From: proustsingsmud@hotmail.com   
      
   "Martha Bridegam"  wrote in message   
   news:40C4A8AD.DB35519D@pacbell.net...   
   > Obviously this place isn't my local pub any more. I just dropped in for a   
   pint   
   > and stayed to finish it. Quite the change: there used to be overflowing   
   > ashtrays and lumpy furniture but the room was comfortable and strangers   
   felt   
   > welcome. Now there's spilled beer and broken glass all over, and a group   
   of   
   > thick-necked fellows at the back table are always shouting about politics   
   to   
   > each other and interrupting other conversations with their own favorite   
   > subjects   
      
   You used to be one of them, doing all that. Google yrself sometime.   
      
      
      
   , so it's hard to have a quiet chat.   
      
   I always thought the cosy pub metaphor would be stretched too far and used   
   to cover a multitude of evasions, obfuscations and the general drive to   
   define and police permissable debate. If I am coarse--and I am--you were   
   bigoted; beyond belief sometimes and like all bigots on the Left, you've got   
   into the habit of thinking that the word only applies to people on the   
   Right.   
    Where I live, in the real world, there are no cosy pubs: they've all been   
   destroyed by the breweries.   
      
      
   >   
   > I have things to say about George Orwell once in a while because I like   
   his   
   > work, have read it   
      
   I liked that little sneer: it was revealing.   
      
      
   , and continue to take an interest in books about his life,   
   > writing and times. If I have something to say about him here I will say   
   it.   
      
   But not discuss it?   
      
   > Innocent tourists still come in here to look at the notice board because   
   this   
   > place is still in some of the guidebooks -- though if the atmosphere   
   doesn't   
   > improve it likely won't be for long.   
      
   In looking over your valedictory posts I am reminded of what the New Yorker   
   magazine said about Chaplin's Limelight: 'Surely the richest hunk of   
   self-gratification since Huck and Tom attended their own funeral.'   
      
   ROBBIE   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)