Real England

the murder in the news last week was in a road i used to deliver newspapers on. my dad used to work with the woman's younger brother. 8(

http://i1.gazettelive.co.uk/incoming/article6846515.ece/ALTERNATES/s1023/JS33831342.jpg

I remember that Mike Tyson's Greatest Hits vhs being everywhere in the early 90s

Hi I don't know what I'm talking about but I don't understand why west country accents have never been cool

Every time i look at my new local newspaper, something is on fire in a park.

http://i.imgur.com/6goJfg0.jpg?1

nice of the arsonist to front up and admit it in that second photo

Cllr Rupert Turpin

man's pretty forward-thinking, wall of fire would have been a big hit in our playground when evel knievel was all the rage

http://www.suffolkgazette.com/news/morris-dancers-blind-footballers-brawl/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork

Police were called after a mass brawl broke out in a pub car park between a group of morris dancers and a blind football team.

The footballers were enjoying a match on the village green at Rattlesden, near Stowmarket, using a ball with a bell in it so they could keep up with play.

But all hell broke out when the morris dancers began performing at a nearby pub.

A player kicked the ball off the pitch towards the Brewers Arms, and then mistook the morris dancers’ uniform bells for the one in the ball.

He promptly kicked one of the dancers in the shin, sending him flying over a table and crashing into a flower pot. A hanging basket then fell on his head.

More blind footballers then joined the melee, kicking out at the bells and then being surprised when they were punched by furious morris men.

The brawl was only stopped when the referee caught up and blew his whistle loudly.

The Dangerous Comedy of Bernard Manning

I'd never heard of this guy before reading this article.

we did a thread bitd

Bernard Manning Has Died

as was noted on that thread he played the opening night of the hacienda.

favourite bernard manning joke (maybe only non-offensive bernard manning joke?):

Hunchback walks into a bar.
"Scotch whiskey." He says to the barman.
"Bell's alright?"
"Mind your own fucking business." He says.

The last thing I saw on him was I think a bizarre Ch4 program on him that finishes with him addressing his own real cadaver in a coffin with words something like "So now you are finally dead you fat bastard".

I have half a thought about bernard manning that i can't flesh out into anything but that goes something like this:

manning, hugely reviled during his lifetime for his racism, sexism, homophobia etc., juxtaposed with contemporaneous "right-on" 80s alternative comedians and their chiefly observational material.

manning really has no direct comedic descendants - working man's club comedy based on old-fashioned joke construction and chiefly targeting some "other" is no longer mainstream, but the progenitors of 80s alternative comedy are everywhere, stand-up now at its height of popularity in Britain, chiefly recognizable as stemming from 80s alternative comedy.

current stand-up often based on "edgy" offensive jokes, but laden with irony, and usually coming from a university educated comedian who it is assumed is liberal enough to not actually be racist/virulently sexist etc as material might suggest. unlike manning who is a racist pleb moron.

some comedians covering transgressive matieral are even lauded for being progressive. frankie boyle's articles on politics in the guardian, well regarded by plenty on the left on british social media, or for an american example amy schumer lauded for her feminist comedy. The former does rape jokes, the latter race jokes.

un-ironic, earnest racist manning remains to be rehabilitated.

lack of sophistication is the crime.

frankie boyle's articles are shite

there are lots of un-ironic/earnest racist comedy twitter accounts that don't seem to be giving out a 'university educated ostensibly liberal' vibe, idk if these would count as Bernard's comedic descendants

or clarkson?

Not really feeling those thoughts on Manning. His act was not un-ironic and not earnest (which is one way he excused his bigotry). The "alternative" comedy of the 80s (which I don't see as being observational - more satirical, physical and insult comedy btw) didn't so much oppose him or his ilk, but rather the huge swath of light entertainment that was around at the time, and Manning was barely part of that, because he was not for family viewing & wasn't shown much in Scotland or Ireland. The Young Ones mocked every genre of mainstream tv show that was around at the time - family sitcoms, youth programming, imported US shows, quiz shows, kids stuff etc.

He remains to be rehabilitated because to most people his jokes were embarrassingly moronic and bigoted and were never funny.

The one-liner style of stand-up seems just as popular as ever but they just don't do racist and sexist material.

un-ironic, earnest racist manning remains to be rehabilitated.

thx 4 new display name

https://twitter.com/psmith/status/663272029446127616

http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/4610/production/_86863971_pants1.jpg
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-34919381

Oh, Tiverton.

tivvy rascals

local Sharon Fowkes dubbed them "better than nothing".

