CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
https://mobile.twitter.com/brenttoderian/status/995020732735225856
"If you support walking, biking & transit infrastructure in cities as long as it doesn’t inconvenience driving, then you don’t support walking, biking & transit infrastructure in cities. Unfortunately I see elected officials exhibiting this all the time. Do yours?"
What Hank Chief said. It's name-calling. It's childish. You can actually engage Nick Cook on issues. I have done so successfully on Twitter.
Whether you like it or not, the Tories are the largest group on the Council now. Name-calling isn't going to get cycle advocacy anywhere.
The label 'Tory' has a similar history. Should we avoid that one too?
The great cartoonist Steve Bell had David Cameron's likeness quite accurately depicted as a Gammon Joint.
Nick Cook is half way between Tory Boy and the Gammon Demographic as set out in the useful link Murun has posted which does encapsulate the insult.
It may well be possible to engage Nick Cook on Twitter but you will not change his support of drivers of cars and businesses that need cars. The link that Stickman provides from BrentToderian is quite crucial here.
One of the original posters on this forum left as he feels we are too anti-car.
We survived a helmet war in the way that other forums failed because (in my opinion) we have a sense of humour. Even IndyRef was not too bad compared with other virtual fora. Hopefully we will come back from Gammon Gate. I have asked Illustrious Leader to mark this thread as Sticky please.
If I step over a line of good taste or whatever you want to call it, I apologise and indeed I can alter the level of my so called satire.
I am a supporter of JC, see only scraps of hope in Scottish Labour, little with the SNP and nothing with the Tories. Just cars and businesses that need cars and derision of policy suggestions such as LEZs without proposing alternatives..
I like the principle that you should call people what they call themselves, but with the caveat that this doesn't apply if you are actually at war with them. I'm not at war with the people characterised as gammon yet, nor do I think Nick Cook fits the gammon mould at all.
What the new use of 'gammon' did was, like the term 'one percent' in 2008, name a group that had no name and, in that case, was instrumental in making sure that it had no name. You can't engage with or oppose something that has no name.
There's a difference in my mind between saying 'You are gammon' to someone and 'I predict that the gammon will be angry about this'. The first is insulting and probably counterproductive but the second might be instructive and permit reflection?
We could say 'Non-tertiary educated Conservative-voting males between 40 and 65 in social classes C1,C2 and D with systolic blood pressure > 145mmHg' but they don't call themselves that either so it's potentially just as insulting without being amusing.
And yet the people who built more cycle ways than any one else in recent memory were Boris Johnson and Andrew Gilligan - both Tories.
Cycle advocacy needn't have anything to do with party politics. It's a no brainer based purely on practicality and the future of our cities, health and environment. Those are the only arguments we need to make.
@stickman that Brent T link is spot on. Can't make better cities with breaking some comfort zones of status quo loving vehicle users.
What the new use of 'gammon' did was, like the term 'one percent' in 2008, name a group that had no name and, in that case, was instrumental in making sure that it had no name. You can't engage with or oppose something that has no name.
Yes. The unkind (but hardly up there with the sort of insults women and ethnic minority politicians get btw, so it's interesting how many think pieces are appearing about this while Dianne Abbot e.g. has apparently been fielding racist death and rape threats in such volumes for so long she has a dedicated assistant to sort through them - interesting priorities in public discourse etc etc) "gammon" also labels a group that observation suggests don't think of themselves as a small subset of humanity - they're the standard from which others deviate, the "hard working tax-payers" the "man in the street" - "normal people" i.e. not one of those Identities or Special Interest Groups (...cyclists!) with their incessant demands and carping. Naming has power...
Which is not a call to hurl insults at named individuals in the Edinburgh area, naturally. I am happy to stick to critiquing Cllr Cook's actions especially where they don't match up with his words.
Would an actual "gammon" be offended by being called so? Isn't the taking offence at perceived slights one of their main criticisms of millenials/snowflakes? Although, I suppose you could also argue that hypocrisy is also a key "gammon" characteristic.
I've always thought this is one of the problems of the "liberal elite". Too busy tying themselves in knots over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin - while the more rapacious capitalist types go out and do their thing.
I don't use the porkish meat based term personally. Methinketh though that certain parties doth protesteth too much about it causing offence.
Let's not get too snowflakey about all this, otherwise hard-pressed local tax payers and otherwise law abiding family motorists might just assume we're a bunch of lentil munching, sandal wearing watermelons.
“I have asked Illustrious Leader to mark this thread as Sticky please.”
I thought that was some sort of gembo witticism that I didn’t understand.
Don’t understand the purpose.
CCE has a long (really) history of reasonable, and reasoned debate.
There are levels of concensus around many things that would be at odds with ‘the general public’ (perhaps).
Rule 1 is primarily about other CCEers, but generally unwarranted rudeness about ‘others’ is perhaps best avoided.
The main problem here is that there is debate about a word that doesn’t apply to the person named in the thread’s title.
I’m sure there are those who consider the last word there ‘offensive’.
But there is a widespread assumption that ‘public figures’ (esp politicians) are ‘fair game’. Clearly there are people (eg on Twitter, frequently, but no only, aimed at women) who go beyond what ‘polite society’ thinks is polite.
