You people always claiming the Irish as yours

10 August 2006


I’m bemused[1] My eyebrows are raised in a very “wtf are you on” sort of way.

The thing is, I’m well aware that some people don’t know that Ireland isn’t part of Britain. And no offence to my American bloggers, but often those some people come from the US, so they have an excuse. Not like it actually matters to them when they come over on holiday, apart from the fact that we don’t share a currency. But you don’t need a passport to travel[2] between Britain and Ireland, so you might think things that are wrong.

But when British people think it? I mean. WTF![3] But maybe it is just the listeners of Chris Moyle’s radio show? I dunno. But seriously, WTF?

One [learned listener] called in to say he always thought Ireland was in Britain and this was backed up with more texts from listeners who also felt the same.

Moyles hit back by saying: “It’s like saying the French are German if you say the Irish are British.”

*please insert your own version of my[4] mini-rant about 800[5] years of bloody struggle etc, violence, etc, blah blah blah. mention 1920’s. Not forgetting Treaties. Oh yeah, and actual independence. And the fact that we’re a republic*

So, people of Britain, let me assure you, Bob Geldof is not British. He is, in fact, Irish. You can be Irish and British.[6] but only if you live in Northern Ireland. Which isn’t where Bob is from. He’s from Dublin. Which is in Ireland, aka Éire[7] often refered to as the Republic of Ireland. Now concentrate, and then think again about whether Bob Geldof is British.

Maybe they’ve all been down the local library and been browsing through their Dewey Decimal system manuals, and discovered that Britain & Ireland are covered under the term The British Isles? And that is where the mistake comes from?

Story spotted over at Blogorrah

Linknotes:

  1. Do I use this word too often? Not my fault if the world bemuses me is it?
  2. well you do for the airplane company peoples, as id, but technically you don’t
  3. and yes, that totally deserved the capital letters. I could even have added another exclamation mark and not felt ott
  4. this is a participatory blog you know
  5. or 600 iffin you’re of Norman decent, ahem NM
  6. maybe this is where they got confuddled
  7. this is the official name of the state, but please don’t use it unless you are speaking in Irish, otherwise I’ll have to rant all over again

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51 Responses

  1. anne says:

    I had no idea that Bob Geldof was Irish… But I'll shift responsibility and blame my ignorance on the frequent use of "Sir Bob Geldof"…

  2. Fence says:

    I've no problem with people thinking he is British, once they don't know he is from Ireland. Moyles' listerners seemed to saying that yes he is from Ireland, but also British, because Ireland is part of Britain

  3. Carl V. says:

    Its sad when Americans don't know simple geography, but that is even more sad! We could blame the educational system but frankly I just think that people are dumb…not all people of course…just the stupid ones! ;)

  4. anne says:

    Yes – "learned listeners" indeed.

  5. NineMoons says:

    gargh fuckers morons argh

    People fucking DIED to make us independent and now they don't even acknowledge it? GARGGGGGGHHHHHHHH

    How is it WE are aware of the differences between Scotland, Norn Iron, Wales and England and they can't even keep one bloody thing straight?

    And yes, 600 hundred years. Ahem.

    The Bob Geldof thing has always confused me because he pretty much SOUNDS like a Dub. I don't really get how you could think he wasn't. It's not like he has a West Brit accent or something.

    And Anne, round here he's Saint Bob. ;-) I don't really like Irish people accepting knighthoods and all from the "British Empire". But then, they're not real knighthoods as they aren't commonwealth citizens. It's like thinking Roy Keane could teach you about law, just cos UCC gave him an LL.D. Tis just fakery.

    Oh, God, now Mal is going to come over here and talk about how he thinks of himself as English…

  6. Carl V. says:

    Ever so slightly off the subject, is it wrong that most of my remembered history of Scotland is from Braveheart? :)

  7. NineMoons says:

    Knowledge of history: yes. Vague knowledge of certain events: no. It's probably about as accurate as The Patriot, except that it took place much longer ago so state of knowledge is fuzzier.

    The accents are fairly rubbish but I only realised that when I moved to Scotland and became unable to watch BH without being annoyed by the crazy accents.

  8. Nome says:

    I love the Irish for their passionate sense of nationalism. You're quite right, you fought hard for it, and your independence is well-deserved.

    I will propose though that the problem is that people get the Republic mixed up with Northern Ireland, especially if they come from abroad.

