GRcade

Corazon de Leon wrote:

Karl wrote:

Grumpy David wrote:It's quite a harmless joke because it's so obviously tongue in cheek and not sincere that it's nothing to get upset by.

I have been pretty upset by it - regardless of intent - since I first noticed it. I just don't think it's funny to make fun of poor people. Basically, it makes me think: Don't we have enough problems without laying on the smug piss-taking? Leave us alone, already.

It's in a sense interesting that the original edit was intended to be a kind of ironic reclaiming of the word 'povvo' (EDIT: my mistake, it was actually 'prole' wasn't it), but that context wasn't evident in the phrase itself, which means it wasn't readily interpretable as satire.

There’s never really been an ironic reclamation of the word prole/proletariat because it was not originally used to denigrate the lower income brackets, it was supposed to be a term to rally them into class revolution - the proletariat crushing the bourgeoisie etc. I think it may have been Karl's namesake, Marx, who first popularised it.

Since 1948 it’s been a point of satire in the west as it was used in Orwell’s works and generally lost its relevance as an inciting term without picking up a wider significance beyond parodying communism/class based society, at least in my view. I’m sorry if this comes across as critical but I really didn’t see anything to be offended by in the thread title.

As others have said though, perhaps it’s the right thing to change the thread title if the “joke” is being misinterpreted by a lot of people. There's not much else to say other than that the title was never meant to cause offence and I'm sure Gecko would've been mortified if he'd realised before it was changed.

Basically this, I grew up very interested in socialism and especially hegemony and had long red wine fueled discussions for many years with a close friend who's ended up as a philosophy doctorate using impenetrable terminology. Another friend studied Russia also at that level. And so the terms bourgeoise and proletariat, of which there aren't really either in this country, were used ironically quite often to describe classism and aristocracy in my group of friends (who were also my band, which was massively satirical).

I'm not ashamed of the fact or deserving of sympathy that I probably have one of the lowest household incomes on here but I do deal with that using a good dose of (bad and very dry) humour.

Of course I apologise that after all this time that nuance was not possible for anyone to know for certain.

I was aware of the roots of 'proletariat' in Marx, but my primary experience of the word 'prole' was it being used as a low-key classist insult by smug toffs at Oxford, which might be why I'm a bit sensitive about it.

I'm obviously not accusing you of being classist Ben (either of the Bens in the above convo!) -- I know we're all in the same boat.

That's very interesting. Cos my usage of the word is in a crap laden kitchen that hasn't been cleaned in literally 20 years with the wallpaper falling off in the corners and a dedicated "egg boiling pan", probably with someone at any point using recreational drugs and drinking cheap alcohol, waxing lyrical about stuff read in 10th-hand paperbacks until 4am and poking fun at all the 40-somethings sat in a college Access course in order to then get into Sussex to study philosophy.

Which is probably the total opposite of Oxford and really just a different type of (intellectual) snobbery.

(Fwiw he graduated with a first class honours and now is a paid fellow in Belgium following completion of masters in Amsterdam. Although I have visited his home in the years since and the kitchen is still exactly the same.)

Karl wrote:I was aware of the roots of 'proletariat' in Marx, but my primary experience of the word 'prole' was it being used as a low-key classist insult by smug toffs at Oxford, which might be why I'm a bit sensitive about it.

I'm obviously not accusing you of being classist Ben (either of the Bens in the above convo!) -- I know we're all in the same boat.

I’m very much classist. I hate all the classes I’m not in.

Eat the rich!

Karl wrote:Eat the rich!

Says the Oxbridge graduate.

Can we just change the thread title to "Property is theft" and be done with it?

Just like taxes

OrangeRakoon wrote:Can we just change the thread title to "Property is theft" and be done with it?

Just like taxes

When I bought my house the poor divorced/seperating Dad that was having to sell it was pretty desperate to move on. I got SOOOO much of his stuff and the price knocked down.

