Walking in the woods near London last weekend, I discovered three homeless camps hidden within the trees. That night, temperatures dropped to -6°C, next morning there was 3 inches of snow on the ground. This is the reality of life for many vulnerable people in Britain today. submitted by Calumets to unitedkingdom [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/2yi6a3sia9e61.png?width=643&format=png&auto=webp&s=74a5bebf7cb12a502cc246f8fdd75139873895e2 Over the last 18 months, I've discovered 8 similar camps in woods near my home, within 25 miles of London. Many of these makeshift camps (including these two), though well-hidden, are situated within 200m of a row of massive mansions, many of which lie empty. https://preview.redd.it/7dmwrosja9e61.png?width=943&format=png&auto=webp&s=cd7b172325ec8ff46f77a903e6c7b8f21f91f04b The average price of a mansion on this one road is more than £2 million. Their huge gardens back onto the extensive woods & commons in which these desperate people have chosen to build their shelters because they offer thick tree cover & the best chance of going undetected. https://preview.redd.it/t48qftoka9e61.png?width=943&format=png&auto=webp&s=bf97528ad4c671f9d549170d96221baa77cfeb27 I was shocked to discover these camps, and evidence of more that have been abandoned. Shocked and shamed by the juxtaposition of such enormous wealth alongside such devastating poverty. But should I have been surprised? More than 4m children are living below the poverty line in Britain today. In the 6th largest economy on earth. Since April 2020, 350,000 children in England are living in a household where someone has had to “skip a meal in the last week”. Inequality is greater in modern day Britain than it was in ancient Rome. In ancient Rome, the richest 1% controlled around 16% of society's wealth; today in Britain, the richest 1% control around 21%. Imagine living in a country where every third child you saw was growing up in poverty. Now open your eyes. Because that’s us. Anne Longfield, children’s commissioner for England, released a report last week. https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/cco-child-poverty.pdf How did it come to this? The fact 14.3 million people live in poverty (22% of all people, 34% of all children) in the world's 6th largest economy is a direct result of more than a decade of Tory policies. https://fullfact.org/economy/poverty-uk-guide-facts-and-figures/ It’s entirely deliberate. A homeless 17-year-old with mental health issues given a tent to live in by the council = Tory Britain: demonising the very idea of society, started by Thatcher, completed by Tories with MSM, Lib Dem & working-class support. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55246562 Police recently charged a homeless man for breaking coronavirus regulations for being outside. He was charged with "being outside of the place where you were living, namely no fixed address”. I’d say “you couldn’t make it up”, but the Tories did. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/coronavirus-homeless-man-sultan-monsour-lockdown-law-charge-liverpool-street-a9510186.html Tories don't care about homelessness - they are not homeless. Tories don't care about food banks - they don't use them. Tories don't care about the NHS - they go private. Tories don't care about you - they care about their bank balance. Boris Johnson assures us he didn't burn a £50 note in front of a homeless man, and I for one see no reason not to believe the self-satisfied, dishonest narcissist. But if you look at their record, you have to understand that there will be no respite while they are in power. With homelessness up by 50% since 2010, with rough sleeping doubled, with 120,000 children homeless, and a 22% rise in the deaths of homeless people in the last year, we have a right to be shocked. And how Tories use our money is shocking too… You and I are paying this lot £300 each every day for the rest of their lives. Every one of them is already a millionaire, and all they have to do for that money is sign their name in a book. Imagine the effect of giving every homeless person a fraction of that a day. https://preview.redd.it/sgrrqdffa9e61.png?width=641&format=png&auto=webp&s=1719a819adcca1bc5cf09490c789eca87ff18a68 This is how Tories spend OUR money. It's not spending, it's stealing. You could feed 2,000 homeless people for one day for the same money just one consultant is paid for one day creating an app which doesn't work. http://web.archive.org/web/20201015065412/https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/14/consultants-fees-up-to-6250-a-day-for-work-on-covid-test-system Tory government has no compassion, because Tories have no imagination. They simply cannot believe that they could ever be in this position themselves. To a Tory, the homeless person is a slacker, a lazy good-for-nothing who gets exactly what they deserve. As such, the theory goes (it’s not something they hide, they’ll tell you – just ask), there is no duty to help, that just encourages idleness. If people want to starve & freeze: let them. No matter that those homeless people may have fallen on hard times because their employer went out of business off the back of Tory policies. No matter that many ex-services ended up on the streets due to ptsd, suffered as a result of government sanctioned conflicts. Because we should remember, it is not just millions of ‘our own’ who are impoverished by the actions of ‘our’ government. Tories just sank £16.5 billion into the Ministry of Defence (‘offence’ really), making bombs to drop on poor people around the world. That’s what we do. No matter that 50% of homeless people have suffered traumatic head injury prior to becoming homeless, it’s still their fault. No matter that many victims of child abuse end up on the streets, again, to a Tory, it’s their own fault. Tories always point to just one part of the pathway leading to despair. Hence, drug-taking may be foregrounded as the excuse which allows government ministers to sleep at night, rather than the abuse & suffering which led to the drug-taking in the first place. It’s a catch-all conscience clearer: “they brought it upon themselves; feckless layabouts, we’re doing them a favour leaving them to suffer, maybe they’ll pull their finger out now…” But homeless people are not worthless. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-55559382 And it’s also not just the fault of the government, or the traditional Tory voter; many more are to blame for the state of modern Britain. In recent history, we had two great opportunities to put this kind of suffering where it belongs: in the past. The choice in 2017 and 2019 was basically: Boris Johnson gets rid of the NHS, or; Jeremy Corbyn gets rid of food banks, homelessness, child poverty, zero-hour contracts, austerity, tax breaks for the rich etc. That should have been an easy choice… But people decided the last election was the Brexit election. They forgot it was also the climate election, the investment election, the NHS election, the living standards election, the education election, the poverty election, the fair taxes election: the change election. How did they forget? Why were voters so obsessed with one issue? Why didn’t voters care about other things? The answer is at least partly due to mainstream media. The MSM wasn’t just busy bashing Jeremy Corbyn, it was also busy avoiding any issue which might harm Boris. Thus, in the first 3 weeks of the last election campaign, the subject of 'housing' registered 0.2%, 0.6% & 2.4% prominence in the MSM despite more than 300,000 homeless people in the UK as we moved into winter. Shows how much the MSM cares... https://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/general-election/report-3/ In the first 3 weeks of the last election campaign, the subject of 'social security' registered 1.2%, 1.2% & 3.0% prominence in the MSM despite 4 million children in the UK living in poverty. This proves that the MSM avoided the shameful record of the Tories... Any news hack, politician or voter (who didn't back Corbyn) that mentions poverty, homelessness, NHS sell-off or climate change in the next 5 years had better be reporting good news, because I won't be able to stand the vomit-inducing hypocrisy if they say things are bad. Jeremy Corbyn was slated as a ‘bloody commie’ for threatening to give up a massive country house to help the homeless… He is the leader we could have had were it not for the power of elites protecting their pile. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-chequers-labour-general-election-itv-interview-queens-speech-a9232506.html Priti Patel could gut a homeless person, Dominic Raab could shoot an immigrant, Matt Hancock could wave his little willy around in public & Boris Johnson could take a shit in the Serpentine before the MSM expressed anything more emotive than mild distaste. Be under no illusions, the MSM is the enemy of change. Without the MSM’s dereliction of duty in terms of reporting the realities of modern Britain, the working-class traitors who signed up for Tory madness would never have done it. But they did! It's almost 100 years since the 1920's General Strike. Working-class voters, fighting for their rights, voted in the 1st ever Labour government. They'd be spinning in their graves if they knew that 100 years later, working class voters would crown Boris & his Tory goons. https://preview.redd.it/pooawv7ub9e61.png?width=641&format=png&auto=webp&s=17dd9a00e2ca330f6da8af66977d966348243d86 This was a dereliction of duty every bit as dreadful as the MSM Tory free pass, and the betrayal of Iain McNicol & Tom Watson et al. We now have to live with it. Including those people desperately hanging on in the woods near where I live. When we move on, there must be accountability - not just for the Covid car crash, but for it all: capitalism, climate catastrophe, war, poverty. We need something new, & accountability starts at home. So if you know a Tory voter, you need to start educating them now. We mustn’t only imagine a society where psychos and sociopaths are locked up rather than allowed to be in charge: we must make it happen. Because when we elevate the obscene to positions of power, everyone suffers. People deluding themselves that politicians like Keir Starmer offer anything substantially different to the Tories is dangerous - it is what allows neo-liberals to continue driving us off the climate and poverty cliffs. Starmer's response to a £16.5 billion increase to 'defence' spending was: “We welcome this additional funding for our defence & security forces & we agree that it is vital..." "Vital" - during an economic emergency, despite no actual enemy and while people are starving! Only obscenely wealthy privileged elites could imagine anything is 'irrespective of political differences.' How could the poor, homeless or bereaved have a Happy Christmas? Starmer literally helped steal a socialist Christmas last year. https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmestatus/1342193647543062533 If something is broken, you fix it, recycle it or chuck it. You don’t replace it with another broken part. We have to do better than Starmer… we have to do better than ‘centrist’ Labour. So, what positive steps can be taken now? Four things, 3 of which are immediately actionable, are vital: 1. Dumping Starmer’s Labour Party – Labour had it’s day, but is dead, we must bury it. 2. Finding a new party to get behind: there are lots of options, but no consensus (this may need more time to coalesce); 3. Friends & relatives who betrayed their roots have to be enlightened; 4. We must destroy the MSM. We can’t wait for legislation to remove the monopoly of the media barons, so we need to act ourselves. Never buy a newspaper, never register with an MSM provider, never link or quote media without ensuring you avoid funding their propaganda, instead celebrate & support the rise in alt media. The first step in liberating our democracy lies in destroying the hold MSM has over the political system. It’s time we supported media which reports on the real stories rather than protects the wider disease. It starts with a story, this new modern Britain. The current story is old, and it won’t change unless we choose a new story-teller. So that’s what we must do. We need to support the true free press with subscriptions & disseminate their message. novaramedia.com https://thecanary.co https://skwawkbox.org https://evolvepolitics.com https://www.doubledown.news Please consider signing up for one or more of the fantastic media providers listed above (there are loads more), and boycott the MSM. Thanks for reading - more from me here: https://twitter.com/Calumets/status/1352231138610343936 Home |
Hey guys, Daz here! I'm sure most of you are aware that things have been delayed with the licensing process at my new spot, resulting in delays in the release of my new photo x auto projects. Well, I hope this makes it up to you! I've dug deep to try and bring a little bit of what everyone has asked for to the table for this Valentine's weekend drop! Collabs with Ronin, Full Duplex/Mandalorian, and a Premium exclusive collab with Binary Selections (Ronin and Magic's line of shared work)!!! I've brought out the last of the Space Station Orange v.1, the last of the Squanch Stomper, the last of the Shekinah, and the last of the Cheech Biggums. I'm introducing a new CBD cross, Cosmic Revival, and releasing the last of the F3 Legacy Regs of both Wizard's Apprentice and Zamadelica Express (*pending current germination testing)... Not only that, every order will receive Seedopoly game pieces, brand new Night Owl plant ID stakes, Night Owl jar and jar lid label stickers, Valentine's day sticker set, and Valentine's day keychain (keychains may run out, all goodies are while supplies last) as well as the usual slaps you know and love! On top of that, if you grab 3 Secret Owl Society packs you'll receive a Secret Owl Society patch. If you order 4 Secret Owl Society packs you will receive the patch and a new glow in the dark Masked Owl ashtray! I'm also working on having the new black on black shirts in time for the drop, but as is life, all of this could change at any given moment. If you made it this far and are still reading, thank you. This drop is the last of my stock, and the next drop will not be until, realistically, July. If you need any Night Owl after this drop please go support the seedbanks that support me, and also show some love to the other auto breeders that are doing real work. I appreciate the continued love and cannot wait to continue on this journey with you.DazNightowl