    As for British people, well look at their colonial history. They're experts at minimizing and eliminating the independence of entire nations and populations with a single ramming in of the Union Jack. It's not terribly surprising that they'd try to pretend the whole Irish independence thing didn't happen, even if it's obviously untrue and obviously unfair to everyone in Ireland.

  9. NineMoons says:

    Yeah but I don't think that argument (about the North) works for why Englanders don't get that Ireland isn't part of Britain. That's a reasonable excuse for Americans and far away peoples, but it's just plain unreasonable for the average English person not to know that Northern Ireland is different to Ireland and that only Northern Ireland is politically part of Great Britain.

  10. weenie says:

    Like Nome, many people love the Irish for their passionate sense of nationalism, the same goes I suppose for the Scots and the Welsh – it's great that they are proud of their countries. Yet the English are often perceived as being racist when they display any sort of nationalism. I've never understood this – it surely can't all be about football hooliganism?

    Also, people often forget that other European countries such as France, Spain and Portugal did a huge amount of colonising themselves, yet only the Brits get damned for what's happened historically and not all of it has been bad.

    Me? My folks come from an ex-British colony, I call myself a Brit, I've always known Ireland was a different country with their own currency and language. Kinda like Welsh, innit? :)

  11. NineMoons says:

    I think a lot of the African nations had problems with being colonised too. The French, Belgians, Dutch etc etc don't have too great a rep in many African countries.

  12. Fence says:

    Carl I think if you take it as "ever so slightly" exagerated but broadly true you'll be okay :)

    Like I said NM, bemused am I.

    Nome, I almost wouldn't mind if they were pretending. But it isn't that. It's that they didn't know. It is a bit sad really.

    Weenie, just like Wales. Only more so, and with less Welsh, and fewer sheep, per head :)
    The problem with English nationalism is that in the past England's greatness was based upon the subjugation of other countries. So other nationalities raise eyebrows in a quizzical fashion. But I also agree with you, there is nothing at all wrong in celebrating your Englishness. Just once you don't win the world cup we'll be happy :)
    And I think most colonising countries have a bad rep in the countries they colonised. It's just that none of the others resulted in English speaking countries and so don't get the coverage. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

  13. Mal says:

    Politics doesn't even come into it for me…if the British Empire had been fifty times worse than it was, I would still feel English. I've just come from reading websites about the Beano and the Bash Street Kids. When I read that kind of thing (or Tennyson, or Orwell, or Dickens) I feel at home…it's pre-reflective and involuntary. I can go down to the Irish country-side and feel enormous love and affection for it, can read or listen to Irish rebel ballads and marvel at the wealth of oral culture we are throwing away, can regret the down-to-earth, no-nonsense Irish attitude that is being sacrificed on the altar of consumerism and pop culture, the rape of the Irish countryside as we build more and more housing estates, but I always feel on the outside looking in.

    Politics don't matter a damn. Which would you prefer; that Ireland was still part of the British Empire, but had kept its language, countryside, dialects, clothing, food and drink, folklore, crafts, mythology, literacy (I mean a popular literary taste), fairs, feasts, customs…and I mean all these things not as tourist attractions or self-conscious revivalism, but as a part of everyday life? Or have a meaningless political independence, a tricolour flying over a wasteland of suburbs and fast-food joints and garish nightclubs and dual carriageways and hen parties and absurdly overpriced pretentious restaurants and ten-year-olds dressed like Eminem? I know which I would prefer.

  14. Fence says:

    Mal there is nothing meaningless about the ability to represent yourself. And by the very fact that we became part of the British Empire we lost something. Gained something too I supose.

  15. NineMoons says:

    We lost a lot of that stuff a long time ago, we attempted to reclaim it as part of the independence movement, we chose to lose some of it when we finally got a bit of money.

    Political independence is the biggest step foward we've ever taken. Being able to make our own decisions, to appoint our own corrupt politicians instead of having another country's corrupt politicians foisted on us, having our own Constitution that says something important about our nation, being able to force-feed our national language to people and celebrate our national day, dealing with our own problems our own way… It's not the fault of political independence that tv, instant communication and money have changed the sociological landscape of the country.

    And I've said it before and I'll say it again – live outside Dublin and the commuter counties and it's a different world.

  16. Mal says:

    The cancer hasn't spread there quite as badly yet, that's all. But people (especially younger and wealthier) people outside the Pale still aspire to the kind of pretentious, cosmopolitan, lifestyle-magazine existence that's the opposite pole to my ideal of Irishness.

