My wife has pointed out that over the last fortnight ( Filia conference, LGB Alliance conference, The Battle of Ideas, Let Women Speak) our home grown heroes have been rubbing shoulders with a wonderful gathering of our international heroes - Moira Deeming, Kara Dansky, Holly Lawford-Smith, Peter Boghossian, Billboard Chris, Vaishnavi Sundar and many more. She wondered whether Terf Island has become the centre of a Second Renaissance or whatever you might call this moment - any suggestions for a good term for it? I note that the ARC conference ( see last update) also took place in London! On The Mess Moira Deeming said she wanted to get ideas from Terf Island to bring back home with her for her next plans.
So, I’m continuing with the hero theme today - another flawed hero but…you can start bad and end up good 😎 However there is also a lot of courage thrown in. We like courage as a theme as well, don’t we 😎
Terry Malloy is a former boxer whose career was cut short when he purposely lost a fight at the request of local mob boss Johnny Friendly. Terry now works for Friendly's corrupt labour union as a longshoreman while his older, more educated brother Charley is Friendly's right-hand man. One day Terry is coerced into luring fellow worker Joey Doyle onto a rooftop, where he believes Friendly's henchmen want to talk Joey out of testifying to the Waterfront Crime Commission. When they instead murder Joey by throwing him off the roof, Terry is distraught and confronts Friendly, but is threatened and bribed into acquiescence.
Joey's sister Edie shames the local priest Father Barry into calling the dockworkers to a meeting, where he tries unsuccessfully to persuade them to stand together. Terry attends as a snitch for Friendly, but when the meeting is violently broken up by Friendly's men, he helps Edie escape, missing how Father Barry convinces one wounded worker to testify. Friendly and Charley get angry at Terry for getting involved with Edie and not informing them of the testimony. The next day the worker who testified is killed in a staged workplace accident.
And you’ll have to watch it (if you haven’t watched it before) to find out what happens next.
The scene below is one of the most iconic scenes of cinematic history - the ‘I coulda been a contender’ scene. Rod Steiger is Charley and Marlon Brando is Terry.
Boycott Waterstones
Yet another to add to the list of boycotts. If you haven’t heard it before, here is Kellie-Jay about what happened to her when she visited Waterstones the other day ( a reader informs me that she got similar treatment in Waterstones when she was buying Helen Joyce’s book, Trans).
Thanks also to a wonderful reader for drawing this petition about Waterstones to my attention. Please consider signing this:
https://citizengo.org/en/node/210382?utm_source=em&utm_medium=social&utm_content=
The For Women Scotland Judgment
Hopefully most if not all of you will have caught up with today’s Queens’ Speech which I want to emphasise because we have been discussing the judgment this week and Dennis Kavanagh provides an excellent summary of the case. He confirms that us gender critical people are, obviously, unhappy at those with gender recognition certificates (GRCs) being treated as the opposite sex but also points out that the anti-women activists are enraged because the judgment confirms that trans identifying men and women who do not have GRCs remain, legally speaking, as their biological sex. He also points out that lesbian associations, on the face of it, now have to admit men with a GRC. He stresses that this is different to the provision of services for lesbians. The same applies to gay men.
I am pleased that Dennis confirms my take on another matter, namely that this judgment probably collapses the Scottish Government’s case about their Gender Recognition Reform Bill.
https://clivesimpson.substack.com/p/episode-67-legal-fictions-r-us#details
Wonderful demolition on Twitter of trans identifying male barrister, Robin Moira White by Michael Foran ( this is also discussed on Queens’ Speech): https://mail.proton.me/u/266/inbox/yDBrcA3gvCcF5GcKXI3JU3CnyA9g-RtTHWISnUOWZkgme2BIBGA-pqBb4SODE_B-K1f_8q7LoGyrKqoz8Aw8Qg==
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Funds
Here is some good news. These funds have often been used to impose gender ideology on companies and organisations.
Leah Montebello in The Daily Mail ( Woke goes broke! £1bn pulled from ESG funds 03 November) reports:
'Responsible' investment funds saw a record outflow of £544m in September
ESG funds exploded in popularity before Covid
British investors have pulled a record £1billion out of ESG funds this year amid a backlash over 'woke' stock-picking.
Apparently 'responsible' investment funds saw a record outflow of £544million in September, meaning more than £1billion has left in 2023, according to figures from the Investment Association.
These so-called 'sustainable' funds, which consider environmental, social and governance factors for their investments, exploded in popularity before Covid as DIY investors sought their green credentials.
But 'woke capitalism' has come under increasing fire for prioritising social goals over delivering services and goods to customers and making money for investors.
The full article is here:
Updates This Week
I have to do an ‘administration’ day tomorrow - to start with, the table where I work is covered in piles of papers, books, court judgments etc and really needs sorting out! I can spot two suffragette scarves buried in the rubble😂
So the next update after this one will be Monday.
Thanks as ever to my mate Fingers for the Times cuttings - I haven’t used anything from the last two batches because either me or someone else have satisfactorily covered the matters being discussed. Anyway… I am going to see Fingers ( who is now 83 years old!) in darkest Hampshire from Tuesday to Thursday to settle his garden down for the winter. So not sure when I can manage any updates this week albeit I will have my laptop with me - bear with me! Please keep sending me any interesting links 😎
Dusty, sort this mess out, mate! ( record player in background - see below 😎).
Endpiece
I am so old fashioned I actually have a record player!! This last week, for some reason, while I have been drafting these updates, I have dug back to old LPs ( and I mean old) to have on in the background to ease the pain of woke Waterstones or lost court cases. Here is probably the biggest hit that The Drifters had 😎
I’ve signed the petition to Waterstones; that book is a disgrace. Who publishes such hateful filth? Wonderful news about the collapse of the ESG funds; I could rub my hands in glee. I loved ‘Under the Boardwalk’; reminds me of my teenage years. Thanks very much for the update, Dusty. Enjoy the gardening.
Thank you.