Thank you all for your patience with me these past few weeks. I've been handling a lot of business behind the scenes in preparation for big things next year. 2020 was the year of staying off the radar with most of my big projects and not drawing any unnecessary attention. 2021 is the year of getting licensed and really showing you what it's all about! Thank you for your trust and faith in me during my overly cautious past few months/years. I won't let you down.🙏🌱🦉🌱🙏New photo to autos scheduled for the first half of 2021:
Pre '98 Bubba Kush x Auto Skywalker F4
Dosidos x Forum Stomper F4
Purple Punch x Forum Stomper F4
Sunset Sherbet x Forum Stomper F4
Although the new photo x auto crosses are still on hold, I will have some new collabs and maybe even a new SOS variety for the Valentine’s weekend drop. I’ll probably put up the last of the Shekinah too. 🙏🌱🦉🌱🙏Daz's recent comment two weeks ago
Since they were so well received, I'm planning on having more Varsity hoodies made in a different variant. I'd like to make one with the blue and white portions switched, and/or one using the burgundy/maroon color from the Secret Owl Society logo. I'm swamped right now but should have some time to dedicate to new merch after Christmas. 🙏🦉🙏Daz commented in a thread asking about sweaters
New vendor exclusive limited-edition drop, live now!! I've spread these three new varieties out to my vendors in hopes of giving all of you a greater chance at getting them! They are a small batch and WILL NOT BE REMADE. Go support them because they've supported me. AT LEAST 4 SEEDS IN EVERY PACK, keychains, and slaps (while supplies last).Strain Descriptions
SeedBank | Squanch Queen | Foot Cheese | Head Cheese | Payment | International | Carry Mephisto | Freebies |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Neptune Seedbank | No | Yes | Yes | Credit Card (US Only), Bitcoin, PMC Gold, Cash | Yes | Yes | *Need User Input |
Supreme Seedbank | No | Yes | Yes | Money Gram/ Venmo/ Cash App/ Zelle, Money Order, Debit/ Credit (US ONLY 3.5% fee), Custom payment, Bitcoin, eGiftCertificate | Yes | Yes | *Need User Input |
Treestar Seedbank | Yes | Yes | Yes | Credit Card, Bitcoin, Money Order, Cash, Western Union, Cash App, Zelle | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Harvest Mutual Site Renovating, Not open | No | Yes | Yes | Cash, Money Order, Credit Card, Paypal | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Insane Seeds | No | Yes | Yes | Bitcoin, Cash, Credit Card | Yes | Yes | Maybe |
DC Seed Exchange | No | Yes | Yes | Debit Card, Cash, Money Order, eCheck, Cryptocurrencies | No | Yes | Sometimes / Use "5%DCSEEDS" for 5% off |
Oregon Elite Seedbank | No | Yes | Yes | Cash, Money Order, Cryptocurrencies | Yes | No | *Need User Input, |
Hembra Genetics | No | Yes | Yes | Cash, Cash App, Venmo, Bitcoin, | Yes | No | Check site for promos |
RMH719 SOLD OUT | No | No | No | Cash, Bitcoin | No | No | Sometimes |
RMHCA SOLD OUT | No | No | No | Cash, Bitcoin, | No | No | Sometimes |
Part 1: #170-145 ✍🏻 Part 2: #144-119 ✍🏻 Part 3: #118-101 submitted by ladililn to TaylorSwift [link] [comments] 100. Christmas Tree FarmBest line: My winter nights are taken up by staticRemember when Taylor said she wasn't sure if she could write a happy love song like "Perfect" or "Thinking Out Loud"? (Seriously, does anyone remember? 'Cause I googled and got nothing, but I swear I remember that.) And then in 2019 she dropped "Lover," "Paper Rings," and this, because why prove yourself once when you can go for the Triple Crown? Swiftian™ tropes: Christmas, locational specificity, nostalgia for an idyllic upbringing, childhood innocence, sartorial specificity, being able to weather anything as long as you've got your special someone 99. I Knew You Were TroubleBest line: There are a few solid contenders, but I'm gonna give it to the one-two punch of And he's long gone when he's next to me and He was long gone when he met mePutting aside all questions of autobiography, this feels like a "Dear John" prequel. In that song, the refrain "I should've known" becomes "You should've known" in the final chorus, a rejection of victims' tendency to self-blame that "I Knew You Were Trouble" seems paradoxically to embrace, if slightly sarcastically. But maybe that's just me falling into the trap I mentioned re: "I Almost Do," expecting life to progress in neat steps, one after another, no backtracking and no going in circles. Coming to terms with a negative life event on Monday only to get upset about it all over again on Tuesday—probably triggered by some minor, totally unrelated mishap—feels truer to the human experience than one cathartic moment followed by smooth sailing forever. But maybe I'm just bad at therapy. Swiftian™ tropes: once upon a time (ironic edition), insouciant suitors, being morally wronged, melodrama (the saddest fear that comes creepin' in the bridge is "what if my ex is a psychopath incapable of experiencing human love?" 😔) 98. AfterglowBest line: I lived like an island, punished you with silence, went off like sirens, just cryingA bit over-reliant on metaphor and abstraction, but effectively captures the regret and guilt of knowing you've hurt someone you love. She takes full responsibility, only to beg him to absolve her of it in the bridge. Her need for reassurance doesn't undermine her apology so much as underscore it—like all of us, she's only human. Swiftian™ tropes: overreacting, metaphor party, elaborate battle metaphors, I'm the bad guy (oops) 97. 22Best line: You look like bad news, I gotta have youu/riviera-views asked if I ranked "Gorgeous" above "Sad, Beautiful, Tragic" just to rile up fans of the latter, which honestly hadn't even occurred to me. But I already know I'm gonna have a harder time talking my way out of it when I say that "22" and "Sad Beautiful Tragic" showed up to this party in the same chorus, and "22" wore it better. go ahead and light me up
