Harry’s Place

Nat King Cole did a great version of On The Street Where You Live….

I wonder if Iran TV is paying royalties to the rights holders, possibly the estates of Lerner and Loewe?
The book of the script of My Fair Lady was one of the very few in English on sale at the bookshop in Ramat Gan where I was staying as a child with my grandparents for 2 months. I bought it, and by the time our visit ended, I knew the whole play, never mind the lyrics, practically by heart.
Back home we got the record, and I played it nearly every day after school, singing along and bounding across the sofa to “I could have danced all night”.

I’m sure Mr Galloway will bring this up with employers.
He speaks truth to power, you know.

I have personal/family memories associated with it too … I think Dan Almagor translated it into Hebrew when it was shown in Israel (well, he translated most of this stuff, being a brilliant lyricist).

Well, what Iran is doing is what Nazis do - appropriate cultural icons for their sick agendas (shrug) … makes you despair of the human race, though.

As that Great American, Bugs Bunny would say:
“This means WAR!”

Obama “….. without pre-conditions…..”

Sorry Gene for introducing that.

Otherwise we don’t differ by one angstrom in our hate for Antisemitism and those who directly or indirectly support it.

I wonder why the USA hasn’t introduced a UN Resolution condemning Antisemitism in all media forms. These disgusting cartoons and attitudes will count against Iran when Israel takes out their nukes. There is only so much provocation that people should be allowed to take.

“Моя прекрасная лэди”, as it was entertainingly retitled in Russian, was a stable of the “Musical Comedy” scene in the USSR, too (or at any rate, was at the theatre of that genre in Odessa when I lived there). I was teaching the GBS play that the script is (almost exactly) based on to a student at the time - the translation into Russian was almost pedantically correct: I recall young Liza struggling to get her tongue around “чашка чая” exactly where her Anglophone cousin had dealt with “a cup of tea”.
A wonderful script…and the music is mostly wonderful, too.

Whether any of this is truly appreciated by the goons in whatever the culture ministry is called in the IR of Iran must be, at best, idle speculation.

stable, staple, damn the lack of preview

Stable, as in ‘move your blooming arse’.

Me too. My parents got a copy when they were in Baghdad on a posting from the RAF. It played continuously on a new Pye Black Box and I am transported if I hear any part of it. The other one was “The King and I”
Anti semitism is obligatory were one to submit to the will of Allah and can hardly be argued against if one is muslim. Anti semitism in any other form is a pollutant upon the earth whose toxicity is lethal.

I’m surprised it wasn’t ‘Maia prekrasnaya zhentsina’. ‘Ledi’ sounds so bourgeois.

Perhaps we could have a variant of ‘Pygmalion’, with Gorgeous in Professor Higgins’ role, making a bet that after a bit of coaching he can pass off a homophobic, racist, anti-Semitic and misogynistic bunch of killers as a regime that self-respecting leftists should support. Although of course in this case Higgins loses his bet.

DrD, Moslem antisemitism is just as vile a pollutant as any other form, and these days as dangerous as any if not more so.

Sicko Galloway has not lost his bet with quite large swathes of the loony left.

What a sick bunch.

What a sick regime.

And what a sick farce that Jack Straw was telling us for years that we could do business with these psychos.

They have to be stopped with deadly force. No other option.

“My Fair Lady” was brilliantly translated into Hebrew and had a long and successful run at Habimah, the national theatre, opening in February 1964. The recording is still available - highly recommended. The biggest challenge was translating “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain” - the elocution lesson which Professor Henry Higgins gives the cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle. Dan Almagor - who adapted the script into Hebrew - had the brainwave that the Hebrew for “hail”, “Barad”, rhymed with the Hebrew for “Spain”, “Sfarad”. So “the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain” became “Barad yarad bidrom sfarad haerev” (”Hail fell this evening in southern Spain”)!

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/1990_1999/1998/11/The%20Rain%20in%20Spain

‘Nearly Oxfordian’ mentions the Hebrew version above

deadly force, you mean nuke em?

Maven: I guess you would have oppposed Nixon & Kissinger negotiating without pre-conditions with Mao the Mass-Murderer of Millions who was Dictator of Godless Red China!

As that Arch-Appeaser, Winston Churchill said:
“Far better to Jaw, Jaw, Jaw then to Wah, Wah, Wah!”

Or are two wars not enough, you want to go for three?

I am not aware that China was openly threatening to nuke America. Perhaps David can update us on this.

Maven: I guess you would have oppposed Nixon & Kissinger negotiating without pre-conditions with Mao the Mass-Murderer of Millions who was Dictator of Godless Red China!

