UK British News Megathread - aka CWCissey's news thread

https://news.sky.com/story/row-over-new-greggs-vegan-sausage-rolls-heats-up-11597679 (https://archive.ph/5Ba6o)

A heated row has broken out over a move by Britain's largest bakery chain to launch a vegan sausage roll.

The pastry, which is filled with a meat substitute and encased in 96 pastry layers, is available in 950 Greggs stores across the country.

It was promised after 20,000 people signed a petition calling for the snack to be launched to accommodate plant-based diet eaters.


But the vegan sausage roll's launch has been greeted by a mixed reaction: Some consumers welcomed it, while others voiced their objections.

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spread happiness@p4leandp1nk
https://twitter.com/p4leandp1nk/status/1080767496569974785

#VEGANsausageroll thanks Greggs

7
10:07 AM - Jan 3, 2019
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Cook and food poverty campaigner Jack Monroe declared she was "frantically googling to see what time my nearest opens tomorrow morning because I will be outside".

While TV writer Brydie Lee-Kennedy called herself "very pro the Greggs vegan sausage roll because anything that wrenches veganism back from the 'clean eating' wellness folk is a good thing".

One Twitter user wrote that finding vegan sausage rolls missing from a store in Corby had "ruined my morning".

Another said: "My son is allergic to dairy products which means I can't really go to Greggs when he's with me. Now I can. Thank you vegans."

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pg often@pgofton
https://twitter.com/pgofton/status/1080772793774624768

The hype got me like #Greggs #Veganuary

42
10:28 AM - Jan 3, 2019
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TV presenter Piers Morgan led the charge of those outraged by the new roll.

"Nobody was waiting for a vegan bloody sausage, you PC-ravaged clowns," he wrote on Twitter.

Mr Morgan later complained at receiving "howling abuse from vegans", adding: "I get it, you're all hangry. I would be too if I only ate plants and gruel."

Another Twitter user said: "I really struggle to believe that 20,000 vegans are that desperate to eat in a Greggs."

"You don't paint a mustach (sic) on the Mona Lisa and you don't mess with the perfect sausage roll," one quipped.

Journalist Nooruddean Choudry suggested Greggs introduce a halal steak bake to "crank the fume levels right up to 11".

The bakery chain told concerned customers that "change is good" and that there would "always be a classic sausage roll".

It comes on the same day McDonald's launched its first vegetarian "Happy Meal", designed for children.

The new dish comes with a "veggie wrap", instead of the usual chicken or beef option.

It should be noted that Piers Morgan and Greggs share the same PR firm, so I'm thinking this is some serious faux outrage and South Park KKK gambiting here.

 

[The Mighty Banth]

That's why kids get Maths and English Literature and Art and other such taught to them at school. To build a foundation and give them choices.

In the US, teaching slaves reading was illegal because it gave them more opportunity to rebel. The more you know and the more widely you know allows for so much greater creativity and fulfillment.

 

[Crunkle]

Rugby player banned after shouting 'get your baps out' at female referee

We've had this discussion already today, it's 'barms' apparently

 

[Made In Wales]

Speaking of men in dresses...

 

[femboy fart huffer]

idk what the fuck you guys are on about too many big words i cant read all that i just see book talk and just want to say bif and chip are the only good ones and you all have shit taste

 

[Kofi Drinka]

Speaking of men in dresses...

View attachment 7796791

Mr Fibble would be a better PM than Starmer.

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

Speaking of men in dresses...

View attachment 7796791

Whatever happened to men wearing proper suits?

 

[femboy fart huffer]

Whatever happened to men wearing proper suits?

View attachment 7796916

Is this the englishmans version of a gollywog?

 

[Muad'Dick]

@Muad'Dick suggests that Shakespeare was the Michael Bay of his day.

I'm not afraid of dying on this hill, but you're not wrong, and its context that matters. We had a better class of pleb back in the day. Even if you only go back a hundred years or more. Just take a look at some of the letters from men on the front in WWI. Even in something as relatively mundane as that there is a level of eloquence that, had they been alive today, would earn them a gig on Radio 4 alongside the pseuds.