OTM let's hope they stay on

I was getting a taxi on Friday evening and the Asian taxi driver was angrily ranting about "David Cameron letting these foreign bastards into the country". There is some frightful shit going on though. There has been an allegedly Polish gang of criminals who have been exclusively doing home-invasion robberies on Asian families and specifically targeting elderly victims. One of them got spotted in Ravensthorpe and when a 150 strong lynch mob pursued him, he locked himself in a Subway toilet.

http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/man-hid-subway-toilet-escape-10515182

Mr David Cameron, who runs the Subway store, said two of his female staff were in the shop at the time. They were shocked but unhurt.

Another man said: “We want people to know what is happening. Asian families have lots of gold and these robbers come round at 7pm when elderly people or women are home alone and smash their way in.

“It’s happened in Savile Town and Batley but we are not going to take it in Ravensthorpe.

“We are just normal people. We do our day job and come home. People are trying to rob us and we are not going to take it anymore.

“It’s like gang warfare. We are not in America with these wannabe gangsters.

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/resources/images/4539459.jpg?type=article-full

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/14134930._Verging_on_racism____controversial_Christmas_banner_asks_Santa_for_Arabic_lessons/?ref=trn

Mr Miller, who has been a taxi driver for 40 years and is a member of UKIP, rejects any suggestion of racism,

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/resources/images/4539439/

if mr miller wants to leave the eu, well that's fine with me

I get five calls a day offering me a Koran and lessons in Arabic I would be more than happy to forward on to him.

maybe he sincerely wants a koran and lessons in arabic, just not quite as much as he wants an eu exit

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-35100078

A man who shot his wife's lover, who had posted a "revenge porn" photograph of her on Facebook, has been jailed.

Robert Ellerby, 44, "blasted" Scott Watmuff when he turned up at the couple's marital home.

Watmuff had refused to remove the intimate shot of Ellerby's wife Rubbina, uploaded shortly before the confrontation, a court heard.

beeb report doesnt remotely do that justice...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/12049756/Husband-shot-cheating-wifes-hard-man-ex-lover-over-Facebook-revenge-porn-pictures.html

who runs a business constructing designer rabbit hutches from his home

there it is

http://www.torquayheraldexpress.co.uk/Star-Tupac-Shakur-remanded-custody-accused-table/story-28385583-detail/story.html

http://i4.gazettelive.co.uk/incoming/article10287469.ece/ALTERNATES/s1227b/JS73556572.jpg

My morning walk took me from hilltop vistas of mist rolling in over castle and cathedral to a bare-chested brer screaming "the mouthy cunt wants to take me children" from a dilapidated bandstand within the space of two minutes, which was more realness than I could handle at 9:30 on New Year's Day.

I was in Chippenham over Christmas. Any foray into the centre involved crossing the paths of several distinct townie tribes:

Rat-thin/meth-pale Ugg woman with fat dog, platinum and claret hair, filthy leggings, Matalan puffa jacket and a giant Sports Direct bag. C (who grew up nearby) declared her WINNER 2015 CHIPPENHAM TOWNIE OF THE YEAR competition.
Woman in pub who looked separated from her darts team, in mom jeans, paisley shirt, leather vest, cowboy boots and very frizzy unkempt hair.
Shaven-headed men in knockoff sportswear who do not play sports.
Lots of men (including C's cousins) with those dropped-pocket jeans with artificial worn patches.
UKIP MEP office in the main square, locked for Xmas, with woman MEP advertising her doctorate. C's nephew: 'so is she a doctor of RACISM?'
Everyone in the local Costa (least worst option on Boxing Day) wearing novelty hats and t-shirts, ordering ridiculous thousand-calorie concoctions with only a passing relationship to coffee.

Every so often you'd see someone in a Barbour jacket and wellies looking haunted and furtive,

http://www.falklandswar.org.uk/memoirs.htm#4

C's nephew to trenchant thread

good find

http://i.imgur.com/KPeOmXS.png

One for sorrow...

http://www.croydonadvertiser.co.uk/Man-chanted-EDL-immigrants-naked-protest-outside/story-28534136-detail/story.html

A MAN stripped naked while shouting 'no more immigrants' during a bizarre protest outside a Home Office building in Croydon.

Security guards intervened when the man started hurling abuse at people waiting in line outside the asylum screening unit in Wellesley Road at 2pm on Thursday.

After chanting the name of far-right group English Defence League (EDL) he then took off all his clothes and continued to rant about the state of modern Britain.

The incident was caught on camera by student Jacob Scott-Pederson, who is working part-time in a building nearby.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMxSVWDYNlc

Morris Men dance around a Dalek at the Abingdon Air & Country Show on a dismally grey and rainy Sunday

the dangling collection box is a charming detail

https://youtu.be/ESwrwS6Uxlw

re: bullseye, I could do without the sneery captions but there are some excellent photos here

http://bullseyecontestants.tumblr.com/

(sadly no sign of cravat guy afaict)