#great britain groups

[greatbritainbillionaire]

great britain billionaire, great britain millionaire, MillionaireCEOclub.com, https://www.MillionaireCEOclub.com

[the-busy-ghost]

Minor throwaway sentence in a book on corruption I've just finished was talking about 1930s gangsters and about certain organisations in Chicago which the author stated were more ethnically diverse than the Italian mafia, and whose members were said to have included 'Irish, Welsh, Italian, and Jewish' gangsters.

Now call me sheltered but I've seen MANY Italian American gangsters immortalised in film, I've heard of the Jewish mob, and the police Irish American gangs but I have yet to see a movie about the Welsh mob. As a rule I don't go in for gangster movies but I feel there's an unfilled niche here and also I need more info.

[hammerbacks]

love to see that the Tories’ ability to pick the most fucking vile person possible as leader is strong as ever

[stone-cold-groove]

The Royal Navy aircraft carrier, HMS Illustrious.

[mint-mumbles]

Don't get me started on the NINA (No Irish Need Apply) signs from the UK and USA, the "gingers have no souls" stereotype that's still prevalent in the UK to the point people get unironically made fun of for their hair (some people believe that Ireland is where red hair originates from), and it would be amiss not to bring up BLOODY SUNDAY (the Bogside Massacre)

People who stole potatoes and pigs to keep their families from starving during the Great Famine were sent from Ireland to Australia back in the 1840s (Australia was used as a prison for the British during this time) for 7 years while the Britains in power took their food

All because King Henry II demonized the people he was trying to conquer in order to take control of their church

[britainmillionaires]

britain millionaires, britain billionaires, MillionaireCEOclub.com, https://www.MillionaireCEOclub.com

[supertrainstationh]

Class 23 Baby Deltic D5910 at Barrow Hill by Alun EH

A baby is reborn.

[stateofsport211]

Davis Cup 2023: World Group Finals RR2 (Group B, Manchester): GBR 2-1 SUI: Daniel Evans/Neal Skupski d. Dominic Stricker/Stan Wawrinka 6-3, 6-3 Match Stats

Doubles rubber's match statistics (📸 BBC)

Stan/Stricker might have had their moments, but Dan/Neal anticipated the former’s serves well, returning as fast, as balanced, and as accurate as possible while coming into the net more often, especially with more successful volleys. This was reflected from the winners Dan/Neal made, with a total of 28 to their 15 unforced errors, most of which came from their forehands (18), added with winning 3 more net points. On the other hand, Stricker/Stan took too many risks with only 18-24 winners-unforced errors ratio (-6), but they got overwhelmed under pressure as well on serve to top it off. As a result, Dan/Neal had a 100% break point conversion rate from 3 opportunities, while Stan/Stricker had only 1 opportunity to break, but left unconverted.

Speaking of their service games, Dan/Neal scored twice more aces than Stan/Stricker (4 to 2), which complemented the 82% first serves winning percentage despite only landing 66% in. On the other hand, despite second serves often becoming a problem for Stan/Stricker, Dan/Neal might have risked it a lot with 2 double faults, which was worth it in their favor thanks to their aforementioned point construction and balanced returning.

Group B Current Standings (📸 BBC)

Everything appeared to be wide open in Group B, with only two ties left to play: Great Britain v. France and Australia v. Switzerland, which theoretically, could be a must-win for either Australia or France. Had this been a football group stage’s third matches, they could have played simultaneously to add the element of surprise for their qualification, but given this is the last year the Davis Cup using this format since the Kosmos acquisition in 2018, then let that be.

While Great Britain could be left with a lot of options despite their high likelihood of qualification (in singles, they got Jack Draper, Andy Murray, Daniel Evans, and Cameron Norrie), there might be a possible rotation between four of them, considering France’s rich singles roster consisting of Ugo Humbert, Adrian Mannarino, and recently rising Arthur Fils. The doubles department could also be spicy considering a possible encounter between Daniel Evans/Neal Skupski and Nicolas Mahut/Edouard Roger-Vasselin, where the former won both their doubles rubbers and the latter had a 1-1 record, the latest was a close defeat against the reunited Matthew Ebden/Max Purcell.

On the other hand, despite the on-paper elimination, Australia v. Switzerland could also be a tricky match, where Australia’s victory might as well secure their qualification (unless Great Britain v. France had ideas, hence everything would boil down to the match, game, then win percentages, in that order). Max Purcell could end up playing in both singles and doubles with Matthew Ebden, while they also had rich singles roster led by Stan Wawrinka, followed by the younger generations consisting of the likes of Marc-Andrea Huesler, Dominic Stricker, and Leandro Riedi. However, there could still a possibility where Alex de Minaur and/or Thanasi Kokkinakis being entered, with a possible classic involving either of them unfolding considering all their depths. Should be an intriguing path to qualification for the rest of the teams involved in this group.

[beatleshistoryblog]

LECTURE 4: INFLUENCES (PART 1): The Vipers Skiffle Group, founded in London in 1956, was the second biggest SKIFFLE act in Great Britain, behind Lonnie Donegan. This is biggest hit, “Don’t You Rock Me, Daddy-O,” recorded in the fall of ‘56 at Parlophone Records. Interestingly, the song was produced by future Beatles producer George Martin, who passed away in 2016 at age 90. The demise of the skiffle craze in 1958-59 saw the band drop “Skiffle Group” from their name and focus more on rock ‘n’ roll before going defunct by the early 1960s. 