    Do you really believe that if we were part of the UK now our lives would be different in any substantial way? Of course not.

    Someone once said, "if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation". I totally agree. Except nobody makes ballads any more, of course.

    It's true that it's television and international trash culture that's choking local ways of life everywhere, but in that situation, I don't see that nationality even matters any more. Who cares whether Ireland is part of Britain, or vice versa?

    I think the concentration on political independence was a massive mistake. The War of Independence and 1916 and 1798 and all the rest were important, not for any political change they effected, but rather for their galvanizing influence on the national imagination. They gave the people a national mythology to feed on. If people had been seeking Irish independence as a means of preserving and fostering a way of life, that would have been worthwhile. But they were really only using it as a kind of sloganeering in their attempts to get the Brits out. I know a chap from Northern Ireland, an atheist republican, who goes to mass every week as a kind of patriotic gesture. These things become merely badges of allegiance and are drained of any deeper significance.

    The same wave that destroyed the British Empire is now destroying all traditions and customs and distinctive cultures. It's the impotent hatred of anything that can't be commodified and rationalised, the resentful scorn of any notions like duty, homage, respect, allegiance, community, restraint, taste. It's entirely negative and abstract. It's in favour of something only temporarily, and only to set it against something else– in favour of Irish culture as opposed to English culture, for instance, until the British soldiers go and Irish traditions themselves become the new enemy.

  17. Fence says:

    No offence Mal, but your insane. You do realise that right? The British Empire was all about money. East India Company anyone?

    "Who cares whether Ireland is part of Britain, or vice versa?"
    I care. I care a lot.
    And look up north and you will see a lot of people caring. And having lived most of my life far away from any commuter town I can tell you that country people are just like Dublin people, and while there are negative aspects to modern society there are far more positives to it. Duty, respect and community are alive and well. Not everywhere, no, but they are still there.
    Blind allegiance is also still there. Not that I think that is a good thing.

    You are looking at all the positive points of your view of Englishness. Eastenders is just as accurate as your seemingly rose coloured view of the British Empire.

    Let's not forget that without the constant campaigns for freedom and reform the British govt would have been quite happy keeping the sub-human Irish in their place. It was an empire based on a belief in racial superiority and paternalistic ruling from afar.

  18. Mal says:

    Paternalism isn't so bad, except when it's merely a fudge.

    I don't really understand WHY you care whether Ireland is part of Britain or not, or why anyone does. It wouldn't affect your life in any appreciable way. They're both liberal democracies. As for the people up North, both unionist and republican, both factions are so eaten with hatred and bitterness that I can't even listen to them talk. They don't stand FOR anything; they're just against something.

    Genuine patriotism would be to turn away from the clone culture that's eroding every national (and local, and individual) identity, but supposedly patriotic people mock you for even trying. I heard a very fervent nationalist satirising her friend for wearing an Aran sweater. Of course, she was probably kitted out in the international uniform of jeans and a t-shirt made by sweated labour at the time.

    Not that I'm defending the British Empire…I'm just saying that the same forces that destroyed it are now destroying everything worth holding onto. First it was the British Empire. Then it turned on the Catholic Church. Then on the whole notion of authority and social values. The past becomes hated because it cannot be reshaped according to the whim of the ruling class, the mandarins of the boardroom for the most part. The last chapter of 1984 is the most accurate diagnosis of this insatiable urge to destroy, to control. A boot stamping on a human face, forever.

    OK, it's half-one in the morning and I'm a bit tired…

  19. Fence says:

    If not country had ever tried to achieve independence there would never have been this move towards individual freedom. Never been an end to the ridiculous class system which was a boot stamping on the vast majority of human beings.
    Authority has to be earned, it is not a given right.

    I don't have any particular issues with Britain, but I fail to see how it could benefit Ireland, and by extension Irish people, to be a part of a wider nation/association/empire which sees the country as a resource to be exploited.
    Sure, nowadays there isn't much difference. But do you really think that without the constant demands for independence from colonies that the resulting reforms would ever have come about?

    The British Empire deserved to be destroyed. As does the Catholic Church in its present incarnation where all it seems to want to do is preserve the status quo. It either has to reform and change or be destroyed. That is how life works. We change and grow and develop, or we don't.
    What exactly are these "forces", and these social values that are so worth holding on to that you would wish to return to days when there was unquestioned authority that let certain people do whatever they wanted?

