[Crabcakes]

A sign of the Mail’s cheap-arse production values is that they’ve not only left in one of his remarks to the subeditor to add emphasis, but that whatever poor sod has been tasked with polishing Peter’s latest turd for (I suspect) bargain basement freelance rates has then also added emphasis to the erroneously retained instruction as well, and no one has spotted it.

Also, it always amuses me that Hitch the lesser insists on having “This is Peter Hitchens’ Mail on Sunday column” at the top to make it clear on Mail online that he doesn’t write for the Daily Mail, as he still inexplicably thinks the former is somehow in some way better in quality than the latter (though I suspect the true reason is so he can immediately play it as a ‘trump card’ against anyone claiming he is not a serious person as he writes ‘for the Mail’, as if this extraordinarily minor error that 99% of people would faultlessly grasp as a perfectly reasonable shorthand is immediately indicative that their position is invalid).

[Andy McDandy]

Could well be. I always took it to be a way of differentiating between the column and his other musings and content.

[Youngian]

Did you miss Oak Apple Day on Monday? A pity.

I did, Peter. Tell me more

You were supposed to wear a sprig of oak leaves. This commemorates King Charles II’s escape from Oliver Cromwell by hiding in an oak tree at Boscobel.

Once upon a time, those who didn’t risked being pelted with birds’ eggs, thrashed with nettles or pinched on the behind (illegal nowadays, no doubt).

But, bit by bit, these British traditions fade away, Guy Fawkes has nearly gone. Whitsun disappeared in my lifetime.

Will it be Easter next and nothing but unromantic ‘Bank Holidays’ for ever and ever?

Do they have to be on Mondays, by the way? Wouldn’t Friday be better? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/arti ... ed-replace

Is Guy Fawkes much of thing outside England as it commemorates an event before Britain existed? Bonfire Night continued to be used in parallel to this nasty 17th century Pope bashing appropriation. Hitchens of course knows this but would deny it.

[Bones McCoy]

Apart from perpetually outraged Hitchens, and David "here for the outrage" Starkey, I'm sure few give a toss.

Most of the country can't be arsed to erect bunting for the latest Charles.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Remember your history. Don't fetishise it.

[Andy McDandy]

Pre-reformation, we had plenty of holidays, as the name indicates they were religious in nature.

His beloved C of E cut back on them in their eternal drive for profits. Bank Holidays were a very hard won concession, and won by people he likely despises.

And yes, randomly assaulting people for not wearing a sprig of oak leaves is kind of frowned upon. Maybe he should consider that in light of his main piece (on random violent attacks on peaceful folk).

[Rosvanian]

Classic Hitchens, nostalgia for a tradition from hundreds of years ago as a demonstration of his moral superiority.

In the main library of my hometown here in the north east there's a photograph on the wall of some kids playing in the street circa 1900 taken just a few minutes walk from where I live. None of them are wearing shoes. I get all misty eyed about these lost traditions.....

[Andy McDandy]

Yes, most of those traditions can be summed up as "beat up the outsiders".

[Bones McCoy]

Pre-reformation, we had plenty of holidays, as the name indicates they were religious in nature.

His beloved C of E cut back on them in their eternal drive for profits. Bank Holidays were a very hard won concession, and won by people he likely despises.

And yes, randomly assaulting people for not wearing a sprig of oak leaves is kind of frowned upon. Maybe he should consider that in light of his main piece (on random violent attacks on peaceful folk).

An early variant on "Where's your fucking poppy" perhaps.

[Crabcakes]

As with anti-immigration wankers, it’s all about where/when they draw the line - and it’s always conveniently so they’re behind the line and ‘in’ and people they don’t like are ‘out’.