[blueiscoool]

How Hadrian’s Wall is Revealing a Hidden Side of Roman History

A party invitation. A broken flipflop. A wig. Letters of complaint about road conditions, and an urgent request for more beer.

It sounds like the aftermath of a successful spring break, but these items are nearly 2,000 years old.

They’re just some of the finds from Hadrian’s Wall – the 73-mile stone wall built as the northwestern boundary of the Roman Empire, sealing off Britannia (modern-day England and Wales) from Caledonia (essentially today’s Scotland).

While most of us think of Pompeii and Herculaneum if we’re thinking of everyday objects preserved from ancient Rome, this outpost in the wild north of the empire is home to some of the most extraordinary finds.

“It’s a very dramatic stamp on the countryside – there’s nothing more redolent of saying you’re entering the Roman empire than seeing that structure,” says Richard Abdy, lead curator of the British Museum’s current exhibition, Legion, which spotlights the everyday life of Roman soldiers, showcasing many finds from Hadrian’s Wall in the process. A tenth of the Roman army was based in Britain, and that makes the wall a great source of military material, he says.

But it’s not all about the soldiers, as excavations are showing.

A multicultural melting pot

Hadrian, who ordered the wall to be built in 122CE after a visit to Britannia, had a different vision of empire than his predecessors, says Frances McIntosh, curator for English Heritage’s 34 sites along Hadrian’s Wall.

“All the emperors before him were about expanding the empire, but Hadrian was known as the consolidator,” she says. He relinquished some of the territory acquired by his predecessor Trajan, and “decided to set the borders” – literally, in some cases, with wooden poles at sites in Germany, or with stone in Britannia. Where those poles rotted thousands of years ago, the wall is still standing: “A great visual reminder” of the Roman empire, says McIntosh.

It’s not just a wall. There’s a castle every mile along, and turrets at every third-of-a-mile point, with ditches and banks both north and south. “You can imagine the kind of impact that would have had, not just on the landscape but on the people living in the area,” says McIntosh.

And thanks to the finds from the wall, we know a surprising amount about those people.

Although historians have long thought of army outposts as remote, male-dominant places, the excavations along the wall show that’s not the case. Not only were soldiers accompanied by their families, but civilians would settle around the settlements to do business. “ You can almost see Housesteads as a garrison town,” says McIntosh. “There were places you could go for a drink and so on.”

The Roman rule of thumb was not to post soldiers in the place they came from, because of the risk of rebellion. That meant Hadrian’s Wall was a cultural melting point, with cohorts from modern-day Netherlands, Spain, Romania, Algeria, Iraq, Syria – and more. “It was possibly more multicultural because it was a focus point,” says McIntosh, who says that the surrounding community might have included traders from across the empire.

Soldiers were split into two groups. Legionaries were Roman citizens from Italy, who had more rights than other soldiers and imported olive oil, wine and garum (a sauce made from decomposing fish).

They worked alongside auxiliaries – soldiers from conquered provinces, who had fewer rights, but could usually acquire citizenship after 25 years of service.

Soldiers carved their names and regiments on stones to show which part of the wall they built – around 50 of them are on display at Chesters fort.

But the wall shows that women and children were equally present.

McIntosh says that pottery brought to the camps – from the Low Countries and North Africa – shows that the soldiers “brought their families, who cooked in traditional style.” Archaeologists have found what seems to be an ancient tagine for North African-style cooking.

A tombstone from Arbeia fort for a woman named Regina shows she was a freed slave from southern Britain who was bought by – and married to – a Syrian soldier.

Another woman buried at Birdoswald fort was laid to rest with chainmail that appears to be from modern-day Poland. “Perhaps she married someone in the army,” says McIntosh, who calls the wall a “melting pot of people from all over the world under the banner of the army.”

“They brought their own religions, as well as worshipping Roman gods and adopting local deities,” she adds. At Carrawburgh, a temple to Mithras – an originally Persian deity – sat near a spring with a shrine to a local water spirit.

‘Wretched little Brits’

Some of the most extraordinary finds from the Roman empire are coming from one site on Hadrian’s Wall: Vindolanda. Here, archaeologists have found a wealth of organic remains because of what curator Barbara Birley calls the “unusual conditions onsite.”

At Vindolanda there are the remains of at least nine forts over 14 levels. “When the Romans would leave, they would knock down timber forts, and cover the area with turf and clay, sealing the layers underneath,” she says.

“Because it happened so many times, the bottom five or six layers are sealed in anaerobic conditions, so things don’t decay. When we get down there, we get wooden objects, textiles, anything organic.”

Vindolanda has the largest collection of Roman textiles from a single site in western Europe, as well as the largest leather collection of any site in the Roman empire – including 5,000 shoes, and even a broken leather flip-flop. “We probably had a population of 3,000 to 6,000 depending on the period, so 5,000 is a lot,” says Birley. For Abdy, the shoes evoke the conditions of the wet borderlands. “Women’s and children’s shoes are hobnailed – you needed it in the mucky frontier dirt tracks. They’re very evocative.”