Basically theft yey.

Looks like we need to introduce Help to Banter in here.

I have enough saved for a mortgage now,. What do you recon is better to do. Put all my savings £35K straight into a deposit. Or put 25-30K into it and keep 5-10K for rainy day and holidays and things?

I'm tempted by option 2 right now.

Curls wrote:I have enough saved for a mortgage now,. What do you recon is better to do. Put all my savings £35K straight into a deposit. Or put 25-30K into it and keep 5-10K for rainy day and holidays and things?

I'm tempted by option 2 right now.

It depends on your situation, what are the house prices like where you live? Do you have furniture? Etc.

Personally I think once you've personally scrimped and saved that kind of money, you should award yourself a reasonable % aside for unseen costs and getting away from things / letting loose when you need to, especially if you don't absolutely need to spend all of it. You've already done the frugal part.

Yeah house prices I'm looking at are between £120,000 and £160,000, getting a mortgage shouldn't be a major issue hopefully(except for the fact I'm clueless). I'll just keep back a few quid I think.

Curls wrote:I have enough saved for a mortgage now,. What do you recon is better to do. Put all my savings £35K straight into a deposit. Or put 25-30K into it and keep 5-10K for rainy day and holidays and things?

I'm tempted by option 2 right now.

It depends really on how much of a deposit is required for the property that you want.

Also you can sometimes get better rates if your loan to value ratio isn’t as high.

But it’s also good to have a rainy day fund for unforeseen circumstances! Also don’t forget you’ll need cash for things like solicitors fees.

Maybe shop around and see what difference an extra 10k would make to the mortgage rates you’d be offered.

Curls wrote:Yeah house prices I'm looking at are between £120,000 and £160,000, getting a mortgage shouldn't be a major issue hopefully(except for the fact I'm clueless). I'll just keep back a few quid I think.

I'd aim for 20% deposit unless the house needs immediate and expensive modernisation in which case 15% deposit would be better.

No point doing 17.5% deposit etc as the interest rates only change at 5/10/15/20/25/30/35/40%.

After months of strawberry floating around, I'm finally supposed to be exchanging contracts with the buyer on Friday. She's suddenly decided she wants to view the property again and it has to be tomorrow morning.

If she tries gazundering the deal I am throwing her off the strawberry floating balcony.

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:After months of strawberry floating around, I'm finally supposed to be exchanging contracts with the buyer on Friday. She's suddenly decided she wants to view the property again and it has to be tomorrow morning.

If she tries gazundering the deal I am throwing her off the strawberry floating balcony.

Worst “I can afford a balcony“ post ever.

Moggy wrote:

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:After months of strawberry floating around, I'm finally supposed to be exchanging contracts with the buyer on Friday. She's suddenly decided she wants to view the property again and it has to be tomorrow morning.

If she tries gazundering the deal I am throwing her off the strawberry floating balcony.

Worst “I can afford a balcony“ post ever.

I could afford a balcony five years ago... the place I'm moving into doesn't have one!

Don't ever use AnyVan if you're planning on moving home.

These banana splits only rang at 3pm when they said they'd arrive at 2, to say that there was a significant delay. We say the estate agent needs the keys by 5 so when are you coming. They say probably later than 5 so we ask if there's another team available earlier. They then call back later on to say sorry there's no team available and we've cancelled the other bloke now so we can't do until tomorrow.

We arrange another company immediately, because you know, someone else legally owns the strawberry floating property now and is already wondering why they don't yet have the keys. By a miracle, even though it's half 6 in the evening on a Friday we manage to arrange something else.

Another 20 minutes on hold to ask for a refund to be told I'm not entitled to one because they're prepared to do the job tomorrow. I ask to speak to a manager, however all he can do is arrange for a manager to call me back within 24 hours.

So now I'm sat in someone else's home with a gooseberry fool load of massive furniture, hoping this other company actually turns up!