The Happy RANT THREAD!!!!!!!

[A_Northern_Soul]

WHAT?

[Treefingers]

It may have been 'You Made Me Realise', it may also have been a cold or something though, too (it was flapping freezing outside, I tells ya).

I just remember waking up not being able to hear on the right side, thinking "Ruddy heckins, Kevster, Bilindster, Debster and Colmster. Did a right number on this ear, right 'ere."

[TaoTapeTao]

It may have been 'You Made Me Realise', it may also have been a cold or something though, too (it was flapping freezing outside, I tells ya).

I just remember waking up not being able to hear on the right side, thinking "Ruddy heckins, Kevster, Bilindster, Debster and Colmster. Did a right number on this ear, right 'ere."

It was probably a cold. Hearing loss is mostly permanent otherwise.

[fujee]

Haha Tape mate, I was joking. I know its so scary isn't it. That ringing you hear is the loss of frequencies in your ear, terrifying.

MBV were totally worth it, I stood quite far back so it wasnt too bad next morning. The only time it got a bit too much was during the holocaust, vibrating legs and brain was a new gig experience though ha.

[fujee]

This makes me so happy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKAB5JDB9_8

[TaoTapeTao]

Haha Tape mate, I was joking. I know its so scary isn't it. That ringing you hear is the loss of frequencies in your ear, terrifying.

MBV were totally worth it, I stood quite far back so it wasnt too bad next morning. The only time it got a bit too much was during the holocaust, vibrating legs and brain was a new gig experience though ha.

Haha I got that a bit too late woops

[fujee]

Bank holidays, 4 day weekend!

[louise]

im really happy but i think its got something to do with the insane amount of sugar ive consumed over the last 24hours. i love easter.

[A_Northern_Soul]

While it's not generally good form to celebrate someone's death, and certainly isn't something I'd usually do, I can't help but raise a smile at Thatcher's death today. Those of you from certain parts of the UK will be able to understand this.

Here was someone who gleefully destroyed whole communities in the 1980s, taking away people's livelihoods and ruining lives to an extent that a lot of people are still suffering her poisonous legacy today. Good riddance.

[IronMark]

While it's not generally good form to celebrate someone's death, and certainly isn't something I'd usually do, I can't help but raise a smile at Thatcher's death today. Those of you from certain parts of the UK will be able to understand this.

Here was someone who gleefully destroyed whole communities in the 1980s, taking away people's livelihoods and ruining lives to an extent that a lot of people are still suffering her poisonous legacy today. Good riddance.

Well said. Wouldn't wish death on anyone but I'm not sorry to see her go, rest in agony you toxic sow.

I've blasted George Square Thatcher Death Party by Mogwai a fair few times today.

[Treefingers]

While it's not generally good form to celebrate someone's death, and certainly isn't something I'd usually do, I can't help but raise a smile at Thatcher's death today. Those of you from certain parts of the UK will be able to understand this.

Here was someone who gleefully destroyed whole communities in the 1980s, taking away people's livelihoods and ruining lives to an extent that a lot of people are still suffering her poisonous legacy today. Good riddance.

I was sort of conflicted, but then I thought: it's fair to say she lived longer than most people can be expected to, AND made those decisions like 'fixing' the troubled economy she inherited with a quick-fix solution that was of benefit to a minority of corporations and people while perpetuating this bullshit myth that, if you're suffering as a result, then you're not trying hard enough. All of which has led to the awful situation we're in now: where deregulated banks were able to fuck with the system and lead us to a point where our Coalition government is attempting to 'fix' the troubled economy it inherited with a quick-fix solution that is of benefit to a minority of corporations and people while perpetuating this bullshit myth that, if you're suffering as a result, then you're not trying hard enough.

So, what's wrong with making a few jokes and a few critical comments at her expense when she croaks it after such a long life? She contributed to a society where compassion isn't a factor and isn't important, so why should she be magically entitled to compassion when she dies?

No state funeral. Them fucking dead 'uns been sponging off the taxpayer for long enough, if they want a flashy funeral then they should bleed'n well GET A JOB.

[Mexicola]

Yeah, I have to say I can't feel anything but revulsion towards her. Perhaps it helps to come from the part of the UK that A_Northern_Soul and myself come from, but you have to understand that it wasn't so much the swathe she systematically cut through our country that left so many cursing her name - it was the merry, patronising, absolutely soulless manner with which she did it that really did piss in the face of those she ruined.

And for those people banging on about the Falklands conflict, yes she oversaw us prevail against the Argentinian invasion, but only AFTER she stonewalled regular and clear intelligence that warned her of the military build up. As became typical with her, she became blinded by cost savings, withdrawing the Royal Navy presence and inadvertently giving Buenos Aires the green light to invade in the first place. ie. she even fucked that up and then had little choice but to send thousands of British Forces half way around the World to put it right - forces who were often neglected when they returned home again.