Or are two wars not enough, you want to go for three?

What War? I don’t call a surgical pre-emptive strike against Iran a “War”. Unless Iran is stupid enough to respond - in which case it will be a one day War.

Did Mao threaten to wipe the USA off the map?

Chamberlin was the appeaser who brought back a worthless piece of paper from that nice Mr Hilter.

Also, an attack by Israel wouldn’t be against people but against nuclear capability.

Nearly Oxfordian: Snap!!! Great Minds again!

;-)

My Fair Lady was the first movie I ever saw on that new and wonderful invention - the video, on a visit to the UK somewhere towards the end of the nineteen seventies. It was a Sony Betamax so it took three cassette changes to watch the whole thing. The quality was horrendous. I loved every minute.

Modernity -

No. I mean blockade backed by deadly force. Bring all their ports and airports to a halt. Make the whole of the country a no fly zone. Obliterate the nuclear zones and then deny them resupply.

If they use terrorism on us, then full scale invasion may be necessary.

If I remember rightly the song “On The Street Where You Live” is later reprised for another chorus giving you the impression the actor has been waiting on that street for hours, days even. Also, listen to the intonation on the word “knowing” - “no …… wing”. I sing it quite a lot!

field wrote: “Obliterate the nuclear zones and then deny them resupply.”

you mean bomb all Iranian nuclear installations?

The voices of Julie Andrews, Rex Harrison and Stanley Holloway are drilled into my brain forever.

Consider yourself lucky it’s Julie Andrews’ Eliza Doolittle and not Audrey Hepburn’s, in which case I’d have had to recommend hypnosis.

Rex Harrison the grandfather of British Rap of course… (See also Ian Dury).

Maybe Henry Glass or Clarence Silverman would be interested in my theory…

Consider yourself lucky it’s Julie Andrews’ Eliza Doolittle and not Audrey Hepburn’s, in which case I’d have had to recommend hypnosis.

She lip-synced someone else’s voice, didn’t she?

Of course the play it was based on was written by George Bernard Shaw who wasn’t averse to a little bit of Anti-Semitism himself. Perhaps they’re reclaiming it.

“Finally, I’m angry for my mother, who loved “My Fair Lady” and played the original cast album constantly while I was growing up. (The voices of Julie Andrews, Rex Harrison and Stanley Holloway are drilled into my brain forever.) ” – Gene.

Blimey! You as well!

I won’t hear a word against the lovely Audrey Hepburn.

I’d normally agree with that but having her strumming “Moon River” in Breakfast at Tiffany’s is one thing; her screeching her way through My Fair Lady is just painful.

I note that they’re no longer saying this stuff is in some way a protest about European attitudes to the MoToons, which was at least a clever bit of whatabouterry, in a “am I my brother’s keeper?” dont-change-the-subject type way. This is just holocaust denial.

This really is despicable stuff. I try to be funny and silly about shit like this, but really. I mean really. FUCK THEM FUCK THEM ALL WHAT A BUNCH OF UTTER CUNTS.

There is something of the Absurd in the diversity of ambition with Iran:
1.Wipe Israel of the map, using nuclear related means.
2.Get into the Guiness Book of records for the world’s biggest ostrich sandwich.
(Thwarted by a hungry crowd)
I am bemused by what purpose is served in perching the healthnsafety caps, meant to stop hair getting into the food, on top of the hijabs.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/17/iran-world-record-sandwich

“Did Mao threaten to wipe the USA off the map?”

Depends on what constitutes a threat. He did muse that nuclear war was no big deal because there were more Socialists (Chinese) than Captialists, and he did initiate a nuclear program that eventually, many years after his death, is capable of hitting the US mainland. That suggests intent, but not ability ot carry out the threat. But I really doubt that anyone in the US took it to be a threat anything like the threat that Iran actually poses to Israel.

“We still think the sandwich will be recorded in the Guinness book because of all the evidence and footage that we will send them,” Parvin Shariati, a spokesperson for the organisers, told Reuters.

I’m sorrry, but I don’t think so. If, as this post so amply demonstrates, the Iranians aren’t willing to accept evidence and footage then I hardly think they can complain if Norris McWhirter refuses to accept theirs. Hit them where it hurts, I say. No more world sandwich records until the give up Holocaust denial.

“If they use terrorism on us, then full scale invasion may be necessary.”

Nooooooooooooo! - no invasion. Either you fail, and that’s a disaster, or you succeed, and a disaster - there you are in the middle of Iran surrounded by 70M nationalistic and sullen Iranians.

With Oil prices tumbling, Ahmedinajad will fall prey to the gret devils mantra

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/852fac38-a05f-11dd-80a0-000077b07658.html

Its the economy, stupid.

