Author Topic: Capt Tom RIP  (Read 12193 times)

Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #25 on: 03 February, 2021, 01:58:13 pm »
What he did was great. The knighthood and promotion were fitting. RIP

Hi-jacking... Johnson's a cunt.

You're being a bit unkind to cunts, there.

Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #26 on: 03 February, 2021, 02:00:50 pm »
I'm going to go against the grain here,

Yes it's sad someone has died, and it's good that his fundraising provided some hope for people in dark times.

I know a lot of people who have spent their entire lives supporting charities, arguably making far more of a contribution (probably not financially) and end up with no recognition, no public adulation, no birthday honours. What makes captain tom better than them, more deserving of the almost sycophantic hero worship he's receiving?
+1. You're not the only one thinking that.

Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #27 on: 03 February, 2021, 02:20:43 pm »
What he did was great. The knighthood and promotion were fitting. RIP

Hi-jacking... Johnson's a cunt.

He walked up and down his garden, had the media not latched onto it he would have raised a couple hundred quid supported by his family and friends.

I know people who have given decades of voluntary service on top of work and families helping scores of people, who have had nothing apart from the appreciation from the people they have helped.  One of which I nominated for an honour, 2 years of effort it took to get an OBE. Others I've tried with; turned down for not making enough of a difference.

Was Toms effort equivalent to 50 years of voluntary service to multiple charities?

Somewhat of a professional tea drinker.


offcumden

  • Oh, no!
Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #28 on: 03 February, 2021, 02:30:56 pm »
^^^^^ My feelings, too.

ian

Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #29 on: 03 February, 2021, 02:34:27 pm »
I don't begrudge him a good final year (when otherwise it would have been the pretty shit final year of COVID house arrest).

I begrudge that he was co-opted as Government PR.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #30 on: 03 February, 2021, 02:48:11 pm »
Was Toms effort equivalent to 50 years of voluntary service to multiple charities?

Hmmm. You're coming across as somewhat churlish here.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Ruthie

  • Her Majester
Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #31 on: 03 February, 2021, 03:09:34 pm »
He personified the stereotype of ‘heroic British grit’, being one of the dwindling generation  who won WWII with no help whatsoever from the US. A chest full of medals, a dignified bearing, displaying genuine personal humility, and choosing at an advanced age to raise money for the national second religion. (The first being kicktheball).  This was at a time when Mr. Johnson thought he was channelling WSChurchill.  In the celebration year for VE Day. A kind of perfect storm of National Kitsch, at a time of genuine existential fear and threat.

He really did seem like a lovely man.  I might get out and clap him. People like him should be celebrated. BJ can shut up though.
Milk please, no sugar.

Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #32 on: 03 February, 2021, 03:45:13 pm »
Was Toms effort equivalent to 50 years of voluntary service to multiple charities?

Hmmm. You're coming across as somewhat churlish here.

No he isn't. He is bang on the money.

The guy walked up and down his garden.  And for this he was feted as a national hero and some sort of symbol of the NHS, and the plucky Brit. It isn't just the fact he was 100 that played into the myth making. It was all the military stuff too. World War 2. Medals. Captain (none of your NCO scum).

None of this is his fault, and good on him for walking up and down his garden, but there are many more people who have done much more and for much longer. The 'Captain Tom' thing is a media creation and I'm not buying into the myth making, especially if that cunt Johnson stands to benefit by osmosis.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #33 on: 03 February, 2021, 03:46:12 pm »
A kind of perfect storm of National Kitsch, at a time of genuine existential fear and threat.

I think that pretty much sums it up.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #34 on: 03 February, 2021, 03:49:20 pm »
The guy walked up and down his garden.  And for this he was feted as a national hero and some sort of symbol of the NHS, and the plucky Brit. It isn't just the fact he was 100 that played into the myth making. It was all the military stuff too. World War 2. Medals. Captain (none of your NCO scum).

None of this is his fault, and good on him for walking up and down his garden, but there are many more people who have done much more and for much longer. The 'Captain Tom' thing is a media creation and I'm not buying into the myth making.