There’s even a wig made from a local plant, hair moss, which is said to repel midges – the scourge of Scotland during the summer. A centurion’s helmet is also crested with hairmoss – the ancient equivalent of spraying yourself with insect repellent.

The first woman to write in Latin

One of the most famous finds is the trove of wooden writing tablets – the largest found anywhere.

“They give a snapshot of what life was actually like,” says Birley. “We understand so much more from written correspondence than from ‘stuff,’ and, archaeologically, it’s the stuff that usually survives – things like metals and ceramics.

“These were written in ink, not on a wax stylus tablet, and we believe they were used for what we’d put in emails: ‘The roads are awful,’ ‘The soldiers need more beer.’ Everyday business.”

The tablets – or “personal letters” as Birley describes them – were found on the site of a bonfire when the ninth cohort of Batavians (in the modern-day Netherlands) were told to move on.

“They had a huge bonfire and lots of letters were chucked in the fire. Some have been singed – we think it may have rained,” she says. One of them calls the locals “Britunculi” – “wretched little Brits.” Another talks about an outbreak of pinkeye. One claims that the roads are too bad to send wagons; another laments that the soldiers have run out of beer.

Among the 1,700 letters are 20 that mention a woman called Sulpicia Lepidina. She was the wife of the commander of the garrison, and seems to have played a crucial role. There’s a letter to her from another woman, Paterna, agreeing to send her two medicines, one a fever cure.

Birley says it’s similar to today. “If you’re a group of moms, still today we say, ‘Do you have the Calpol?’ It’s very human.” For Abdy, it’s a sign that women were traders. “She’s clearly flogging her medicines,” he says. “It’s really great stuff.”

Another tablet is an invite from Claudia Severa, the wife of another commander at a nearby camp. It’s an invitation to a birthday party. Under the formal invitation, presumably written by a scribe, is a scrawl in another hand: “I shall expect you, sister. Farewell, sister, my dearest soul.”

Presumably written by Claudia herself, it is thought to be the earliest example of a woman’s handwriting in Latin.

Without the organic finds – the shoes and the letters that indisputably belonged to women, unlike jewellery or weaving equipment – it’s difficult to prove conclusively that women lived in significant numbers. Vindolanda “illustrate the missing gaps,” says Abdy. For Birley, they prove that women were as crucial a part of army communities as men. “Before the Lepidina tablets were found we didn’t really understand the interactions between the soldiers and their wives,” she says. Another tablet is written by what is thought to be a Spanish standard-bearer’s common-law wife, ordering military equipment for her partner.

“The Vindolanda collection is showing that there weren’t just camp followers and prostitutes; women were part of everyday life, and contributing to the military community in many ways,” says Birley.

Abdy says that Hadrian’s Wall is interesting because the resident women span “all classes of society,” from Regina – the dead freedwoman, who would have been “bottom of the heap” – to the trader Paterna and the noblewoman Lepidina.

And of course, there’s the wall itself.

“In the Netherlands and Germany the finds are often stunning and better preserved – you go to museums and are bowled over. But in terms of structural remains, Hadrian’s Wall must be among the best,” says McIntosh, modestly, of her site.

Abdy agrees: “I can’t think of many symbols so redolent of imperial will than that wall.”

By Julia Buckley.

[nicklloydnow]

“May I be permitted to say a few words? I am an Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic & Islamic History under William Montgomery Watt & Laurence Elwell Sutton, 2 of Britain ‘s great Middle East experts. I later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge & to teach Arabic & Islamic Studies at Newcastle University . Naturally, I am the author of several books & 100s of articles in this field.

I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs & that, for that reason, I am shocked & disheartened for a simple reason: there is not & has never been a system of apartheid in Israel. That is not my opinion, that is fact that can be tested against reality should anyone choose to visit Israel.

Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that many students are absolutely clueless in matters concerning Israel, & that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby.

Hating Israel

Being anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable. But I’m not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel . I’m speaking of a hatred that permits itself no boundaries in the lies & myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a “Nazi” state. In what sense is this true, even as a metaphor? Where are the Israeli concentration camps? The einzatsgruppen? The SS? The Nuremberg Laws?

None of these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel, precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what Nazism stood for. It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When?

No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt. But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is a way to subvert historical fact. Likewise apartheid.

No Apartheid

For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a situation that closely resembled how things were in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Unfortunately for those who believe this, a day in any part of Israel would be enough to show how ridiculous this is.

The most obvious focus for apartheid would be the country’s 20% Arab population. Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians; Baha’is, severely persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel, where they have their world center; Ahmadi Muslims, severely persecuted in Pakistan & elsewhere, are kept safe by Israel; or anyone else; the holy places of all religions are protected by Israeli law.

Free Arab Israelis

Arabs form 20% of the university population (an exact echo of their percentage in the general population). In Iran , the Bahai’s (the largest religious minority) are forbidden to study in any university or to run their own universities: why aren’t your members boycotting Iran ?

Arabs in Israel can go anywhere they want, unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa. They use public transport, they eat in restaurants, they go to swimming pools, they use libraries, they go to cinemas alongside Jews — something no blacks were able to do in South Africa.

