Father Ted is an immensely popular TV series about priests in Ireland but I don't suppose it has any depths so far as actual belief is concerned and it doesn't depict what priests actually do.
The stupid. It burns.
Okay. So are you saying that Father Ted does have depths regarding belief that I am unaware of and does depict what priests actually do? Or are you pointing out that asking Christians about their beliefs when I intend to exaggerate and misrepresent them to some degree for comic and or dramatic effect is unlikely to end well.
Very shortly after my conversion experience I went to Saturday night mass for the first time in years. I had a numinous moment there and at the end was sitting in the pew still blown away. The Priest, in his 70's and dealing with age and disability, yelled at me from the sacristy to hurry up because he wanted to go home and watch Richmond (the footy) on the telly. He'd obviously been impatiently waiting for me to get out,like all good Catholics do. I knew then that this was a church I could forgive for its wrongdoing.
Father Ted is quintessentially Catholic and quintisenntially Irish. People leave boxes stacked in the middle of the road all the time in Donegal. I am frankly amazed that someone could miss that and still find the show amusing enough to want to watch it. I suppose you think that Gimme Gimme Gimme is unrealistic too.
I wrote a lovely story about Jesus once. He wasn't exactly the protagonist. Worked pretty well, based on analytics and the assumption that "lots of people reading it" = "good".
Look, I don't think the previous clip has captured the essence of the reality portrayed by Gimme Gimme Gimme, and sadly the edit window has closed, so I'm going to have to post just one more.
*points at the aching void where Colin’s empathy should be*
We know it is there. He knows it is there, but thinks it is fine that it is. I started in this with the thought it might not be the gaping hole of it appeared to be, but he's convinced me it truly is.
You can kick him for it. Not sure it means anything to him.
I'm to exhausted to care enough to even know if I want to kick him.
One of Kipling's stories has Jesus in it. He pulls it off.
I challenge the assertion that any of Kipling’s stories successfully pull anything off.
He certainly has some failures, not least (ironically) The Light that Failed, but he was a masterly short story writer of remarkable range as well as an accomplished poet. For me his more farcical tales don’t work, but then neither does most other humour of that vintage. His writing also displays occasionally an unpleasant streak of cruelty. The Nobel Committee did not make an egregious error in awarding him the prize for literature in 1907
While he is, inevitably, a man of his time, his opinions have been widely misunderstood since at least the 1960s and are much more rounded and nuanced than the stereotype of the racist imperialist allows.
I have a volume of war poetry, which contains quite a bit of quasi-epic bloviating nonsense from Kipling, but also (following the death in action of his son) the twenty-line poem 'Gethsemane', which says...plenty, and 'A Dead Statesman' which is even shorter, and really packs a punch...
You've only succeeded in confirming my suspicions that success in writing, as far as you're concerned, is in sales numbers. Any writer who brings in the bucks must be a good writer and a successful one because hey, look at their bank account.
Forty million idiots with a buck to throw at you can't possibly be wrong. De gustibus non es disputandum.
AFF
Actually, not quite. Success in sales is the general measure of quality, yes. But it isn't the target I set myself. I want to succeed at writing the kind of book I want to read and one of the themes of the book I'm working on is the desire to create 'art' versus the demands of commercialism.
There has been a huge amount of misunderstanding about my intentions, some of which I have contributed to, but it would take far too long to try to unravel it all.
Success in sales is the general measure of quality,
McDonalds don't sell more burgers than everyone else because everyone thinks their burgers are quality. They sell on a combination of cost, convenience and consistency.
This isn't a daycare, child. Nobody gives any fucks about your intentions. We care about what you say, how you say it and what it means. Just because you didn't intend to be an empty husk of a haggis, smeared with bullshit where empathy should be, doesn't change that fact that is exactly what you are presenting as.
Actually, not quite. Success in sales is the general measure of quality, yes. But it isn't the target I set myself. I want to succeed at writing the kind of book I want to read and one of the themes of the book I'm working on is the desire to create 'art' versus the demands of commercialism.
