Interesting Links for 14-06-2017

[andrewducker]

Men! Are you juggling a successful career and fatherhood? Then you'll need these helpful tips!

(tags: work life tips men sexism satire )

All 213 Beatles Songs, Ranked From Worst to Best

(tags: music )

Boss threatened staff with redundancy if they voted Labour

(tags: politics uk )

Is the keyboard faster than the mouse?

(tags: ux productivity speed computers mice keyboard )

Drug that creates a 'real sun-tan' could prevent cancer

(tags: sun cancer body )

Black Panther: World of Wakanda canceled: I'm the reason superhero comics are struggling

Me too. I only buy trades, and I'm sure that has an effect.
(tags: comics publishing business )

Majority of every worker group voted for Labour over Tories except retired

(tags: employment voting labour politics uk )

Kazakhstan Has First Ever Tabletop RPG Convention

(tags: gaming viaElfy )

Donald Trump Is Making Europe Liberal Again

(tags: usa Europe politics liberal voting )

I shall not be seeing The Mummy

(tags: movies review funny )

Modernism in the Shadow of the Habsburg Empire

(tags: history Europe empire language Germany austria Jews )

An amusing thread involving sexism, children, Disney, and troublesome grandmothers

(tags: parenting movies Disney grandparents revolution patriarchy )

Abortion: NI women not entitled to NHS terminations in England

(tags: abortion nhs uk england NorthernIreland )

Conservative supporters are more likely to be ill-educated or old

Changeover point is of people who were 10 during Winter of Discontent. Which _still_ has my parents voting Conservative.
(tags: demographics age education politics UK )

The menace of UK's firetrap tower blocks (from 2013)

(tags: uk safety housing fire OhForFucksSake )

Comments

[rmc28]

If I buy comics at all, I buy digitally, which apparently gets ignored just like trade sales get ignored.

[drplokta]

I was 15 during the winter of discontent. Don't think I've ever voted Tory.

[danieldwilliam]

I wonder if the ten years of Tory government will be seen by my daughter's age group as akin the Winter of Discontent in slow motion - a reason to never, ever, vote Conservative that stays with them for the whole of their life.

[calimac]

"Changeover point is of people who were 10 during Winter of Discontent. Which _still_ has my parents voting Conservative."

Then this screed is true.

And the elders rose up and said to the young people, If ye choose Jeremy, he will bring distress in your toils and wailing upon your streets. Do ye not remember the nineteen-seventies?
And the young people said, The what?

[andrewducker]

Hah! Yes!

(I'm just slightly too young for that.)

[doug]

"Labour/Conservative crossover occurs at age 47"

This is slightly perturbing me because I will shortly reach age 47 and was not planning on changing my vote in this way.

[andrewducker]

So long as you don't start remembering the Winner of Discontent we'll be fine.

[doug]

I do remember it, and earlier industrial woes of the 70s - I have vivid memories of the blackouts and coal rationing.

It was great. I was terribly excited about the blackouts and was very pleased with being able to read and understand the timetables showing when there was a low, medium or high risk of a power cut. But that must have been during the Three Day Week and that was all Ted Heath's fault.

Which, come to think of it, was another time a Tory PM went to the polls early in a huff to try to increase their political clout and achieved the precise opposite.

[calimac]

There may have been a history of this. Another example: Stanley Baldwin, 1923.

[doug]

Huh. Oh yes. Although one could argue that Baldwin was acting honourably rather than out of (misplaced) political expediency in honouring the pledge at the previous election not to introduce tariffs without a further election. But you're right that it did collapse around his ears in a way he entirely didn't expect, much as with Heath and May.

[calimac]

Baldwin was acting honorably within the framework he'd invented, but historians I've read are dubious about the framework. That enacting tariffs was so urgent seems dubious, not least because they weren't enacted and the world didn't end. (Well, there was a General Strike, but the lack of tariffs didn't do that; rather the opposite.)

One could argue that May was likewise being honorable in seeking a mandate for her Brexit policy, but the logic to do so would be twisted, and I'm dubious about it in Baldwin's case too.

[doug]

Good points all.

I think there would be a stronger argument about May's honour in seeking a mandate for her Brexit policy if there were a clearer sign from her that she felt that it had been rejected and must therefore be abandoned

[doug]

Also, the main thing I think of when I think of Stanley Baldwin is Bertrand Russell advising people not to smite him on the cheek, since although Russell didn't doubt that Baldwin was a very sincere Christian, he thought you might find that Baldwin thought Jesus's maxim about turning the other cheek was intended in a figurative sense.

[calimac]

I finally looked at the Beatles rating, and found it rather exasperating. Not only do I disagree with the relative ratings, I do so even more with the absolute rankings. Only after you get up to about no. 90 does he consistently like the songs he's rating, so by far most of the writeup is a lot of grouchiness. He brushes off a lot of obscure but really well-crafted songs. I'd prefer to see the Beatles rated by somebody who actually likes the Beatles, and not just a few of their songs. Further, the digressions attempting to turn the writeup into a history of the group is really irritating; a review this detailed is really only of interest to people who would already know things like that Ringo was ill most of his childhood and that Paul and Linda had a happy marriage.

[randomdreams]

I was just reading about the winter of discontent yesterday, albeit because of three-day weeks and the collapse of British Leyland.