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In conversation with Polly Toynbee of The Guardian re the long running Winterval Saga, she suggested that, as the originator of Winterval, I should stand up and put my name to it. So here I am.

I am Mike Chubb, as Head of Events for Birmingham at the time I invented the term Winterval (41 days and nights of festive fun!), fully supported by The Council and the cultural and business community. I am continually fascinated that the term Winterval, ever caused (and still does) such a furore.

Quite simply, as Head of events at that time, we needed a vehicle which could cover the marketing of a whole season of events…Diwali (festival of Lights), Christmas lights switch on, BBC Children in Need, Aston Hall by Candlelight, Chinese New year, New Years eve etc. Also a season that included theatre shows and open air ice rink, Frankfurt open air Christmas market and the Christmas seasonal retail offer. Christmas, called Christmas! and its celebration, lay at the heart of Winterval.

Political correctness was never the reasoning behind Winterval, but yes it was intended to be inclusive (which is no bad thing to my mind) and a brand to which other initiatives could be developed as part of The Winterval offer in order to sell the City at a time when all cities are competing against each other for the seasonal trade.

Each part of Winterval had its own marketing plan… the same as ,for instance the marketing of a brand whose sub brands (ie chocolate)have their own niche marketing.

I do believe that those who took umbrage did it for their own reasons, to sell their own message and of course, everybody got on to their own hobby horses in the process.

I am amazed that no-one could see the simplicity of The Winterval brand, but read into it what they wanted; to further and give voice to their own aspirations/prejudices. It is time for Birmingham to be proud of Winterval and stand up for an innovative initiative that befits an outward looking city.

However on the plus side thank you for keeping the Winterval campaign going and keeping Birmingham in the World’s eye… what fantastic publicity.

It was not an attempt to rebrand xmas... unless the words of the guy who invenetd the term means nothing.. or, for some reason, the entirety of Birmingham City council and the local are involved in some form of..odd...conspiracy to banish xmas.. despite all the "pro" xmas stuff they did.

http://pigsonthewing.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/winterval-the-truth/

meanwhile...

I was head of events for Birmingham, responsible for over 400 events a year from St. Georges Day to Fireworks Fantasia, international Street festivals to… yes Christmas.

As an events division (the largest in the UK at that time) we were always seeking to improve the service to the Birmingham community and whilst we aided specific communities to develop their own festivals, Diwali, Chinese New Year, St. Patricks Day to Gay Pride (mainly because we had the professional expertise to help those communities realise their ambitions) our remit extended to all festivals and events. All were to be totally inclusive and the majority free or at an affordable price.

In my first Christmas, Birmingham received national coverage, Blue Peter launched the Christmas Lights Switch on and Eamonn Holmes “How do they do that” show closed their Christmas edition with a burst of flame projectors on the town Hall, “and a happy Christmas from Birmingham!”.

As Head of Events with such a professional team behind me, it was always important to deliver bigger and better events more often than not though with reduced funding.

The imperative for delivering these events was to maximize the quality of the experience, increase our audiences and deliver Birmingham as a forward thinking energetic city. Promoting the events to a local, national and international audience and thereby gaining recognition was vital to the Councils overall aims and objectives. Recognition of a city’s innovative approach reflects on all. To businesses considering relocating, to increasing bed nights to the hotel sector, to marketing the city’s retail offer all these are factored in.

So to Winterval. The events division were charged with putting on 41 days and nights of activity that ranged from BBC Children in Need, to the Christmas Lights Switch On, to a Frankfurt Christmas Market, outdoor ice rink, Aston Hall by Candlelight, Diwali (Festival of lights) shopping at Christmas, World class theatre and arts and of course New Year’s Eve with its massive 100,000 audience. With funding from sponsors and with very many more events to market, the decision was to bring all the events together under a generic banner under which they could all sit. Whilst marketed as Winterval, each event had its own marketing plan but clearly it was Winterval that drove the initiative.

Leaving Birmingham (to another job!) I started to notice the ridiculous banshee that pervaded Winterval. Through Wikipedia I contacted Polly Toynbee of the Guardian re the (now) long running Winterval saga, and she suggested that as the originator of Winterval I should stand up and put my name to it.

So as originator, what are my thoughts?.