  20. Mal says:

    "It either has to reform or change or be destroyed. That is how life works."

    That's EXACTLY what I'm complaining about…the angry drive to annihilate anything that goes against the doctrine of the age. I'm not a Catholic…I'm not even a Christian, or a believer. But I admire the Catholic church greatly for refusing to bow to the latest trendy notions, even though I disagree with a lot of their doctrines. Even in little things like Pope Benedict coming out against those godawful happy-clappy masses. The Catholic Church is, in fact, against the status quo. Everyone says we should go "forward". Why? As C.S. Lewis said, everybody goes into the future at the rate of sixty seconds a minute, no matter what they're doing.

    I do think authority should be earned, but not necessarily position. Everything has to be earned these days; everything is commodified and bargained for, the contract has become the basis of society. There has to be an easily explained reason for everything. The basic question behind everything is, what's in it for me? But going down that road leads to nightmare. After all, why should workers be protected, why should the rich (or anyone) pay taxes, why shouldn't we pollute and destroy the environment if we pay a fair price for it? If we accept that model, the kind of utility-maximiser model of Adam Smith, of human relations, we've given up so much of what makes life worth living.

    Having duties for which there are no corresponding privileges is a very healthy thing. It sets a precedent. Ask not what your country can do for you…

    We have to accept that a society is an ecology, you can't just tarmac over it and build a pre-designed new metropolis according to the latest thinking. Of course life is change. But healthy change is slow and organic. It develops according to its own nature, not according to some outside force (like some new pop philosophy, or advertising, or peer pressure). And yet nature has infinitely more variation than mankind's created landscape. The forces I'm deploring are abstractions, abstract ideas of freedom and equality and justice, when these things only exist in a context. Destroy the context and you have destroyed them, too.

    And the class-system is not such a bad thing, if it's not too rigid. I'm proud to be working-class, and I think working-class life has some good things that middle-class life lacks, a certain vibrancy and sincerity…of course, these are generalisations.

    I don't think the move towards individual freedom is entirely a good thing (mostly it is), but I do think it could have been gained in an imperial context. The real struggle was for democracy. Once that principle is established, it becomes impossible to justify a colony. No two democracies have ever gone to war. Not that I'd get sentimental about democracy, but it is, as Churchill said, much the worst form of government, apart from all the others.

  21. I think we are unlikely to agree about this, but I will ask; don't you think your fondness for fantasy literature comes from a supressed longing for all the things you feel obliged to disavow?

  22. Fence says:

    Nope. I often think that fantasy characters need to cop on when they display feelings of respect based purely on position rather than because of any quality.

    Anyways, this whole discussion is all a little off-topic seeing as the post was giving out about not knowing about an actual reality :)

  23. Mal says:

    Jet Lee when filming in Ireland admitted he had never even heard of the country before coming here.

    And I know an English man who was complimented by an intelligent, educated lady in Utah for speaking in English so well and asked whether it was taught in schools in Britain.

    I also read in an American encyclopedia that Fine Gael favoured union with Britain and that the press in Ireland was controlled by the Catholic Church. Although you would possibly agree with that.

  24. Fence says:

    I've no problem with people like Jet Lee never having heard of Ireland. Why would he? That woman from Utah was obviously not well educated.

    I don't believe the Catholic church controls Ireland. Not any more. Because people have challenged it and changed it. For the better.

    I do however have a problem with our neighbours not knowing the difference between their own country and another. Ignorance on that scale should never be excused.

  25. NineMoons says:

    And comments closed. Please? This is one of the few sites still posting regularly (damn summer bloggin hiatus!) and it's very annoying to be constantly on the verge of ripping my hair out in frustration at everything that Mal/Maolsheachlann is saying. Eeearrrgh.

  26. Fence says:

    Nope. Just don't read. You have a choice NM. Comment on the other entries and ignore this one. I'm anti censorship remember

  27. NineMoons says:

    Damn your principles! DAMN THEM!

    Maybe you could just gently direct Mal towards Mad Sharon's site and they could argufy all the live-long day. :-)

    Robin arrived in the post today. Which is the only thing keeping me (relatively) sane on a day of company law study from dawn to dusk. I also have chocolate digestives and tea. Dunktastic.

  28. Fence says:

    Perhaps you should submit a report to the <a>Biscuit Tin report :)

  29. NineMoons says:

    Am I not under enough PRESSURE!?!? *sounds of weeping and generalised mental breakdown*

  30. Fence says:

    Hmm, that should have been a link to here http://www.infactah.com/2006/08/biscuit-tin-5.htm… not quite sure why it didn't work.

