It's Posh Girls* Holding Pieces of Paper Day!
Author's note: My use of the word "posh" is very wide ranging. What I truly mean is "girls from an advantaged position in the prevailing socio-economic heirachy". I hope you will forgive my shorthand.
Well, the holidays are upon us once again dear reader. Just last week the Narrative was that the Youth of Today were a bunch of feral scumbags set on burning and looting everything they could see. Now they're having trouble accessing a website. Sunrise, sunset.
How best to mark the occasion than with a plethora of pictures of girls of varying degrees of poshness holding pieces of paper? The Guardian leads off with this instant classic:
Jumping in the air, screaming or cheering or whatever and not one foot touching the ground. Most years with a picture of this calibre, you could go home right now, but we're just getting started friends.
The next picture doing the round is a timeless example of posh girls holding pieces of paper:
Perfect. All the girls are looking at the pieces of paper, and we have representatives from all colours of hair. Note the varying widths of open mouths too. Clearly they have spotted something on these pieces of paper that they are holding that has pleased them. Either that or they are overcome with some sort of palsy of the jaw, but a solid entrant nonetheless.
The Guardian, alas, has been somewhat self-aware this year, and actually posted pictures containing boys! Breaking the spirit of the holiday you say? Think again:
Here's a couple of posh boys holding pieces of paper. Notice anything? That's right - the Twins Exception. That's right, an immediate genetic link between the people holding paper will make it legitimate for there to be pictures of dudes there. Don't believe me? Here's the other early picture featuring boys:
Jumping, shadows, pieces of paper, but each individual in there shares a common ancestry and birthdate my friends. That's right. The Twins exception.
It has a broader application too:
What's that? Ethnic diversity? Perhaps we have advanced as a society... not really! These guys are twins too. Holding a piece of paper isn't enough for some sections of society (indeed, traditionally, not having blonde hair was a bar to entry). If you're a minority, you're out of luck unless you share a womb or a picture with white girls at a ratio of 2:1.
But enough twins, let's see some solo action shots:
Seasoned observers of the holiday will be able to discern which of these girls is the posher, but I offer the greener reader my own personal take:
- The size of the open mouth is key here. The larger the posher.
- Note the two stances. While the fist in the air was viewed unfavourably in the 70s, the "Tim Henman" as it is known has been the staple solo shot. Contrast this with the second girl's attempt to imitate a bird in flight (an African swallow, I believe). Formerly in vogue in the 50s, it is now considered vulgar.
- Posh girls don't wear cut-off jeans without tights underneath.
What fun!
But now, the money shot. A picture of posh girls, all holding pieces of paper, all of whom have gotten into Oxbridge:
Note that unlike most full body group pictures, these girls aren't jumping in the air - that's just level of calibre that Oxbridge are looking for.
Also, remember the ethnic minority ratio rule I mentioned earlier? Check out the three girls on the left.
QED motherfuckers.
Finally, Hugz!:
Thank You for Making Things Better XKCD
Here are my Opinions on Things, in blog form
What are the haps my peeps? So once again, I've neglected you blog. I'm sure you wanted to hear my opinions on many world events and so forth, but frankly from about March onwards, things been crazy because of happenings! So, here, in abbreviated format are my opinions about domestic world events, to the extent that I can be bothered.
Libya
Initially wary, I was ultimately pro-intervention for two reasons. One, it seemed like ultimately the right thing to do initially. Two, it will either set a precedent for multi-lateral military action with the modest consent of the international community, or it will kill the idea of interventions full stop for at least a decade. Either of which I am happy with.
Electoral Reform
I am disappointed that the AV was not adopted in the recent referendum. Not because it's a particularly great system, though it is a step in the right direction (i.e. away from First Past the Post). I feel the Yes campaign got too bogged down in pointless arguments (I received about twenty emails urging me to give a shit about was donating to the No campaign) and couldn't really keep it simple without being peurile. The No campaign essentially misled their way to victory, while the professional "meh" crowd, sat around and pretended to be intellectually superior to the rest, and occasionally pretended that something other than a referendum on AV was ever remotely possible. I was most disgusted by this latter group, especially when, in the light of AV's defeat, more than a few people said "well can we have a referendum on real PR now then?" to which I silently responded "no you fucktards, AV was the first step on a road to proportional representation, which you idiots just helped to kill."
Nick Clegg
I am one of three people in the country who doesn't think Nick Clegg is history's greatest monster, thinks that his presence in the coalition has been a net benefit to the country and that anyone holding the Lib Dems to election promises they made in a race in which they came third should really be disqualified from ever commenting on politics.
Obama's birth certificate
It's kind of sad that it was ever a credible question that he was born in America. It was, quite simply, a product of racial dog-whistling enabled by a sick media society and championed by Donald Trump. The fact that he's probably managed to turn it all into a major political triumph is yet another item on the list of "things that are irrefutable evidence that the guy knows what he's doing, yet will be cast as a negative or ignored by his enemies". But since he's made an excellent habit of making stupid enemies, I assume this is part of the plan as well.
