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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 1h

Absolutely. "Lesser breeds without the law" isn't really a phrase that's salvageable, but it is interesting that the breeds in question were the Germans, and the law they were without was Kipling's idea of Christianity-infused imperialism.

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 1h

And that's without getting into lines like

"Ship me somewhere east of Suez
Where the best is like the worst,
Where there ain't no Ten Commandments
And a man can slake his thirst"
Nasty.

Bloody good poems though, especially to sing.

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 1h

I sympathise, but it really Will Not Do. He's an imperialist to the bone, a patriotic mystic, and every bit as racist as the next Edwardian. Recessional could only be written by an imperialist - and Gunga Din by a racist. It's just that he was a thoughtful, sensitive, principled imperialist/racist.

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 1h

There's an odd little cottage industry in musical settings of Kipling poems among folkies, and every so often - folkies being largely well-intentioned Guardian readers - someone says that Kipling was a lot more complex and thoughtful and dare I say it progressive than we think, I mean for his day...

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 8h

No accommodation for Scots, or for its Very Serious Absolutely Definitely A Real Language cousin over the water?
I'm slightly surprised Scots Gaelic is favoured; I'd have thought the areas where Gaelic competence will get you through the day are small indeed, and quite a way from a port of entry.

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 8h

Offering kids forms of poetry that they can actually write is also good, of course, and should probably come first.

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 8h

And this is why [piggybacking with my own unhinged take] getting kids to read a lot of iambic pentameter is good, not bad; it gets your brain thinking of words as things that can be swapped in and out, and it makes you hear the rhythm of a sentence.

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 8h

"or Welsh in Wales" is the easy one, though; I wouldn't blame the HO for not wanting to go near the other two.

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Reposted by Phil Edwards

Pwnallthethings @pwnallthethings.bsky.social · 9h

One of the downsides of the UK not having a strong culture or priority of learning languages is that what they mean is "speak/read at roughly B2 level" but most people don't know what that means, so we will now have 8000 takes about how they will need to write essays on comparative literature or w/e

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 13h

To me the point is that, for the vast majority of individual books, there's no way of knowing whether it's Dan Brown-esque in quality and profusion of copies, or something that it would be a genuine shame to stop someone else reading. I automatically err on the side of caution.

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 13h

I still don't get it - those are things people do for fun, to express themselves and to develop skills - but I guess it explains why his reaction to AI isn't to run away screaming.
As mine is:
bsky.app/profile/phil...

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · Jul 29

Google's "AI summaries" now come with links to what's ostensibly their source material, so you can check how good the "summary" is.

I googled "magnetic fields bassist" the other day, being curious about who'd played bass with the Magnetic Fields in their early gigs. AI Summary says: Dave Hernandez.

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 13h

A friend of mine thinks genAI is great (I think it's a machine for producing misinformation). Listening to him, I realised he was only using it for things with no truth-value - "show me a picture of X", "write a song with this title".

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 13h

On the blog: some thoughts on accountability, the path of least resistance and why managers are always right.

"that’s the thing about argument 2: it tends to deliver, because it works by redefining what ‘deliver’ means"

gapingsilence.wordpress.com/2025/10/09/o...

On barons and libraries

Here are two thoughts that occurred to me recently. They’re not obviously connected, but I’ll see if I can do something to tie them together when we get to part 3. 1. There Are Always B…

gapingsilence.wordpress.com

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 15h

Sounds like she's had that "protest"(!) streak for a while.

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 15h

I read a review of Maddy P in concert once; the reviewer said he'd been hoping for a bit more in the pretty ploughboy, lark in the morning vein, and fewer songs about how the village shop had closed and you had to pay for plastic bags and windmils spoil the view and the government didn't care.

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 15h

That's weird and unpleasant (on many levels). It's interesting that the chorus is an appeal to everyone from Tories to Maoists(!), but the verses are one long rant about all the ways They were trampling on good old English freedoms. Brexit libertarianism, in 1980...!

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 1d

Is it though? Mostly about roads being indirect as I recall - weird thing to celebrate, but there you go.

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 1d

9. Spectral Mornings - Cornershop
10. Stagger - Underworld

And my free CDs were
Beck - Sea Change
Beth Orton - Daybreaker and
Simian - We Are Your Friends

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 1d

Here's my list, out of interest:
1. Dry The Rain-The Beta Band
2. Land - Patti Smith
3. All I Ever Really Wanted Was A Good Time - My Computer
4. Timeless - Goldie
5. Out-Bloody-Rageous - Soft Machine
6. Moya - Godspeed You Black Emperor!
7. Winter - The Fall
8. Why Don't You Eat Carrots? - Faust

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 1d

Post you from a different era (2002)

The local paper used to run a 'Readers' chart', in association with a music shop that *only sold CDs* (modern!); you sent in an interesting list of ten tracks, they gave you three albums (on CD, mind).

I had this taken to go with it, in a photo booth.

Photo-booth picture of Phil from 2002, back in the days when I wore my hair long (not shown) and looked younger than I was. (42 here, I reckon. See what I mean?) Ignore the weird blemish on the left of the picture, it's a photographic artifact.

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 1d

Wow. Smuggling that in with the likes of Stiff Little Fingers and Young Marble Giants – even with the likes of Throbbing Gristle and the Birthday Party – is a crime against the audience.

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 1d

Can't decide if I like the musical choice or not - a bit of me thinks it's not in the spirit of the thing, because why would anyone choose to listen to that in the first place? I've got a copy and have played it once; I remember it made me feel physically sick, which is good going for a 7" single.

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 1d

You're not wrong.

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 1d

The AirBnB owner listened to their story, then shrugged and said "sucks to be you" or wtte. And went out.

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 1d

My son & his partner hit a crisis when they were AirBnB'ing round Italy once; I forget the details, but the upshot was that they urgently needed to know where the $X was in that town, whether it would be open and also what the word for $Y was. The kind of thing most hotel receptionists would handle.

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