I’m sure Hitch won’t be shedding a tear for the loss of even older traditions relating to Saxon gods or suggesting we return to the pre-Jebus pagan version of Christmas that far out-dates the Christian one, just like you won’t see the likes of Farage and Yaxley-Lennon looking far enough back to see their own ancestors wander across the channel. Because it’s never really about ‘tradition’ or who truly ‘belongs’, and always about othering. Peter might not have the racist undertones of a send them home bigot whose family originate in Europe or Africa, but he’s just as hypocritical when trying to raise his own pedestal by claiming it’s wrong to forget the traditions he conveniently knows about himself, regardless of context or relevance to the modern world, while ignoring others.

[Crabcakes]

See also: Hitch moaning on about ‘let’s go back to feet and inches’. While also always leaving out the purely coincidental fact that he knows how feet and inches work while young people - who he clearly dislikes on account of their youth and lack of forelock-tugging ‘know your place’ deference to him - do not.

[Killer Whale]

he’s just as hypocritical when trying to raise his own pedestal by claiming it’s wrong to forget the traditions he conveniently knows about himself, regardless of context or relevance to the modern world, while ignoring others.

The Urdd National Eisteddfod has just visited my town for a week. Proper, actual living (as in constantly evolving and developing) traditions being celebrated by thousands upon thousands of people. But he wouldn't be interested in that, because when he says 'British', what he really means is 'English'.

Having said that, I'm genuinely surprised the Mail didn't latch onto this story. Maybe we can expect an 'hilarious' Gavin and Stacy pastiche from Littlejohn tomorrow.

[Rosvanian]

I read a lot of Hitchens' output out of sheer curiosity but I still don't get the man despite some good attempts on here to interpret what he really thinks. I looked up Oak Apple Day and discovered that it was abolished as a public holiday in 1859. Why does he feel so intrinsically linked to the ancient history of this country? Why is it important to remember such things? I just don't get it.

[Crabcakes]

But he wouldn't be interested in that, because when he says 'British', what he really means is 'English'.

I think what he really *really* means is Victorian era England. Puritan, class-riddled, oppressive and (for upper classes) humourless. Just like him. And even then, it’s looking back through misery-tinted blinkers.

[Andy McDandy]

I read a lot of Hitchens' output out of sheer curiosity but I still don't get the man despite some good attempts on here to interpret what he really thinks. I looked up Oak Apple Day and discovered that it was abolished as a public holiday in 1859. Why does he feel so intrinsically linked to the ancient history of this country? Why is it important to remember such things? I just don't get it.

He has read more than you. He has a better grasp of English history* than you. He is better than you.

*Or at least the chocolate box Our Island Story bollocks version of it.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

RJ Unstead.

Utter bollocks from cover to cover.

From an Unstead apologist (Tory, male natch)

In 1980 a rival children’s historian, Sallie Purkis – perhaps not coincidentally, a lifelong Labour activist – issued a broadside in Teaching History, urging teachers to ditch his books. Unstead’s three sins, she explained, were that he believed history was the story of great men, that he used history to promote moral values and that he upheld a conservative Englishman’s vision of the world. He was, in short, the ‘Unacceptable Face of History.’

That's where Hitch gets his His story.

[davidjay]

But he wouldn't be interested in that, because when he says 'British', what he really means is 'English'.

I think what he really *really* means is Victorian era England. Puritan, class-riddled, oppressive and (for upper classes) humourless. Just like him. And even then, it’s looking back through misery-tinted blinkers.

As a wiser man then me once said, British society is underpinned by the suspicion that someone, somewhere is enjoying themselves.

[MisterMuncher]

The nostalgia for the lost British cultural phenomena from the ages in which Britain was going rip and tear on multiple other cultures to the point that most of them effectively stopped existing in public is quite something.

[Rosvanian]

Hitchens wishes it was 1962:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/arti ... _share-top

I suspect that 1962 Hitchens would rather be in 1902.

[Youngian]

The year 1962 was especially safe for children, and we were allowed to roam the suburbs and the countryside quite unsupervised in a way that now seems utterly impossible.

Noisy kids in my street didn’t get the memo. Hitchens doesn’t offer up any statistics as to whether children are more unsafe in the suburbs and countryside now compared to 1962. As long as Hitchens can ramp up fear he doesn’t particularly care.