We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Now is the winter of our discontent, or perhaps just two very English words

Senlac Hill, the figurative venue for the re-match.

And as before, the huscarls and fyrd shouted the battle cry: “Out! Out! Out!”

The enemy were not my Norman ancestors this time, but rather David Cameron in the role of William the Bastard, with his knights arranged around him with names like Jean-Claude Juncker, J.P. Morgan, Barack Obama, Tony Blair, and oh so many other members of the global establishment who disdainfully ordained that the order of things must not be upset, and snouts must be left undisturbed in the troughs to which they have become accustomed.

But this time… oh this time… it was not the embodiment of England who took an arrow in the eye but rather Dave the Bastard. This time just enough of the fyrd refused to take the bait, declining to rush forward off the hill leaving the huscarls exposed. This time they stood fast behind a forest of spears and a wall of shields, against which the forces of Dave the Bastard charged and died. We shall not be moved!

And in this glorious re-match, who has been cast in the role of King Harold Godwinson? It is hard to say, for he is wearing a helmet, but I have a sneaking suspicion when he takes it off, he will have very blonde tousled hair.

Britain has just angrily shrieked two words and they are: FUCK YOU!

I am a very happy man today.

One in the eye mate

Dave Rex Interfectus Est?

UPDATE: YES!!!! Dave Rex Interfectus Est!

That moon-faced toad David Cameron did indeed take the arrow in the eye he so richly deserved and has resigned! W00t! 😈

37 comments to Now is the winter of our discontent, or perhaps just two very English words

  • shlomo maistre

    I hate to say it but… well, I’m happy too.

    Fuck the EU.

  • Lee Moore

    I’m not normally one to blow my own trumpet, but I’d just like to mention that I am PERSONALLY responsible for our escape. A couple of days ago, I became a bit depressed by the polls, and stopped looking at my computer. I decided that I would not look at my computer or listen to the TV or pick up a newspaper for the remaining couple of days of the campaign. I decided to play Orpheus, and was determined not to look until Eurydice was free and clear.

    Since I’m in a strange time zone at present, the time from closing of the polls to results coming in was happily occupied by a long road trip, so, so long as I didn’t listen to the radio, I wouldn’t get home till the thing was decided. For two days I succeeded in my goal – not looking back towards the Underworld.

    I had concluded that the quickest way look uo the result on my computer when I got home, was the exchange rate. $1.50 or so – doom and despondency. $1.30 or so – escape ! My first frisson came when the FX site didn’t load…maybe it was overloaded ! Next stop, the gold price – up $60 ! Could it be ? In the end I went to the HQ of the dark side itself – BBC.com

    It wuz me that wun it. No need to thank me, though.

  • Snide

    Oh. My. God.

    Do you realise just how many self satisfied smiles just got wiped off a great many faces? England and Wales, this is your finest hour. Scotland and Ulster? Go fuck yourself.

  • Cheers Lee, your cheque is in the post! 😉

  • rapscallion

    Yes, those words ring loud and clear across the land – FUCK YOU. I am proud of the majority of the British People who would not be cowed or threatened, nor scared and frightened, but determined to stand their corner and fight. To fight for our freedom as we have done for a thousand years. No doubt we will have to fight for them again in the future.

    To Snide. Oh yes, oh yes indeed. You cannot believe the exquisite pleasure it gives me to see Cameron’s ill-considered and ill-chosen words of the last few years rammed down his gullet – and then some. It doesn’t get any better than this.

  • Natalie Solent (Essex)

    “two very English words” Let us not forget that an equally eloquent way of expressing the same sentiment is attributed to the Welsh longbowmen at Agincourt.

  • BigFire

    Made Glorious Summer by this son of York.

  • Ah, that is a postprandial sigh, I admit it. I have been reading the dyspeptic tweets of assorted Luvvies, and the taste of their tears is like the most heavenly vintage champagne, exploding on the tongue with such exquisite flavours. Ohhhhh… 😀

  • Eric

    Congratulations!

