Quotulatiousness

April 14, 2020

History Summarized: England

Filed under: Britain, France, History, Humour, Military — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 10 Apr 2020

English history has a reputation for being nigh incomprehensible — what with all the kings, civil wars, succession crises, and slapfights with France. But with the right perspective (and a little royal-restraint), England can become quite a straightforward story. So let’s take a look at this slice of Britain, and see how it grew into the master of the Isles.

SOURCES & Further Reading: “History of England from the Tudors to the Stuarts”, lecture series for The Great Courses by Robert Bucholz, a great look at Renaissance and Early Imperial England.
“Ten Minute History of England and Britain” Parts 1-18, by History Matters, a lengthy chronicle of English history from the Roman conquest through the Union of the Crowns. Good watch if you have the time.
Foundation by Peter Ackroyd, the first book in a mammoth 6-volume History of England, which covers everything up to the death of Henry VII. If you really want to dig into English history, this is the book for you.

This video was edited by Sophia Ricciardi AKA “Indigo”. https://www.sophiakricci.com/
Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.

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April 12, 2020

Minimum alcohol pricing – a policy so good you have to lie about it

Filed under: Britain, Economics, Government, Health, Wine — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Scotland has had legal minimum prices for alcoholic beverages since mid-2018. If you read a random selection of mainstream media coverage, you’d know that it’s been a huge success, with vastly improved public health results at a price to consumers measured in mere pennies. As with all propaganda efforts, if you tell the lies often enough, people may believe you:

There has been all sorts of rubbish written about minimum pricing since it was introduced in Scotland in May 2018. Nicola Sturgeon has lied about in the Scottish Parliament. The BBC has gone to extraordinary lengths to spin the policy as a success. The public have been told that alcohol-related hospital admissions have gone down when they have gone up. We have seen the media fall for blatant cherry-picking. We have been told that rates of problem drinking have gone down when we don’t have any evidence either way.

One of the few solid facts — that there were more alcohol-related deaths recorded in Scotland in 2018 than in 2017 — has been sidelined. Instead, the media have focused on a disputed, and relatively small, decline in alcohol sales as if that were an end in itself. Any port in a storm (fortified wine sales have definitely benefited from minimum pricing).

Figures from the calendar year of 2018 are of limited use because minimum pricing didn’t begin until May 1st. Today, for the first time, I can reveal the monthly mortality figures for Scotland, England and Wales. They show that there was no difference between the change in annual death rates from alcohol-related causes, regardless of whether the country had minimum pricing in place. Both England/Wales and Scotland saw a decline between May and December of seven per cent (compared to the previous year).

This graph is published in a new briefing paper I have written for the IEA. It summarises all the evidence gathered to date on deaths, hospitalisations and sales, plus exclusive new data.

Importantly, it contains estimates of the costs to consumers. Among the more outlandish claims made by the Sheffield modellers was the idea that moderate and low income consumers would be barely affected by minimum pricing. They predicted that a low income moderate drinker would only pay an extra 4p a year! This was never realistic, not least because it was based on the minimum price being set at 45p and they defined a moderate drinker as someone consuming the equivalent of just two pints of lager a week, but it worked from a PR perspective because it quelled politicians’ fears about the policy being regressive.

November 8, 2019

Shakespeare Summarized: Macbeth

Filed under: Britain, Humour, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 12 April 2014

Here it is! The Scottish Play. The bloodiest of the bloody. An epic tale of magic, madness and stabbing. It’s so gory, even Tarantino thinks it’s over the top.

Making it funny was pretty tough. 😀

October 6, 2019

Finally a reason to climb on the impeachment bandwagon

Filed under: Economics, Government, Humour, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Andrew Heaton, in his latest newsletter, explains why he’s finally come down on the side of impeaching President Trump:

Okay, here’s the main thing I wanted to talk to you about: America is about to slap a TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT tariff on scotch. The underlying story involves the WTO and Airbus, but I think I can save everybody a lot of time by pointing out that our president is a mouthbreathing protectionist who’s too lazy to read Adam Smith’s wikipedia page.

Here are a few things to consider:

  • Tariffs are just taxes, designed to punish you for having the gall to buy something from a foreigner.
  • This will hurt Scottish distillers, and potentially price out distillers with low profit margins.
  • I might have to switch to wine on dates.
  • We have now spent more money needlessly bailing out farmers from a trade war with China than we did bailing out banks under Bush.
  • We’ve known about the idiocy of tariffs since The Wealth of Nations came out in 1776.
  • Trump, a man lacking an ideological core, for reasons which boggle the mind, seems to genuinely believe tariffs and protectionism are good things, as he has maintained since the 80s.