If you strip away the language of Shakespeare there is nothing there that wouldn't look out of place in any mainline entertainment on offer today. Again, thats not to say that it's bad, far from it. There is a reason they teach Shakespeare in schools and Beaumont & Fletcher are a relative footnote. (Yup, I'm putting it out there, they're overrated. Fuck A King And No King.)

Take something like Cymbeline. Still my favourite piece of the Bard's work, but if you didn't know that he was behind it and saw a plot synopsis, you would swear it was a Carry On film.

 

[FedPostalService]

I'm not an inverted snob. I have no problem with there being after school Shakespeare class or going it for six form and beyond. I don't think Shakespeare engages children in a way that's helpful and it does more harm to their desire to read than it helps the few who make use of it.

Shakespeare is translated into different languages. They built a replica of the Globe theatre in Rome and perform his plays in Italian. The French existentialists marvelled at Hamlet.

He speaks to the human condition. That’s why he was great. He could do this whilst also appealing to the rabble. Romeo and Juliet pretty much opens with a rape joke. I’d love to see the danger hairs react to that.

If you hate Shakespeare, you really hate your English teacher as she has taken the enjoyment out of a beautiful part of humanity for you.

 

[Chunky Salsa]

Dinner report: Steak, mash, brocolli, paired with a refined juice drink (Ribena cordial and a Brita filtered cold water), with a pan sauce. Good shit. Sticky Toffee Pudding time now. Niggers.

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

Is this the englishmans version of a gollywog?

It's Frank Sidebottom.

 

[StimulatedOrb]

An Ozzy Osbourne documentary was pulled with next to no notice by the BBC. Maybe we were getting too ahead of ourselves by thinking David Attinbrough was the big nonce.

Sharon is more likely to be the culprit, because they are not giving her enough bags of gold like some ancient dragon.

I REALLY hope thats the case, and not, well, you know, just ask Archie from Eastenders.

 

[>IMPLYING]

I forgot to press send on this by many hours so it has no real relevancy now. I've hidden it in spoiler blocks to not clog up the page.
Fuck Nietzsche.

Alright you big invert snob, you want an answer why "Baz" benefits from a decent education in this sceptred isle's proud literary traditions? Because maybe he doesn't want to stay "Baz" all his life. And if he does, well that's all fine. But the choice shouldn't be made for him when he's 15 years old. That's why kids get Maths and English Literature and Art and other such taught to them at school. To build a foundation and give them choices.

Spoiler: English autism part 1.

A lot of people in this thread (from what I've seen) hold disdain for people they call "chavs" and the working class in general. A lot of it is, in part, in how they carry and conduct themselves. Nietzsche-shits (closet Germanophiles) would argue this is inherent to their being, and they're effectively doomed from birth to be "Baz, the bad" forever. I would argue otherwise. Giving people an appreciation for language, for how its constructed, how it sounds, how the meaning can change in certain contexts, will make them conscious of how it sounds coming from their gobs and leads them to controlling it. It won't stick for everybody, but for some, they may at least gleam this much and consider it. "Baz" doesn't have to let himself be defined by his name or what's expected of him by the stereotypes placed on him by peers and elites. Baz needs to be a freethinker, which reading enables him to be, as it will make the act of consuming written knowledge easy for him, allowing him to explore stuff that isn't just told to him.

What reading imbibes in a person meanwhile, at minimum, is the ability to recollect and consider things that lead to the event, and not just the event itself. There's no movie-like flashbacks to regurgitate details to the reader, they're forced to consider how something came to be in the narrative, and are forced to actually keep details in memory. The books we're forced to read in high school, such as Of Mice and Men, often lead to teachers forcing you consider the intent and imagery of certain events and choices. Yeah, it's no surprise Lenny kills the woman at the end once he begins to pet her hair, but the fact it happens shouldn't come completely out of nowhere for the reader given Lenny's killed everything he's pet thus far. Simple ass detail to remember, very simple book, but that's the point. I would argue this is necessary for politics at a minimum, or else you get blindsided or confused why something you expected to happen didn't happen.

