For Gordon Brown “Authority forgets a dying king. “-Alfred Lord Tennyson ah poetry the one thing we are really good at ..(well its not football is it )
Reading Simon Heffers tirade at the lazy politics of the artist class ( In the Telegraph), I was wondering when it was exactly that “Good” in art came to be the same as “shocking” or "new” . It was never going to be easy to produce much of lasting quality in such an environment, and sure enough snotty hankies on beds and turds in vinegar have figured large .
I am ,by the way, unimpressed by the arty crowd’s plea for royalties for each resale of their work. Why should a kitchen appliance installer not earn royalties from each resale of a house …and then again for all eternity ?
Anyway much of our thinking about the place of art stems from Victorian Romanticism, and so I was thumbing through some bits, looking for a Conservative Romantic to cheer myself up. I doubt I can claim Wordsworth but he did at least write these thrilling lines … (on Burke …. )
I see him, - old, but vigorous in age,
Stand like an oak whose stag-horn branches start
Out of its leafy crown, the more to awe
The younger brethren of the grove . . .
While he forewarns, denounces, launches forth,
Against all systems built on abstract rights,
Keen ridicule; the majesty proclaims
Of Institutes and Laws, hallowed by time;
Declares the vital power of social ties
Endeared by Custom; and with high disdain,
Exploding upstart Theory, insists
Upon the allegiance to which men are born.
.
Makes you go all misty ..well it does me anyway . The above picture of the Proms used to summon a British allegiance but after the Cameron/Clarke fudge on English democratic rights and Brown`s infantile mendacity I am far from certian where my allegiance is nowadays . Still while I touch on the comstitutional dog`s breakfast Labour have made of the union , don`t you wish Tony Blair`s last act was to say to the Scots "I release you.... " Cherie baby would have sniggered and so would I
3 comments:
don`t you wish Tony Blair`s last act was to say to the Scots "I release you.... " Cherie baby would have sniggered and so would I
I wish it so much it hurts, n.
Why is it that the people of England - and I include in that classification those of any nationality who have migrated here and love our beautiful country and its people and (erstwhile?) values enough to be proud to be one of us, one of the people of England, as well as that minority with ancestors who walked on these islands a thousand or more years ago - why have not learned to stand up to authoritarian governments?
Why do we not stop them in their tracks when they attempt to crush us, negate our freedom and use us for their own self interest?
We stopped Hitler and his army. We fought the Romans alongside courageous Boudicca. We stood alongside Nelson, Harold, Brithnoth and too many others to mention. We, many of us, are desended from the proud and warring Romans, Africans, Danes, Carribeans, Irish and Scots who would NEVER EVER have put up with half the sh*t that we in England permit our governments to shower us with these days.
So why do we allow these miniscule elites to hold sway over 50 odd million of us?
I am ,by the way, unimpressed by the arty crowd’s plea for royalties for each resale of their work. Why should a kitchen appliance installer not earn royalties from each resale of a house …and then again for all eternity ?
I agree. The snouts in the trough artist class have aligned themselves with the snouts in the trough political class to serve their own self interest too.
I recall that, instead of releasing Scotland, the Blairs were away holidaying free at Cliff Richard's Carribbean mansion - just when multi-millionaire Cliff was lobbying for the extension of the royalty period which Blair subsequently granted.
i used to listen to the proms with a friend in london...gosh it has been a few years since we did that...
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