Chances are if you subscribe to this newsletter you’re not a teetotaler, but on the off chance you are, allow me to make a case against whisky taxes even if you are not personally apoplectic about a tax hike on Laphroaig. (A concoction personally invented by Almighty God. It’s like you’re drinking a campfire. Try it.)

There’s an old saying: when goods don’t cross borders, armies do. I concur with this. In fact my largest contribution to the field of economics (Nobel Prize forthcoming) is Heaton’s Peace Through International Mistresses Theory.

My groundbreaking idea is that we want to have an interconnected, global economy with lots of transnational trade, because businessmen will be less supportive of bombing cities their mistresses live in. When trade wars happen, international trade collapses, and suddenly businessmen are flying to Berlin and Paris a lot less. Pretty soon we’re firebombing Tokyo.

It would probably be more appropriate of me to dedicate my political analysis to the forthcoming Ukraine/Trump/Biden/Impeachment circus which will dominate our lives for the next few months. However in my case I don’t need to. The president has messed with my scotch. Now it’s personal. I’m all in.

Impeach the guy.

#FreeTrade

You can subscribe to Andrew’s email newsletter here.

September 30, 2019

Ten Minute History – The Early British Empire

Filed under: Americas, Britain, History, India, Military — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

History Matters
Published on 26 Sep 2016

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tenminhistory
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4973164

This episode of Ten Minute History (like a documentary, only shorter) covers the birth and rise of the British Empire from the reign of Henry VII all the way to the American Revolution. The first part deals with the Tudors and their response to empire in Spain (as well as the Spanish Armada). The second part deals with England’s (and later Britain’s) establishment of its own empire in North America and India. It then concludes with the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolution.

Ten Minute History is a series of short, ten minute animated narrative documentaries that are designed as revision refreshers or simple introductions to a topic. Please note that these are not meant to be comprehensive and there’s a lot of stuff I couldn’t fit into the episodes that I would have liked to. Thank you for watching, though, it’s always appreciated.

August 4, 2019

History Summarized: Scotland

Filed under: Britain, History, Humour — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published on 2 Aug 2019

Go to http://www.audible.com/overlysarcastic or text OVERLYSARCASTIC to 500500 to get a free audiobook, 2 free Audible Originals, and 30-day free trial.

Put on your Kilt and grab some bagpipes, it’s time to talk about Scotland! From the earliest beginnings to the modern day, the Scots have had a fiercely independent attitude, and are absolutely willing to fight about it — several times, in fact.

Fun fact about Kilts, I couldn’t fit this in the video anywhere, but basically Scots used to wear these big complicated vaguely-toga-like wraps of tartan plaid starting in the Renaissance, but in the 1720s one guy said “This is too complicated, take the top part off but keep the bottom half and just attach it with a belt — and behold, the Kilt as we know it was born.

FURTHER READING: Scotland, A Concise History — https://www.amazon.com/Scotland-Conci…

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From the comments:

Overly Sarcastic Productions
1 hour ago (edited)
Blue: Spends two weeks researching, writing, and producing a video about Scottish History
Also Blue: USES THE WRONG FUCKING FLAG
Rest assured, everybody, I’m veritably mortified by how badly I messed that up.
-B

July 22, 2019

No Flag Northern Ireland

Filed under: Britain, Europe, History, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

CGP Grey
Published on 18 Jun 2019

Northern Ireland’s officially unofficial flag.

June 4, 2019

Missing Isle of Lewis chess piece discovered in Edinburgh

Filed under: Britain, Europe, Gaming, History — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

It’s always irritating when you lose a chess piece, but this one’s been missing for a long, long time:

A medieval chess piece that was missing for almost 200 years had been unknowingly kept in a drawer by an Edinburgh family.

They had no idea that the object was one of the long-lost Lewis Chessmen – which could now fetch £1m at auction.

The chessmen were found on the Isle of Lewis in 1831 but the whereabouts of five pieces have remained a mystery.

The Edinburgh family’s grandfather, an antiques dealer, had bought the chess piece for £5 in 1964.

He had no idea of the significance of the 8.8cm piece (3.5in), made from walrus ivory, which he passed down to his family.