Rather like Oliver Burkeman of the Guardian, it’s nonsense and I feel like many stories around the festive season when news is fairly thin on the ground the media seek out what they term “Silly season stories”. Political correctness was never the reasoning behind Winterval, but yes it was intended to be inclusive (which is no bad thing to my mind) and a brand to which other initiatives could be developed as part of The Winterval offer in order to sell the City at a time when all cities are competing against each other for the seasonal trade.

Each part of Winterval had its own marketing plan, the same as, for instance, the marketing of a brand whose sub brands (ie chocolate)have their own niche marketing. I do believe that those who took umbrage did it for their own reasons, to peddle their own message and of course, everybody got on to their own hobby horses in the process. I am amazed that no-one could see the simplicity of The Winterval brand, but read into it what they wanted, to further and give voice to their own aspirations/prejudices.

It is time for Birmingham to be proud of Winterval and stand up for an innovative initiative that befits an outward looking city.

Maybe, perhaps, the opportunists will now put away their righteous indignation and reflect on what the city has lost, a unique festival that celebrates what Birmingham is world famous for, a city that shares and celebrates with a sense of style and adventure.

clearly it's some vast anti christian plot !

Despite the denials posted above, which come up to absolutely nothing you still havent addressed the issues.

1. Why only relabel Christmas, why not include Diwali, Guy Fawkes and New Year?

2. Why relabel at all when it is shown to cause offense, when we are expected under Equality and Diversity to avoid mass actions that cause offense to religious and cultural groups?

Orlanth wrote:Despite the denials posted above, which come up to absolutely nothing you still havent addressed the issues.

1. Why only relabel Christmas, why not include Diwali, Guy Fawkes and New Year?

2. Why relabel at all when it is shown to cause offense, when we are expected under Equality and Diversity to avoid mass actions that cause offense to religious and cultural groups?

Why do minorities get preference on promotion boards and college financial aid?

Its because the group that formerly had the power (whites/christians/etc) abused it in certain circumstances (slavery/the crusades/tithing) and now all people of said group generations down the line must be made to suffer out of 'fairness'. For instance the villifying of white people in America: Obama is half-white, but he considers himself black. My ancestry is 50-50 Scottish-German but I don't walk through Berlin claiming I am a German. It ridiculous things like that, that are the hallmarks of the PC era. Its like the Germans STILL PAYING REPARATIONS TO JEWS. Its fething ridiculous on a scale incomprehensible. Another example is in text books nowadays it describes Christianity skeptically, using words like Jesus 'claimed', while when describe Islam and Hindi is describes it definitly, Mohammed IS the prophet etc. It isn't one or the other. The problem is Atheist Lobbies go after Christianity and not Islam and so on, because Christianity wont fight back with IED's/riots/rocks/harsh language (unless you're Westboro Baptist Church, a group which genocide would be far to kind a punishment). Notice particularly that Eastern Religions are subject to the typical American 'Oh, thats nice' even from Atheists, partly because monotheism isn't a driving factor in them.

Its bs, but hey no skin off our backs. The past is the past, move the feth on people.



Like it matters , Zombiepocalypse in '12

Could it have been a deep-rooted, cunning plot designed to somehow bilk the 41 million nominal Christians of the UK out of their winter season of excessive consumption being rightfully named Christmas? A plot so devious, so diabolical, that only the unswerving dedication and courage of the Daily Mail was able to save all BRITISH KIND (the proper ones, anyway) from oblivion.

Or could it just have been a typical local council piece of stupid useless ill-informed waste of money crap, which was of course ignored by everyone with a bit of common sense?

Maybe time will tell, or perhaps we may never know the true answer.

In other news, Viz is 30 years old and I urge you all to go and buy a copy to celebrate.

It seems only yesterday they celebrated their silver-plated jubilee.

Kilkrazy wrote:
It seems only yesterday they celebrated their silver-plated jubilee.

Shouldn't that be 'Purple-helmeted' jubilee?

dogma wrote:In general I am suspicious of any opinion which claims the existence of a national character, so that was my first point of reservation.

Ok, I can respect that as it can lead to a lot of offensive ascertations, such as 'Africans are lazy' most if not all of which are overeged and often just plain insulting. However national characters do clearly exist and can be drawn from. The case to note is that the individuial can always override and membership of any one allegiance or origin is not indicative of ability or character.