  31. Mal says:

    I'm fed up with the blogosphere, anyway. And pretty much the entire internet.

    It's mostly full of people agreeing that BABYLON FIVE ROCKS!!! It's just kind of an antechamber to TV and the other entertainment industries. I remember my starry-eyed hopes that it would be a bastion of diversity and independent thinking.

    "The truth hurts, Hapbsurg. Oh sure, not as much as jumping on a bike without a saddle. But it hurts."

  32. Fence says:

    Mal the internet is just a representation of humanity at large. Neither any worse, nor any better.

    But I've yet to come across a single conversation agreeing that Babylon five rocks. Perhaps you are looking in the wrong places?

  33. NineMoons says:

    I don't see why that bothers you Mal, really. You're perfectly happy to discuss The Office ad nauseum with your co-workers, extol the virtues of the Carry-On movies to anyone who'll give you half an ear and write well-thought out essays on horror as a genre, but you're upset that the internet is full of people who do exactly the same over things you don't happen to like. I personally couldn't even sit through one episode of Babylon 5 but it was much-loved. If your definition of diversity and independent thinking doesn't include people discussing with love and admiration things you don't like, then perhaps you SHOULD stay away from the internet. Or just do as the rest of us do – read the stuff we like, avoid the stuff we don't. To coin a phrase: if you can't stand the txtspk, stay out of Bebo.

  34. ainelivia says:

    As in "The British Isles", isles being the plural, so surely they might just think it's not all one country?

  35. Fence says:

    Well I guess Britain isn't really one country, is it? It is a collection of 'em so, if I'm being charitable , maybe that is where the problem comes from.

  36. Mal says:

    Example of the intrinsic geekiness of the internet…that whole "Snakes on a Plane" fuss. Yes, it's a funny title. No, it's not worth feverish anticipation for months and months. The joke wore out ages ago and I have no intention of going to see Samuel L. Jackson whoring it up in another quickie piece of rubbish.

    I don't think it's true that you find a representative cross-section of humanity on the internet. All human life is there, perhaps, but some sections in much greater abundance than others.

    And, no, I'm not a nerd. I'm the least nerdish person I know. I might be an eccentric, which is very different. I saw a wonderful documentary a while back (black and white, repeated) about English train enthusiasts…can't remember if I mentioned this on the blogosphere before…they had people who ran little train stations in their back gardens, stuff like that. They were all very sane and very whimsical, and very original. I wish people like that still existed; stamp collectors and train-spotters and people who collect Toby jugs.

  37. Fence says:

    I don't think there is actually feverish anticipation for Snakes on a Plane. But I won't deny there is an interest.
    But see there are plenty of people round the world that caught up in their particular sport, they just don't blog about it as much as the more technical people and therefore there are less I <3 Man U sites and more Snakes on a Plane sites.
    Although there are a huge number of Man U sites, no denying.

    Nerdishness is in the eye-of-the-beholder. It aint up to you, it is how others think of you.

    And there are crazy ass people around with collections of trains in their back gardens. Ever seen Dave Gorman? Someone tell me his trips around to world to meet other Dave Gormans isn't every so slightly whimsical. Not to mention the fella he met on his Googlewhack adventure who collects pictures of women and dogs. Mind out of the gutter please, these are just photos that he finds that have women and dogs in them. see

    People are stranger and weirder and better than you make out. Course they are also eviler and nastier and even more fucked up in the head, but it's all good.

  38. Mal says:

    I've never heard of Dave Gorman…but is he doing this for some book? It's not really the same thing. I've seen books by journalists like that, one about some guy who put an advertisement in a newspaper simply looking for followers (no further explanation) and the book explains the response. He said he was bored so he decided to do this. I'm sure it had nothing to do planning his next book. But maybe this Dave Gorman is the real deal. In which case, fair play.

    It is true that there is still oddness and spontaneity and eccentricity out there, though. The human race is remarkably resilient. You wouldn't know it from looking at the internet, though.

  39. Mal says:

    Being obsessed with Manchester United or is just as bad as being obsessed with Babylon 5. Being obsessed with Doncaster Rovers would be a bit better. But I've never understood why sports fanaticism is more socially accepted than going to Star Trek conventions. They both seem equally depressing to me.