Disclaimer I'm not making this comparison to diss "Sad, Beautiful, Tragic." Some parts I don't think work as well as they could, but others I find (wait for it) beautiful. I just love finding patterns in an artist's work, examining the different ways their favorite subjects/styles/motifs manifest in various contexts. Connecting the dots between "22," "Sad, Beautiful, Tragic," and A Tale of Two Cities gives me the same kind of buzz as, say, dressing up like a hipster and making fun of my ex. 😉 Swiftian™ themes: talking shit with your friends, youthful rebellion: Good Girl™ style (breakfast at midnight?! what's next, murder? vandalism? jaywalking?), avalanche of adjectives, not being one of the cool kids, confident flirting that don't mean no thing 96. So It Goes...Best line: You did a number on me, but honestly, baby, who's counting? (One, two, three...)He was a magician, she was an illusionist—can she make it any more obvious? Yeah, probably, but will she? Nah. Swiftian™ tropes: intense optical awareness, tumultuous relationships, lipstick (no color specified), identification of the speaker as inherently good (caveat: will do bad things with you), weather = mood (grey skies subtrope), item of clothing/accessory that represents your attachment to your lover, jealousy (Taylor who tf ever told you you were chill), counting is fun!, probably not a Vonnegut reference 95. Beautiful GhostsIf you can't get T.S. Eliot, get...Joanna Newsom, maybe? I'm no Eliot expert, but I do know that Cats isn't particularly representative of his oeuvre. I love that Taylor made a deliberate effort to emulate his writing style—but, like, we're not talking about "The Waste Land" or "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" here, feat. lines like "I will show you fear in a handful of dust" or "Do I dare/Disturb the universe?" We're talking about a bunch of rhymes he made up to entertain his godchildren, feat. lines like "The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter.../You may think at first I'm mad as a hatter" and "A CAT IS NOT A DOG" (emphasis not mine, that's all Eliot, baby).Not to mention, the song "Beautiful Ghost" directly responds to, "Memory," is the one most loosely based on Eliot's poetry, so, again: appreciate the effort, respect the intentions...feels kinda unnecessary. You don't need to study 17th-century Japanese woodblock printing to draw Naruto fan art, y'know? Now that I've said all that... Fuck, she got me with this one. After folklore dropped I had a little epiphany (ba-dum tss) about why I connect with pretty much everything Taylor puts out, when more often I find myself deeply connecting with one or two things from a particular artist—songs, albums, books, etc.—but not the rest of their work. A lot of her favorite themes and topics to explore (memory and nostalgia, storytelling, the juxtaposition of idealized romantic fantasy with the messiness of real human relationships, etc.) are also my favorites. Taylor wrote: The song “Memory” is about missing your glory days, wishing you could go back in time and relive those magical times from your past. “Beautiful Ghosts” is sung from a young voice who is wondering if she will ever have glory days.and I cannot overstate how much that concept is exactly my shit. My aesthetic. My own personal brand of heroin. And even apart from my personal tastes, it really is the perfect response to "Memory." At least you have something, something to cling toSome of the lyrics are a bit corny or on-the-nose, but that, more than any vague evocation of Eliot, feels entirely in keeping with Cats. Best other lyrical thing I haven't already talked about: The way these lines in particular: Follow me home, if you dare toand Perilous night, their voices callingcreate such an ominous atmosphere. Swiftian™ tropes: following someone home, memories and nostalgia, golden age (subtrope: lost; subtrope: never happened), locational specificity (you know she loves a London cat), romanticism, Britishisms ("chonces") 94. Coney IslandBest line: And do you miss the rogue who coaxed you into paradise and left you there?u/uncodified, not unreasonably, questioned my choice of best line for "Stay Beautiful." My typically wordy reply could've been summed up with a Spinal Tap truism: https://i.redd.it/rbw0vdy20me61.gif Stupid and clever, lyrical and purple prose, profound and trite, cryptic and nonsensical...basically, between working and not working. Taylor's got plenty of lyrics that walk that line. That's not a bad thing; you can't score a home run without swinging for the fences. Which side a given lyric falls on tends to be subjective—one man's trash and all that. In "coney island," Taylor bicycles across that tightrope. "Do you miss the rogue who coaxed you into paradise and left you there?" verges on overwritten—but, at least for me, stays just on the right side of the line. The assonance (rogue, coaxed, soul, old) helps. It took me several listens to decide whether I thought "We were like the mall before the Internet/It was the one place to be" was ingenious or inane. Your mileage may vary. The fast times, the bright lights, the merry-go-I love the shortening of merry-go-round—obviously the proximate purpose is rhythm and rhyme, but it also echoes the idea of a "long haul" cut unexpectedly short. It's almost enough to distract from the pornographic connotations of "centerfold." Swiftian™ tropes: love's such a delicate thing that we do, locational specificity, relationship thermometers, suburbia, metaphorically painting [blue (positive)/ 93. Should've Said NoBest line: the entire dang chorusSpeaking of connecting dots and favorite themes—who else wants to see a version of Hamilton where "Burn" is swapped out for a scathing rendition of "Should've Said No"? Instead of arson, Eliza can engage in a bit of onstage hydrotechnics. Swiftian™ tropes: cheating (seriously, don't do it edition); relationship memorabilia; being morally wronged; BREAKING: Guy Begs Girl to Take Him Back, Girl Unmoved; rhetorical questions; never leaving well enough alone ("I can't resist..." curiosity kills cats, Taylor) 92. HauntedBest line: Something's made your eyes go cold/Come on, come on, don't leave me like thisHere, I'll say it so you don't have to: this deserves to be higher! And while we're at it, so did "The Way I Loved You" and "The Other Side of the Door" and— When Rolling Stone included Taylor at #97 on their 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time list—and this was in 2015, four albums ago—they wrote that her first three albums already contained "too many great tunes to fit into a live show." Lyrically, "Haunted" doesn't have a unique premise or That One Perfect Line—it's "just" a well-executed take on a familiar premise filled with strong lyrics. I mean, you see how I cheated by pretending that two separate lines count as one because they come right after each other, right? Swiftian™ tropes: a relationship that was never out of the woods, breathing problems, realizing you don't know someone as well as you thought, memories, gothic imagery, rebound guy (as per uhze—see "The Other Side of the Door," "Getaway Car," etc.