"The Bank of England may drop historical figures from banknotes as it seeks suggestions from the public."
In innocent pre-2020 days, when I was still on social media, I was part of a discussion about who we would put on British banknotes. I nominated Brunel for the £50 note (indisputably a Great Briton, and since engineering and communications relate directly to the generation of wealth, I thought it made sense to put him on the highest denomination). I put Jenner on the £20 note; he's probably saved more lives than any other Briton, so I thought it made sense to have him on the highest denomination commonly seen. And I wanted George Eliot on the £10 note, as self-evidently a greater novelist than Jane Austen.
I suggested Gladstone and Disraeli for the £5 note - putting them there jointly to avoid being partisan, and on the smallest denomination to remind us that politics is not the most important thing in life. I also thought that since they were active 150 years ago, they were too far in the past to be controversial. I realise now that this was a rather naive thought.
I also imagined that George Eliot, a woman, and Disraeli, a Jew, would satisfy demands for "diversity". I suppose this was rather naive too.
"Elsewhere, a teacher in Preston was sacked for criticising the sentencing of Lucy Connolly."
Sorry Ed, he wrote about "savages and the leftist woke media. If these people have no respect for the police and UK laws they need deporting back to their ancestral home and their property confiscated by the state." Calling for people to be deported to their "ancestral home" is dodgy at the best of times, and surely incompatible with a job teaching English as a Second Language, as this guy did.
Right about the “lads” in the army not liking “the locals” and the officers having a more urbane perspective. Only lieutenants in the British Army get near the action by and large - unlike the RAF where the aircrew are mostly officers, and the navy…well, they are all in the same boat.
"It’s generally a bad sign when a state can’t find common figures to display on its bank notes."
A bit off topic, but take a look some time at the designs on Israeli banknotes across the last three quarters of a century (all pictured on Wikipedia). It's remarkable how they reflect the developing ideology of the state. In particular, the figures on the 1959 series of the old Israeli lira - a scientist in a laboratory; a labourer at an industrial plant; young pioneers in an agricultural landscape - could have appeared (with appropriate ethnic modification) on banknotes from North Korea.
By the 1970s, the banknotes illustrated world-famous Jews like Einstein and early Zionists (Herzl, Weizmann). By the 1980s, with the introduction of the shekel, they bore the images of Israeli politicians, a couple of Jewish financiers, a medieval rabbi (Maimonides) and the founder of Irgun.
Through those changes, you can trace the shift from the early project of Labour Zionism, confidently secular and progressive, to a more conservative, capitalist and hawkish Israel.
That is interesting. I will mention that when I write up the bank note piece. Agricultural and industrial workers on bank notes always seems like a bad sign.
The founder of Irgun. The group that murdered dozens of British soldiers shortly after WWII, and collaborated with the murderers of a British Government Minister and friend of Winston Churchill - Lord Moyne - DURING WWII!
"Colin Gorrie on why English doesn’t use accents."
English generally is a quite an unusual language compared to other European languages precisely because it had a particularly rough Dark Ages. The recurring waves of invaders dramatically streamlined and simplified the language. Hence, English no longer has gendered nouns as opposed to Old English which had masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns like Modern German. It no longer has complicated verb endings, just the "-s" for most third-person singular and if no longer has infected nouns with different endings depending on their role in a sentence. There is a much stronger emphasis hence on the importance of word order than in Old English.
English verbs also have -ed for the regular (weak) past tense and participle, and -ing for the present participle. But our language does have a very complicated system of verbal auxiliaries which can baffle learners whose languages have their shades of meaning expressed by a single word. Our progressive structure (to be + -ing) can be especially challenging.
Dark Ages? Recurring waves of invaders? Old English is Anglo-Saxon, the root of modern English. It arrived during the so-called Dark Ages. Before that, they basically spoke Welsh. The Normans arrived after Westminster Abbey had been built by an Anglo-Saxon king.
"Matthias Gisslar, an unknown academic, theorizes that wokeness strikes every 30 years— first in 1954-19684 with the civil rights movement, next in 1980-19955 with political correctness, and then in 2012-20246 with wokeness. "
It makes me think a bit of Strauss-How Generational Theory about how different generations are born into cycles of High-Awakening-Unravelling-Crisis.
"This is incredibly stupid; not just because it’s obviously unjust, but because increasing the number of people of foreign descent in our security agencies hugely increases our vulnerability to hostile powers. God forbid that people might have conflicting and complex loyalties – as Parliament shows, that would be unthinkable."