I bet you're one of those heartless bastards who didn't make the pilgrimage to put flowers outside Kensington Palace when Diana died too.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #35 on: 03 February, 2021, 03:52:37 pm »
The guy walked up and down his garden.  And for this he was feted as a national hero and some sort of symbol of the NHS, and the plucky Brit. It isn't just the fact he was 100 that played into the myth making. It was all the military stuff too. World War 2. Medals. Captain (none of your NCO scum).

None of this is his fault, and good on him for walking up and down his garden, but there are many more people who have done much more and for much longer. The 'Captain Tom' thing is a media creation and I'm not buying into the myth making.

I bet you're one of those heartless bastards who didn't make the pilgrimage to put flowers outside Kensington Palace when Diana died too.

Didnt get the chance. I hadn't returned from a work trip to Paris.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #36 on: 03 February, 2021, 03:59:09 pm »
Didnt get the chance. I hadn't returned from a work trip to Paris.

Too soon.  :'(
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #37 on: 03 February, 2021, 04:08:43 pm »
Was Toms effort equivalent to 50 years of voluntary service to multiple charities?

Hmmm. You're coming across as somewhat churlish here.

No he isn't. He is bang on the money.

The guy walked up and down his garden.  And for this he was feted as a national hero and some sort of symbol of the NHS, and the plucky Brit. It isn't just the fact he was 100 that played into the myth making. It was all the military stuff too. World War 2. Medals. Captain (none of your NCO scum).

None of this is his fault, and good on him for walking up and down his garden, but there are many more people who have done much more and for much longer. The 'Captain Tom' thing is a media creation and I'm not buying into the myth making, especially if that cunt Johnson stands to benefit by osmosis.

At that point in the pandemic, there was a lot of fear and anger amongst key workers about the crapness of UK PPE provision, with lots of media reports of people wearing bin bags and a lot of concern about having to wear surgical masks when PPF3 would have been preferable.

NHS staff and carers, in particular, were becoming infected and dying because of limited PPE and incorrect practices in the early stages of the pandemic. The Tories wanted to make sure this didn't reflect badly on them, and one of the ways they did this was by making use of the language of war. The purpose of this was to encourage people to believe that working for the NHS was heroic. This was not in order to promote positive views of NHS workers, it was much more malign. It was to help persuade people that deaths in NHS service was part and parcel of the job, by nudging people to think of them as soldier-like. This had the effect of reducing public pressure to improve matters.

And along comes Captain Tom.

He did strike me as likeable individual, but the rest of it leaves me cold.

Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #38 on: 03 February, 2021, 04:12:37 pm »
I have respect for everybody who goes above and beyond, who gives something back to our society.  I also happen to agree with davelodwig that there are literally thousands, maybe millions who do far far more for no recognition although in many ways people who are of that nature are also genuinely humble, modest and unassuming as well as inadvertently part of the fascist big society agenda.

I also loathe the way that bozo is playing politics here.  Cpt. Tom's endeavours were to support the NHS, the very same NHS that bozo's fascists have spent the last decade underfunding and covertly trying to privatise.  bozo and his fascist mates will still be wanting to do this once covid has passed: let's not conveniently forget this.

RIP Cpt. Tom.

I will not be clapping as part of bozo&co's political hijacking stunt this evening either.  Doesn't mean that I don't have some genuine respect for the man.

Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #39 on: 03 February, 2021, 04:26:26 pm »
In the UK you have roughly a 1:5,000 chance you’ll die from pneumonia.

Not when you're 100.

Indeed 58% of cases of pneumonia are 81 or over and 42% are under 81. Of the deaths 95% are 81 or over.  So although getting pneumonia is spread across the age ranges , the elderly are disproportionately affected when it comes to deaths.

Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #40 on: 03 February, 2021, 04:52:03 pm »
Apparently he had given a lot of support to his old regiment over the years, he wasn't a one-trick merchant.

He just happened to catch the public mood, aided by the media, so I don't begrudge his acclaim, he didn't let it go to his head.

But I am certainly not doing anything promoted by my local MP, our Vainglorious Leader. High time he found that ditch......

ian

Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #41 on: 03 February, 2021, 04:54:22 pm »
The guy walked up and down his garden.  And for this he was feted as a national hero and some sort of symbol of the NHS, and the plucky Brit. It isn't just the fact he was 100 that played into the myth making. It was all the military stuff too. World War 2. Medals. Captain (none of your NCO scum).