—he's a nice guy who inspires zero passion) 91. This Is Why We Can't Have Nice ThingsBest line: And here's to my baby/He ain't reading what they call me latelyI seldom know how I feel about a song after just one listen, but this one I adored immediately. It doesn't get enough love from fans, and practically none from critics, so I feel like a traitor ranking it in the bottom half of this list. (It's in the top 54%, at least!) But we're talking lyrics, here, and this song's non-lyrical elements account for a slim majority (maybe 54%?) of the serotonin I feel flooding my brain every time I hear it. Who'da thunk that the same girl who kept making slightly off-the-mark references to The Scarlet Letter would make such sly use of a Great Gatsby allusion in the frothiest song on reputation? On a surface level, obviously, you get parties and champagne and pool associations. But dig a little deeper and "feeling so Gatsby for that whole year" starts to look like ironic foreshadowing—he's popular when throwing parties, but the second the wind turns against him, most of his "friends" vanish into thin air. Really stretch your reaching muscles and you'll hear, "Sorry, the old James Gatz can't come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, 'cause he's dead!" Swiftian™ tropes: Gatsby references, so the drama, being morally wronged, betrayal, phone calls (of the tricky and mind-twisting variety), so the drama, forgiveness is a nice thing to do (sarcastic edition) 90. willowHey, it's a #90s trend—sonically, "willow" was an immediate favorite for me, but we're not talking sonically. Taylor has talked about how she writes down random lines that come to her and later plugs them into songs. "Blank Space" was mostly stitched together from lyrics she already had. Whether "willow" was written the same way I can't say, but it sure seems that way. Individually, every line is memorable, quotable, destined to be embroidered and tattooed and calligraphy'd by countless fans. But they don't quite cohere into a story. What does "they count me out time and time again"/"I come back stronger than a nineties trend" have to do with any of the other lyrics? Are trophies and championship rings really "mythical"? Was "that look on your face" totally unreadable or not?the \"Story of My Life\" Effect: gorgeous song, captivating lyrics, incomprehensible plot Time to hyper-analyze some lyrics I'm like the water when your ship rolled in that nightThe Atlantic published an article called Taylor Swift Could Really Use an Editor after evermore's release, an interesting read for anyone interested in cultural criticism. It made a few points I agree with, and a lot I don't—but I did relate to the writer's confusion over "willow"'s opening verse: So, okay, her man, not her, is now the water. But: Are priceless wines commonly lost in currents? Like, is Swift referring to the Veuve Clicquot recovered from the Titanic? Or is she envisioning someone purposefully pouring wine into the sea on an expensive dare? Maybe I’m hearing the grammar wrong—is it that she’s lost in this lover in the same way a drinker might get lost in a drink? I went to the lyrics-explanation site Genius for help. A listener had written that Swift was playing with the word currant, meaning a berry or dried grape. This theory didn’t make a ton of sense either.To puzzle this out I tried making a diagram, which sorta worked, provided we accept that by "current" she meant "wake." disclaimer: not peer-reviewed I'm willing to buy that she is referring to the Veuve Clicquot recovered from the Titanic, if only because a) she's been loving shipwreck imagery lately and b) it just makes me happy to imagine Taylor Swift spends her free time reading articles about historical maritime accidents on obscure oenophile blogs. Best line: All of them? They might not make sense together, but individually—"I'm like the water when your ship rolled in that night/Rough on the surface but you cut through like a knife" 🤌 "I'm begging for you to take my hand/Wreck my plans, that's my man" 🤌 "Life was a willow and it bent right to your wind" 🤌 "Wait for the signal and I'll meet you after dark" 🤌 Swiftian™ tropes: wondering if you're being led on, following someone home, love as a game, coming back from the dead (she does it all the time), battle metaphors 89. hoaxBest line: Don't want no other shade of blue but youIn the long pond doc, Taylor talked about being inspired by disparate people and situations when writing "hoax." The result is less a coherent narrative and more of a window into a particular feeling, fractured and disjointed. (A stained glass window, maybe?) "It's the most symbolic, poetic thing, listing all these things that this person is to you"—specifically, the rhyme scheme and meter of the verses model a rhupunt, one of twenty-four meters of Welsh poetry codified in the 14th century. Look, if some Genius annotator can claim Taylor's been studying the 1909 wreck of the Swedish cargo vessel Jönköping, no one can stop me suggesting she's been reading up on the Celtic bardic tradition. Quarantine's made dilettantes of us all. Swiftian™ tropes: metaphor party and adjective avalanche (when you mix your friend groups), romanticism (she's SCREAMING off a CLIFF, for fuck's sake), locational specificity, battle metaphors, seeing life as a movie, life/love as a game 88. Don't Blame MeBest line: My name is whatever you decide/And I'm just gonna call you mineLove = religion and love = drug are age-old concepts, and honestly? They're still fresh. Here they are in one song! Is it my birthday? Swiftian™ tropes: love makes you crazy: The Song, femme fatale falls forreals, image awareness: good girl vs. love psycho, religion (read Richard Siken once edition), hopefully not a Great Gatsby reference 87. False GodBest line: tie between The altar is my hips and Make confessions and we're begging for forgiveness/Got the wine for you (I'm a sucker for blasphemy, okay?)I made this ranking lyrics-based rather than holistic for a simple reason: I know about writing. I don't know shit about music. I'm not remotely qualified to comment on pitch, production, mixing, or melody—except as your average layperson, in which case expect such insightful comments as "I like how this song sounds!" 