    Now… what does it mean, exactly? This was more of a plebiscite than an election, right? To what extent does the government have to respect the vote? Can’t they just say “We’re in negotiations…” and wait for public opinion to turn around.

  • Cal

    >To what extent does the government have to respect the vote? Can’t they just say “We’re in negotiations…” and wait for public opinion to turn around.

    They might try that on later, but it won’t wash today. And now that Cameron is gone, that will be much harder.

    There’s no prospect of re-running the vote. None at all. We’re not some little pushover that can be bossed around.

  • PeterT

    Eric, they might try, but it would almost certainly require another referendum, not with the same question. And as Cal said, with Cameron gone this now seems much harder. Anyway, I don’t like the man, but at least he had the balls to resign promptly. Hopefully the government can now backtrack furiously on project Fear, which is the true cause of the pound falling etc.

  • Mr Ed

    Many songs spring to mind, but I like the swagger in Kyrie Eleison by Mr Mister.

  • Mr Ed

    And BTW I did drive Dr Alan Sked, founder of the Anti-Federalist League to Bath for his campaign against ‘Fat Pang’ (as he was not yet then known) in the 1992 General Election, with thanks to the Sage of Kettering for arranging that opportunity to set the ball rolling.

  • Cal

    >This was more of a plebiscite than an election, right? To what extent does the government have to respect the vote? Can’t they just say “We’re in negotiations…” and wait for public opinion to turn around.

    The other reason why they can’t do this is because they ran this scare campaign based on saying ‘If you vote Leave, then it really is Leave. There’s no second chance. The decision will be final. It won’t be a basis for renegotiating our membership, it will defintely mean we’re out’ That’s now come back to bite them on the arse.

  • Regional

    It’s reported Germany will have to stump up two billion Euros to make up for England’s departure.

  • It’s reported Germany will have to stump up two billion Euros to make up for England’s departure.

  • QET

    Well done, people! Once more, Britain shows freedom to the world.

  • Watchman

    Cal,

    If they have no wish to be re-elected, they can ignore the referendum result. But no-one is any more likely to do that than to rub out pencil markings on leave votes (hey – lets panic people about the least sensible way of committing electoral fraud possible…), because this country is still a democracy.

    So I expect in the next couple of weeks to see a timetable for when we withdraw announced (if not the actual announcement itself) – once the Prime Minister has had a chance to talk to all the leaders of develoved parliaments, privy council, leaders of the remain campaign and probably the EU, because its sensible to talk first. Might even be today.

  • Watchman

    My office keep blaming me for this – I have pointed out that after leaving work tomorrow I had to clean the bathroom, so could not have cast 15 million odd votes, but still, I can’t help basking in the glory (of one vote cast and about two people perhaps persuaded)…

    It’s fun being half of the declared supporters of the winning side in a nest of supporters of the other side – I’m now trying to remind disappointed and generally younger colleagues that just because people live on council estates and voted leave this does not mean they were simply voting to fuck the establishment and that in fact they may have generally thought about issues. Hopefully a few 20-odds are remembering that the ‘working class’ is composed of individuals who are not stupid, even if they do not have a degree…

  • llamas

    Well.

    Done.

    I just hope that this happens:

    https://www.(Insert the Tube of You).com/watch?v=CGUv

    Again,

    Well.

    Done.

    llater,

    llamas

  • Snorri Godhi

    It’s reported Germany will have to stump up two billion Euros to make up for England’s departure.

    Good news for the AfD.
    Even better news for Wilders, the Freedom Party of Austria, the Finns Party, the Danish People Party, and the Sweden Democrats.

  • Laird

    For this century, anyway, this is your finest hour. Congratulations.

  • Laird

    llamas, I can’t get your link to run. (Yes, I put it into YouTube format, but it just says “This video does not exist.”) Why not just post the actual link? They work fine here.