    Not that I have anything against sport…at all…people who dismiss sport are philistines. I always thought Kipling was really narrow-minded for writing "The flanneled oaf at the wickets, or the muddied oaf at the goals". Sport is part of life's diversity. But I have more respect for someone who actually plays a sport, or gets involved with a local club, than some beer-bellied fool who spends vast amounts of time and money following the fortunes of some big business like Man. Utd.

  40. Mal says:

    I looked at that women and dogs bloke's site and I think he's great! It's really cheered me up. I thought at first it would just be calculated wackiness, but it's obviously just something that he started doing for his own sake. And I especially admire him for refusing to profit from it when he had the opportunity.

    Also for insisting that he has to FIND these pictures himself.

    But the fact that some newspaper called him Dork of the Day is exactly what I'm complaining about. He's the furthest thing from a dork. The dork is the guy who collects sports-cars, or first editions of books, or autographs.

  41. Mal says:

    There were also the cardies…people who had a fascination with the test-cards that used to be broadcast (and still are, for all I know) on late-night television, after programming ended. Who used to record different test-cards, and watch out for subtle variations.

    Few people know that the girl with the doll and the blackboard is the most broadcast face ever on British television. And I think she got about twenty-five pounds for it. She was the daughter of the guy who set it up.

    I just found the test-card spooky, though.

  42. NineMoons says:

    And this is why you have your own blog Mal. Go on, shoo! Start blogging again and stop with the over-commenting – you have views, get em out there on Samiz… :-)

  43. BABYLON 5 ROCKS!!!!

    NOW I'm getting into the spirit of the blogosphere…

  44. NineMoons says:

    Part of it anyway.

  45. Fence says:

    Dave Gorman's original claim to fame was travelling the world meeting Dave Gormans for a tv stand-up show. His next show was based on his GoogleWhack adventures, but while he was traveling he was supposed to be writing a novel. Only he didn't. Instead he procrastinated by googlewhacking, and eventually had to get his entire contract renegotiated because he'd been signed up to do a novel, and that was not what his googlewhacking had brought him.
    But I don't see as it matters whether or not you are eccentric with or without getting money for it, you still have to have that weird aspect to your personality.

    If everyone accepted eccentricity as "normal" then it wouldn't be strange and it'd lose its eccentric nature. So we need people who call weirdos weirdos. Otherwise we'd all be weird. Which if course we are, just to varying degrees.

    Why do you find sports fans depressing?

    Did you watch any of Life on Mars? They used the test card girl in a real creepy way.

    NM, don't be shooing people away here. Off you go and do that on your own blog, go one shoo to the shooing :) I'm the only one entitled to shoo here, the Shooer, if you will.

  46. Mal says:

    I only found out about the Life on Mars thing when my interest was piqued enough to look up stuff about the test card on the net. So evidently other people find them creepy too. I haven't seen Life on Mars but it sounds quite good.

    I don't find sports fans depressing per se, but so many sports seem to have become a commerical and media circus that I can't consider them sports anymore. Without the Corinthian ideal sport becomes something else. I couldn't bear to watch something like the World Cup. But I have only admiration for someone who could recite Sussex's cricket scores back to 1935, or whatever. Or who gets involved in their local hurling club, far from all the hysteria and glamour.

  47. Fence says:

    I have it on dvd if you want a loan.

    Sports is sports, no matter the setting. You just have to ignore the circus of the world cup and focus on the football.

    I have no admiration for people who know pointless stats. I don't despise them either, I'm totally uncaring. Stats are not what sport is to me, so I don't pay attention.

  48. NineMoons says:

    All of you can shoo. Especially you, Fence. SHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Or, you know, not.

    Anyway, twas a nice shoo. A guilty-for-killing-your-blog-so-that-you-now-vent-all-your-spleen-one-comments-so-why-don't-you-go-back-to-blogging-instead-you'd-be-happier-that-way-go-on-there's-a-good-lad kind of shoo. A pretty specific shoo.

    I don't mind stats when it's one of those "Jesus, isn't it great to have finally beaten them for the first time in 20 years" kinda thing. But I hate it when computers grind out stats and the presenters spit them out as though they mean something for how a particular game is going to progress.

  49. Fence says:

    Benevolent. Malevolent. It's irrelevant. The only dictatorship here shall be the dictatorship of me! See!

  50. NineMoons says:

    Yeah, well… takes one to know one.

    Zing!

    He still ain't bloggin' though. Shooin' or no shooin'.

    Sigh.