🙃 But if I had to name Taylor's greatest strength, the defining characteristic of her artistry, it wouldn't actually be writing lyrics, it'd be storytelling. Words are the most obvious means of conveying story through music, but melody, instrumentation, and delivery can all contribute in big ways. Throw in performative and visual dimensions—music videos, live performances, merch, interviews—and you've got an interactive, fully immersive, multimedia, surround sound 3D storytelling experience. How important a particular component is, and how intertwined they are with one another, varies song to song. Part of the reason I likened LWYMMD to a show tune is that while it obviously can be listened to on its own, you need to experience it in context to get the "complete" story. With these "False God" lyrics in particular: They all warned us about times like thiswe can't not talk about delivery. There are intentionally too many syllables per line; she rushes through some and draws out others. If I had more technical know-how, I could talk about the history of that stylistic choice in certain genres, how it builds tension by defying rhythmic expectations, how it makes her words sound more urgent and spontaneous—but I'd be at least 50% talking out of my ass. I dug up the original reaction thread and found several comments that either know what they're talking about or do a confident job faking it, so instead of continuing to paraphrase things I vaguely understand, I'm gonna quote them directly. I like u/pearyid's observation on how the wordiness of the pre-chorus is juxtaposed by the "slow tempo and drawn-out words" of the chorus, making it sound "spacious." u/myotheracctisaboat said Taylor's voice sounded like "the sax above the instrumental...like she was the one riffing," a fun reversal of the old "it's like the sax is another voice in the song!" idea. u/falsegodlover, u/1ring2rule, and u/kymopoleia13 all suggested that the pre-chorus emulates the cadence of a sermon, which I'm deeply into. u/eskimo-child described how "the rhythm of her vocal melody seems to sort of meander away from the main beat," and elaborated: It's purposefully awkward. It's a polyrhythm, simply meaning multiple overlapping rhythms. It gives songs a sort of meandering, train-of-consciousness feel, which comes across as less planned, less polished, less expected, more vulnerable, honest and uncontrolled.Time for another diagram And I can't talk to you when you're like thishttps://preview.redd.it/scia170c1me61.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1f38be3049a4d1b57dc1e353bba68c45f42b7ca2 We know—at least, it wouldn't be a stretch to assume—that New York is Taylor's favorite town. "Like I'm not" is a counterfactual that implies that it's the addressee's (presumably Joe, but we can't say for sure) favorite too. So he's staring out the window, away from NYC-personified-by-the-speaker, which means they can't be in New York, right? 'Cause then there'd be two NYCs, and then he would be looking at his favorite city. So maybe they're in London, and he's looking out as though that's his favorite city—which, if the addressee is Joe, would make sense, since he's famously a London Boy, and actually, hasn't Taylor essentially moved to London? I know she's got houses all over the place, but— It's an intriguing but confusing metaphor that lands just on the wrong side of "works"/"doesn't work." "You're the West Village" clarifies nothing, but at least its carnal connotations seem intentional. (To be fair, I could be totally off about "coney island"—maybe it is meant to be about a relationship falling apart due to non-monogamous masturbation. 🤷) Swiftian™ tropes: love makes you crazy, speaker declares willingness to die for someone (hey Tay? can we talk?), tumultuous relationships, locational specificity, I ❤️ NY, religion (read John Donne twice edition) 86. Call It What You WantBest line: And I know I make the same mistakes every time/Bridges burn, I never learn/At least I did one thing rightOne of my favorite things about folk/more is how interconnected the songs are. Even outside the Betty/James and Dorothea stories, there are so many images and references and patterns that weave through both albums. Like the other hallmarks of this era—an "indie" sound, explicitly fictional storytelling—this tendency didn't come from nowhere. There are flashes of it throughout her earlier work. Some degree of interrelatedness is inevitable: the bulk of her work has been autobiographical, and every artist has favorite motifs that they return to again and again. But some lyrics are explicitly, intentionally self-referential. How can we not think of the one she built in "New Romantics" when this castle comes crumbling down? Or the flowers that died of thirst in "Clean" only to grow back as thorns here? It's that big-picture storytelling at work again, another installment of Taylor Swift: The Musical. Time for judgment I've seen these lyrics criticized both on this sub and on popheads, making them downright controversial. I'm here to settle the issue once and for all, okay? Reddit is no place for repeating the exact same debate over and over. /s I want to wear his initial on a chain 'round my neck, chain 'round my neckVerdict: It's not great. A little clunky, a little defensive, a little on-the-nose. Definitely the weakest part of the song, though hardly a disaster. Trust him like a brotherVerdict: It's fine. It's lovely, actually. Stop being weird about it. Swiftian™ tropes: fairytale imagery, battle metaphors, being morally wronged, being able to weather anything as long as you've got your special someone: The Song, everyone hated me in 2016 but I found the one (tweet thread, 1/?), everybody wants him, so not the drama, item of clothing/accessory symbolizing attachment to your lover, Britishisms, temporal specificity (late November) 85. closureBest line: I'm fine with my spite and my tears and my beers and my candlesFor such short, simple lyrics, there's a lot more than meets the eye (ear?) here. We know Taylor loves a good metaphor party, whether she's listing them off in "Afterglow" or extending one across an entire song in "Long Live." "closure" takes a middle road. "I can feel you smoothing me over" flows naturally from "Don't treat me like/Some situation that needs to be handled," while also transitioning us into the next metaphor: "I know I'm just a wrinkle in your new life/Staying friends would iron it out so nice." Each line strikes the perfect balance between standing on its own and relating to the others. metaphorical rhyming, not literal Similarly, "It cut deep to know ya, right to the bone" echoes the "pain" spelled out in the first verse. The straightforward meaning is obvious: this relationship, especially its ending, was painful. But if we've been paying attention to our Swiftian™ tropes—love is knowing someone completely, friends to enemies, how people can go from people you know to people you don't—we can detect a double meaning. She knew this person "right to the bone." She seems to have expected the letter, knowing it's exactly the sort of thing they would do. Having that confirmed hurts all over again. She still knows them well enough to understand all the things left unsaid, to see all the intentions behind their actions. Another double meaning (emphasis and punctuation mine): I know I'm just a wrinkle in your new lifeBefore "reaching out across the sea" comes along, it sounds like she's the one crying guilty. Accepting the offer of friendship would be the right thing to do, the bigger person thing. But fuck it. She'd rather be spiteful than take the high road for once. Sue her. There's one line that sounds fake and unnecessary; no prizes for guessing which. (All right, fake isn't quite accurate—forced, maybe, or just doesn't flow well.) Ironically, this song about not wanting closure ends up being remarkably cathartic. Swiftian™ tropes: being morally wronged, betrayal, holding grudges, letters 