They have looked after it for 55 years without realising its importance, before taking it to Sotheby’s auction house in London.

The Lewis Chessmen are among the biggest draws at the British Museum and the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

They are seen as an “important symbol of European civilisation” and have also seeped into popular culture, inspiring everything from children’s show Noggin The Nog to part of the plot in Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone.

Sotheby’s expert Alexander Kader, who examined the piece for the family, said his “jaw dropped” when he realised what they had in their possession.

H/T to Colby Cosh for the link.

May 20, 2019

A Guide to Dark Age British Politics

Filed under: Britain, History, Religion — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

History With Hilbert
Published on 26 Sep 2017

A beginner’s guide to the politics of Dark Age Britain, from the southern Celts to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and the Pictish north.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HistorywithHi…

February 15, 2019

“Blood of Bannockburn” – Sabaton History 002

Filed under: Britain, History, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Sabaton History
Published on 14 Feb 2019

Sabaton’s song “Blood of Bannockburn” is about the First War of Scottish Independence and one of its key figures, Robert the Bruce. He fought the English King Edward who invaded Scotland when Bruce’s revolutionary force forced all Scottish nobles to join his cause or lose their lands. Edward moved on Bruce’s army while they were besieging Stirling Castle, but his plans to overwhelm the Scottish was opposed by Bruce.

Support Sabaton History on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sabatonhistory

Watch the official lyric video for Blood of Bannockburn here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp-Rk…

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Markus Linke and Indy Neidell
Directed by: Astrid Deinhard and Wieke Kapteijns
Produced by: Pär Sundström, Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Executive Producers: Pär Sundström, Joakim Broden, Tomas Sunmo, Indy Neidell, Astrid Deinhard, and Spartacus Olsson
Maps by: Eastory
Edited by: Wieke Kapteijns
Sound Editing by: Marek Kaminski

Eastory YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEly…
Archive by: Reuters/Screenocean https://www.screenocean.com
Music by Sabaton

‘Photo young Sabaton’ ©Dalarnas museum, foto: Susanne Nyhlén – The National Portrait Gallery https://www.npg.org.uk

An OnLion Entertainment GmbH and Raging Beaver Publishing AB co-Production.

© Raging Beaver Publishing AB, 2019 – all rights reserved.

From the comments:

Sabaton History
1 day ago (edited)

Hey!! We’re leaving the modern times (which instantly that answers a frequently asked question about if we’re just sticking to WW2) and will enter the Medieval Era. The 3d animated maps are made and researched by Eastory (check his channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCElybFZ60Hk1NSjgCf7I2sg). As the battle took place long ago, there is little documentation about it and there are several possible reconstructions of the events of the battle available. We had to prefer one version and proponents of others may criticise it. The most risky decision was to add the effects of land rise and make the Forth river larger as a result. This is absent from most of reconstructions, but Eastory studied some old maps and according to them the sea level in 15th and 16th centuries was far higher in the region.

Enjoy and STAY AWESOME! 🤘🤘

February 6, 2019

“The haggis croquette is the most London-thing ever done in London”

Filed under: Britain, Economics, Humour — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

At the IEA, Andy Mayer reports on the first attempted Burns Night Supper in the City of London:

Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish made with sheep’s heart, liver and lungs, and stomach (or sausage casing); onion, oatmeal, suet, and spices. It’s either a local delicacy or an elaborate joke played on the English (take your pick).
Photo by “Lordvolom1” via Wikimedia Commons.

Last week the City of London held their first attempt at a Burns night supper, with the First Minister and representatives of the Scottish Government as guests of honour.

It is a difficult tradition to get wrong. Largely it requires steaming piles of Scotland’s revenge on the sausage, poetry that the English politely pretend to understand while feeling vaguely threatened, and bonhomie to overcome it, enabled through litres of distillate infused with the flavour of an entire peat bog.

The City served haggis croquettes, with wine.

There’s possibly a Glaswegian satirist somewhere who’s just given up. “Ach I canne compete. The sassenach dough-monkeys just served wee Nicola a haggis croquette, on Rabbie Burns night! I’m breaking-me pen.”

Meanwhile in Shoreditch two Millenials have just set up the Haggis Croquette Cafe, serving Organic Iron-Bru made from recycled plastic girders. The haggis croquette is the most London-thing ever done in London.

I spent much of the evening talking to trade officials. Their job is to sell Scottish opportunity around the world and open up its markets.