None of this is his fault, and good on him for walking up and down his garden, but there are many more people who have done much more and for much longer. The 'Captain Tom' thing is a media creation and I'm not buying into the myth making.

I bet you're one of those heartless bastards who didn't make the pilgrimage to put flowers outside Kensington Palace when Diana died too.

I did and nicked some for my mum's birthday.

Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #42 on: 03 February, 2021, 05:10:37 pm »
I have respect for everybody who goes above and beyond, who gives something back to our society.  I also happen to agree with davelodwig that there are literally thousands, maybe millions who do far far more for no recognition although in many ways people who are of that nature are also genuinely humble, modest and unassuming as well as inadvertently part of the fascist big society agenda.

I also loathe the way that bozo is playing politics here.  Cpt. Tom's endeavours were to support the NHS, the very same NHS that bozo's fascists have spent the last decade underfunding and covertly trying to privatise.  bozo and his fascist mates will still be wanting to do this once covid has passed: let's not conveniently forget this.

RIP Cpt. Tom.

I will not be clapping as part of bozo&co's political hijacking stunt this evening either.  Doesn't mean that I don't have some genuine respect for the man.

Sums it up for me. 

ps  Never understood why people don't take the wrapper off floral tributes.  Heaps of cellophane-wrapped flowers look too much like fly-tipping.

Move Faster and Bake Things

ian

Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #43 on: 03 February, 2021, 05:14:34 pm »
I won't be. Nice chap but it ain't about him.

I didn't do the clapping anyway, I figured a fair number of them voted for the current clown cabaret and would do so again tomorrow, and given a choice between paying for the NHS or putting another Range Rover Evoque on the driveway would cheerful deliver their fuck-you to the NHS. But hey, they're clapping.

Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #44 on: 03 February, 2021, 05:31:52 pm »
Was Toms effort equivalent to 50 years of voluntary service to multiple charities?

Hmmm. You're coming across as somewhat churlish here.

No he isn't. He is bang on the money.

The guy walked up and down his garden.  And for this he was feted as a national hero and some sort of symbol of the NHS, and the plucky Brit. It isn't just the fact he was 100 that played into the myth making. It was all the military stuff too. World War 2. Medals. Captain (none of your NCO scum).

None of this is his fault, and good on him for walking up and down his garden, but there are many more people who have done much more and for much longer. The 'Captain Tom' thing is a media creation and I'm not buying into the myth making, especially if that cunt Johnson stands to benefit by osmosis.

Agree with all of this.

I cannot help but wonder if you replace Capn Tom with a working class black woman from the Windrush generation (and of the same age) doing the same they would have been given the same adulation?

Somehow I doubt it. I have no doubt the "WW2" angle and the myth of "stiff upper lip" was a big part of it methinks. They found someone who ticked all the boxes- service in WW2, was of a class where he was an officer, was still in the British Legion looking back stuff, was white and male. And happened to be doing a good thing. 

GC

Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #45 on: 03 February, 2021, 05:49:47 pm »
All of the stories jump straight from him deciding to fundraise to having raised millions. There's a bit missing in the middle where presumably someone with some media savvy made phonecalls to newspapers or someone setup a Twitter account for him and someone famous retweeted him.

That person deserves a growth-hacking medal.

Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #46 on: 03 February, 2021, 06:04:07 pm »
My street was silent.
Although I could hear a dribble of applause from a distance.

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #47 on: 03 February, 2021, 06:14:32 pm »
Didn’t hear a thing over the Nogweegie DETH metal…
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

ian

Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #48 on: 03 February, 2021, 06:23:08 pm »
There were some strange whistling noises. I honestly thought it was foxes fucking until just now, and realised it's after 6pm.

It's what he would have wanted, a last symphony of vulpine amour.

Re: Capt Tom RIP
« Reply #49 on: 03 February, 2021, 06:32:28 pm »
There were three maybe two maybe only one people trying to make it a thing. They didn't make it a thing.