I sincerely hope I never celebrate anyone's people's death and I won't lower myself to begin with this harpy. But, I'll tell you something, I won't mourn her either.

[louise]

Wow @ the Thatcher hatingg...but that said i can't imagine I'll feel sad when Tony Blair or David Cameron bite the dust...guess it's just what you're around to see..

[IanRedpoint]

Wow @ the Thatcher hatingg...but that said i can't imagine I'll feel sad when Tony Blair or David Cameron bite the dust...guess it's just what you're around to see..

I guess it is difficult to grasp quite why and how much many of us hated Thatcher when she was in power. If anything, I hate her even more now, given that so much of what she began has played out into a society even more unstable and unequal. She presided over a decade of greed and selfishness that has since become the norm because the ever-expanding middle classes got a taste of affluence that they are terrified of losing, even if that means ever-deepening debt and credit... and she deregulated the banks so that they could sustain the lie without any social conscience.

Our loathing of her and what she was doing to the country was actually quite galvanising, for a while at least. Cameron is equally vile but beyond a few student protests we, as a nation, seem too brow-beaten and apathetic to turn our dissent into anything beyond a mild grumble. I worry that we won't realise what we had in institutions such as the NHS until they are gone and half the country cannot afford treatment.

[Techboy]

I get it. I'm only 21, but I get it. I'm from a town called Wishaw, in Lanarkshire, about 20 miles east of Glasgow. I'm not even going to mention poll tax... but in the 1960s, right in the middle of Wishaw and it's neighbouring town Motherwell, they built Ravenscraig - a huge steel mill which at its peak employed something like 11,000 people. Huge social housing schemes were constructed in order to house employees. A job was guaranteed even for the kids who left school early. There were many auxiliary businesses in the local area which benefited from this - a number of other steelworks, shops/cafes/etc for the employees, a load of stuff which took advantage of the high disposable income that they enjoyed.

As far as I can see from here, Thatcher oversaw a range of poor economic decisions which led to business moving out of the country, and the subsequent mishandling and closure of the plant. There were numerous strikes, the demands of which were fully ignored. A group of workers actually walked to Downing St... where she refused to see them. Brilliant stuff. By the 80s, the plant was downsized considerably. After doing an absolutely shite job of running British Steel, they had an excuse to make an attempt to privatise it. In the space of ten years it went from being a symbol of hope in British manufacturing to a symbol of the most stubborn miscalculated political agenda of the age. Nobody was ever going to buy it in its current condition, and so there was only one option left.

Ravenscraig was turning a profit until the day it closed in 1992, and has done nothing but cost the taxpayer money to secure and "regenerate" since then.

In the 90s and 00s, when it mattered to me, Wishaw was a town where 60+% of the retail premises in the town are "to let", and the only employer is Tesco's (with 400 employees, I might add, so there is still something of a defecit!). Half (or more) of the kids at my overfull school were/are from broken families with depressed, unemployed, unemployable parents with no money to heat the house - children from these schemes face basically no chance of success in today's world, villainised and living up to it - no longer able to find work after school, they are instead turning to the drug abuse and gang mentality that has long since plagued the city and it's satellite towns.

Here's how I feel about it:

https://soundcloud.com/markgallagher/un ... t4-version

Oh, and I live in Glasgow now and I checked on my way to Queen St Station - there was indeed a George Square Thatcher Death Party, as Mogwai would put it. And I'm not surprised.

[Treefingers]

Yeah. As, also being a 21-year-old, my annoyance comes from how visible the damage that she did still is today, around 30 years later.

It was really annoying seeing David Cameron saying about how she'll go down in history as the UK's greatest peacetime Prime-Minister. Just a totally blinkered, closed-off perspective from the guy who's running the country.

Flagrant self-interest has no place within government: the point is they they work for us and run the country according to what the people decide. If they treat people as subjects, then why not just go back to feudalism and the monarchy?

Our loathing of her and what she was doing to the country was actually quite galvanising, for a while at least. Cameron is equally vile but beyond a few student protests we, as a nation, seem too brow-beaten and apathetic to turn our dissent into anything beyond a mild grumble. I worry that we won't realise what we had in institutions such as the NHS until they are gone and half the country cannot afford treatment.

I think what worries me even more is the idea that, within a number of years, society could get to a point where the NHS is viewed with suspicion, like by some the US, due to the fact that free healthcare doesn't promote the values of 'aspiration'.

[Treefingers]

Also, the fact that there seem to be porn-bots on Soundcloud is really funny.

[Techboy]

If you actually believe that government exists for the people then you need to come and live in Scotland, where even if every one of us voted against the tories, we would still end up with a tory government. There is absolutely no political pressure on the government to represent scottish people, and I think that makes it more obvious to us than it is to Englandshireish people. The government exists to make their peers richer and happier at the expense of other people.

[louise]

If this is happiness kill me now

[Techboy]

hahaa. yes, OT somewhat! you can hope that if someone kills you now at least nobody will be posting online in threads about happiness because of it... :p