As Donald Trump aptly put it, "I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people that have come in and destroying our country..."
I left social media because it was keeping me hooked, but I'm not sure my departure made me waste any less time; the internet has infinite methods of distraction. I used to look forward to foreign holidays in part in order to take a holiday from my phone. But once it became possible to stay online abroad for a nominal fee, even this refuge disappeared.
I'm pretty well read, but sometimes I look at my bookshelves and wonder how many more books I'd have made my way through if it wasn't for the internet.
But still, the internet also at least makes possible informative, erudite, witty, well-argued Substacks like this one!
But the government is not "Diverse". It is almost to a man/woman made up of good, middle-class cultural Marxists. Playing the race card is not going to change that very much.
"‘Absolutely right that 16 and 17 year olds should be allowed to vote in elections. They are part of our present as well as our future.’ Good point, well made."
Is that when does it stop? Why not 15 year olds?
Personally I am against 16 and 17 year olds to vote as logically they would be able to borrow money, fight in wars, take part in pornography which they are too young to do.
I completely agree about the Guardian, there seems a marked tendency to blame a nameless "they" for complex problems rather than actually discussing the issues and its causes, often it comes across as odd to people used to more rigorous arguments.
"The Bank of England may drop historical figures from banknotes as it seeks suggestions from the public."
In innocent pre-2020 days, when I was still on social media, I was part of a discussion about who we would put on British banknotes. I nominated Brunel for the £50 note (indisputably a Great Briton, and since engineering and communications relate directly to the generation of wealth, I thought it made sense to put him on the highest denomination). I put Jenner on the £20 note; he's probably saved more lives than any other Briton, so I thought it made sense to have him on the highest denomination commonly seen. And I wanted George Eliot on the £10 note, as self-evidently a greater novelist than Jane Austen.
I suggested Gladstone and Disraeli for the £5 note - putting them there jointly to avoid being partisan, and on the smallest denomination to remind us that politics is not the most important thing in life. I also thought that since they were active 150 years ago, they were too far in the past to be controversial. I realise now that this was a rather naive thought.
I also imagined that George Eliot, a woman, and Disraeli, a Jew, would satisfy demands for "diversity". I suppose this was rather naive too.
All excellent choices!
George Eliot a must for a Canon Club event, by the way! The wisest novelist in the world.
The shin bone line at the end!! Made me laugh out loud!! Thanks!!
A bloody good Best of WSH -- you always get yer money's worth with our Mr West!
Cheers Ed, much appreciated x
"Elsewhere, a teacher in Preston was sacked for criticising the sentencing of Lucy Connolly."
Sorry Ed, he wrote about "savages and the leftist woke media. If these people have no respect for the police and UK laws they need deporting back to their ancestral home and their property confiscated by the state." Calling for people to be deported to their "ancestral home" is dodgy at the best of times, and surely incompatible with a job teaching English as a Second Language, as this guy did.
Sorry just catching up with all the comments. That's probably fair enough!
No one should be sacked for their political opinions.
The UK as 'the North Korea of Woke'... May I draw your attention to a short series articles I have written in response to the excellent series on the history of woke? I have a slightly different take: https://alexandernorman.substack.com/p/the-occult-origins-of-woke-part-1
Right about the “lads” in the army not liking “the locals” and the officers having a more urbane perspective. Only lieutenants in the British Army get near the action by and large - unlike the RAF where the aircrew are mostly officers, and the navy…well, they are all in the same boat.
"It’s generally a bad sign when a state can’t find common figures to display on its bank notes."
A bit off topic, but take a look some time at the designs on Israeli banknotes across the last three quarters of a century (all pictured on Wikipedia). It's remarkable how they reflect the developing ideology of the state. In particular, the figures on the 1959 series of the old Israeli lira - a scientist in a laboratory; a labourer at an industrial plant; young pioneers in an agricultural landscape - could have appeared (with appropriate ethnic modification) on banknotes from North Korea.
By the 1970s, the banknotes illustrated world-famous Jews like Einstein and early Zionists (Herzl, Weizmann). By the 1980s, with the introduction of the shekel, they bore the images of Israeli politicians, a couple of Jewish financiers, a medieval rabbi (Maimonides) and the founder of Irgun.
Through those changes, you can trace the shift from the early project of Labour Zionism, confidently secular and progressive, to a more conservative, capitalist and hawkish Israel.
That is interesting. I will mention that when I write up the bank note piece. Agricultural and industrial workers on bank notes always seems like a bad sign.
