(0253) Here’s the cunning plan in the middle of the night, about to zzzzz again, so only one post until maybe 0730. (0336)
Respect
There are two excerpts from Steve at 1126 I really must post now (the rest later):
- How Obama Dismantled America’s Drug, Crime, and Gang Intelligence Infrastructure
- Moroccan Migrant Arrested and Stripped of French Residence Permit After Lighting a Cigarette at the Unknown Soldier War Memorial
I told Toodles a tale of Russkiland soon after I arrived:
“When I was over there, in the first year, my landlady was herself a character … one day, she invited what I understand was a celebrated author, so in he came, walking stick, gruff, had no idea what I was meant to be. Anyway, they had tea … just as you might there, or coffee … her lil poodle came in the room and approached him, then snarled … he literally kicked the dog in the midriff … she had him out of that place, deeply offended.
It wasn’t just offence against her pet but against Russki rules of hospitality, the old ways of “chai” … he must have known that … or else he was soooo uncivilised beyond decency.”
If Russians know you’re coming as a guest, they do a modest “bolshoi stol” or “big table”, with platters of meats, various salads in bowls, with tea and sweets later … there are social conventions. That so-called “famous author” deserved to be booted out … he’d shown zero respect for that household, that tavern, just as Obama had shown zero respect, just as that Moroccan had … pointedly. Well done, France.
When I was a family’s guest in the French north-eastern countryside, in a farmhouse … same thing as the Russians did … the foie gras was genuine … I noticed one less bird around. The wine was, genuinely, from the family cellar, he came back up with cobwebs on him, the father.
That poodle-kicker, plus Obama, Starmer, the WEF, the CFR, the TLC … zero respect for the nation. The guy I briefly stayed with said: “You’re not going to get far in this country, James, with your Little Englander ways.”
Oh really? Steve also wrote:
‘All you need to know is this Labour government is led by internationalists. They despise “nationalism”. They don’t share our patriotic view of Britain. They are ashamed of our country’s history and heritage and want to destroy it.’
Yes … but we are also internationalists in a different way … we are a loose alliance at unherdables of nationalities, plus walks of life, concerned primarily with our nationality but knowing the loose rules of hospitality … whether Russian chai, English tea, southern US sweet tea, Parisienne ways or even experimental ways:
My latest friend across La Manche has interesting ways but they’re still European or rather western … why do the French like our white sliced cardboard bread so much? And in speaking with her, I do drop in some forgotten French, which must grate.
It’s all still mannered … you could be a guest in southern Bama or in Austria and there’s not all that much difference … but what difference there is … pirochki, plov … cannaloni in Sicily … roux and gumbo … it in no way negates Steve and I discussing the Bond bug.
What I terminally oppose and wish to root out is when “internationalism” is twisted and perverted to mean riding roughshod over our conventions, your conventions, treating us with disrespect, treating you with disrespect.
When in Rome … ok?
As for rapists of the underaged and murdering swine … they will surely get theirs otherwise all that’s left is a muddy cultural soup of monstrosity.
And this is very British, to travel somewhere, e.g. to Austria, and do it their way during our stay. Unfortunately, it’s a different type of British to visit the Costa del Fulham and loudly impose a parody of Britain on locals. I’m sure the reader sees where this thing is going.
Sleep time again.