At a time when the norms in speech and actions are (apparently) changing perhaps the best that can be expected is that CCEers consider what they say/post. (As they always do of course - can’t just say things that you expect everyone to agree with).
Perhaps vegetarians shouldn’t discuss gammon, and non-vegetarians consider how it was created.
The word Tory (another thread maybe) has been (and still is) used as a term to identify people who consider they are and by others who intend it as a term of abuse.
Rule 2 is a remarkably well respected one here, BUT there will no debate on CCE about which words are/might be acceptable!
I have asked Illustrious Leader to mark this thread as Sticky please.
Sticky or closed?
Surely not closed? Councilor Cook's opinions are wholly noteworthy. And often extraordinary. Both useful and entertaining to coin a phrase.
“Surely not closed? Councilor Cook's opinions are wholly noteworthy. And often extraordinary. Both useful and entertaining to coin a phrase.“
+ 1
Think problem is gammoning.
Sticky to me just means that it is contentious. As far as I can see this is the most recent thread that is clearly contentious amongst the members of this forum.
Certainly not closed.
With the shoe on the other foot. Dr/Prof Scott was given a fair booting on here but he remains a daily commuter and a local politician more likely to be convinced by our arguments than Nick Cook.
I am vegetarian
Gilligan and Boris did continue the work of Red Ken (imposed congestion charge). That is a very fair point. I am not keen on any of them but if i somehow found myself stuck in the pub with one or all of them (shuddering now) Cycling would be a safe topic. There was also the guy who was the adviser on a bike who had to go when he had the spat with the police around who was lying. What was he called? Also Tory. Is the chap in Corstorphne who has taken to his bike not also a Tory? Mark Brown is it?
Had never occurred to me that controversial topics should be stickied rather than closed. What a poor imagination I appear to have at times.
Andrew Mitchell was the MP on a bike; Mark Brown is indeed a Conservative.
I had initially thought gammon was just a localised term derived from Balernovian dialect/in-jokes; I hadn't realised it was a nationally-recognised concept.
for what it's worth, the Guardian Pass notes on gammon today are pretty funny. Although tis an easy target.
The time had been, when this burst of enthusiasm would have been cheered to the very echo; but now, the deputation received it with chilling coldness. The general impression seemed to be, that as an explanation of Mr Gregsbury’s political conduct, it did not enter quite enough into detail; and one gentleman in the rear did not scruple to remark aloud, that, for his purpose, it savoured rather too much of a ‘gammon’ tendency.
‘The meaning of that term — gammon,’ said Mr Gregsbury, ‘is unknown to me. If it means that I grow a little too fervid, or perhaps even hyperbolical, in extolling my native land, I admit the full justice of the remark. I AM proud of this free and happy country. My form dilates, my eye glistens, my breast heaves, my heart swells, my bosom burns, when I call to mind her greatness and her glory.’
- Nicholas Nickleby, Dickens
I don't think I started this thread to have a discussion about Conservatives (or Tories) per se. Just about Cllr Cook and his ravings in the press (with a nod to a similar thread about the MSP he works for, Miles Briggs).
I am not a vegetarian though I eat vegetables. I ate smoked gammon on Sunday with (vegetarian) stuffed pepper on the side.
I spied nesting gulls on Dundee chimneys these past few weeks: a nightmare for Nick had they been located in Morningside. They did not appear to be doing any harm.
I'm quite partial to a gammon steak now and again so would really prefer not to be forced into thinking about certain types of people when enjoying one. I had initially assumed that gembo's request was a serving suggestion (sticky with a fried egg or a bit of pinapple on top) but it seems not. I'm disappointed that he didn't even acknowledge the SGP although I see that crowriver did.
@urchaidh - Whilst I'm a uncomfortable with the pejorative, kudos for digging out the classics reference!
Robert
@Roibeard - full disclosure, I spotted it on twitter.
Also on Sunday I tried out a new pair of sandals. Didn't munch any lentils that day but I am partial to lentil soup. I'm the only member of our family that doesn't really like watermelon (prefer honeydew myself), but have been accused of being one (figuratively). We had a lot of snowflakes this year in what was supposed to be the start of "spring" - something to do with the gulfstream being in the "wrong" place, possibly connected to polar ice melting faster than predicted. Not keen on tofu particularly, and have never hand knitted it (I presume that latter hobby is merely a satirical jest beloved of right wingers, often also fond of motoring).
Ban private motor vehicles immediately. That is all.
"Dr/Prof Scott was given a fair booting on here but he remains a daily commuter and a local politician more likely to be convinced by our arguments than Nick Cook."
Even if convinced, will variable-prefix Scott go through with it and vote accordingly at council? Or not turn up and after the event, profess to have been nobbled? (a la gyratory)
@murun, indeed, Jim Sillars took a stance against the party line in 1976 when he set up the Jim Sillars party (Scottish Labour Party with one other MP).
If I was him knowing I had one season in the sun, I might be more bold. But fair play to him for getting elected. His own party said it would not happen. He probably has to keep the cycling quiet (he doesn't actually, well if anyone in colinton reads the Currie and Balerno need?)
“Had never occurred to me that controversial topics should be stickied rather than closed.”
Me neither. I STILL don’t see the point.
And I’m NOT going to do it.
(Other mods are available.)
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