84. Paper RingsBest line: The moon is high like your friends were the night that we first metAnybody who's ever had to exchange peer feedback knows there's a formula to it, a careful balance of compliment and critique. In my experience, they're often linked—my "criticism" was wanting more of the complimented thing. You're so good at X, do more X! That pretty much sums up how I feel about "Paper Rings." I looooooOOOoooOOOooove the verses' free-associative trips down memory lane: In the winter, in the icy outdoor pooland I only wish she took it even further, spun off on "brother" or "wall" or something instead of hopping a flight with no connection. Let's hop a flight with no connection Something I read years ago that's always stuck with me: "Intimacy doesn't have all that much to do with backseats of cars. Real intimacy is brushing your teeth together." I'm not saying Taylor had to have read the same book (Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin), but the same sentiment, at least, has stuck with her. For years everyone focused on the wide-eyed romantic side of her music while disregarding the clear-eyed realism that plays counterpoint. Sometimes they're in conflict, sometimes harmony, but the juxtaposition of fantasy and cold hard reality has always been a major theme in her work. "I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings" sums it up perfectly. She's not about to throw fairytales and grand gestures out the window, but she knows the glimmer from the gold. In the bridge she goes even further, embracing not just the mundane parts of love but the bad shit too. Swiftian™ tropes: love is knowing someone completely, playing hard to get then realizing this isn't a game, getting your Edward Cullen on AKA watching someone breathe, getting your Ted Mosby on AKA lifelong search for the one, counting is fun!, mundane expressions of true love, picture frames, scrapbooking through song, bless the broken road that led me to you, when Taylor Swift dates a guy she dates his whole family, romantic simplicity > crass materialism 83. bettyBest line: She pulled up like a figment of my worst intentionsSeveral of Taylor's cowriters have described the role as mostly editorial—cut a word here, suggest one there. "End Game" is an obvious exception, with entire verses written by others; thanks to the Disney+ doc, we can say the same thing of "exile"'s first verse and "betty"'s chorus. Props to once you start making diagrams it's kinda hard to stop In that moment on the doorstep, all outcomes are still possible. How could James not hesitate to knock on Betty's door and open Schrödinger's box? In real life, every Choose Your Own Adventure story gets written in stone one answered "if" at a time. Here in fictionland, we—and James—get to live in the mystery forever. Time to hyper-analyze the actual best line Sometimes you gotta cheat the format to acknowledge as many great lines as possible (and still can't squeeze in the "cardigan"/"car again" rhyme—wait, I just did!). "You heard the rumors from Inez, you can't believe a word she says most times, but this time it was true" is one of those Taylor Swiftian™ lines that pack an incredible amount of story into the telling:
DAE picture this happening sometime in the past? Partly it's the names: Betty, James, and Inez are all '50s classics. Partly it's their actions: they're doing a lot more hanging out at the mall and cruising the strip than, uh, TikTokking and... today in fuck, I'm old: I legit couldn't think of a second thing teens today stereotypically do Partly it's that, despite the f-bomb in the chorus, James comes off as a very Leave it to Beaver teen. Or to make a reference someone under the age of sixty might understand—remember Jess in Gilmore Girls? A leather jacket-wearing bad boy who committed such juvie-baiting crimes as, uh, stealing garden gnomes? And...eating breakfast at midnight, probably? I was surprised to learn Taylor headcanons Betty and James ending up together. To return to our Hamilton comparison, James takes the "Say No to This" route of "I swear I didn't mean to have a months-long affair, I didn't even want to, it just kinda happened?" The level of Not My Fault on display here is one step shy of "I tripped and my dick went in her! It went in her ten times!" Swiftian™ tropes: high school, breathing problems, nominal specificity x3, cheating, guy stands outside girl's house and begs her to take him back, age specificity, replaying the moment it went wrong 82. Begin AgainBest line: I think it's strange that you think I'm funny 'cause he never didNot what it claims to be about, at least primarily. We hardly get to know this guy she's supposedly falling in love with. Until the bridge everything he does is in contrast to her ex, and though he's comparing favorably, true love needs no comparison. The actual story isn't about finding love again, it's about finally getting to the place where you're ready to find it. TBH, unless her tastes have majorly changed, this new guy's probably doomed. "The Way I Loved You" makes it clear punctuality isn't a turn-on. Swiftian™ tropes: gender roles: chivalry ain't dead, temporal specificity (the last eight months/a Wednesday), Christmas (mentioned), moving on and letting go 81. Forever & AlwaysBest line: It rains in your bedroom, everything is wrong/It rains when you're here and it rains when you're goneLike the color blue, rain can signify positively or negatively in a Taylor Swift song. What I love about the above line has less to do with meteorology and more with the lose/lose scenario she describes. It's the same as in "Haunted," one everybody's gone through at some point, romantically or platonically: when you can feel someone pulling away from you. The distance between them isn't physical, it lies in him. Out: Choruses, Five Minutes Ago: Bridges, In: Opening Lines Whenever she announces story time in a voice dripping with irony—cf. "Better Than Revenge," "I Knew You Were Trouble," "The Story of Us"—buckle yourself in for a ripper. This is Taylor at her most archly didactic—"I believe it was a Tuesday" is up there with "therein lies the issue" on the Uh-Oh, She Is Pissed-o-Meter. But she's not just pissed. "I caught your eye and we caught onto something" swings us into a whirlwind romance, and the rest of the song ping-pongs between these modes. She goes straight from bitterly (and oh-so-teen-ily) accusing him of being a "scared little boy" to pleading "baby, what happened, please tell me?" Swiftian™ tropes: story time, temporal specificity (Tuesday), being emotionally shut out by a love interest, phone calls (waiting for), flashbacks, rain, weather reflective of emotions, realizing you don't know someone as well as you thought you did, wanting to go back to better times 80. It's Nice to Have a Friendinb4 enough with the charts. and the graphs. really any visual representation of dataI've admitted math isn't my strong suit, but is this not a perfect example of fractal poetry? She zooms