Israeli hospitals not only treat Jews & Arabs, they also treat Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank. On the same wards, in the same operating theatres.

Women’s Rights

In Israel, women have the same rights as men: there is no gender apartheid. Gay men & women face no restrictions, and Palestinian gays oftn escape into Israel, knowing they may be killed at home.

It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel & say nothing about countries like Iran, where gay men are hanged or stoned to death. That illustrates a mindset that beggars belief.

Intelligent students thinking it’s better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?

(…)

I do not object to well-documented criticism of Israel. I do object when supposedly intelligent people single the Jewish state out above states that are horrific in their treatment of their populations.

(…)

Israeli citizens, Jews & Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest). Yet Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations & call for no boycotts against Libya , Bahrain , Saudi Arabia , Yemen , & Iran. They prefer to make false accusations against one of the world’s freest countries, the only country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only country in the ME that gives refuge to gay men & women, the only country in the ME that protects the Bahai’s…. Need I go on?

(…)

Your generation has a duty to ensure that the perennial racism of anti-Semitism never sets down roots among you. Today, however, there are clear signs that it has done so and is putting down more.”

[saintsenara]

wait how bougie was Tom Riddle Sr.? How nice would his Manor have been? Was he like an actually Lord with a title and stuff?

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

in half-blood prince, dumbledore refers to tom riddle sr. as "the squire's son" - which allows us to state with certainty that he was a minor aristocrat.

however, the word minor is important here.

there are - historically - two levels of aristocracy in britain. the first are the peers of the realm - which refers to families which hold one or more of the titles of duke, marquess, earl, or viscount. these are the elite of the elite - these gradations of nobility were created in the middle ages as a way of distinguishing those who held the titles from other noblemen, usually because of a close relationship [often one of blood or marriage or both] to the king.

the titles are hereditary by male primogeniture, and the holders - while this is no longer the case - used to have political power [such as the right to sit in the house of lords], simply by virtue of their birth.

[this is why they're called "peers" - it refers to them historically being close in status to royalty, and therefore expected to serve as royal advisors.]

there is another class of peer - a baronet - whose title is similarly hereditary, but whose position doesn't come historically with the right to sit in the lords or advise the king by virtue of birth. [baronets may - of course - have been members of parliament, or royal advisors selected at the king's discretion, but this would be separate from their title. a duke, in contrast, could historically expect to request a meeting with the king simply because he was a duke.]

while some families have historically been ennobled at the king's discretion, access to any of these titles is pretty much restricted to the small group of families who've held them for centuries.

but below the peers of the realm, there is a second, more minor class of aristocracy, the landed gentry - of which a village squire is a textbook example.

historically, what is meant by "landed" is an ability to live off of the rental income of one's country holdings, which would be leased to tenant farmers. that is, they are landlords in the original sense of the term - lords of the land. this is what tom sr. tells us his family does in half-blood prince:

“It’s not ours,” said a young man’s voice. “Everything on the other side of the valley belongs to us, but that cottage belongs to an old tramp called Gaunt, and his children. The son’s quite mad, you should hear some of the stories they tell in the village - ”

what is also meant by "landed" is that the family in question is of the upper-classes, but that they are still "commoners" - which in this context doesn't imply a value judgement, but which is a socio-legal term which simply indicates that they don't hold an aristocratic title such as duke, earl etc.

[and gentry families certainly aren't common in terms of financial standing... the most famous member of this class in literature? fitzwilliam darcy, whose ten thousand a year is something like thirteen million quid in today's money...]

gentry families might be very old - they might have received their lands from the king in the middle ages as a reward for knightly service, and it's interesting to imagine generations of gaunts and riddles brought up alongside each other in little hangleton - or they might be comparatively newer - tom sr.'s great-grandfather [feasibly born c.1810] could have been a self-made victorian industrialist who bought the lands from the original holder and established himself as gentry.

by 1900, it was becoming much harder for the gentry to live on rental income alone, and many would also have had jobs. these would have been elite, and very frequently were in politics, the civil service, the military, or the law. tom sr's father - whom the films call thomas, so let's go with that - might, for example, have served as a high-ranking officer in the army [including during the first world war], be the local magistrate, or be the local member of parliament.

in terms of titles, thomas riddle would almost undoubtedly be sir thomas - and this is how it would be correct to address him. but this title would be a courtesy, and it wouldn't be hereditary unless the riddles were also baronets [which it's entirely plausible that they were].

which is to say, tom sr. would not have a title while his father was alive - although he would have the right to be referred to formally in writing as mr thomas riddle esq. [esquire]. the correct form of verbal address for anyone other than friends and family would be to call him mr riddle, although the riddles' servants would probably refer to him as mister tom.

tom jr. would not have a title while his father or grandfather was alive. if the riddles were baronets, he would technically inherit the title after he kills the rest of the male line... but given that tom sr. never acknowledged him and his existence was presumably unknown to the riddles' lawyers this wouldn't be something which happened in reality. the estate's executors clearly took control of the riddles' property, the land was portioned off and sold, and the house became a standalone property for sale.

the riddle house - which is a name used informally for it in little hangleton, it would have a different "proper" name - is described in canon in ways which show that it's a typical manor house, which means it would look something like this:

these houses are obviously very impressive, but they're tiny in size in comparison to the magnificent stately homes - places like blenheim palace, chatsworth, burghley house, holkham hall - lived in by the titled aristocracy. the riddles would entertain - for example - by giving house parties, dinner parties, hunting parties, etc., but they wouldn't have a ballroom or a dining hall capable of seating hundreds.