This was interesting – how would descendants of Adam Smith visiting the birthplace of trade economist David Ricardo define their comparative advantage? What can Scotland do better than anyone else? What might they do well enough that they can carve out positions, despite larger rivals, better off leaving such things to Scotland? Fundamentally, how are they going to compete?

There was an uneasy pause after these questions. And then to paraphrase, “Oh no, we don’t want to compete, we want to cooperate! With everyone! Not being threatening, that’s our advantage!”

I feel very sure that Smith, on hearing this, would have reached out, to extend the invisible hand of history across time, to give this official a mild slap. “Encouraging competition, with and from other places, and then getting out of the way, is the whole point”, he might say.

January 13, 2019

The Chainsmokers – Closer | Scotland the Brave | Bagpipe Cover

Filed under: Britain, India, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 02:00

TheSnakeCharmer
Published on 18 Jan 2017

The Chainsmokers’ “Closer” meets traditional Scottish tune “Scotland the Brave”. Watch how magical it sounds together when played on Bagpipes. Don’t miss the dance action in between the video!
Please SHARE the video if you enjoyed watching 🙂

Special thanks to Wenom (Dance Crew) for being a part of my video
Check them out here – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZoA…

Support me here on Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/thesnakecharmer

Track Produced by Karan Katiyar
Check out his awesome metal parody channel here – www.youtube.com/bloodywood

Video Editing – Karan Katiyar

Video Shoot – Aditi Verma
TGKI Productions

December 28, 2018

QotD: Celtic nationalism

Filed under: Britain, History, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Welsh, Irish and Scottish nationalism have points of difference but are alike in their anti-English orientation. Members of all three movements have opposed the war while continuing to describe themselves as pro-Russian, and the lunatic fringe has even contrived to be simultaneously pro-Russian and pro-Nazi. But Celtic nationalism is not the same thing as anglophobia. Its motive force is a belief in the past and future greatness of the Celtic peoples, and it has a strong tinge of racialism. The Celt is supposed to be spiritually superior to the Saxon — simpler, more creative, less vulgar, less snobbish, etc. — but the usual power hunger is there under the surface. One symptom of it is the delusion that Eire, Scotland or even Wales could preserve its independence unaided and owes nothing to British protection.

George Orwell, “Notes on Nationalism”, Polemic, 1945-05.

December 24, 2018

QotD: “Working over Christmas”

Filed under: Britain, Europe, Humour, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

“Are you working over Christmas?” I asked the waitress at my local diner in New Hampshire last Thursday – December 23rd.

Erica looked bewildered. “No,” she said. “We’re closed Christmas Day.”

My mistake. I’d just been on the phone to an editor in London who’d wanted early copy for the late January issue because no-one was going to be in the office “over Christmas”. I’d forgotten that, in New Hampshire, “over Christmas” means December 25th. In London and much of the rest of Europe, it’s a term of art stretching as far into mid-January as you can get away with.

In America, the Christmas holiday is what it says: a holiday to observe Christmas. If it happens to fall on a Saturday or Sunday, tough. See you at work Monday morning. But across the Atlantic, if Christmas and New Year fall on the weekend, the ensuing weeks are eaten up by so many holidays they can’t even come up with names for them. I see from the well-named “Beautiful Ireland” calendar this newspaper sent me in lieu of a handsome bonus for calling the US elections correctly that January 3rd 2005 is a holiday in Ireland and Britain – the Morning After The Morning After Hogmanay – and the lucky Scots get January 4th off too – the First Hogtuesday After Hogmonday? Eventually, the entire Scottish economy will achieve the happy state of their enchanted village of Brigadoon and show up for one day every hundred years.

Mark Steyn, “Happy Christmas Bank Holiday Thursday”, The Irish Times, 2004-12.

December 3, 2018

QotD: Scottish dietary preferences

Filed under: Britain, Food, Health, Humour, Quotations — Tags: — Nicholas @ 01:00

The Scots have a fondness for deep-fried foods. Everything from fish n’ chips to Mars bars. A survey of shops said customers also request deep fried sweets, pineapple rings, and even ice cream. The health authorities are naturally somewhat concerned about this diet, but Dr. David Morrison of the Greater Glasgow Health Service Board is encouraged by “evidence of the penetrance of the Mediterranean diet into Scotland, albeit in the form of deep-fried pizza.”

Billy Munnelly, “Journal”, Billy’s Best Bottles Volume 21, No. 4, Spring 2005.

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