She lip-synced someone else’s voice, didn’t she?

Indeed she did. Marni Nixon. And I didn’t even have to look it up.

It’s a great musical, but it’s no West Side Story.

I took my 7 year old daughter to see a local production of Oliver! last week. Her first experience of proper theatre. If you’ve never been to production by your local amateur dramatics society, you really ought to. It’s impossible to have a bad evening. If the play is well acted and produced, you’re pleasantly surprised. If it’s bad, you get 2 hours of belly laughs for the price of a round of beers.

unfortunately i have come to accept the fact that we are hated around the middle east.

And worse that for all of the efforts of various activists and well meaning people everywhere it will always be that way.

Thank you Jim for your comment about Mao’s speeches and nuclear ambitions. When I was an adolescent in the late 60s & early 70s it was common to regard China (Red China as it was then called) as a bigger threat to the US then the Soviet Union because of agressive sounding statements from Mao such as Jim cited and the savagely anti-US & Western Propaganda put out by Beijing, especially during the Cultural Revolution of the late 60s.
US Cold War fears are best summed up by joke that there were two views of the Cold War, the Optimists and the Pessimists.
And the difference between the two groups was while
the Optimists were studying Russian,
the Pessimists were studying Chinese!
(This joke became the basis of a Twilight Zone episode about rival invasions of Earth from Mars, (the RED Planet) and Venus in
“Will the Real Martian please stand Up” !)

Maven: “An attack by Israel wouldn’t be against people but against nuclear capability.”

Maven, as a good Catholic friend says when confronting by such mind-numbing lunacy:
JESUS, MARY AND JOSEPH!!!!
Do you think there are not going to be any people around nuclear plants especially given how much industrial effort is required in running such facilities?

Maven, Field, etec. sound like Gen. Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) in “Dr. Strangelove” advocating a US nuclear attack on Russia that would destroy most of Russia’s nuclear weapons before they could launch a retaliatory strike promising the President:
“Ten, Tweny Million (American) dead tops, depending on which way the wind blows”!

Modernity -

Well, if necessary yes, I would prefer to seem them obliterated rather than run the risk of giving the Mad Mullahs nuclear weapons. However if we could effectively neuter them by denial of servicing, which is a possibility, then I would of course be happier with that. But probably either course would have its risks

The idea of any non-democratic state acquiring nuclear weapons should be of great concern to all of us, but Iran is far worse than many other non-democratic states. It actively supports terrorism around the world, is explicit about wishing to remove from the map a UN member state, wishes to destroy another (our great ally), actively denies the worst example of organised ethnic mass murder in the twentieth century and - for us - most important of all uses terrorist groups as proxies.

It will be no respecter of the fourth protocol. The risk of nuclear bombs finding their way into our great capitals in container ships and so on is just too great.

David All - if you are a pacifist who applies that principle to all public and private situations, then fine, otherwise I think this is simply a matter of calculation, so spare us the moralising. If Iran does develop the bomb, and then uses it against us, or Israel or someone else or starts some great conflagration, you will have calculated wrong - very wrong - since action now will NOT result in the deaths of millions.

The only issue is this:

Is this another Rhineland moment?

Jim -

So you look on the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran, with its proxy terrorist groups, with equanimity do you?

Kind of OT but I was wondering if any of you fine fellows and fellow-ettes might aid me.

I’m currently doing a project for the tail end of my BA. It will comprise of a reader of primary sources with commentary. The subject I’ve decided is the recent evolution of anti-semitic discourse. Now I am taking stuff like the Hamas covenant, the protocols and Nazi/Iron Guard stuff as a starting point but I would love any examples in English that you might ‘recommend’ that show the changes i.e. the Zionist euphemism, the neo-protocols narrative, world control and conspiracy. I’m looking for primary sources, preferably quite focussed (anti-Semites tend to be both remarkably foccussed and rambling simultaneously). I’ve already started (oh lucky me) on the Joe Quinn and SPSC stuff, but any help would be most welcome

Please pop over to my blog and post any links or ideas

Many thanks

SR (Stu)

Let the Iranians have a bomb. They feel threatened too.

Maven: “An attack by Israel wouldn’t be against people but against nuclear capability.”

Maven, as a good Catholic friend says when confronting by such mind-numbing lunacy:
JESUS, MARY AND JOSEPH!!!!
Do you think there are not going to be any people around nuclear plants especially given how much industrial effort is required in running such facilities?

I don’t care! I can’t care! The point is this, Iran has threatened to destroy Israel, which inherently means people. So, do you think you can destroy the Knesset without killing thousands of people?

