Just another day on Brexit Island

[dolorosa_12]

Things which are not like the Holocaust: being required to wear a mask on public transport.

Things which are not like apartheid: vaccine passports.

In other words, the Brexity anti-everything-sensible types are venting their spleen everywhere, accusing the rest of us of 'living in fear'. Marina Hyde has their measure.


Meanwhile, the entire UK has been giggling at this story that's been doing the rounds of the local newspapers. I'll let the title speak for itself: Bomb squad called to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital after man gets WWII mortar stuck up his bottom. Apologies for all the various banner and popup ads — local papers all seem to be like this. (I'm assuming the man in question is okay, otherwise I wouldn't have shared the story, no matter how childishly funny I found it.)

And that's pretty much been my Friday, from the absurd to the ... absurd in a different way.

Comments

[lirazel]

At least it's not double awful absurd? It's only single awful absurd and single giggly absurd?

I just got Daniel Lavery's newsletter update in my email and I haven't even read it yet, but I saw the title and immediately felt the need to share it with you: What We Know For Sure About the Druids Is Nothing And Shut Up.

[dolorosa_12]

Oh my God, that druids newsletter is hilarious and true.

I have a friend who I first met as a PhD student, who now is head of the Early Irish department at one of the universities in Ireland, and she basically spends her time on social media despairing at all the nonsense that people believe about druids which she constantly has to debunk — because one of the things about being an acadmic in Celtic Studies is that people will constantly contact you with all their batshit consipiracy theories and 1970s-esque New Age nonsense. (It even happened to me — being taught how to calmly respond to the most absurd garbage with 'we don't have any evidence of pre-Christian Celtic religious beliefs, and we don't really have any evidence of "Celts" either' should be part of every medieval Celticist academic's PhD training.)

In other words, I must immediately share the link to Daniel Lavery's newsletter with all my academic friends! Thank you for sharing.

[lirazel]

I have now read it and was tickled, so I'm glad it resonated with you!

she basically spends her time on social media despairing at all the nonsense that people believe about druids which she constantly has to debunk

I so, so easily believe that. I follow a medievalist on tumblr and she is constantly trying to debunk nonsense.

[trepkos]

Oh dear - did this man fall out of a Carry On film?

[dolorosa_12]

I know, right? Such a ridiculous thing to have happened!

[merit]

So many old bombs around the place... who's to know where they all end up? ^^

[dolorosa_12]

Ahahahaha!

Discovering unexploded bombs from both world wars is a semi-regular occurrence in western Europe — I can remember that I had an entire train journey disrupted somewhere around Cologne due to a WWII bomb that was discovered — but this scenario is something else!