Grim Britannia

[luka]

the tat and tawdriness of those glamour images from the 80s throw a light on the corresponding tat and tawdriness of today. and so we romanticise what we think of the authenticity and poverty of the 70s, the years our parents were building their lives.

 

[Corpsey]

Mind you I'm younger than you lot so perhaps we have a different perspective

I love the music from the 70s but it looked like quite a horrible time to be alive really

My dad was telling me yesterday about growing up in the 50s and how awful it was. There were 3 radio stations and they were the olde worlde equivalent of Radio 2, Radio 3 and Radio 4.

 

[luka]

Horrible coming out of the clean world into the rubbish strewn world

Suddenly you're in ASDA, the contactless isn't working properly, it's all very 1970s and you yearn to escape back to cleanworld

it's true as regards the initial shock. but with time you recalibrate. this is illustrated by the rail journey from st pancras to paris. you step out into france and recoil. there's goats roaming the streets picking through the litter, there's graffiti on every surface.

 

[Corpsey]

It's really hard to get your head around growing up in the UK and pop music not being played on the radio.

I guess there was an analogous situation in the 90s with radio not playing jungle/hardcore.

I basically came of age in a world where you could fairly easily access that stuff on mainstream radio.

 

[luka]

but once you adjust London starts to seem grotesque, a kind of failed Singapore, scrubbed clean and all its dark secrets hidden behind closed doors.

 

[luka]

the implicit authoritarianism and meek obdience of London becomes apparent in those clean surfaces and new buildings

 

[luka]

you realise what the flawless image conceals, what the price of it is.

 

[luka]

this is why vim and craner were diagnosing this oppression by image, and a desperate longing to revolt against it, an iconoclastic desire to smash it, so we needn't compete with it, try and live up to it.

 

[craner]

Loving these glamour shots craner

With the right hashtags you could easily have 20k followers posting those

I'll post some more later, I have to go to a high power board meeting now.

 

[luka]

has anyone noticed the panorama doubling? did craner do it on purpose?

 

[vimothy]

zizek is always going on about how contemporary consumerism has a timid quality and never "goes to the end". its sterile and healthy and lacks the very thing you want to enjoy - coffee without caffeine, diet coke, alcohol free beer, low fat chocolate, etc.

 

[luka]

consumerism is founded on a frivilous attitude to money and to objects. this is why it is opposed by the Corbynite morality of the scratchy jersy and the tea in a thermos.

 

[luka]

it's unlikely that this will survive the economic repercussions of coronavirus. so we may well be going back to a kind of 1970s. best case scenario, a return to the '70s. worst case, apocolypse.

 

[luka]

the revolution that brought fashion to the high street at affordable prices and resulted in everyone in the country being better dressed and more attractive also meant no item of clothing that lasts for more than a year.

 

[luka]

 

[vimothy]

yeah but why is our hedonism so unenjoyable. it's like hedonism, but you can't take pleasure in it bc that would be unhealthy

 

[luka]

yeah but why is our hedonism so unenjoyable. it's like hedonism, but you can't take pleasure in it bc that would be unhealthy

zizek is always going on about it being a duty. is that what you think?

 

[luka]

we buy the image but we receive the object and become disgusted with it

 

[luka]

or rather we desire the image but can only buy the object.

 

[luka]

what do you think woops?