[Tubby Isaacs]

He can probably support his own thread.

Today, John does fruit farming. There are lots of derelict orchards where I live in Herefordshire. Funny that if you could get free money for ripping them up.

[Boiler]

There were a few orchards here when I moved here in 1987.

Apple-named streets of housing now, with an apple-named care home.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Talking up ripping up orchards. From 2022, not 1975 or whatever John has in mind,

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ident-says

Farmers are ripping up orchards because they are unable to afford to keep them, the president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has said, in a major blow for biodiversity.

The increasing cost of labour and spiralling energy costs have meant fruit growers are removing trees from their land, Minette Batters said.

[Youngian]

Loved walking dog past an apple orchard managed by a happy young Polish couple always pleased to see us. Now fallow and rotting as they packed their bags. You did that John Redwood, fuck you.

[Tubby Isaacs]

John's still on the EU making us rip up orchards. As ever, his angle on business is based on Nike's slogan "Just do it". He's got plenty of money. Can't he invest in orchards himself? Plenty of abandoned ones in Herefordshire if he wants to pay us a visit.

[The Weeping Angel]

I mean whose going to do all the picking?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Poor families from London, like in John's day.

[Andy McDandy]

The Bayeux Tapestry's coming over to Blighty. That's not good news for John, who seems to have got his history from a Ladybird book.

https://www.thepoke.com/2025/07/10/john ... s-victory/

[Tubby Isaacs]

"The Norman Yoke"

Doubtless John's one of those "yeah but we built railways" types when talking about the British Empire.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Norman rule was oppressive. But being a slave, gebur or even a ceorl under Harold II was no picnic, either.

It was a thousand years ago...

Marlowe's aphorism applies.

Oh, and the 'tapestry' was probably made in England, in Winchester. By English craftswomen...

Oh, it was the Normans who abolished domestic slavery (1102)...

[Tubby Isaacs]

Anglo-Saxons are very popular on the British Right. They're "indigenous", although there's a clue in the name.

[Killer Whale]

So are Vikings. But not Normans (who were also Vikings - clue in the name).

[Bones McCoy]

The Bayeux Tapestry's coming over to Blighty. That's not good news for John, who seems to have got his history from a Ladybird book.

https://www.thepoke.com/2025/07/10/john ... s-victory/

In true Bullseye "Let's see what you could have won" fashion.

Things go differently in 1066.
England settles into a northern coalition forged through marriage ties between the houses of Wessex and Denmark.
The coalition spreads to northern Scandinavia.
An over optimistic reading sees Lower Saxony, Holstein, Frisia and Scotland join in for a North Sea alliance.

No bloody Crusades, no stupid Norman Counts.

[Andy McDandy]

Was amused to discover that when he died, King Cnut (who had he lived longer, could have very easily enabled Bones's scenario) was in negotiation with other European rulers over setting up an internationally standardised weights and measures system, and a single European currency.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Edward the Confessor was aligning England to Normandy from 1042 and probably promised England to William. It was Earl Godwin (part Dane) who aligned to Scandinavia, but his son Harold II was having none of it and took the throne for himself.
An English king for English people! And here begins history for the hard of thinking...

[Bones McCoy]

Norman rule was oppressive. But being a slave, gebur or even a ceorl under Harold II was no picnic, either.

It was a thousand years ago...

Marlowe's aphorism applies.

Oh, and the 'tapestry' was probably made in England, in Winchester. By English craftswomen...

Oh, it was the Normans who abolished domestic slavery (1102)...

The transition form slavery to serfdom wasn't the sweet deal that some claim.
Nobody here was getting forty acres and a mule.
It was remain a serf on a small portion of the masters land, or try to exist as a landless labourer.

Modern historians have analysed the proportion of Norman surnames in various measures of privilege.
Rolls of private schools and top universities still have a significant over-representation 949 years later.

[davidjay]

I loved the "Good luck getting them back #Elginmarbles" comment.