Israel wouldn’t be attacking people. It would be attacking nuclear facilities and military targets that contain long-range missiles. That means mostly military people and technicians.

There are no conflicts without casualties. Iranians are enemies who’s Islamic regime probably subscribes to “We love death more than you love life” philosophy. That’s because a nuclear attack on Israel also wipes out Palestinians.

It is a very cheesy, musakal rendering of The Street Where She Lives. I too love the song.

It’s impossible to have a bad evening.

And that includes being in one. Highly recommended. The fun to be had from being in a panto (or even a serious play) is amazing.

Let the Iranians have a bomb. They feel threatened too

I am not even a Catholic, but when I am confronted by such mind-numbing stupidity, I say: JESUS, MARY AND JOSEPH!!!!

Its not just Iran. I hear Chavez needs oil at $120 to balance his bloated budget. Its at $70.

I suspect Venezuelans are soon going to realise that they haven’t been enjoying the wonders of socialism - what happened was they won lotto and blew all the winnings (except the part they loaned to soon-to-default Argentina).

Poor Zin, he had such high hopes.

I would like to start a PR campaign that plasters the world with “Exterminate All Iranians Everywhere on the Planet” signs. The bigger the better.

Oh, I am sure Zin can afford Louis Vuitton ties, like this guy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZsiESN9jLQ

Carreño: “The only way to peace is justice, says the Bible and repeats it the commander president Chavez, the only way to justice is socialism, not capitalism, not that canibalism, that it is intended to implement in the state…”
Journalists: “Minister, isn’t it contradictory to speak of capitalism when you have a Louis Vuitton tie and shoes from ….”
Carreño: “well, hummm… eehm…”

Part of me wants a strike on Iran, even a nuclear strike on her nuclear facilities. But there is no guarantee even that would work, although, if there is, I would not necessarily oppose such a move.

But there is the real danger a successful or failed attempt would rally the population around a government which is many ways proving unpopular. There is also the danger of an Iranian counter strike, perhaps endangering Israel’s nuclear facilities.

The behaviour of the Iranian administration has been very aggressive, never mind the the holocaust denial, and the response of the far left in this country appalling in its apologising for or mitigating of that aggression.

But, I must confess, I do not know what is the best response. The present Israeli administration is feeling its way, I think, very cautiously. But, as a last resort, I would favour a strike that guaranteed pretty much 100% success, with minimal risk to Israeli lives, materiel and infra-structure. So, I would say, that would have to be tactical nukes. delivered by rocket, cruise missile or plane.

Good one Fabian

And no, I am not a pacifist, though Maven and field sound as if they are possessed by the spirit of Cold War Hawk and perptual proclaiming of Doomsday, Joseph Alsop.

I still remember being really quite shocked when Julie Andrews said ‘Shit’ in the movie ‘10′ - with Bo Derek and Dudley Moore.

But there is the real danger a successful or failed attempt would rally the population around a government which is many ways proving unpopular. There is also the danger of an Iranian counter strike, perhaps endangering Israel’s nuclear facilities.

Of course. If it is correct that most Iranians are not fans of their hardline government then the best way to get them to rally to them is to bomb them. When a country gets bombed by nations that have dismissed their country as evil and has been responsible for a coup in their country and of shooting down a civilian airliner during a war in which the US backed the invaders and appears to covet their natural resources then it seems a no-brainer that when forced to choose they would pick their leaders over the invaders.

We often hear the Chamberlain/Churchill distinction rhetoric when it comes to the rising power of Iran in the region but for Iranians Khatami the Good Guy is Chamberlain and Ahmadinejad the Nutbar is Churchill.

Zkharya, thank you for your thoughtful analysis. It is a refreshing change from the bellicose rantings of some writers on this thread.

For the Record: I find the anti-Semitic propaganda put out by the Iranian Regime such as displayed in that video to be utterly disgusting. It is probably equaled, if not surpassed, by the anti-Semitic filth put out by the Saudis.

Thank you the devil for reminding us of how Iranians, majority of whom probably do not support the current regime, look at the lessons of their country’s history.

“So you look on the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran, with its proxy terrorist groups, with equanimity do you?”

Field, you obviously didn’t read the comment if you are asking that. China was toying with the notion of bombing the US - a huge area with dispersed population centers, all on another continent across the largest ocean on the planet; Iran is planning and executing on that plan to bomb an area the size of New York City practically in its backyard - about as difficult as shooting a dog in a cage. I would have thougt all that was obvious from the references to China, US, Iran and Israel.

