James’s blog
Extras:
- Harry Hill’s book - index of famous names (PDF)
- Cover Paije (Spotify playlist)
- Now That’s What I Call Wigging Out (Spotify playlist)
Why not:
Sites I’ve linked to:
- Amardeep Singh at Lehigh University
- Anglican Church Music
- Billie the Vision
- Books by Mark Billingham
- Einar Egilsson’s chord image generator
- Garry Knight on Flickr
- Harry Pearson
- Korall on Wikimedia
- Lille Cathedral
- Michael Rosen blog
- Nadia Oh
- Nick Hillman on Twitter
- One Post Wonders
- Popjustice
- Red Bubble
- Slate: Owen Pallett
- Sputnik Music forums
- Stewart Lee
- Survivors Fund
- Tour de France Lanterne Rouge
- Wordle
- Wyclef on YouTube
Other good sites:
DIY: A Thatcherite plot?
13 Feb 16 | Re: Political theory | Link-U-Post
Before the Second World War it was unusual for people to do their own decorating out of choice: those who could afford it would hire a painter and decorator to do it for them. (Mr Pooter is a literary example of someone who gets keen on doing his own painting. He is not meant to be typical.) Then at some point between the 1940s and now the balance began to shift, until it became normal to do your own painting, decorating and light-to-medium home maintenance jobs, and it wouldn't even occur to most people to get someone in.
The results of this:
- A lot of rooms around Britain are shoddily decorated, because they weren't done by professionals.
- A lot of shelves and things around Britain have not been put up very well.
- Some people feel expected to do painting and decorating even though they are no good at it, and have a miserable time doing it.
- In this age of an overstretched health service, A&E departments are heaving with sore thumbs, ladder-fallers and the victims of plummeting nick-nacks from unsafe shelving.
- There are a lot fewer people employed as painters, decorators and general handymen (or handywomen). And a lot less chance of making a living if you have a talent or vocation for this work.
You know, I can't think of a single positive consequence.
Now it seems to me that the time when DIY got popular was the 1980s. Just as British heavy industry was dying, or being killed off, or going into managed decline, everyone also starts suddenly doing their own painting and papering, attacking the business of another traditional working class profession. Another way people could leave school at 16 and make a proper living, largely gone from today's Britain.
So the question is, can it be a coincidence? Or was the DIY trend deliberately started by the Conservative Party and their allies as another way to take respectable, worthwhile, skilled work away from the working classes? I think it may have been. And it gets particularly nasty once you remember that one of the sacred founding documents of the British welfare state, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, is about painters and decorators. No doubt Thatcher herself, having hurled the book aside in an ugly blue rage, vowed then and there to do all she could to bring down the painting and decorating profession. Unable to smash it by edict as she did the miners, she began a war of ideas that would eventually wreak comparable devastation. Some clever Tory PR type hits on the idea of DIY and boom! Lots more money for the Tory-voting owners of big paint and paper companies, lots less for Labour-voting tradesmen. In yer face Mr Tressell.
Over Christmas, I got someone in to do my painting and papering. I recommend this course of action. It's very convenient and it may be your political duty.
Posted by JOSE IZQUIERDO at 21:29
PS: Since I posted this on Facebook and it started blowing up, new facets of the sick class-aggressive joke that is DIY keep occurring to me. For example:
- From a tenant's point of view, DIY is a complete con designed to persuade them to add value to their landlord's property for free.
- Of course the one per cent never do it themselves and have been using handymen this whole time. But by reducing demand from the middle classes, it helps them keep their own tradesmen's wages down.
[Or dive into the blarchive...]