Osama bin Laden
I am glad he is dead, the world has been done a favour and don't believe any attempt at a trial would have been anything more than a farce that dragged out his effect on the world far beyond that which it ever should have been, to the extent that it didn't happen. As for Americans "celebrating", while I don't think anyone has a right to tell someone else how to react to something like that. The prick cast a pale over world affairs for nearly a decade, and if some people chose cheering and partying as their catharsis, then that's what they did.
...
That's all I can think of, though doubtless there's more. Politics has completely pounded me to death intellectually, so my next few posts will probably be about TV shows and computer games and the robot apocalypse.
Is it Time to Give Nick Clegg a Break Yet? Parliamentary Reform Edition.
So it appears that we might see some substantial reform of the House of Lords. The Guardian reports that:
The deputy prime minister announced proposals for a cut-down second chamber, with 80% of its 300 members elected by proportional representation
A future government draft bill would contain plans for an 80:20 split but there would be a provision for a fully elected chamber if that is "what people want", he told MPs, appealing for a cross-party consensus on the issue
Labour attacked the plan, contained in a draft bill, and argued the Liberal Democrat leader should have stuck to his party's commitment to a wholly-elected upper House of Parliament
"Personally I have always supported 100% elected, but the key thing is not to make the best the enemy of the good.
"Is this yet another tatty roadshow brought to us by the same people who thought the British people wanted the alternative vote?" Tory MP Bernard Jenkin said. "If he really believes that the British people want this reform, why does he not submit these proposals to a referendum and let the British people decide."
Dispatches from the Robot Apocalypse - Part XII
The Predators fly lower than gunships like the AC-130 or attack planes like the A-10. Their sensor and camera suites give them better visibility than human pilots have, reducing the risk of collateral damage. And they can fly for 24 hours at a time, providing “extended persistence.”
But chalk up another milestone for drone warfare. First they hunted terrorists and insurgents. Now they’re going to shoot missiles at dug-in armor and mobile infantry forces, all so the United States can pretend it’s not expanding its involvement in a war conceived on the fly. What can’t robots do?
Vote Yes to AV
The Royal Wedding
So... how about tomorrow? Or today, if you're reading this in real time. Should I say some words? I guess at this point, making some comment, one way or the other about the Royal Wedding, will be like tears in rain. But I'm not ready for bed yet, and it's a thing, and I've not blogged in a while, so here we are.
Regular viewers will be expecting some cynical screed on the notion of Royal pageantry, or the fetishisation of the wedding ceremony generally. And yeah, while neither of those are strictly my "thing" in any sense, I can kind of see the point of them. Don't get me wrong, the guy who's been camping out there since Tuesday is kind of an idiot, but he's no more of an idiot that someone who did that for a new Star Wars movie or Apple product. Actually, he's less of an idiot, because you can see/buy those things a couple of months hence.
And yes, if we were a sane society, we'd question more readily why a large portion feel so strongly about it. But we're not really a sane society and really, by now the Royal family are little more than a strange fantasy exhibition that we wheel out for pomp and circumstance. Of course, they're human beings with feelings and so forth, but they're so perpetually in the public sphere that it utterly eradicates any reasonable perception we might have of them, for good or ill. And while it is said that they give this country a sense of history, I disagree - the fact some of our pubs are older than our more successful former colonies is what gives the country its sense of history (to name but one example).
So why the obsession? Well, some of it is a legacy of the British class system: the need to pretend to your "betters", and that such a notion is worth something. Great film as The Kings Speech was, ultimately the importance of the speech was that the British love being talked down to by people they don't elect. Geoffery Rush and Colin Firth just also did a pretty nice bromance/Rainman thing in the first two acts of the movie.
Which brings me to the reason I'm even plowing through several hundred words on this. The Media. Not just journalists, although mostly them. The bastards love a spectacle. This year has sent them over the top, and I think they've just abandoned all pretense of being a serious and useful part of society, and have just become professional carnival barkers. But with the Wedding, it's gone beyond parody. Every word of this blogpost could be a differernt hyperlink to some Wedding related nonsense, both approving and disapproving.
But you probably know all this already, and it's probably also beside the point. So I'll just say this: Fuck it - Mazel tov to 'em. Hope they're happy. They look like they might be, and who am I to judge or project? For the me, the Royal Wedding is pretty much like the World Cup Final - I don't really have a horse in this race, but if I'm around a TV at the relevant time, I'll probably tune in to see the final outcome. The biggest objection I'll have is to the quality of the commentary.
I Received a No2AV Leaflet Today
- Posted from Hackney, United Kingdom
Dispatches from the Robot Apocalypse - Part XI
"The only thing it needs a carbon based lifeform for, is to let it know it's ok to drop the bomb"
Fareed Zakaria, reporting on real news.
