Bagpuss Had It Right

[Andy in Germany]

I'm not sure I buy into that as you do get individuals claiming all sorts of things when the truth is much closer to 2 adults falling out and one taking the huff.

That's the problem, especially when the "offended" person claims to be offended on behalf of someone else. It's also worrying when they persuade employers or worse, the civil authority that because they find it offensive, the other person should be punished.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Hostility? F*ck me.

Are you upset about the French jokes on this thread?

Depends on the joke I expect. On the other hand there is a history of England and English authorities using various methods to try and eradicate Welsh as a language so it remains a sore point. Take for example the Welsh Note, seen by some as an attempt as cultural genocide, and others as an example of the bl**dy awful pedagogy in place everywhere in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Equally the argument seemed to be more a perceived lack of fairness: if a post about buying a person a tricycle is "sexist" and should be deleted, then a comment about Welsh as a language is "racist" or possibly "cultural imperialism" and should also be deleted. This also ties in with my previous comment that according to some theories, whether a statement is racist or sexist is decided by the person hearing it, regardless of the intent of the person saying it.

It can also depend on the gender or racial group of the speaker and the hearer, which could be considered slightly ironic given the context.

 

[steveindenmark]

Unfortunately the OP hasn't specified, but general opinion is that this one is likely:



Personally I find this annoying, as much due to my background as anything; it uses stereotyping language and a name for Germans that was used to stir up hatred in the past, and it saddens me that many people in the UK haven't managed to move on.

It does get a bit tiring when speaking to British people in the UK when they find I live in Germany and they trot out the same old tired stereotypes and think they're being highly amusing and original. Strictly speaking it would be hard to describe it as "racist" if the speaker is Pigmentally challenged and British as we are largely of the same racial group as Germans, but it could be described as Xenophobic, so there is a case to be made that if a post about a Tricycle is to be deleted as sexist, then this should be deleted as Xenophobic, maybe.

I must admit I weas a bit confused by the offence caused by the "Tricycle" post, but I put that down to cultural differences.

Being a Brit living in Denmark on the border of Germany. Many of my collegues are German. We pull each others legs all the time about the war, football, Monty Python. It is not Xenophobic. It having a sense of humour and not taking things seriously. In 18 years I have never been offended. The war was nothing to do with my collegues. They do not associate themselves with it. In fact they are more annoyed than anyone else because they are forever trying to apologise for something that had sod all to do with them. But they do give as good as they get. They do seem to miss the point of not leaving towels on chairs beside the pool though.

 

[Time Waster]

It's wasn't the Welsh league, it wasn't the wordle colours and, more pertinently, it was all a bit "ha ha ha they talk funny" really. Very low humour. I'm not at all surprised someone took offence. It's one thing to ban Welsh language posts on here due to lack of moderators, but it's another level of hostility to ridicule its linguistic community IMO.

Edit to add: slurs against groups of people based on negative-stereotyping are specifically mentioned in the rules as trolling, so I'm surprised the mods even hesitated... and that a football thread hasn't been locked, because so many of its "fan" insults of other clubs are based on that!

Can I just point out that IMHO association football threads should be locked for reasons other than tribalism? It's a bloody dull game. Still, on a forum I can simply ignore, not so at work. After Tuesday everyone kept slipping in about the directors not looking the number four. I can only assume that's a football comment involving their football team of choice but I really don't know.

Sorry but I don't take offence lessons very well from Welsh people not having experienced the heights of anti English attitudes in the 80s and 90s. Not that I don't think they should take offence at times.

 

[Andy in Germany]

They do seem to miss the point of not leaving towels on chairs beside the pool though.

Funnily enough last week a colleague described her forward planning for an event as "my version of putting a towel on the deckchair" whth a grin in my direction. I'd so completely forgotten that one that it took a few seconds to figure it out.

 

[Saluki]

I'm confused about the whole thing, because @Saluki 's avatar looks like Bagpuss so I mix them up.

It’s the Cheshire Cat!
Actually now, the Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat, since they have moved the boundaries.

My Car Chesh is a bit faded now. Even more faded than when the avatar pic was snapped.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

It's wasn't the Welsh league, it wasn't the wordle colours and, more pertinently, it was all a bit "ha ha ha they talk funny" really. Very low humour. I'm not at all surprised someone took offence. It's one thing to ban Welsh language posts on here due to lack of moderators, but it's another level of hostility to ridicule its linguistic community IMO.