There has been a huge amount of misunderstanding about my intentions, some of which I have contributed to, but it would take far too long to try to unravel it all.
Oh my goodness.
Piling one faulty premise on top of another.
So many fallacies to unpack, so little time or inclination.
I suspect that "Take up the white man's burden" is intended as commentary upon imperialism and its perils, and not as praise of same.
It's actually quite difficult to discern. I have always hoped this reading was the correct one. I like to imagine Kipling is taking the piss in Plain Tales from the Hills. But maybe that's what I want to believe.
Look, if all you want is success in sales, there are formulas you can just plug crap into. Sex it up, add tons of wish fulfillment crap, what's hard about that? What keeps most writers away from that is IMHO the desire to write something worth reading, which is much harder.
...Success in sales is the general measure of quality, yes. ...
In the eyes of some, I suppose, but not to most people who actually seek out and read books. I've reviewed some that sold well but were utter dreck; their authors might be successful in a material sense, but not in any literary or artistic way.
There has been a huge amount of misunderstanding about my intentions, some of which I have contributed to, but it would take far too long to try to unravel it all.
You and I both know that "I would but it would take far too long" is every Dunning-Kruger example's way of saying that they have no fucking idea. It's painfully obvious that @Colin Smith is mostly just reacting to the fact that we can see through his bland horribleness as being rooted in shallow idiocy in a way that he denies to himself.
"Joyce was lying on her stretcher in her favourite skimpy bikini, reminiscing about the desire to create 'art' versus the demands of commercialism, when she noticed the poolboy in his short trunks."
"Joyce was lying on her stretcher in her favourite skimpy bikini, reminiscing about the desire to create 'art' versus the demands of commercialism, when she noticed the poolboy in his short trunks."
'Joyce' is your aunt. She needs to be Alyssa or Melanie. 'Stretcher' suggests she's just been airlifted off a mountain and is on her way to hospital. 'Skimpy' rather than 'short'.
Other than that, you're good to go. Tell us when your sales top the million.
"Joyce was lying on her stretcher in her favourite skimpy bikini, reminiscing about the desire to create 'art' versus the demands of commercialism, when she noticed the poolboy in his short trunks."
The pool-boy was reading her favourite French postmodern master, so on an impulse, she said, "are you pleased to see me, or is that the concise Derrida in your pocket?" He snorted, "concise?"
"I'll have you know I have all seven volumes of À la recherche du temps perdu on my shelves. Imagine the width of that." He leaned forward, and Alyssa could feel his breath on her skin. "All. Those. Inches."
"Joyce was lying on her stretcher in her favourite skimpy bikini, reminiscing about the desire to create 'art' versus the demands of commercialism, when she noticed the poolboy in his short trunks."
'Joyce' is your aunt. She needs to be Alyssa or Melanie. 'Stretcher' suggests she's just been airlifted off a mountain and is on her way to hospital. 'Skimpy' rather than 'short'.
Other than that, you're good to go. Tell us when your sales top the million.
I don’t know - “skimpy” twice in the same sentence?
"I'll have you know I have all seven volumes of À la recherche du temps perdu on my shelves. Imagine the width of that." He leaned forward, and Alyssa could feel his breath on her skin. "All. Those. Inches."
There is a rule maybe that everything ends up as porn. Whatevs.
"I'll have you know I have all seven volumes of À la recherche du temps perdu on my shelves. Imagine the width of that." He leaned forward, and Alyssa could feel his breath on her skin. "All. Those. Inches."
“Impressive” Alyssa said breathlessly “my last pool boy only had the complete works of Shakespeare. That said he could fumble his way through the sonnets in a very pleasing manner”
Then the pool-boy said, quoting his favourite line of Shakespeare, shall we talk of country matters? She said, do you mean your head upon my lap, or t'other way round? Whatevs, quoth he, or arsey-versey.
The pool-boy dropped his concise Derrida, and ripped the thin silk from her heaving embonpoint ... oh blast, why am I giving away these trade secrets, that have made me a fortune?