[they would probably also own a property - probably a flat or small house - in london.]

they would have servants, but not colossal numbers - they would undoubtedly have a butler but not footmen, and the upstairs maids would report to the butler since they probably wouldn't have a housekeeper. they canonically have a cook, who probably had one or two kitchen maids assisting, and they canonically have a gardener - frank bryce - who probably doesn't have any assistants. they may, depending on the size of the estate, have a gamekeeper. sir thomas undoubtedly had a secretary and a chauffeur, and his wife might have a lady's maid. tom sr. would have had a nanny and then been educated until at least the age of eight by a governess, but would then have attended a prep school [either day or boarding] until the age of thirteen, and then gone to a boarding school, from which he likely went on [on the basis of social class rather than talent] to oxford or cambridge.

the family would have enormous social influence locally. most people - and also businesses - in little hangleton would be their tenants, and they would also probably have a say over the appointment of the local clergyman [an important figure in the community in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries], since the parish church is likely to have been something called a "living" - the thing which turns up again and again in jane austen - which means that the church and its parsonage technically belongs to the landowner, but is granted to the vicar as a freehold while he's in post.

gossip about the riddles' doings would also be the main source of local interest - the servants were dining out for months on tom sr.'s elopement and return.

so they're something resembling celebrities - but they're local celebrities. nobody in london - and even nobody in cities we can imagine are nearer to little hangleton, such as liverpool - would particularly know or care who they were. tom sr. might have made it into the london gossip columns if he was part of a particularly scandalous "set" [a group of friends] who socialised in the capital, but these mentions would have been fleeting - and the press would have been much more concerned by the doings of members of his set who were genuinely titled or who were legitimately famous.

[this is the reason why mrs cole doesn't recognise the name. if merope had said her son was to be named cecil beaton after his father, she may well have been prompted to hunt him down...]

so tom sr. is elite - but he's elite in a way which is extremely culturally-specific, and which is [just like the portrayal of aristocracy in the wizarding world - the blacks, for example, are far less aristocratic than the riddles in terms of canonical vibe] often exaggerated into the sort of pseudo-royal grand aristocracy which the british period-drama-industrial-complex makes such a big deal of.

and tom jr.'s character is affected by this in a series of extremely interesting ways.

by which i mean that, in terms of blood, he's probably the most aristocratic character in the series - the absence of grand aristocracy in the wizarding world would mean that [were he raised by his father] he would come from a social background which was equivalent [even as it was divided from them by virtue of being muggle] to any of his fellow slytherins, and would help him easily blend into their society because the manners, genre of socio-cultural reference points [he would recognise, for example, that quidditch heavily resembles both rugby and polo], accent and way of speaking etc. that he would possess would be broadly indistinguishable from those of his pureblood peers.

[this is why justin finch-fletchley and draco malfoy speak in essentially the same way.]

but he would then be given the enormous boost in cachet - one which would genuinely elevate him above the rest of his cohort - of his maternal line.

and we see in canon that this does bestow some privilege on him among his peers while he's in school:

Tom Riddle merely smiled as the others laughed again. Harry noticed that he was by no means the eldest of the group of boys, but that they all seemed to look to him as their leader. “I don’t know that politics would suit me, sir,” he said when the laughter had died away. “I don’t have the right kind of background, for one thing.” A couple of the boys around him smirked at each other. Harry was sure they were enjoying a private joke, undoubtedly about what they knew, or suspected, regarding their gang leader’s famous ancestor.

where he's let down socially is that people like slughorn - to whom he can't reveal his slytherin ancestry and hope to maintain cover for his wrongdoing - don't think he's come from anywhere particularly special. this is because he has a muggle father - absolutely - but it's even more that he has a muggle father who, since he left him to be raised in an orphanage, was presumably working-class.

what the young voldemort lacks is any socio-cultural familiarity with the muggle class performance which the class performance of the wizarding world parallels. abraxas malfoy boasting about how important his father is would be something a tom jr. raised by the riddles could match - "oh yes, my father gives to all sorts of causes too. in fact, he was invited to buckingham palace because of it." - establishing himself as an equal in terms of class and social influence even if he isn't an equal in blood.

what actually happens in canon is that the orphaned tom - with his uncouth manners and his working-class accent - has no hope of gaining any sort of social equality with his posh peers.

so he becomes determined to outrank - and humiliate and control - them.

[metamatar]

So the real crime of fascism was the application to white people of colonial procedures "which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the 'c***s' of India, and the 'n***s' of Africa." (p. 36) Here we must situate Cesaire within a larger context of radical black intellectuals who had come to the same conclusions before the publication of Discourse.

