#677 - Guilty Pleasures

I'm in the same camp as Peter Hitchens and conservatives, in that I feel that everything has a political meaning but *especially* small things that most people don't attach a lot of significance to, but cumulatively define something essential. I would dispute Hitchens' diagnosis of the cause, but I do believe he is right that something fundamental about Britain changed in the course of the 1990s, a transformation that had been largely accomplished in a decade. While Hitchens' might point to the labels on tinned goods and police uniforms, my personal measure comes from the cricket. We like to think of Charters and Caldicott, from THE LADY VANISHES, as archetypal England cricket fans. Contrast them with the 'Barmy Army', founded in 1994, and nowadays the locus of control for the Test Match fans' experience at the ground. The idea that Charters and Caldicott would participate in such absurd rituals of dressing up, chanting like football hooligans and providing annoying musical interludes and call-and-response routines is risible. Our national game has been ruined by these narcissists and their 'sense of fun' trumping a proper sense of decorum. It's no surprise The Hundred has come along to ruin the county championship and the Test team's ability to defend their wickets. The stiff upper lip has gone, although at least 'mustn't grumble', the national mantra, has so far remained under the new dispensation. BBC Radio Three has been turned into something with far too much audience participation, like it was local radio or Classic FM. It's all very sad, for me and Peter Hitchens, at least.

Paul Brewer

Damn straight. - L

Michael and Us

"A lot of Tories piled on to Jeremy Corbyn, but who did that help? I'd much rather have his straightforward Edwardian leftism (which values liberty and loathes war) to the slick Eurocommunist Blairites who sneer at liberty, and undermine it, and love wars." - Peter Hitchens

Jack Frayne-Reid

My main guilty pleasure has to be roller coasters. These are unfortunately an extremely normie interest and it's hard to explain to someone why you would be excited to go on something called "The Flash: Vertical Velocity" lmao

sinesynced

I'm a big fan of Hail, Caesar!, and I have a slightly different reading of what's going on there. The film celebrates Josh Brolin's character, because popular cinema is part of the glue that _really_ holds society together. Communists and priests are lost in their abstracted world views, but it's the rituals that bring people together in the here and now that count. This parallels the importance of bowling as a social ritual in The Big Lebowski. They are gently making fun of their characters' political beliefs (in both films,) which are so obviously unable to find purchase in the world around them (Communists in Hollywood and a pacifist whose best friend is a right-wing vet.)

Chris Sherman

Bar Rescue, and i pretend its not staged.

Shane

Another great Kenny g song is The Shuffle

Cole Flowers

My guilty pleasure is rewatching old seasons of Survivor. It's just so good but also a little embarrassing to watch when A. you're rewatching a season and B. it's nearly 2026.

sylvie

My guilty pleasure is ICP. Violent J is our age’s William Blake. His Dark Carnival is a whole working class cosmology. WOOP WOOP the last barbaric yawp of the digital age. The only true counter- culture left and the final vanguard still tilting at windmills of our soy, scone-inhaling PMC-ified white collar business professional neolib culture. The antithesis of “We’re All Middle Class Now.”

Eric

Haunted house by Roy Buchanan is so fucking good

Paul Caravello

Yeah, i should hate them especially bc my favorite band has at least one excellent song shitting on Bono, but man, “Lemon” is such a great song.

Oliver Crane

Troy Rez