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and now Kipling gets the Rhodes treatment.

Yet ne'er a mention of dear old Gunga Din? ;-)[/QUOTE

Kipling may have had views now considered racist, but he appreciated a man for what he was. Certainly, "Gunga Din" incorporates ideas and phrases which would bring tears of anguish to the eyes of the snowflake generation.

To my discredit, I had not been really aware of the words of the poem, but had heard the jokey expression "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!" without appreciating the meaning.

Then one day in the 1970s I happened to hear a version sung by a folk musician called Peter Bellamy on BBC Radio Solent. It caught my attention because I recognized the tune "Keep Your Feet Still, Geordie Hinny".

The power of the words hit me hard, and when the song finished I had tears in my eyes myself. It's made a bit more poignant by the fact that Peter Bellamy died in 1991.

 
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They're doing exactly what they accuse Kipling of doing - forcing their values on other people.

They can try, I do think that the older great British public are more worldly wise, and can see through the forced and somewhat self imposed intolerant angst of the undoubtedly mainly ignorant younger generation. There's nothing new In students rebelling, in my day it was the Vietnam war, worth shouting about, today its icons of literature and politics, if they put as much effort into their studies as their ludecrious assumptions that historic makers of our country, and now lost empire, were racist, misogynistic slave masters they could be all immeasurably better off. Today Kipling, Tomorrow, who knows!.......... The sweet ignorance of youth.
 
  • Fatima Abid, general secretary of the SU, said: 'Black and brown voices have been written out of history enough'
But of course dear, the British Empire never existed did it, and your'e not speaking English are you. Nuff said.
 
It must be horrendous for these little idiots when they get out of that university bubble and see what the real world is like.
Only a moment; a moment of strength, of romance, of glamour — of youth!... A flick of sunshine upon a strange shore, the time to remember, the time for a sigh, and — goodbye! — Night — Goodbye!
 
After 4 pages of discussion, the overwhelming consensus of opinion is that the SU in question, and their ill informed opinions on our greatest modern day poet, a champion of the soldier and working man is without any further discussion, the biggest pile of equine manure, that has ever graced these hallowed pages, or in squaddie lingo.......... FFS What a ******* waste of ******* rations, bloody ******* students, I shit em. ...I think that just about covers it. ENDEX
 
It is occasions such as this that I am glad that my alma mater, Imperial College, took no truck with trendy Student Union ways. We had left the NSU, as we did not see eye to eye, the Young Tories out-numbered the Student Labour Party by a factor of plenty, and the dullards trying to sell copies of the Socialist Worker outside the Union buildings on a Wednesday afternoon were regularly set-about by the numerous College and School rugby teams waiting for transport to their matches.
 
A patient mentioned Kipling the other day, neither of the 2 nurses in the room knew of him, despite prompts such as "If" which they did not know until I quoted some, to be told that's a phone company advert, the Jungle Book "that's from Disney". I gave up after that when they asked about cakes

"Do you like Kipling?" "I really don't know, I've never Kippled".
 
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