As Cedric Robinson argues, a group of radical black intellectuals,including W.E.B. Du Bois, C.L.R James, George Padmore, and Oliver Cox, understood fascism not as some aberration from the march of progress, an unexpected right-wing turn, but a logical development of Western Civilization itself. They viewed fascism as a blood relative of slavery and imperialism, global systems rooted not only in capitalist political economy but racist ideologies that were already in place at the dawn of modernity. As early as 1936, Ralph Bunche, then a radical political science professor at Howard University, suggested that imperialism birth to fascism. "The doctrine of Fascism" wrote Bunche, "with its extreme jingoism, its exaggerated exaltation of the state and its comic-opera glorification of race, has given a new and greater impetus to the policy of world imperialism which had conquered and subjected to systematic and ruthless exploitation virtually all of the darker populations of the earth." Du Bois made some of the clearest statements to this effect: "I knew that Hitler and Mussolini were fighting communism, and using race prejudice to make some white people rich and all colored people poor. But it was not until later that I realized that the colonialism of Great Britain and France had exactly the same object and methods as the fascists and the Nazis were trying clearly to use." Later, in The World and Africa (1947), he writes: "There was no Nazi atrocity-concentration camps, wholesale maiming and murder, defilement of women or ghastly blasphemy of childhood which Christian civilization or Europe had not long been practicing against colored folk in all parts of the world in the name of and for the defense of a Superior Race born to rule the world. The very idea that there was a superior race lay at the heart of the matter, and this is why elements of Discourse also drew on Negritude's impulse to recover the history of Africa's accomplish ments. Takirng his cue from Leo Frobenius's injunction that the "idea of the barbaric Negro is a European invention," Cesaire sets out to prove that the colonial mission to "civilize" the primitive is just a smoke screen. If anything, colonialism results in the massive destruction of whole societies-societies that not only function at a high level of sophistication and complexity, but that might offer the West valuable lessons about how we might live together and remake the modern world.

Robin DG Kelley's A Poetics of Anti Colonialism, published as introduction to a new edition of Aime Cesaire's Discourse on Anti Colonialism

[mysunshinetemptress]

Meet me in the Hallway

Leah Williamson x Styles!reader

Disclaimer: i know leah wore the suit in 2022 but for this it’s 2021.

Y/n sighed running her hand down her dress nervously as her brother walked through the door fixing his cuffs “right cars going to be here in 10.” Y/n nodded looking as her phone lit up for the fifth time in two minutes “who in the hell keeps texting you.” Y/n looked at the vanity her stomach filling with butterflies before turning back to her brother “Sorry H, it’s the group chat talking about international break coming up.” Harry nodded understanding his younger sisters busy schedule “alright but please turn it just for tonight we barely ever get to do anything like this together.” Y/n looked back at her phone before nodding.

Sitting in the car Y/n couldn’t help herself as she tapped on the empty seat beside her as Harry looked at her quizzically “what’s wrong Y/n/n.” Y/n hummed turning to face him “nothing H.” Harry shook his head “I’ve seen you, play matches no problem for both England and United you don’t ever get this nervous, it’s just an award show.” Y/n nodded along to her brothers words “I know H, but I’m not used to this I’m scared of the judgement of standing on a red carpet let alone standing next to you.” Harry shook his head “hey your Y/n Styles an amazing football player who has helped her childhood club grow into the WSL, who will make the Great Britain roster this summer and the England roster next summer, yeah your my little sister but that’s not all you are or all you are worth trust and the only people that are allowed to have that opinion of you are the one who have your phone number ok.” Y/n nodded before turning to look back out the window as they pulled up to the red carpet.

Y/n and Harry stood for photos together and then some separately before splitting for a bit to do interviews “Y/n hi any chance of a quick interview.” Y/n nodded letting out a soft “of course making her way over. “Hi I’m Morgan.” Y/n shook Morgan’s hand before getting into the interview “what’s it like attending an award show with none other than Harry Styles.” Y/n couldn’t help but sigh internally knowing she shouldn’t have gotten her hopes about being asked questions about herself “I mean he’s my brother so it’s pretty normal he doesn’t act any different if that’s what your asking.” Morgan smiled nodding “and can you give us any clues is he going to be releasing any new music.” Y/n turned looking at the celebrities walking the carpet looking for either her brother or anyone really to get her out of this “ehm I’m not really sure, it’s not something I ask as I know it’s a process and one that takes time when he’s ready to share it with the world you will know.” Y/n turned to the carpet once more as Morgan began to ask her final question before Y/n caught eyes with Alex Scott who smiled brightly bounding over to the younger girl “oh my god hello gorgeous.” Y/n let out a laugh pulling Alex into a hug “hi Al.” Morgan cleared her throat before asking the question again “one final question Y/n and I let you get back to it, what is your favourite Harry Styles song.” Y/n looked at Alex “hum that’s hard Al have you got a favourite song of Harry.” Y/n couldn’t help her eyes drift to the figure behind Alex or the butterflies that erupted once more in her stomach the second the figure caught her staring. “Oh I’d have to say favourite song sign of the times Y/n, and favourite match performance of Y/n’s is probably her being the youngest start during the 2019 World Cup and she did not disappoint.” Alex wrapped her arms around you giving you a squeeze “and Y/n favourite song.” Morgan continued ignoring Alex’s last bit “Fine Line.” Morgan gave you both a quick thank you before you both turned to leave “I hate these.” Alex looked at you softly before turning at the sound of her name “you are so much more than his sister remember that.” Y/n nodded thanking Alex before her eyes drifted behind her again turning as she felt her cheeks heat up.

