My ancestors didn’t own SLAVES

How the hell do you seem to end up with so many foreign partners? I can't even find a barnsley lass.

And yes Mrs Burgundy Red is foreign too

 

I'm not much of a catch, I had to cast my net wide.

 

There’s one in Liverpool and one in Hull.

I don’t believe for a second that a monument to a slave trader is teaching anyone any lesson beyond ‘we don’t have a problem with slavery’.

 

Never heard of russianbrides.com

 

I've visited the one in Hull and it's extremely disturbing & sobering, but well worth the visit.

 

I visited the one in Liverpool - likewise

 

Thought I'd at least get a like off Nudger

 

Went to the slave market outside the main square in Lagos, Algarve. That made me feel sick. One of the square is a beautiful church, in the middle the old customs house and then the slave market. God and greed, don't think that's ever mentioned in the bible.

 

I was, my mate lives in Bristol and there's been a campaign for decades to have that statue taken down but the council simply refused to do anything about it. They did agree rename the Colston Hall this year after refurbishment, but I don't know if it's happened yet.

 

I went to Gambia and visited Jufreh, the place where the British rounded up locals and put them on an island in the river before shipping them to the Americas. Very sobering place indeed.

 

For me that hit home when I watched a documentary about the compensation to slave owners, and the amount of money that was paid to churches.

Ive always viewed the Old Testament values as ‘irrelevant’, and considered Northern European Christians to be relatively progressive - but it seems it’s not only terrible it’s not getting better.

 

Did you ask if Madeleine McCann had passed through?

 

Actually I liked the proposal from the mayor of Bristol when they recovered the statue from teh harbour. Displaying in a museum but NOT removing the graffiti etc .
This shows the current (or rather what SHOULD be the current) attitude of society now regarding the actions of those historic people who engaged in slavery.

A little bit like the gibbets they used to hang rotting corpses of criminals in as a reminder to people of what happens to you. Alright that is a flimsy comparison but for the rich and empowered whose egos often match their wealth it is a sober reminder of what their legacy might be. Obviously it is rdiculous to compare their actions with those of slave traders but mega rich people like Green, Ecclestone and Branson (the latter who I once thought better of) have rather shown their true colours during this coronavirus crisis. More intent of protecting their fortunes than stepping up to the plate. I wonder how history will judge them?

 

It won't be their second language - the child will speak English at school, then later at work - but without regular practice they tend to lose their language skills.

Generally, the advice with parents that speak different languages is for each parent to speak just one language with the child - although if both are non-native speakers, they can speak their native language at home and the native language while out and about (making the kids trilingual)

Apparently after a period of time in a new country, your dreams can change from your native language to the new language - which sounds really strange to me!

 

It's hard to explain but I've dreamed in a programming language. A 4GL at that. Still makes me shudder to think about it. Not dreamed in French yet, though. More practice needed, obviously.

 

I heard this from a friend from Slovakia who was over here for a few years. I've also heard it from a couple of other people who moved to other countries.

But dreaming in a programming language? - are you sure you are not an android?

 

Burgundy Bot.

 

As a kid, I was in awe of the statue of Joseph Locke... not because he built railways, but because he gave a massive park to the people of Barnsley. I looked at his statue in wonder.

I would probably look at the statue of that fella in Bristol in a similar way as a kid. As I’m sure most people didn’t call it that slaver bloke until recently.

So more recently I would look at the statue and wonder how that human being could be complicit in such heinous actions. He looks relatively normal, donated to charity, etc. But it shows that there has been in history abhorrent crimes committed by relatively normal looking people when it comes to race. The statue being there for me signifies that it is very easy for this to happen again if people turn a blind eye or ignore humanitarian crimes. How many times this week have I seen the question, “why would you put up a statue of a slave trader?”. I think this is a very good question to ask to fight racism, especially for young people.

On another note, I think the statue pulling down is becoming a them vs us scenario. Creating sides like this will more likely create a diversion to the real issues. The only way to make black lives matter is to share experiences and educate today’s racists and racist behaviour.

 

It was really unnerving. This 4GL (Pro-IV) operates around a fixed flow of control (its "timing cycle") and all my thoughts and actions were constrained by that structure. I really needed a holiday at the time, IIRC.

 

The most rational explanation I’ve read about dreams is that they are part of your brain reordering and embedding learning. So dreaming in another language (even a programming one) fits in with that.