in on specific moments like hands touching. She pulls back a little and takes in a weekend. From a long view she captures an entire lifetime. Whether it's about sharing gloves or vows of commitment, each line translates to essentially the same thing. three little words Best line not already mentioned: jk I quoted literally every line, shoutout to the trumpet tho Swiftian™ tropes: idyllic suburban childhood, sartorial specificity, mundane expressions of true love, handwritten notes, bf = bff, a lifetime in a song 79. This LoveBest line: Lantern burning, flickered in my mind, only youWhat's great about the Signature Swiftian™ Songwriting Style is that there isn't one—there's several! Some songs ("The Moment I Knew," "Speak Now," "Begin Again") detail scenes. Some ("White Horse," "Long Live," "Wonderland") build on a conceit. And some ("You Are In Love," "It's Nice to Have a Friend," this one) dabble in impressionism to gorgeous effect. Swiftian™ tropes: meta self-awareness ("I could go on and on, on and on," and guess what? she will), meta self-references ("wildest dreams"), shipwrecks, on/off up/down love, adjective ambivalence, boring rebound guy 78. illicit affairsBestIt's an unfortunate fact of critical analysis that it's much easier to write paragraph after paragraph about what doesn't work than what does. The further we go in this ranking, the harder it is to come up with commentary that's not just quoting the bulk of the lyrics and drawing hearts around it. But if I cited "the lakes" for falling prey to Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, I owe it to explain why "illicit affairs" doesn't. Take the words for what they are"Dwindling" and "mercurial" aren't fancified versions of more common words, they're highly specific terms directly related to the illustrative metaphor they immediately precede. As for the bridge? https://preview.redd.it/41veq0rh2me61.jpg?width=3899&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=54cafc7b234b4d6bc6a21f00a86e525f14ddaaea Swiftian™ tropes: cheating: The Song, road metaphors (Robert Frost subgenre), intense #aesthetic awareness, love makes you crazy 77. OursBestA pet peeve of mine is the assumption that if you write convincingly about something, you must've had firsthand experience. Writers have good imaginative empathy! You don't have to be a sociopath to write from a serial killer's POV, you just have to harness your own moments of schadenfreude and turn them way up. Taylor Swift has never worked in an office, but that didn't stop her from writing this gem of a workplace AU about judgmental coworkers. If anything, she had to turn her own experiences way down. Swiftian™ tropes: not being like other girls, ignoring people's warnings about a guy, bad boys, love in mundane places, dealing with judgment and criticism, she could write a song for you (and that song is THIS song) 76. White HorseBest line: And it's too late for you and your white horse to catch me nowIt's funny (in a "ha ha, sexism!" kind of way) how Taylor Swift gained such a ✨fairytale✨ reputation considering that of the three fairytale-themed singles she released 2008-2010, only the first played it straight. "White Horse" deconstructed the tropes "Love Story" embraced. Many artists would've stopped there, but Taylor went one step further with the reconstruction "Today Was a Fairytale." Her own label didn't see the nuance (see: Speak Now's title change). Swiftian™ tropes: fairytale imagery, self-identification as a dreamer and/or believer, blaming yourself for "letting" someone hurt you, small towns symbolism, love as a battle (realization edition), guy begs girl to take him back Next time...Will there be more diagrams? More attempts to rewrite Hamilton as a jukebox musical in which every song (at least all of Eliza's) is a TS original? Your guess is as good as mine!https://i.redd.it/yujliq9imme61.gif |
Christmas Eve Christmas Day Boxing Day New Years Eve New Years Day Store contact number Superdrug 08:00 – 17:00 Closed 10:30 – 16:30 09:00 – 17:00 10:30 – 16:30 0113 234 0640 Frankie & Bennys 09:00 – 22:00 Closed 10:00 – 21:00 09:00 – 22:00 10:00 – 22:00 0113 245 4882 Wren Kitchens Closed Closed.... – Remembrance Day – Boxing Day. Commonly, stores open later than normal and close earlier than normal on major holidays, such as Easter Sunday, Thanksgiving Day and New Years Day. The majority of stores close EARLY on Christmas Eve and close LATER than normal on Black Friday. We recommend that you call ahead to check the exact Hallmark Gold Crown holiday hours of operation . Crown Perth rejoiced in festive dining & celebrations. There is something extra special about festive celebrations. It’s a time where family and friends come together to rejoice and share – whether in a meal, a toast, a gift or simply that indescribable Christmas spirit. AT THE CROWN, STOKE BY NAYLAND Christmas is our favourite time of year. We have carefully planned this year's festivities at The Crown, ensuring our plans uphold our Six Measures of Safety, while offering our usual festive magic. Come and join us for a festive feast on Christmas Day as we open our pub for the first time in 17 years! A: Crown Perth Casino operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week with the exception of Christmas Day, Good Friday and ANZAC Day. Please call +61 8 9362 7777 if you would like to know the opening times on these days. Crown Center is full of your favorite holiday traditions. From ice-skating beneath the towering Mayor’s Christmas Tree on Crown Center Square to visiting Santa at Santa’s Gingerbread Station, there is something for everyone. Bring your friends and family to shop, eat or take in a holiday activity. Make memories and share them online using #CrownCenter . Upcoming Events. Photo Gallery He seemed pleased with the progress of the $2.4 billion project at Barangaroo. In fact, he was so pleased that he announced to the media it would open to the public on Christmas Day. When the project first began, the opening date was expected to be early 2020 for the first tower and the end of 2020 for the rest of it.
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From the new Casting Crowns album Peace On Earth. Enjoy!! :) About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators ... In this video we will be taking a look at The Queen as she speaks candidly about wearing the crown jewels and attending her own Coronation.Thank you for watc... Casting Crowns singing, I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day. Enjoy!NO COPYRIGHT! I DON'T OWN THIS SONG OR BACKGROUND! #Jesus4Life #Jesus4Lifevideos All music and copyrights reserved by Casting Crowns.This video is for (bass demonstration) only, and a seasonal message of hope set forth by this band. 👍 As seen on 2008 TBN Christmas special. "I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day" is available on Casting Crowns' Christmas album, Peace On Earth.Listen to the new...
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