “there is something novel and ingenious in what the underling suggests. I must remember that; and when I have leisure, give it a trial.” 

It was noted next day that the noble science had lost an active apostle, and gained a passive disciple.

Ambrose Bierce

Haystacks and needles

Everybody professes to know that it would be difficult to find a needle in a haystack, but very few reflect that this is because haystacks seldom contain needles.

Ambrose Bierce

Freedom – a parable

A wild horse meeting a domestic one, taunted him with his condition of servitude. The tamed animal claimed that he was as free as the wind.

“If that is so,” said the other, “pray tell me the office of that bit in your mouth.”

“That,” was the answer, “is iron, one of the best tonics in the materia medica.”

“But what,” said the other, “is the meaning of the rein attached to it?”

“Keeps it from falling out of my mouth when I am too indolent to hold it,” was the reply.

“How about the saddle?”

“Fool!” was the angry retort; “its purpose is to spare me fatigue: when I am tired, I get on and ride.”

Ambrose Bierce

Bad taste - a parable

“I say, you!” bawled a fat ox in a stall to a lusty young ass who was braying outside; “the like of that is not in good taste!”

“In whose good taste, my adipose censor?” inquired the ass, not too respectfully.

“Why — h’m — ah! I mean it does not suit me. You ought to bellow.”

“May I inquire how it happens to be any of your business whether I bellow or bray, or do both — or neither?”

“I cannot tell you,” answered the critic, shaking his head despondingly; “I do not at all understand  it. I can only say that I have been accustomed to censure all discourse that differs from my own.”

“Exactly,” said the ass; “you have sought to make an art of impertinence by mistaking preferences for principles. In ‘taste’ you have invented a word incapable of definition, to denote an idea impossible of expression; and by employing in connection therewith the words ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ you indicate a merely subjective process in terms of an objective quality. Such presumption transcends the limit of the merely impudent, and passes into the boundless empyrean of pure cheek!”

At the close of this remarkable harangue, the bovine critic was at a loss for language to express his disapproval. So he said the speech was in bad taste.

Ambrose Bierce

Line of demarcation

If cleanliness is next to godliness, it is a matter of unceasing wonder that, having gone to the extreme limit of the former, so many people manage to stop short exactly at the line of demarcation.

Ambrose Bierce

Communing with Nature.

 One evening I sat on a heavenward hill,

The winds were asleep and all nature was still, 

Wee children came round me to play at my knee, 

As my mind floated rudderless over the sea. 

I put out one hand to caress them, but held 

With the other my nose, for these cherubim smelled. 

I cast a few glances upon the old sun; 

He was red in the face from the race he had run, 

But he seemed to be doing, for aught I could see, 

Quite well without any assistance from me. 

And so I directed my wandering eye 

Around to the opposite side of the sky, 

And the rapture that ever with ecstasy thrills 

Through the heart as the moon rises bright from the hills, 

Would in this case have been most exceedingly rare, 

Except for the fact that the moon was not there. 

But the stars looked right lovingly down in the sea, 

And, by Jupiter, Venus was winking at me! 

The gas in the city was flaring up bright, 

Montgomery Street was resplendent with light; 

But I did not exactly appear to advance 

A sentiment proper to that circumstance. 

So it only remains to explain to the town 

That a rainstorm came up before I could come down. 

As the boots I had on were uncommonly thin 

My fancy leaked out as the water leaked in. 

Though dampened my ardour, though slackened my strain, 

I’ll “strike the wild lyre” who sings the sweet rain!

Ambrose Bierce

Ends and means

Ambrose Bierce - from Wikipedia

While a man was trying with all his might to cross a fence, a bull ran to his assistance, and taking him upon his horns, tossed him over. Seeing the man walking away without making any remark, the bull said: “You are quite welcome, I am sure. I did no more than my duty.”

“I take a different view of it, very naturally,” replied the man, “and you may keep your polite acknowledgments of my gratitude until you receive it. I did not require your services.”

“You don’t mean to say,” answered the bull, “that you did not wish to cross that fence!”

“I mean to say,” was the rejoinder, “that I wished to cross it by my method, solely to avoid crossing it by yours.”

Fabula docet that while the end is everything, the means is something.

Ambrose Bierce - Cobwebs from an Empty Skull (1874)