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I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

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Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#81

Post by karlgkk »

svat wrote: post #15

Loved the fact that this post didn't go where I expected it to (or at least, didn't remain there). That a book like this probably wouldn't be published today, or would be less popular today, is a point that has been made many times by many people, about many different books, TV shows, jokes, etc. But the author actually moves on from there; the observation is that even in his own opinion , the same joke isn't funny t…

Often when someone, especially a comedian, complains about “political correctness”, what they actually mean is: nobody is laughing at the same joke I told 20 years ago

Sensibilities change. The sense of what is and isn’t punching down changes. Even the appetite for punching down changes.

People who whine about “PC” always pretend like it’s the death of comedy or speech or whatever, and yet… there are younger people building great careers!

And yes, there is a real worrying erosion of free speech - but 98% these people could keep saying exactly what they’ve been saying - they’re just not getting the laughs they think they’re entitled to.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#82

Post by arrowsmith »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #79
arrowsmith wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What compounding inequality? The UK's Gini coefficient has been trending downwards since the global financial crisis. 14 years of Conservative government made this country more equal, not less, because they flattened the income distribution by making everybody poorer. The big pattern among rich people in the UK nowadays is not that they're getting richer, it's that they're leaving.

Go get an airbnb in a poor suburb for a few weeks and live there, talk to people, and ask them if they think they're more or less equal with other Britons in the last 15 years. Show them your Gini coefficient and see what they think of it. Ask them if they feel the income distribution has been flattened in a way that favours them. The rich people living here for the last 40 years all leaving does not bother most peop…

[flagged]

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#83

Post by arrowsmith »

rhubarbtree wrote: post #78
arrowsmith wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What compounding inequality? The UK's Gini coefficient has been trending downwards since the global financial crisis. 14 years of Conservative government made this country more equal, not less, because they flattened the income distribution by making everybody poorer. The big pattern among rich people in the UK nowadays is not that they're getting richer, it's that they're leaving.

You’re looking at the wrong numbers. Wealth, not income. Wealth inequality is through the roof. Poverty is through the roof. More people using food banks than ever. More people on zero hours and low paid contracts. If you think the problem with the UK is that rich people are leaving, then you have no idea about the reality of living in the UK. Visiting some of the towns in this book would be a starting point.

> Poverty is through the roof. More people using food banks than ever. More people on zero hours and low paid contracts.

Is that supposed to prove me wrong? I said that everybody is getting poorer.

> Wealth inequality is through the roof.

Wealth inequality, while high, is still roughly where it was in 2007. (Source: https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk/)

> If you think the problem with the UK is that rich people are leaving

I said it's a problem, not the problem. And it's not just the ultra-rich who are leaving, but vast swathes of the middle classes. Many poor people would leave too if they had the means.

You and the other replier seem to think I'm defending the status quo. How on earth did I imply that? You think I think it's a good thing for the entire country to get poorer?

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#84

Post by [deleted] »

arrowsmith wrote: post #59
parpfish wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well put. A few decades of compounding inequality transforms what used to be good natured ribbing amongst chums into bullying.

What compounding inequality? The UK's Gini coefficient has been trending downwards since the global financial crisis. 14 years of Conservative government made this country more equal, not less, because they flattened the income distribution by making everybody poorer. The big pattern among rich people in the UK nowadays is not that they're getting richer, it's that they're leaving.

[deleted]

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#85

Post by hnarn »

hkt wrote: post #58
dandellion wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it about keeping you reading for long enough to show you a pop-up for his newsletter?

Just disable JavaScript and get on with your life

Just because these types of annoyances can be easily disabled by someone with a little bit of technical know-how doesn't mean that one doesn't have the right to be annoyed by the tendency and call it out.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#86

Post by lodovic »

amiga386 wrote: post #18

> There’s a website (I won’t link to it) that has kept on running a survey of the worst places in the UK for years and years I will, it's ChavTowns. https://web.archive.org/web/20061013053524/http://www.chavto... Still running as https://www.ilivehere.co.uk/ Also the owner is giving up on it as of the start of this year -- mainly because nobody visits the site; churnalists just freeboot it and they rank higher on goo…

Now that's an interesting trend. It's no longer feasible to have an independent web site, because nobody will visit it because you don't have the page rank. Journalists that do find your site copy your data and may add a link (that noone vists). Their pagerank is much higher, so they get all search engine links and all the ads, for your content.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#87

Post by jl6 »

JimDabell wrote: post #69
jdietrich wrote: post #46

Twenty years ago, I think there was still a sense that we were collectively laughing with each other about the dullness of small towns. We all had the same shops - Woolworths, Dixons, Our Price, BHS. We all had a leisure centre that looked like everyone else's leisure centre. Some towns were better off than others, some towns had parts that you were better off avoiding after dark, but the majority of towns belonged t…

This is what I was going to say. Back then, a book like this would have been perceived as the UK making fun of itself. Now it’s perceived as being cruel to those less fortunate. I think it’s worth putting into context that the economy was doing great in the era this book was first published and huge progress was being made with things like homelessness, inequality, and poverty. It felt like the country had turned a c…

The Gini coefficient of the UK is about the same now as it was then:

https://equalitytrust.org.uk/how-has-inequality-changed/

What has actually changed? A whole bunch of other economic malaise, but also perceptions, amplified to your personal taste by social media.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#88

Post by physicsguy »

I remember laughing at this, my hometown was included it’s worth saying. I suspect the purchasers were largely people who lived in one of the ‘crap towns’

I’m not sure how anyone could have read it and not understood it was a joke. At the same time, I do think that he’s right that it wouldn’t get published today, not because the content wasn’t true, but people are much more quick to take offense over things like this.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#90

Post by Neil44 »

jdietrich wrote: post #46

Twenty years ago, I think there was still a sense that we were collectively laughing with each other about the dullness of small towns. We all had the same shops - Woolworths, Dixons, Our Price, BHS. We all had a leisure centre that looked like everyone else's leisure centre. Some towns were better off than others, some towns had parts that you were better off avoiding after dark, but the majority of towns belonged t…

That seems an extremely cynical take to me, I don't think that's true at all. It divides people into monoliths and makes assumptions then uses those assumptions to restrict and hold back.
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