The founder of Irgun. The group that murdered dozens of British soldiers shortly after WWII, and collaborated with the murderers of a British Government Minister and friend of Winston Churchill - Lord Moyne - DURING WWII!
"Colin Gorrie on why English doesn’t use accents."
English generally is a quite an unusual language compared to other European languages precisely because it had a particularly rough Dark Ages. The recurring waves of invaders dramatically streamlined and simplified the language. Hence, English no longer has gendered nouns as opposed to Old English which had masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns like Modern German. It no longer has complicated verb endings, just the "-s" for most third-person singular and if no longer has infected nouns with different endings depending on their role in a sentence. There is a much stronger emphasis hence on the importance of word order than in Old English.
https://sjquillen.medium.com/why-is-english-so-weird-748b881ae791
https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-english-so-weirdly-different-from-other-languages
English verbs also have -ed for the regular (weak) past tense and participle, and -ing for the present participle. But our language does have a very complicated system of verbal auxiliaries which can baffle learners whose languages have their shades of meaning expressed by a single word. Our progressive structure (to be + -ing) can be especially challenging.
Dark Ages? Recurring waves of invaders? Old English is Anglo-Saxon, the root of modern English. It arrived during the so-called Dark Ages. Before that, they basically spoke Welsh. The Normans arrived after Westminster Abbey had been built by an Anglo-Saxon king.
"Matthias Gisslar, an unknown academic, theorizes that wokeness strikes every 30 years— first in 1954-19684 with the civil rights movement, next in 1980-19955 with political correctness, and then in 2012-20246 with wokeness. "
It makes me think a bit of Strauss-How Generational Theory about how different generations are born into cycles of High-Awakening-Unravelling-Crisis.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory
I would put the first post-WWII Awokening around 1964-1975 and the second one at 1985-1995 based on various graphs and vibes.
1995 was around the time all the papers were saying that 'political correctness was dead'. ho ho
Bit of a double-tap with the number keys there, Aidan old chap!
I hope so! If Wokeness is as durable as Aidan seems to predict, it's going to be a depressing 18,000 years!
"This is incredibly stupid; not just because it’s obviously unjust, but because increasing the number of people of foreign descent in our security agencies hugely increases our vulnerability to hostile powers. God forbid that people might have conflicting and complex loyalties – as Parliament shows, that would be unthinkable."
As Donald Trump aptly put it, "I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people that have come in and destroying our country..."
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/10/13/politics/trump-military-enemy-from-within-election-day
"Personally, I can’t turn off even on holiday."
I left social media because it was keeping me hooked, but I'm not sure my departure made me waste any less time; the internet has infinite methods of distraction. I used to look forward to foreign holidays in part in order to take a holiday from my phone. But once it became possible to stay online abroad for a nominal fee, even this refuge disappeared.
I'm pretty well read, but sometimes I look at my bookshelves and wonder how many more books I'd have made my way through if it wasn't for the internet.
But still, the internet also at least makes possible informative, erudite, witty, well-argued Substacks like this one!
Thank you! I was the same about going abroad and not having data. It was actually a relief.
But the government is not "Diverse". It is almost to a man/woman made up of good, middle-class cultural Marxists. Playing the race card is not going to change that very much.
This is almost true, "Basically, millennials are better off than their parents - in almost every area but the one that matters, housing."
I would say that pensions and for younger millennials car insurance (a necessity in rural areas) are a lot more. AFAIK Fronting didn't exist in the 20th century. https://www.confused.com/car-insurance/guides/what-is-fronting
Re: “fronting” - most of my friends did this in the late 80s. Their car insurance was in their Dad’s names.
And now car insurance for young people is even worse - silly money.
(I didn’t know it was called fronting until I read your link.)
Thank you - I thought it was a modern thing.
The only problem with argument
"‘Absolutely right that 16 and 17 year olds should be allowed to vote in elections. They are part of our present as well as our future.’ Good point, well made."
Is that when does it stop? Why not 15 year olds?
Personally I am against 16 and 17 year olds to vote as logically they would be able to borrow money, fight in wars, take part in pornography which they are too young to do.
And Ed was being sarcastic
I suspected so - but I fear that there are people who really believed that.
As the father of a 16 year old I am very envious that Kier Starmer had a 16 year old and thought that they should vote.
(Or he is really cynical).
I completely agree about the Guardian, there seems a marked tendency to blame a nameless "they" for complex problems rather than actually discussing the issues and its causes, often it comes across as odd to people used to more rigorous arguments.