For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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#1803721
When I left the RAF, I was stunned to discover that no-one in civvy street needed any submarines hunted but they didn't, so I retrained. I don't see the difference, apart from the fact that Fatima might get the chance to go back to ballet.

Sometimes I wonder if the people who profess to take offence or be dismayed at these things really do think that way or whether they just choose to say they do to give themselves a feeling of importance or significance in the world. It is my deep suspicion that they actually do not think at all, they merely parrot something that one journalist cooked up for the sake of a headline.

Either way, I'm glad my mind doesn't work (or fail to work) in that way.

Now, do you think it's too late for me to retrain as a dancer?
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1803725
Now, do you think it's too late for me to retrain as a dancer?


Depends on what kind and whether you want to earn a living at it :D

At the risk of being a broken record the point was and is that we were not telling pub staff to retrain but we were telling dancers and that is fundamentally inappropriate for reasons we have rehearsed many times now.
By Rjk983
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1803730
johnm wrote:
Now, do you think it's too late for me to retrain as a dancer?


Depends on what kind and whether you want to earn a living at it :D

At the risk of being a broken record the point was and is that we were not telling pub staff to retrain but we were telling dancers and that is fundamentally inappropriate for reasons we have rehearsed many times now.



I presume you did an element of research before being outraged.

Here is the original website that hosted the advert

https://web.archive.org/web/20201012091315/https://www.qa.com/campaigns/rethink-reskill-reboot/

along with the other trades they suggested could consider retraining to cyber. It includes a machinist, a barista, a waiter, an airline pilot...

Maybe you could take the true message of the advert to heart and consider how you could use google or any other search engine of your choice to do some very quick fact checking before launching into default setting of outraged from Bexley Heath mode.
johnm, JAFO, Miscellaneous and 1 others liked this
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1803733
I'm still outraged 'cos artistes are special :D

That said while many of the trades are transient both artistes and barmen have been around for centuries and will hopefully be around for centuries to come, though I think artistes might have a bit more invested in talent and technique :D
Rjk983 liked this
#1803746
johnm wrote:I'm still outraged 'cos artistes are special :D

No. They. Are. Not.

Although the mindset that holds that view is one of the reasons that so many feel entitled to lecture everybody else on just about everything via social media even though their skill set extends to no more than having a talent for dance, singing or reciting lines written by somebody else. There is a place for the arts, just as there is a place for serving drinks or food, but it is only more important to those who feel their own choices and interests should always trump those of other people. (I almost wrote lesser people but didn't wish to be seen as offensive). :wink:
That said while many of the trades are transient both artistes and barmen have been around for centuries and will hopefully be around for centuries to come, though I think artistes might have a bit more invested in talent and technique :D

A skilled craftsman like a carpenter actually deserves at least, and probably more, respect than anyone in the performing arts. Their talents are just as hard to acquire, need considerable work to maintain and are actually useful. :lol: See The Repair Shop for examples.

PW
JAFO, Rob P liked this
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1803749
A skilled craftsman like a carpenter actually deserves at least, and probably more, respect than anyone in the performing arts. Their talents are just as hard to acquire, need considerable work to maintain and are actually useful.


They are now artists really as computer controlled tools can do the routine production work better and quicker :D There is a considerable overlap between artists and craftsmen and always has been. qv Michelangelo artist and aircraft designer :-)
#1803756
johnm wrote:Nope it all starts from the reasonable assumption that HMG thinks its supporters value down market boozers more than the arts.


Well it's a numbers game, isn't it? The death of the pub would cost more votes than the death of theatre, opera, concerts etc. To say nothing of the potential for bad behaviour and unrest.
#1803765
To suggest that the arts, in whatever form, are not "special" is not to detract from the appreciation of the skills and dedication that goes into staging them. It is all a matter of personal taste, but I for one find it slightly offensive to suggest that those not enjoying particular forms are in some way less sophisticated than those who do. It is the variety of opinions, tastes and enjoyments that make humanity what it is.

I would personally rather pull out my fingernails with a pair of pliers than sit through a performance of ballet or opera. I do, however, enjoy sitting watching an international cricket match and have spent considerable sums since I retired doing just that all around the world. It would almost certainly have been cheaper to visit the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden once a month in the best seats. :(

I wonder if there is a word for those, possibly not inconsequential, number of people who patronise the arts in various forms not through real enjoyment but in order to wave their imagined sophistication at the rest of us. :wink:

PW
PeteSpencer liked this
#1803774
johnm wrote:@eltonioni Technically you are correct the family has a 999 year lease on the seats that commenced in 1853. The Great Exhibition established RAH, Imperial College, the Royal College of Music.

As to football it's slightly less interesting than watching paint dry but seems to be able to attract funds without too much difficulty, so maybe the premiere league could drop a few quid into grass roots.


If you can't see the art in a game of football, where two teams interact with skill and wits, with random factors managed in an instant to outcomes unknown, taking the audience to extremes of involuntary emotions they could never show to their life partner...

... but prefer the over rehearsed performance of centuries old stories that feature the same characters and always end the same way before the audience shuffles out with no more emotional output that a round of cheese...

... Then you Sir, are the Philistine.
#1803778
@eltonioni

What tosh:
If your supposition were true then millions of folks would never slot their favourite CD in the player or switch on their iPads, or tune to spotify to hear their favourite tracks played dozens of times:

I couldn't begin to count the number of times I've poured myself a glass of something red and settled down in front of the CD player (nothing fancy for me) to listen to , for example Mozart's Piano concerto no. 21 or Horn Concerto no 4 (K495) for the hundredth time.

'I am Spart.... er Philistine'

Peter :wink:
eltonioni liked this
#1803779
A personal reminiscence tangentially apposite:

A schoolfellow from the '60s had done so dramatically well in an interschool 'maths olympiad' that he was offered a Cambridge scholarship before he'd taken his 'A'-levels. He'd also been doing ballet since primary school, and as a result of his performance in competitions had, unsolicited, received an offer for a full scholarship at the academy of the Bol'shoi in Moscow, on much better terms than any training on offer in UK. He chose to take up the Bol'shoi offer ..

I never heard what career he pursued, nor how he did :wink:
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