Monday November 14th 2022

It's a pale imitation of where we were a year or two ago, with rarely more than an article or two to make comments on. I was surprised that the comments were allowed to go so off topic, but once they have, and still related to racing (to some degree) - culling all comments shows the twitchy mature of moderators (that probably have many threads to police with little tme).

I think that's right. I have thought for a long time that some of the moderators are probably just youngsters getting some experience, interns, possibly. I once asserted that and was immediately moderated (in the good old days).

In terms of "off topic", I have been a serial offender, a recidivist. I found that provided the topic was sufficiently arcane and thus harmless and especially if it was part of a long thread and deeply buried, discussions could proceed for days until the thread was formally closed. However, should anyone take offence and report the thread, as I am sure they sometimes did, all bets were off. It is very mildly tragic that great exchanges of view, some truly enlightening, were cast into nothingness on a whim.

Decades ago, I had to write speeches which were to made at conferences (by me), but it all depended on how long the debate lasted and if one was called by the chair or President to speak. Thus hours of careful preparation, researching the crucial axes on which the debate might pivot as well as all the rhetorical devices to be deployed, were lost entirely. Occasionally they saw the light of day, but often had to be cut to ribbons as the progress of the debate made some/much of their substance irrelevant.

Returning to the subject (!) of the Guardian, your comment is accurate. it is certainly very noticeable that much less care is being taken about opening up threads for discussion. It was never a Rolls Royce standard, but it has features of the Trabant now. Has anyone ever driven one of the latter, I wonder? Or the former, for that matter.

Quai,

I also followed that thread and found it interesting as the contestants had such knowledge but still couldn't agree as to the process which made it all the more interesting.

The sad thing about the Moderators is that the Guardian published all the known facts already but stigmatise the grubby TH Forum.

If all the Posters had opened up with "as detailed by David Conn" that would suffice as he has covered this before.

The Guardian has also published the summing up of Court Hearings on abduction and phone hacking but if you mention this on the Guardian website in connection to a well known Owner it is like you should continue to question the UK High Court instead of accepting foul play

A great win, EGS. I noticed that Home by the Lee had won and JJ Slevin was the jockey (and the odds).

WB Yeats was/is a great poet. However, his political views (in the 1930s) were in essence, fascistic. He disapproved of democracy and was an elitist. Hard to ignore that.

He was great, but...?

You are judging him not as a poet but as a man. As Auden said in his poem in memoriam, 'You were silly like us; your gift survived it all.' Auden was bereft to lose Yeats right at the start of the war that he thought was likely to silence the creative minds of Europe.

The man was the poet. As I said, "hard to ignore" his fascistic political inclinations.

By the time Auden said that, I think, Yeats had rowed back from his earlier more extreme views.

Similarly, (though this is a much more serious case), I find it impossible to appreciate (at all) the artwork of Eric Gill who sexually abused his two daughters.

I do not think artists can expect their actions in their lives to be set aside from their art. I don't see how it is possible frankly. When looking Caravaggio's paintings, it is always at the back of my mind that he was very probably a murderer.

There are a number of film and TV actors who I won't watch as a result of their poisonous political views. They have forfeited the right to expect that their nasty and destructive social attitudes will have no effect on their public standing.

P.S. This is an explanation of my approach, Harry. (I think all art appreciation is, in th end, fundamentally subjective).