Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Youngian wrote: ↑Thu Nov 28, 2024 7:18 pm Reform voters get very upset if you suggest Truss and Johnson already led Reform governments. But fail to articulate what is different and special about Reform. Just feelings.

I came across this YouTube channel when they released this video. The troupe involved're an interesting bunch.

They're taking aim at Giorgia Meloni here, but the values're universal:

I was of the opinion that it's time to knock James Bond on the head as it's was an anachronism when it was written. But they could have a lot of fun casting a US based demented supervillian. Perhaps Christopher Walken could return as Max Zoron with a nutjob president in his pocket. Or Richard E Grant, not quite South African in origin but near enough.

Recently heard testimonies of nurses from the West Indies in 1950s treated abominably as skivvies. Christian virtue was in very short supply for them.

I can just remember the tail end of that period. Hitchens is absolutely right. I really can't believe how much better society is today compared with those shitty far-off days.

When the school choir sang about 'big buck n*****ers'?

Yeah, great.

And, for all the proper binmen, respect, and street sweepers.

The pavements were ankle deep in dogshit - some of it white.

That's a very strange picture of nurses praying there. Even in 1956, not all that many people in England were devoutly religious. So I'm guessing it's a photo-op or a perhaps a Roman Catholic hospice. These still exist, there was one near where I used to live in East London.

https://www.cbcew.org.uk/hospice/

I’d wager that the very last thing any patient wants to see is a bunch of nurses praying near them.

Also: Hitchens was 4 when that photo was taken, so nostalgic for a time that (a) almost certainly didn’t exist in the way a few cherry picked random photos present it, and (b) he has no real memory of experiencing.

Crabcakes wrote: ↑Mon Dec 02, 2024 5:16 pm I’d wager that the very last thing any patient wants to see is a bunch of nurses praying near them.

Absolutely, there's an implication that all hope is lost if the best they can offer is prayer.

Similarly, I recently witnessed a priest attending a palliative care ward, he strode through that place like the grim reaper.

Oboogie wrote: ↑Mon Dec 02, 2024 5:35 pm

Crabcakes wrote: ↑Mon Dec 02, 2024 5:16 pm I’d wager that the very last thing any patient wants to see is a bunch of nurses praying near them.

Absolutely, there's an implication that all hope is lost if the best they can offer is prayer.

Similarly, I recently witnessed a priest attending a palliative care ward, he strode through that place like the grim reaper.

One's reminded of Voltaire on his deathbed:

Priest: Do you renounce the devil and all his works.
Voltaire: This is no time to be making enemies.

Aren’t nurses moaned at for taking a coffee or tea break nowadays.

Something that at least will help them. Not like the photo above.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Mon Dec 02, 2024 4:11 pm That's a very strange picture of nurses praying there. Even in 1956, not all that many people in England were devoutly religious. So I'm guessing it's a photo-op or a perhaps a Roman Catholic hospice. These still exist, there was one near where I used to live in East London.

https://www.cbcew.org.uk/hospice/

It looks like AI to me.
Have a look at the reflections off the back wall.
The similar poses and stature of the nurses.
The near perfect geometric layout of the room.
Where's the ceiling?

AI is very good at showing us a past that never existed.

I must admit, I did think the right hand side looked strangely bare

Bones McCoy wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2024 12:10 pm

It looks like AI to me.
Have a look at the reflections off the back wall.
The similar poses and stature of the nurses.
The near perfect geometric layout of the room.
Where's the ceiling?

AI is very good at showing us a past that never existed.

Hmm, now you mention it, yes it does.

Looks like a photorealistic painting.

The flooring on the right hand side looks very curiously sloped.

Hitchens punting out transparently made-up shit. Who'd have thort.

Much to my surprise, it appears it is legit - albeit possibly recoloured/clumsily touched up by AI tools?

(Leeds, 1956, if anyone is interested - original uploaded to Getty in 2008, so well before midjourney etc)

https://images.app.goo.gl/jh7MBZRD61PoHWx47

Genuine, AI, or a combination of the two, it doesn't really matter. It's a reminder of a time when bigotry was not only normal, but socially acceptable. Social norms which should be swept into the dustbin of history and dumped on the landfill of Never Again. Anyone harking back to this and lamenting the passing of a golden age is a total cunt.

Watchman wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2024 1:06 pm I must admit, I did think the right hand side looked strangely bare

It's a bloody enormous empty room, quite unlike any ward I've ever seen.