“I am not aware that China was openly threatening to nuke America. ”

Oh, my. Only an idiot ever “openly” threatens to nuke anyone. What are you looking, some European-style “declaration of war” or some such mannered silliness.

Tell me, nearly, when did the Soviets or the Americans ever “openly” threaten to nuke each other? This is all merely academic to you anyway; since you live in a place that was not worth bombing as a primary target, the Cold War and all those “nulcear stand-offs” and “Mutually Assured Destruction” were probably never a real threat. bvut from another vantage, the threat was very real.

Then there is that little rumor of how sometime in the 90’s when Clinton made soem noise or other the Chinese didn’t appreciate, they reminded him how easy it would be to slip a bomb into the port at Long Beach in a container. Of course that was not a European-style declaration either.

Oh, my. Only an idiot ever “openly” threatens to nuke anyone. What are you looking, some European-style “declaration of war” or some such mannered silliness

You sad ignoramus. Never heard of the Cuban missile crisis, either, by the sound of it.

Tell me, nearly, when did the Soviets or the Americans ever “openly” threaten to nuke each other? This is all merely academic to you anyway; since you live in a place that was not worth bombing as a primary target

You know nothing about where I live from time to time. I have lived in Israel at various times. Judging by your parochial posts, I doubt that you have been beyond the M25. Even if you have, you carried your parochial mind with you.

Don’t worry your head about it Gene the messiah will make everything alright, No preconditions and all that bollocks, he might even take his two trusty sidekicks Gaffematron and Teleprompter, The Iranians won’t know what hit em.

“You sad ignoramus. Never heard of the Cuban missile crisis, either, by the sound of it.”

Yiou sad ignoramus, I fucking lived through it, you little punk-ass BOY. The Soviet nuclear hardly, hardly started with the Cuban missile crisis, and if you actually knew anything about it, it the USSR didn’t announce the presence of their missiles in Cuba, did they. It was U-2s that discovered them. So thank you for providing an example that precisely supports my contention.

“This is all merely academic to you anyway; since you live in a place that was not worth bombing as a primary target

You know nothing about where I live from time to time. I have lived in Israel at various times. Judging by your parochial posts, I doubt that you have been beyond the M25. Even if you have, you carried your parochial mind with you.”

Yeah, I’m parochial enough to have no idea what an “M25″ is. I suppose that is somewhere in Britain, maybe a road? - and in a struggle the US and the USSR that whole little island was nothing but a sideshow. Not a primary target, just as I said.apparently this is news for you; for the Soviets all the main targets were in the US.

So you’ve lived in Israel. Oh my God, you can’t seriously be claiming that Isaeal was ever a target of a nuclear attack at any time in the Cold War. That whole cat box of a region was only ever good for proxy wars. There was nothing in Israel worth a nuke until Iran got hold of them.

And that is a serious problem, that is enough reason to find some effective and permanent way to take down that odious, filthy regime in Tehran. So far Israel is the only decent country in that whole cesspool. In the meantime deterrence in the form of credible threats of reprisals against Shi’ite holy sites might hold them in check - since that appears to be the level of their moral reasoning - if they imagine that they are acting out of some kind of religious sensibility.

Jim calls me ‘boy’, the mark of a southern racist tosser.

I lived through the Cuban missile crisis too, asshole: the whole world did.

So you’ve lived in Israel. Oh my God, you can’t seriously be claiming that Isaeal was ever a target of a nuclear attack at any time in the Cold War

You can’t read, can you? I never said it was.

That whole cat box of a region was only ever good for proxy wars.

The racist mind in all its glory.

I lived through the Cuban missile crisis too, asshole: the whole world did.

I didn’t.

“Jim calls me ‘boy’, the mark of a southern racist tosser.
I lived through the Cuban missile crisis too, asshole: the whole world did.”

Ha ha - you ignorant little Brit. “Boy” is only racist when a white man uses it towards a black man. Try not to make a fool of yourself using other people’s slang terms when you can’t be bothered to get it right.

How can you live through a crisis that happened before you were even born?

“That whole cat box of a region was only ever good for proxy wars.
The racist mind in all its glory.”

Hysterical little boy - the predictable, patheti, desperate use of the R-word.

Norris McWhirter, yes another right wing lunatic. I always thought there was something dodgy about the McWhirter twins on Record Breakers. Does anyone really care about the sandwich eating record ?

Ha ha - you ignorant little Brit.

You sick little racist.

How can you live through a crisis that happened before you were even born?

In your case, since you are a stupid 6-year old, obviously not.
But I did.

Hysterical little boy - the predictable, patheti, desperate use of the R-word.

It fits you, dumbo, so I’ll use it. Now fuck off back to mummy.