Edit to add: slurs against groups of people based on negative-stereotyping are specifically mentioned in the rules as trolling, so I'm surprised the mods even hesitated... and that a football thread hasn't been locked, because so many of its "fan" insults of other clubs are based on that!

Even as a self serving virtue signaller I'm struggling to comprehend the sheer humourlessness of this post.

And why on earth, given your professed attitudes towards both hands and fans, would you spend even a second on the football thread? It's like you're desperate to find something to be outraged at.


Or, in fans parlance,

"You're just a shoot Mary Whitehouse
shoot Mary Whiiiiitehouse,
You're just a shoot Mary Whitehouse"

 

[winjim]

Straw poll. Is anybody offended by this song?


View: https://youtu.be/_g6YxkSqL20



Because it's the same joke.

 

[MrGrumpy]

🍿 I’m needing more of this . The frothing that goes on in here is staggering. I’ve had my leg pulled and I’ve also dished it out in here but Christ on a bike this is nuts !!

 

[Mo1959]

🍿 I’m needing more of this . The frothing that goes on in here is staggering. I’ve had my leg pulled and I’ve also dished it out in here but Christ on a bike this is nuts !!

It's getting that you have to seriously reread everything you are considering posting in case it offends someone on here!

 

[BoldonLad]

🍿 I’m needing more of this . The frothing that goes on in here is staggering. I’ve had my leg pulled and I’ve also dished it out in here but Christ on a bike this is nuts !!

It is fantastic. If we could have a few more threads like this, I would stop visiting NACA, much more fun here.

 

[Lozz360]

I think some people need to learn about the nuances of Scottish football.

"Huns" isn't racist and a court ruled it wasn't even Sectarian.

It's a term used almost exclusively by Celtic fans nowadays towards Rangers fans (and clubs they deem aligned with Protestantism) but in the 50s was a term used by both sides to abuse the other, basically saying they were no better than the Germans with WWII still fresh in the minds. Celtic fans, being aligned with Ireland who were seen as being at best neutral, at worst sympathetic to the Nazis whilst Rangers fans, being drawn largely from Govan, were accused of using the excuse of being shipyard workers to avoid being called up to fight.

Yeah, petty stuff.

In the 60s, after Rangers fans ran amok after a game, a newspaper compared them to rampaging Huns (as in Attilla, the) and the name stuck.


At least, this is how various Bluenoses and Tims have explained it to me over the years

Would that have been when they lost to Berwick Rangers in 1969? Sorry. A bit off topic.

 

[wiggydiggy]

Straw poll. Is anybody offended by this song?


View: https://youtu.be/_g6YxkSqL20



Because it's the same joke.

Not offended on the song as I'm not quite sure what the lyrics are, though I understand that's the point of the song - the artist wrote it to explore communication barriers.

Also I never thought I'd see Raffaella Carra on Cyclechat . I heard this one she sing more on at the start of lockdown and would regularly listen to it when I was a bit down:

 

[Arrowfoot]

I am the racist moderator
What happened was that the wordle post got reported, but no mods were online.
Then a few hours later it got reported again, with the addition that not removing it was akin to approving racism.
As, by the time I read the messages, another few hours had passed, I did sent the Bagpuss a pm explaining the reason for the delay, adding that, because the mods operate as a team, I'll wait till another mod came online before taking action.
Bagpuss sadly was not happy, accusing me of being racist.
I didn't trust myself to take the unilateral decision to delete it, firstly because we really do operate as a team in the mods area, second because English is my third language.
Sometimes I don't get jokes/humour, other times I don't think something is offensive because I don't know enough of the cultural background.
The other post, the hun one, went totally over my head, hadn't a clue of the meaning, but I wasn't on mods duty when it was posted.
I thought the wordle post was something like saying "it's all Greek to me", but obviously it wasn't.
When @Rickshaw Phil came on line, we decide deleting the "joke" would not do any harm to the forum's harmony, so we deleted it.
Bagpuss could not wait for two humans to make a decision, not everything on the net is as fast as Google!

Thanks for the explanation Pat. It helps clear the air.

 

[mjr]

Hostility? F*ck me.

Are you upset about the French jokes on this thread?

Do you think I must share every viewpoint that I can understand?