Unfortunately a lot of people who do end up gaining an appreciation for this wind up going to university, get indoctrinated with some sort of leftist-derivative ideology, and it effectively cancel out any appreciation for language and Shakespeare they absorbed because they're taught that the status quo of beauty in diction and writing "oppresses" and tramples on marginalised voices, somehow, and ugliness and unconventionality is where the true beauty in language lies, and so on. The strong fondness of anti-intellectualism on the right is probably because of where said intellectualism leads for too many, but that's not the fault of education, it's the fault of the educators — same as it ever was... Also because people on the Right can dig Hitler, and Hitler dug Nietzsche, and Nietzsche said we have special powers in our blood we can unlock if we want to, and we can just know things without being taught them because intuition and instinct and shit. German philosophy is batshit.

I posted a speech by Oswald Mosley in this thread a while back. I'll post it again. He was a phenomenal speaker. Why? Because he had a clear understanding of diction, language and delivery.

I hate that whenever this speech is put up on Youtube, they butcher it by cutting out every pause.

Spoiler: English autism part 2.

Bringing up Mosley also raises another point worth mentioning. People on the British right lament a lack of "leader", and I've seen in some places that any show of discontent and civil disobedience won't matter if there's nobody to rally behind. An individual's charisma is locked behind their ability to speak well and convey their message, which requires an understanding of language and its delivery to attain. Politicians and their speech writers are becoming worse at this, since the priority is being simple over smart, and lacking in showmanship. Language has the capability of being viewed mathematically, as you say, built of components and variables to get a specific sum; however, it also has much in common with music, possessing its own rhythm and flow of which Shakespeare was a virtuoso.

 

[Overly Serious]

A lot of people in this thread (from what I've seen) hold disdain for people they call "chavs" and the working class in general

My key point was that Shakespeare was historically something very popular with the working class. And not only in Britain. US pioneers I shit you not, not infrequently had copies of Shakespeare's works and would perform it for each other. You had an actual riot in New York between fans of rival Shakespearean actors. What I was arguing against was someone casting Shakespeare as something not properly working class. That person posted a considered reply and I owe him a proper response when I have time, incidentally. But I read the above and I think you also buy into the idea that it's some class thing. And I hate the idea that Shakespeare should be a class thing. In large part because I hate the (false) notion that working class people are less cultured or smart. I think you're misreading this thread (or I am). I don't see it as trending to disdain for working class people. Or largely any class of people as a group except politicos and bureaucrats. And, obviously, illegal immigrants get a mention from time to time.

TL;DR: I don't like anybody implying (pun unavoidable) that arguing for the teaching of Shakespeare is in anyway showing disdain for "the working class in general". If anything, suggesting its in appropriate based on anybody's class, is what shows disdain. Nobody has to like it, but that's not on some class basis.

I hate that whenever this speech is put up on Youtube, they butcher it by cutting out every pause.

This was all I could find. If you can link me to a more complete and unedited version, I'd be very interested to hear it.

 

[Geoff Capes Vapes Apes]

Knowledge of the classics and Shakespeare and shit is for soft cunts. What sort of mincing poof would talk about the problem of our age, migration, and reference Romans or the Tiber expecting their audience to get it?

We should be giving out GCSEs in Love Island and Deliveroo ordering, and teaching kids that British civilisation has never before reached such peaks (because we didn't have the Windrush and Boriswave to teach us their new ways of knowing).

 

[Overly Serious]

@Geoff Capes Vapes Apes If Deliveroo be the food of Love Island, sign up!

 

[teriyakiburns]

The entire problem with Shakespeare in school, at least when I was there tumpety-tump years ago, is that they made us read like a book. It's a fucking play. Some days, each student had to read a section at a time to the class, reading all the parts and scene directions like prose. The only time I felt fully engaged with it was when the teacher decided to mix things up and have us actually act out scenes from Macbeth. It was night and day.

 

[mindlessobserver]

So, I am now escalating my assessment of civil war in the UK, based on what I am seeing from unlikely to likely. This based on my own assessment that the USA was heading for a civil war prior to the reelection of Donald Trump and the ascendency of the Goldwater faction of the Republican Party to power over not just the State but the administrative organs of the beaurocracy as well.

America in 2024 walked up to the brink and at the moment of failure the democratic system of election prevailed. It was like a massive balloon of pressure just deflated rather then exploded. Now people are thinking things are turning around, the country is on the right track and the shrill harpies screaming about Teslas and Fascism are being ignored.

