I hope DB doesn’t mind, but his comments on the latest Mark Easton drivel bear putting up here. I know that not a few other comments could be similarly worthy. Pot luck really, but as I steer clear of reading Easton for the very smug, ignorant, conformist liberalism which DB notes, it seems fair’s fair to highlight it.
With US First Lady Michelle Obama ploughing the White House lawn to plant organic vegetables, with climate change making lawn maintenance more problematic in Britain, with the fashion for the natural and with a global economic downturn, it may be that what was once a status-symbol is now a little bit naff.
The pampered lawn looks increasingly like an unsustainable relic from an era of excess.
Gratuitous mention of the Obamas – check. Climate change reference – check. Bit of leftie ideology – check. And all in the space of two sentences about English lawns. Good going, Mark. Of course, to be a perfect encapsulation of BBC journalism you needed a couple more items:
The pampered lawn looks increasingly like an unsustainable relic from an era of excess, a throwback to the dark days of George W. Bush, and as out of place in the landscape as a partition barrier in Israel.
The last points are just a little extrapolation ;-), btw.
Where are the defenders of the indefensible now? Nah, you're just cherry picking! The bias is in our minds!!
"I hope DB doesn't mind…"
Don't mind at all. Honoured, actually.
DB, your comment is still there. I wonder if some defender of the indefensible will see ed's post and rush over to report it to the BBC mods.
A hymn of praise to the delights of the suburban lawn, a bit of horticultural history and…zut alors, monstrous BBC bias…
Do you guys wear special lenses that filter out common sense? Or just snort something which makes you itchy and paranoid?
Anonymous
3:53 PM, June 23, 2009
No lenses, not snorting, not itchy, and not paranoid. Also, not inclined to cram fashionable leftie talking points into a discussion about lawns.
So , now we know, Beeboids don't have lawns.
Fashionable leftie talking points:
1. Growing your own vegetables
2. The economic depression
3. The First Lady of the US
Climate change, perhaps? Yes, if the overwhelming number of leading scientists were all singing the Red Flag. But they're not…
Next it will be repeats of The Good Life.
Oh I'm sorry they already do that.
Your licence tax in action. Endless, wall to wall repeats.
Fashionable leftie talking points:
1. The Obamas
2. Climate change. (Yes, if the overwhelming number of scaremongers and activists are advocating big increases in taxation, wealth re-distribution and big government control. And they are…)
3. "era of excess"
Ah, The BBC and the chattering classes in their shoddy Victorian terraces, costing millions. Their concrete jungle with nowhere for heavy rains to soak away, kids to play on, picnics to enjoy and the wonderful young pastime of canoodling on a green sward under a summer sun. Mad and desperately lazy, the lot of them.
Sorry Oldrightie, but it seems very unfair to label playing kids, picnickers and canoodling couples mad and desperately lazy.
Can't people have a little fun?
With the BBC it's always "what's the latest bourgeois symbol we can find to trash?"
I've little doubt it's spontaneous though in cases like this.
It's not so much a train of thought as a leftist brain fart.
Hey, they can concrete 'em all over for me, as I have a genetically programmed hatred of all things gardening related.
That said my daughter said "oh I'll cut your lawn dad" this afternoon. And she did. When I got home it looked like the horticultural equivalent of a bad haircut…
So, bring on the revolution, if it means losing my lawn…
Easton is just full of crap. He probably can't think of any more ways to lie to us about violent crime.
Here's a tip Easton. Piss off.
So , now we know, Beeboids don't have lawns.
No, they have decking and 'water features' and a space where they grow tiny, bug-ridden vegetables, built by 'designers' like that annoying, semi-literate shitheel who calls himself City Gardener who was watching that equally annoying semi-literate shitheel Jamie 'I've got a head like a sack of spuds' Oliver on tee-vee one day when he had his eureka moment: 'Holy shit! I can do this. But with plants and that. Now I can make a living even though I'm dumber than a box of rocks and have no discernable skills or talents. Whatever my name is, you've done it again!'
…with climate change making lawn maintenance more problematic in Britain…
Right. All of this rain makes it a real bastard to mow. Wet grass clogs the mower up something fierce.
Of course one of the earliest 'organic farming' campaigners was Himmler and one of the World's largest ever organic farms was at Dachau concentration camp.
Just a thought.
What do liberals want with lawns?West London has all the green it needs – Richmond Park and Wimbledon Common, accessible from every point of the BBC West London empire, from Barnes, East Sheen and Richmond to Putney to Kew and Wimbledon. And of course Ealing Common.
Down here we have a handkerchief covered in dogshit, battlegrounds for ferral youth gang and drug wars, or cottaging centres and rapist lairs.We need our gardens because its not safe to go out doors in Brown's Britain.
More gushing media coverage for the world's most influential gardener:
ABC's Robin Roberts conducted two fawning interviews with Michelle Obama on Tuesday and repeatedly reminded viewers that the First Lady would be tending to the White House garden as soon as the segment was completed. Roberts breathlessly explained, "I caught up with Michelle Obama for an exclusive interview as she was heading outside to work in the White House garden…"
In a second Good Morning America piece, Roberts reiterated, "Again, I talked to her right before she was about to tend to the White House Garden." After discussing healthy living and childhood obesity, the GMA co-host cheered, "And she was casually dressed because she was literally heading out to the garden there at the White House that she planted with kids from a local elementary school…"
Communists don't aprove of lawns – they were a sign of prosperity. When the working classes used their garden for growing vegatables (from nesesity) the rich merchants would plant a lawn for recreation. This, to the communists was another sign of decadance.
Typical BBC mind set. Another symbol of English prosperity whch has to be attacked.
DB quotes """And she was casually dressed because she was literally heading out to the garden there at the White House that she planted with kids from a local elementary school…"
I hope she remembered to plant them nice and deep with a layer of manure.
Picking on Mark Easton as biased is pretty stupid – the one notable BBC journalist who repeatedly questions government figures
I'm afraid it is you who are 'pretty stupid', Tarquin.
Easton criticises the government from the Left .
It's just a different kind of bias. But it's bias, none the less.
So now it's a different kind of bias…I see
2 opposing views…yup, definitely bias
No, just one kind of bias. Leftie bias.
Unremitting leftie bias from "reporters", presenters, "comedians", BBC drama etc etc etc.
"2 opposing views…yup, definitely bias".
That's rather like avoiding a pro-Hamas bias by having an Al Qaida supporter denounce them as not militant enough, or avoiding a communist bias by having a Maoist attack the Soviet Union as rightist.