Look, if all you want is success in sales, there are formulas you can just plug crap into. Sex it up, add tons of wish fulfillment crap, what's hard about that? What keeps most writers away from that is IMHO the desire to write something worth reading, which is much harder.
FFS. That isn't want I want so stop misconstruing my words. I want to write the sort of novel I want to read. And I don't read best-sellers. Got it?
The pool-boy dropped his concise Derrida, and ripped the thin silk from her heaving embonpoint ... oh blast, why am I giving away these trade secrets, that have made me a fortune?
…she said, pulling an exiguous towel around her pale shoulders and tossing back the auburn locks falling across her face.
The pool-boy dropped his concise Derrida, and ripped the thin silk from her heaving embonpoint ... oh blast, why am I giving away these trade secrets, that have made me a fortune?
With one bound he was by her side: Nora felt his hot breath on her cheeck as he ripped the thin silk from ... [from Balham, Gateway to the South recorded by Peter Sellars
Not to put too fine a point on it, you're not my reader.
To be blunt, your sense of wordplay is somewhat lacking. Perhaps read my post out loud to a friend or contemporary and have them explain to you what is happening in it.
"Joyce was lying on her stretcher in her favourite skimpy bikini, reminiscing about the desire to create 'art' versus the demands of commercialism, when she noticed the poolboy in his short trunks."
'Joyce' is your aunt. She needs to be Alyssa or Melanie. 'Stretcher' suggests she's just been airlifted off a mountain and is on her way to hospital. 'Skimpy' rather than 'short'.
Other than that, you're good to go. Tell us when your sales top the million.
True - I know no Joyces under seventy. Actually, the Melanies are getting on, as well. Happily, there are a shedload of Madisons coming through to replace them. Perhaps 'her eye fell upon', in place of 'noticed'? The 'irresistible lure' of commercialism? Tight trunks might also be more apposite than short ones (though I guess it's a question of just how short we are talking...)
The place is coming down in ripped silk. Though actually not a fabric much used in the manufacture of bathing costumes. OTOH, ripping Lycra is Not Easy. Shall we go with 'slid'?
Joyce Alyssa Nora Madison slid tanned shoulders free of the straps of her bikini, while Nameless Pool Boy's trunks slipped ever lower on his muscular -
Joyce Alyssa Nora Madison slid tanned shoulders free of the straps of her bikini, while Nameless Pool Boy's trunks slipped ever lower on his muscular -
"God - kids these days," grumbled Joyce's husband, on the lounger next to her, as he adjusted his hirsute paunch, "pull up your damn pants, boy - we can just about see all the way to glory!"
This talk about Joyce and the pool-boy's slipping trunks reminds me of (I think) Alan Bennett complaining about these and the refusal of knitted swimwear to stay up. (Perhaps this model's physique owes more to rationing than to the gym...)
"Not without some effort, Joyce's husband arose from the lounger and, as far as his stiffened joints and shrunken costume would allow, squared up to the young interloper. 'Come on lad, let's get over to the changing booths and I'll lend you my spare one piece.'"
Comments
Very shortly after my conversion experience I went to Saturday night mass for the first time in years. I had a numinous moment there and at the end was sitting in the pew still blown away. The Priest, in his 70's and dealing with age and disability, yelled at me from the sacristy to hurry up because he wanted to go home and watch Richmond (the footy) on the telly. He'd obviously been impatiently waiting for me to get out,like all good Catholics do. I knew then that this was a church I could forgive for its wrongdoing.
Father Ted is quintessentially Catholic and quintisenntially Irish. People leave boxes stacked in the middle of the road all the time in Donegal. I am frankly amazed that someone could miss that and still find the show amusing enough to want to watch it. I suppose you think that Gimme Gimme Gimme is unrealistic too.
Father Ted
Gimme Gimme Gimme
Oh, man, I was hoping someone would link True Facts about Morgan Freeman!
You can kick him for it. Not sure it means anything to him.
I'm to exhausted to care enough to even know if I want to kick him.
While he is, inevitably, a man of his time, his opinions have been widely misunderstood since at least the 1960s and are much more rounded and nuanced than the stereotype of the racist imperialist allows.