In the UK? Not so much. The election that occurred in a similar time frame, rather then being a catharsis was an affirmation of the ruling establishment despite that establishment being elected overwhelmingly with fewer votes then the previous establishments narrow majority. This speaks to widespread disengagement with the political system in the UK. While Americans, despite ragging on their Feds and Congressmen engaged aggressively with the political process too enact change, the Brits went the soviet route and voted by not voting. Which is in itself a decision, and in a liberal democracy a lethal one to the legitimacy of the state which requires the affirmation of the people to provide the divine right to their rule.

But far from viewing their mandate with trepidation, the current labor government has decided to move aggressively as if their overwhelming majority is actually that. As if everyone is okay with Gaza Party independents putting motions in the UK Parliament to intervene in some retard sand war, and British taxpayer money be sent to build airports in Pakistan. And if anyone disagrees with this they can just be arrested for hate speech.

They are also doing this in the face of the American's waking up from a cursed nightmare like Théoden of Rohan when Gandalf cast out Saruman.

I've been thinking on this scene for awhile now. And I know Tolkien hated allegory, but what makes Tolkien's story so great is that it is interpretive across eras. Rohan, the wayward vassal of Gondor. Independent in its own right, influenced by but separate from Gondor. Yet afflicted all the same by the same evil that afflicts the mother country. Awakens to the danger first, even as the mother country sinks further into the abyss. Until....

You can see how the British establishment squirms as the awakening America turns its attention back towards the home Islands. As unbidden by the ruler of the home country the beacons are lit and the homeland calls for aid from its wayward vassal, calling on ancient allegiances that are all but forgotten except in myth and memory.

 

[Muad'Dick]

The entire problem with Shakespeare in school, at least when I was there tumpety-tump years ago, is that they made us read like a book. It's a fucking play. Some days, each student had to read a section at a time to the class, reading all the parts and scene directions like prose. The only time I felt fully engaged with it was when the teacher decided to mix things up and have us actually act out scenes from Macbeth. It was night and day.

It wasn't the reading that bothered me so much as the disjointed way you were expected to take it in. I think the first ever piece of Shakespeare we handled at school was The Merchant Of Venice (based). It took us a full term to handle that.

How is a child supposed to get engaged with a decent piece of literature when they have 3-4 hours exposure to it a week (if they don't read any of it outside of lesson hours), with what little time they do have dedicated to it spent dissecting every single line like some particularly autistic YT commentary community video. Add in whatever else the curriculum throws at them, plus trying to get your fingers wet and it's no wonder this kind of thing doesn't resonate with kids.

The education system does a great job of sucking the air out of the room with any given subject. In school, Shakespeare is handled like one of those vile Hachette Partwork model kits; after the first 2-3 editions you've already lost interest.

 

[Overly Serious]

The entire problem with Shakespeare in school, at least when I was there tumpety-tump years ago, is that they made us read like a book. It's a fucking play. Some days, each student had to read a section at a time to the class, reading all the parts and scene directions like prose. The only time I felt fully engaged with it was when the teacher decided to mix things up and have us actually act out scenes from Macbeth. It was night and day.

It wasn't the reading that bothered me so much as the disjointed way you were expected to take it in. I think the first ever piece of Shakespeare we handled at school was The Merchant Of Venice (based). It took us a full term to handle that.

How is a child supposed to get engaged with a decent piece of literature when they have 3-4 hours exposure to it a week (if they don't read any of it outside of lesson hours), with what little time they do have dedicated to it spent dissecting every single line like some particularly autistic YT commentary community video. Add in whatever else the curriculum throws at them, plus trying to get your fingers wet and it's no wonder this kind of thing doesn't resonate with kids.

The education system does a great job of sucking the air out of the room with any given subject. In school, Shakespeare is handled like one of those vile Hachette Partwork model kits; after the first 2-3 editions you've already lost interest.

What I have learned from this thread today, is that I need to become an English teacher. Apparently I will be the only competent one in the country.

FWIW, my English teacher mocked me in front of the whole class for my interpretation of a Shakespeare play, which was different to his own interpretation. I didn't much care - everyone thought he was unpleasant old lech.