Harry sat at the table watching his sister who nervously played with the table cloth as she looked around the room “Y/n are you sure your ok.” Y/n nodded smiling at Chloe Kelly as she came running over “ahhh Y/n your here.” Y/n got up wrapping Chloe in a tight hug swaying back and forth “aww it’s so good to see you, I’ve missed you.” Chloe and Y/n began discussing the current season before Y/n remembered who she was here with “oh Chloe this is my older brother Harry, Harry this is one of the best forwards I’ve ever seen.” Harry stood up shaking Chloe’s hand as she looked at you surprised “holy shit Y/n.” Y/n laughed at her shocked expression “I’m sorry I know you guys are siblings but to actually see you guys together is mind blowing.” Y/n laughed sitting down as Chloe,herself and Harry began chatting.

Y/n sat holding Harry’s hand nerves shooting through the roof as they began calling out the nominees for British signal “and the winner is Harry Styles Watermelon Sugar.” Harry looked at you surprised as you pulled him into a hug “oh H go I’m so proud.” Harry stood kissing Y/ns cheek rushing up to get his award. Y/n knew she was supposed to be paying attention to her brother but she couldn’t help her eyes drifting to a certain figure sat two tables over straightening her dress as the nerves kicked in again.

Y/n was stood in an empty Hallway trying to turn her phone back on when she felt two hand wrap around her waist “ignoring me tonight my love.” Y/n sighed relaxing into her loves arms “no just wanted to be present for Harry and you make that extremely difficult when you light up my phone every five minutes.” Y/n smiled feeling the breath on her ear “I was simply telling you how sexy you where in that dress darling the silver really matches my green but it would suit my Hotel floor better.” Y/n sighed turning to look at the ocean blue eyes she so often gets lost in. “Oh really.” Y/n couldn’t help her eyes drop to the most kissable lips she had ever known “I found it really hard to just sit there and watch as Chloe came over they way she hugged you and wouldn’t let go of your arm had me wanting to shoot up out of my seat.” Y/n hummed once more wrapping her hands behind the older girls neck “you could have I wouldn’t have minded, maybe could have introduced you to my brother.” Y/n felt her self deflating at her girlfriends words “you could do that anyway you know I’d love to meet him maybe get him to tell me stories about you.” Y/n sighed “I mean as my girlfriend not as my friend.” Y/n pulled the blondes face towards her dying for a kiss “I like this though, our little bubble of privacy.” Y/n stopped her movements “this doesn’t feel like a private relationship to me, it feels like you want to keep me, us, our beautiful relationship hidden.” The Arsenal defender shook her head “I don’t I just don’t want unwanted opinions or attention on our relationship.” Y/n shook her head “so our families are unwanted opinions.” The taller girl sighed “can we please just drop this for now, I just want to kiss you and hold you and maybe even slip my hotel room card into you hand and tell you to meet me after.” Y/n sighed before nodding “ok yeah I’m sorry Le, I just..this, today would have been so much easier if I could do this with you instead of by myself or with H.” Leah hummed pulling her girlfriend into a searing kiss. “I promise soon ok.” Y/n nodded pulling Leah down into another kiss as they both relaxed into each others arms “I love you ok.” Y/n nodded “I love you too.”

[mariacallous]

The great fault of the global left is not that it supports Hamas. For how could Western left-wing movements or left-inclining charities or academic bodies truly support Hamas if they were serious about their politics?

No one outside the most reactionary quarters of Islam shares Hamas’s aim of forcing the peoples of the world to accept “the sovereignty of Islam” or face “carnage, displacement and terror” if they refuse.  You cannot be a progressive and campaign for a state that executes gay men. An American left, which includes in its ranks the Queers for Palestine campaign group, cannot seriously endorse lethal homophobia in its own country.  They will turn a blind eye in Palestine, as we shall see, but not in New York or Chicago.

Finally, no left organisation proudly honours the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the fascist tradition that Hamas embraces with such sinister gusto, although in a sign of a decay that has been building on the left for more than a generation, many will promulgate left-wing conspiracy theories which are as insane as their fascist counterparts.

No, the problem with the global left is that it is not serious about politics. It “fellow travels” with radical Islam rather than supports it. The concept of “fellow travelling,” with its suggestions of tourism, dilettantism, and privilege, is well worth reviving. The phrase comes from the Bolsheviks. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 they looked with appreciation on Westerners who supported them without ever endorsing communism. Artists, writers, and academics who were disgusted with the West, often for good reason, I should add, were quite happy to justify Soviet communism and cover up its crimes without ever becoming communists themselves.

Leon Trotsky put it best when he said of fellow travellers that the question was always “how far would they go”? As long as they did not have live under the control of communists in the 1920s or the control of Islamists in the 2020s, the answer appears to be: a very long way indeed

W.H. Auden said, as he looked back with some contempt on his fellow travelling past, if Britain or the United States or any country he and his friends knew were taken over by a “successful communist revolution with the same phenomena of terror, purges, censorship etc., we would have screamed our heads off”. But as communism happened in backward Russia “a semi-barbarous country which had experienced neither the Renaissance nor the Enlightenment”, they could ignore its crimes in the interests of seeing the capitalist enemy defeated.

