Following popular British TV Host Philip Schofield’s retirement for Unknown Reasons, now seemed a good time to repost a Tribute Thread to Schofield’s fellow National Treasure Stephen Fry. This Thread was first posted by the User Mencius Moldbugman
Amongst his many talents, Fry is first and foremost an extraordinarily talented writer. His first play was written at the tender age of just 22 in 1979.
I've never had the pleasure of reading some of his early work but the reviews certainly make it sound enticing. Let's hope there are more productions coming soon.
Of course, most of you will know him from his hilarious role as presenter of the BBC celebrity panel show QI where you can frequently hear him perform humourous songs about the affairs of the day.
Fry's presenting skills are legendary. As a gifted raconteur he is regularly seen as a guest speaker at awards ceremonies...
... and on the after-dinner speaking circuit.
He is one of the few Brits to have cracked Hollywood. Fry can be seen gracing both sides of the Atlantic with his superb performances in films like The Hobbit and V For Vendetta. He is very much in demand from major Hollywood production companies...
..though, ever humble, he has never forgotten his roots and his friends back in the UK who have helped him along the way.
Outside of the public spotlight, Fry exemplifies the best of British by campaigning for a number of charities. He is a fervent believer in modernising outdated educational practices and giving children a greater voice for autonomy and freedom.
Child safety is always a priority for Fry and he has become an active member in charities dedicated to helping find missing children.
We should all be thankful that we have somebody in the public spotlight willing to courageously voice out their concerns on social justice and who is willing to risk it all to protect the vulnerable and innocent.
It is no easy task to fight the prejudices that contaminate our modern society. We need fighters like Fry to shine light onto darkness and guide us into a more progressive future.
Most of all we should be grateful that British cultural life is blessed with this towering intellect: a penetrative IQ that is able to see the nuances of public issues and provide balanced answers to complex problems.
Though a man of the deepest empathy, he is well versed in the Classics and has the tempered, logical educational background to know where the line lies between subjectivity and objectivity. If only our elected officials could display such sound judgement.
It is rare that I express my appreciation for celebrities. So many of them do little to add to the heritage that is our shared collective culture, but here is one celebrity whose impact leaves no question of doubt. Thank you and keep up the good work!
DISCLAIMER: This is a Repost of a Satirical Thread not written by me. Any views that can be said to be expressed in it do not necessarily reflect my own. This Repost is made purely for entertainment purposes and is not intended to imply or express any particular view.
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I recently visited Leicester - one of the cities in Britain most transformed by immigration and the infamous location of a recent series of intercommunal riots between its Hindu and Muslim communities - to see what it looks like today 🧵
Leicester received more migrants before other British cities because of its textile industry and an influx of Ugandan Asians, creating chain migration incentives. Aside from its infamous community unrest also in recent years Richard III’s body was discovered under a carpark here
Leicester is one of Britain’s first majority minority cities, in 2021 41% white of which 33% are white British. This is very reflected at street level, very visible - you will see white British people but the vast majority of people will be from other ethnic backgrounds
Impressions from recent visit to Prague and the ways in which the city is and is not changing in the 2020’s 🧵
This is not a complaining thread, more just to describe Prague as it is today and the extent to which Prague is or is not changing. ‘TLDR’ - Prague is a fun Basically Fine city but it can suffer from overtourism. A very limited number of guest workers are now starting to arrive
Mostly enjoy Prague as a city, don’t think it will blow anyone away but it is a fairly liveable place, Basically Fine. It remains a largely Czech city with by European standards a sober population and is a good example of ‘Moderate Euromodernism with Visegradian Characteristics’
Impressions from recent visit to Belgrade and the ways in which the city is and is not changing in the 2020’s 🧵
This is not a complaining thread, more just to describe Belgrade as it is today and the extent to which Belgrade is or is not changing. ‘TLDR’ - Belgrade is a tidy and organised city in an ongoing construction boom. It is a very overtly nationalistic place without much migration
Belgrade is very clean, rare to see trash on the floor. Some parts of the city are a little shabby but mostly in the sense of decaying communist era architecture. There is a big buzz of new development, apartments, skyscrapers, shopping malls being built along the city’s waterfront
Impressions from recent visit to Lisbon and the ways in which the city is and is not changing in the 2020’s 🧵
This is not a complaining thread, more just to describe Lisbon as it is today and the extent to which Lisbon is or is not changing. ‘TLDR’ - Lisbon has experienced a visible migrant influx and a decline in the public space. Lisbon still often magical but in future may see changes
Lisbon feels very easygoing - unlike other European capitals it’s a difficult city to actively dislike. It’s a kind of liminal space between Euromodernity’s officiousness and the exuberance of the ‘New World’, of eg Brazil, not fully either. Until recently it balanced that well
Two Australian women from the urban ‘Eshay’ subculture (the Australian equivalent of Roadman) explain their favourite slang terms in Multicultural Sydney English
“You gronk dog”
I haven’t been to Australia since before COVID so speculation but maybe because the urban centres are so geographically spread out you get slightly different slang depending on the territory and then which migrants settle there. Also urban culture less centralised in one city?
New Article published in The New Statesman about ‘The Yookay’. Article makes some attempts to be descriptive but I wanted to make a few comments on it and respond to some of the misconceptions in its framing 🧵
Author describes ‘cackling satirists’ ‘racialising’ critiques of change. It being racialised so-called is inescapable because that is the nature of the change, by normative historical standards this kind of change is remarkable. An ontological point not in and of itself ‘racist’
There is no connection between older variants of ‘Yookay’ used to make Marxist or Celtic Nationalist critiques of mid-late C20th Britain, I coined the term in 2023 as a comment on the Blairite overuse of ‘UK’ vs Britain. Commonality here is that it is an intuitive transliteration