Which sort of implies it was a white people thing that was influenced by black culture but not when it was too black.

I can see why you might think that from reading about it in 2024 but I’d suggest to you that the tempo slowdown is the major factor. Ska is an uptempo party music. Rocksteady slowed the tempo down and Reggae generally kept the tempo at that slower pace.

Also there was a progression of people leaving skinhead for rock following more high energy bands like The Who and The Small Faces and going through the psychedelic changes into Rock at the end of the sixties.

The fans of ska had no problem with reggae, especially Bob Marley, who was collaborating with Mick Jagger in no time. It’s just they’d moved on from skinhead because the scene had become much more associated with violence. There was also the very deliberate efforts of the National Front to recruit football supporters during the early 70s heyday of football hooliganism. A lot of the people that were into violence were attracted to the second wave of skinhead just as cultural changes to the music in Jamaica and the UK meant that a lot of the first wave were evolving into mods and then some of them hippies and eventually you see the emergence of street punk at the end of the 70s.

As for Rastafarianism, that was not at the time a dogmatic religion like Catholicism or the Moonies but arose out of cultural immersion and community practice in the places in Jamaica where most of its adherents lived. I don’t think it is a matter of being too black, it’s just that it’s very specific to Jamaica and eventually the Jamaican diaspora.

Edit: It’s no accident that the third wave of skinhead was kickstarted by Two Tone and was explicitly multi-racial and also that Two Tone harked back to uptempo ska.

Meanwhile in the Pentagon: ‘Autonomous drones you say…’

UKs 70 year olds are far less likely than their American counterparts to share Christian memes. They share different kinds of reactionary memes suggesting that ‘woke’ and what they think is hilarious to call ‘elf and safety’ are the causes of why things are so shit now rather than looking somewhat closer to home.

I saw yesterday that there’s a strong protection from the vaccine against Long Covid. Perhaps that would give him more time to contemplate his foolishness.

Unmiscegenated - I’d bet there’s plenty misogyny flying about in those voids.

Why does there even need to be a COP every year? They know what to do, they know what will be enough and they have the authority in their home nations to do it. COP is just theatre.

This is amazing, I had never heard of this artist before and his work is fantastic in every sense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Wars

Far as that cat is concerned they’re the real star in that picture and the strange human is just photo-bombing.

Now all we need is for the CIA to take responsibility for the Islamic State and the circle of life (and death) is complete.

Scares the beejesus out of me.

US once again threatening jihadis with a good time. Anyone else read the news story about how the Taliban fighters are all depressed to find themselves as civil servants? That’s how to deter people.

Similar thing happened back in the 80’s at a Sorting Office where I worked. The letters, then, were sorted into a 48 box fitting. They took a row of 48 box fittings down and discovered a postcard that was alleged to be 100 years old. I think they had a little ceremony with the living descendants of the addressee. This was when the Royal Mail prided itself on delivering the mail.

Fellow Europeans (and Brits) Mirror

Those costumes are only worn on the State opening of Parliament (which is kinda like Halloween for politicians) and even then only by certain people fulfilling certain ceremonial roles e.g. Black Rod.

Where wigs and gowns were a daily occurrence, until recently, was Crown Court where serious criminal trials were held. The rules changed a couple of years ago.

Now that’s a Jod I could jet behind.

And even if there were a mechanism, the Kennedys are Democratic royalty.

Always. If inflation runs away, the poor suffer. If we get stuck in a deflationary cycle the poor suffer. Apparently it is impossible to construct an equitable system that works without gross inequality (spoiler: it isn’t but some people love inequality and will do anything to prevent things being distributed more equally.)

It provides a reason for them not to just “take their ball and go home” once they have a pile of money.

If that’s the reason for it it’s not doing its job. Investments are much like savings to high net worth individuals and their investments are managed by someone else and they simply lay in the cut and collect dividends. Yes there is a risk to investments but if you’re in a good wealth fund then over time you’re almost guaranteed to win even if you have disastrous months here and there.

Yes, this is true but you also have to factor in the marginal propensity to consume, or in plain English, the poorer you are the more of your income you have to spend on necessities like rent or groceries.

There are always high interest investments available to people with a large amounts of spare cash floating about even when inflation is low.

If your rent + utilities + food = your income then you ain’t hoarding money even in a deflationary spiral.