You see the same pattern of lies and indulgence in the case of Hamas. Journalists  have produced a multitude of examples of fellow travelling since 7 October but let one meeting of the Oakland City Council in the Bay area of San Francisco speak for them all.

A council member wanted the council to pass a motion that condemned the killings and hostage-taking by Hamas, who, in case we forget, prompted the war that has devastated Gaza, by massacring Israeli civilians. The motion got nowhere

According to one speaker Hamas did not massacre anyone, a modern variant of Holocaust denial that is becoming endemic. “There have not been beheadings of babies and rapings,” a woman said at the meeting. “Israel murdered their own people on October 7.”  Another woman said that calling Hamas a terrorist organization is “ridiculous, racist and plays into the genocidal propaganda that is flooding our media.” Hamas was the “armed wing of the unified Palestinian resistance” , said a third who clearly had no knowledge of the civil war between Hamas and Fatah.

“To condemn Hamas was very anti-Arab racist” cried a fourth. The meeting returned to modern Holocaust denial as a new speaker said the Israeli Defence Forces had murdered their own people and it was “bald propaganda” to suggest otherwise. A man intervened to shout that “to hear them complain about Hamas violence is like listening to a wifebeater complain when his wife finally stands up and fights back”.  

Anyone who contradicted him was a “white supremacist.”

Of course they were.

Now if theocrats were to establish an Islamist tyranny in the Bay area, I am sure every single speaker would scream their heads off, as Auden predicted. They can turn into fellow travellers as there is no more of a prospect of theocracy threatening them than there was of communism threatening readers of the left-wing press in the UK and US in the 1930s.

A serious left would have plenty to complain about. Consider the Israeli position after the breakdown of the ceasefire. The Israeli state is led by Benjamin Netanyahu, a catastrophe of a prime minister, who left his people exposed to the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. His war aims are contradictory: you cannot both wipe out Hamas and free the hostages.

Worst of all, the Israeli defence forces are to move to the southern Gaza strip where two million Palestinians are crammed. Just war doctrine holds that a military action must have a reasonable chance of success if the suffering is to be permitted. How, reasonably, can the Israeli army expect to find guerilla fighters hiding in a terrified population?  According to leaks in the Israeli media, Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of state, was warning the Israeli government that, “You can’t operate in southern Gaza in the way you did in the north. There are two million Palestinians there.” But he was ignored.  A radical movement worth having would surely be putting pressure on the Biden administration to force Israel to listen to its concerns.

The radical movement we have will not engage in practical politics because compromise is anathema to it. Any honest account of the war would have to admit that Israel has the right to defend itself against attack. It is just that the military position it finds itself in now may well make its war aims impossible and therefore immoral.

You can see why practical politics has no appeal. Where is the violent satisfaction in sober analysis,  the drama in compromise? Where is the Manichean distinction between the absolute good of the Palestinians and the pure evil of Israel?  

Meanwhile, ever since the Israeli victory in the Six Day War of 1967, you have been able to say that Jewish settler sites on the West Bank were placed there deliberately to make a peace settlement impossible, and ensure that Israel controlled all the territory from “the river to the sea” forever.

A serious left might try to revive a two-state solution by building an international consensus that the settlements must go. Once again, however, that is too tame an aim. For the fellow traveller watching Palestine from a safe distance, satisfaction comes only by embracing Hamas’s call for the destruction of Israel. Some progressives try to dress up the urge to destroy by pretending that Jews and Palestinians will go on to live together in some happy-clappy, multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state. But most must know they are advocating a war to the death. What makes their position so disreputable is that, if they thought about it calmly, they would know it would be a war that only Israel could win. It is the Israelis who have the nuclear weapons, after all.

The worst of the global left is dilettantish. It advocates a maximalist position which has a minimal chance of success - just for the thrill of it. David Caute, a historian of fellow travelling with Stalin and communism said that the endorsement of communism by fellow travelling intellectuals in the West “deepened the despair” of Soviet intellectuals. “In their darkest hours they heard themselves condemned by their own kind”.

The 2020s are not the 1930s. I am sure that, if I were a Palestinian in Gaza, my sole concern would be the removal of Israeli forces that threatened me and my family. I would either not care about demonstrations in the West or I would receive some comfort from the knowledge that people all over the world were protesting on my behalf.

Nevertheless, a kind of betrayal is still at work. By inflaming and amplifying the worst elements in Palestine the global left is giving comfort to the worst elements in Israel, which are equally determined to make a compromise impossible.

The New Statesman made that point well when it ran a piece by Celeste Marcus.   She came from the Zionist far right, and was taught doctrines that dehumanised Palestinians. She grew up and grew away from the prejudices of her childhood and became a liberal. But after she moved into her new world, she “recognised immediately that progressive leftists feel about Israelis the way radical Zionists feel about Palestinians: these are not real people.”

The result is that for all its power on the streets and in academia the global left is almost an irrelevance.

“To influence Israel,” she writes, “one must be willing to recognise it. Since leftist leaders cannot bother to do this, they cannot be of real use to Palestinians. This is a betrayal of their own cause.”

The dilettantism of fellow travelling always ends in betrayal and denial for the reason Auden gave: terror is always more tolerable when it happens far, far away.