  • llamas

    Laird – try this

    If I insert raw links to the Tube of You, I get Smiterated, and I Is Just A Fluffy Kitteh – Why Samizdata Smite I?

    Iizjustafluffysmite

    llater,

    llamas

  • CharlieL

    I take it you are pleased.

    Now you can show us on the other side of the pond the way, by recapturing some more of those lost freedoms.

  • Laird

    That worked, llamas; thanks. Pretty cool. I loved the dominoes thing near the end of V for Vendetta, too.

    I don’t know why you have a problem with posting YouTube links; I don’t. Here’s yours.

    Incidentally, as to your main point, it looks like they’re already starting to topple, or at least being set up to be pushed over.

  • Johnathan Pearce (London)

    in fairness to iDave, he pledged a referendum, and held it. His speech today as he resigned was genuinely classy.

    I am a very happy man today. Even the uncertainty is rather exciting. And the sight of so many fools gnashing their teeth at the outcome is just marvellous.

    I get the impression that this result is big, big news in the US. It could even in a funny way affect the result.

  • Laird

    It is big news in the US, but it seems to have caught most people by surprise and they don’t understand it at all. There has been remarkably little discussion of it over here, even in the business press. It’s only in the last week or so that the Wall Street Journal has devoted any significant amount of attention to it. Of course, every day this week they have had several articles and editorials about it; it’s like they’re trying to catch up.

  • llamas

    Oh, the Overlords are Watching! 😉

    llater,

    llamas

  • William H. Stoddard

    I have to say, looking at the bits of Cameron’s speech that were quoted in the Guardian, I’m struck by a sense of how much more integrity your British politicians have than our American ones. Obama has faced a long string of rebukes and is still being a weasel about them.

  • Paul Marks

    Agreed with the post – and most of the comments.

    By the way one of my favourite episodes of the television wargaming show “Time Commanders” was the one on the Battle of Hastings. Still available on Youtube.

    The team of players – play the Normans. And like Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne (and their E.U. chums) they mess it up.

    By the end of the battle William the Bastard is dead – and the Dragon Banner of Wessex is leading the English to rout the invaders.

  • Laird

    I watched a video of Cameron’s speech, and agree with Mr. Stoddard. Cameron displayed a lot of class. I hope his actions back that up in the coming months, but for now he seems to be doing the right things.

  • QET

    Laird obviously is unaware that two of our nation’s most noted economists–Lindsay Lohan and Jose Canseco–tried to warn us of the dire economic consequences of a Brexit, but no, we just wouldn’t listen, xenophobic rabble that we are.

  • Laird

    Sorry, QET, somehow I missed that. But while Lohan and Conseco may indeed be noted economists, as far as I know their area of expertise extends only to the pharmaceutical field.

  • Southpaw

    Thomas Jefferson: “From time to time, the tree of liberty must be refreshed with the blood of patriots.”

    It was bloody, but this time it was Britain that won its independence. As any scientist will tell you, most experiments fail. This one did.

  • Southpaw

    ” Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was…no, wait..THIS was their finest hour.”

    Sir Winston Churchill, 2016, as abridged.

  • Julie near Chicago

    llamas,

    LOVE the Falling Dominoes and Related Mayhems video! Great choice of an example of a way to avoid awakening the Smitebot…Thanks!

    But…here comes the Contrarian again, dragging that wet blanket.

    The problem with posting the actual videos (using the given youtu.be address — the regular one still earns the notice of the Smitebot) is that videos eat bandwidth, which is in short but expensive supply for those of us who must sometimes rely on the dongle for more than a day in any month.

    Which is why I prefer to use a address which one must copy and paste, altering the domain name to something obviously requiring a small and obvious editing.

    …………

    To the topic at hand: Yaaaa-Hoooooooo!!! / E******** — YOOOOOOOO!!! LOL