Actually, not quite. Success in sales is the general measure of quality, yes. But it isn't the target I set myself. I want to succeed at writing the kind of book I want to read and one of the themes of the book I'm working on is the desire to create 'art' versus the demands of commercialism.
There has been a huge amount of misunderstanding about my intentions, some of which I have contributed to, but it would take far too long to try to unravel it all.
This isn't a daycare, child. Nobody gives any fucks about your intentions. We care about what you say, how you say it and what it means. Just because you didn't intend to be an empty husk of a haggis, smeared with bullshit where empathy should be, doesn't change that fact that is exactly what you are presenting as.
Oh my goodness.
Piling one faulty premise on top of another.
So many fallacies to unpack, so little time or inclination.
AFF
It's actually quite difficult to discern. I have always hoped this reading was the correct one. I like to imagine Kipling is taking the piss in Plain Tales from the Hills. But maybe that's what I want to believe.
In the eyes of some, I suppose, but not to most people who actually seek out and read books. I've reviewed some that sold well but were utter dreck; their authors might be successful in a material sense, but not in any literary or artistic way.
Oh, give it a try!
Very funny.
You and I both know that "I would but it would take far too long" is every Dunning-Kruger example's way of saying that they have no fucking idea. It's painfully obvious that @Colin Smith is mostly just reacting to the fact that we can see through his bland horribleness as being rooted in shallow idiocy in a way that he denies to himself.
'Joyce' is your aunt. She needs to be Alyssa or Melanie. 'Stretcher' suggests she's just been airlifted off a mountain and is on her way to hospital. 'Skimpy' rather than 'short'.
Other than that, you're good to go. Tell us when your sales top the million.
The pool-boy was reading her favourite French postmodern master, so on an impulse, she said, "are you pleased to see me, or is that the concise Derrida in your pocket?" He snorted, "concise?"
On the other hand, why not?!
There is a rule maybe that everything ends up as porn. Whatevs.
“Impressive” Alyssa said breathlessly “my last pool boy only had the complete works of Shakespeare. That said he could fumble his way through the sonnets in a very pleasing manner”
AFF
I bet Jeffrey Archer is.
FFS. That isn't want I want so stop misconstruing my words. I want to write the sort of novel I want to read. And I don't read best-sellers. Got it?
This needs a re-write. The motivation feels off, and the pacing is a mess. Too histrionic.
Not to put too fine a point on it, you're not my reader.
I admit it contains a glaring typo.
With one bound he was by her side: Nora felt his hot breath on her cheeck as he ripped the thin silk from ... [from Balham, Gateway to the South recorded by Peter Sellars
To be blunt, your sense of wordplay is somewhat lacking. Perhaps read my post out loud to a friend or contemporary and have them explain to you what is happening in it.
He doesn’t give a damn
He’s can’t recognise a human
I think perhaps I can.
See the dodgy writer
He does not care for depth,
He wished to be a writer
But lacks the basic sense.
See the silly Christians
Any stereotype will do
God forbid he listens
He might make something new.
True - I know no Joyces under seventy. Actually, the Melanies are getting on, as well. Happily, there are a shedload of Madisons coming through to replace them. Perhaps 'her eye fell upon', in place of 'noticed'? The 'irresistible lure' of commercialism? Tight trunks might also be more apposite than short ones (though I guess it's a question of just how short we are talking...)
Joyce Alyssa Nora Madison slid tanned shoulders free of the straps of her bikini, while Nameless Pool Boy's trunks slipped ever lower on his muscular -
"God - kids these days," grumbled Joyce's husband, on the lounger next to her, as he adjusted his hirsute paunch, "pull up your damn pants, boy - we can just about see all the way to glory!"
AFF
"Not without some effort, Joyce's husband arose from the lounger and, as far as his stiffened joints and shrunken costume would allow, squared up to the young interloper. 'Come on lad, let's get over to the changing booths and I'll lend you my spare one piece.'"
I was thinking arms. Or neck. Lots of possibilities.