Theb truths can best be seen when looked at the positives, whicgh can be accepted purely because they do not cause offense. A good example is 'German efficiency' not all Germans are efficient but German efficiency is seen as very real in business and economics. We can discuss this because calling Germans efficient is not offensive, so we have to ask if only peositiver ascertations are valid.

If you want a hard example ask why a few hundred poorly trained people of nation x regularly held out against equal or better trained persons from nation y in conflict. This is not to make x genetically tr even necessarily tactically superior but cultural factors and cohesion occur and are very very real. After all on the field of battle (nearly) all moralising and bs is swept away and the cultural cohesion of a people is shown.

dogma wrote:
With regard to the bs I would point out that virtually every human enterprise is manifested from the stuff. The real question is not whether or not something is bs, but whether or not any given kind of bs is useful.

This is undoubtably true, so long as the monkey is at the wheel we will always be living in banana republics, but a stable nation is one that serves its BS on an old plate. Stability is just another word for control. however when the control balance shifts the balance point is often 'lower' than before, is equilibrium is regained at all. Most people in the UK not understand that a revolution has occured and the nation is destabilised.

I can explain a little more but best as answer to direct questin s to avoid textwalling you.

dogma wrote:
Concerning empowerment I have a question. Are you speaking specifically of the counseling provided to already troubled children, or the theory in general?

In general. Several principles are raided by the current PC dogmas. When in regards to children I will bullet point a few, please address those issues you wish to know more about.

Paedophilia scare.
1. Adult paranoia - Fear of child molesters has led to a series of witchhunts, some of which hit the press about a decade ago, more recently they do not get past censorship, but its still happening. Operation Orb being a good example.

2. Fear of accusation - It is a well known tactic that accusing an adult of being a paedophile is a very strong weapon in the mouths of a mailcious child. Yes this occurs very infrequently but still the authorities have little mechanisms in place to deal with false accusation and threat of this sort of action is a frequently used intimidation tool. Many children are aware of this tool and use it.

3. Fear of labelling - Same as above but on a slightly different angle. This comes from the problem that authorities often persue these accusations with unreasoning zeal. Improper police procedures, the lack of a clear definition of 'not guilty' status, and undeleted records can hsunt even the transparently innocent.

Social work dogmas.
1. Empowerment - As described above children may be underdeveloped but are not stupid, they can see an excuse when presented with one, better than adults actually. Social workers efforts to empower children without atrtemtping to implant a sense of responsibility results in people who grow up knowing their righrts, but not their responsibilities who become system players.

2. Introduction of bureaucracy - The children see first hand the bureaucracy behind the dogmas bwecause things are done often in circular ways. This puts bureaucratic reasoning i.e excuses and technicalities high on ther list of things learned. These are lifeskills taught at an education age, so why ber suprised that we get a generation of system players again.

3. Underestimating clients - Note that while many chavs are otherwise ignorant a suprising number of those know exactly what to say to an official and how far they can push the authorities. This is exasperated when in contact with the breed of youth or social worker who doesn't see this, only sees 'underprivileged persons'. There are tremendous opportunities for exploitation here expectially as the social workers cannot see themselves being used because they only see the comparative education levels between themselves and their clients, not their relative grasps of political reality. This is only accetuated by the fact that the majority of social workers, either don't care, don't know or are dogmatised themselves to a point where they cannot reason properly. I have met very very few competent social workers, and this is mostly because of the dogmas they swallow during training, or at least have to pretend to swallow in order to keep/get their jobs.

A viscious spiral of additonal factors.
1. Overcrowded prisons and inadequate punishment - Prisons are full so custodial sentences are rare, many forms of punishment are also ineffective because the sentences are simply honours by another name. again the negative effects take a long time to filtwer upwards partly because of spin and denial, and partly because of the PC dogmas which are assumed to work as they are tught, but of course do not.

2. Whitewashing - Crime figures are down year on year but crime is up. If anyone should know the truth of that its the chavs and criminal communities. Chavs know that the message that gun and knife crime is dropping to be propoganda because they themselves witness the rise. Whitewashing sends out a clear message, 'we will paste over what you do', if you think of that, its quite empowering really if you think from their perspective.

Dogma, I can go into whichever of these in greater detail and give some examples if you like. While this is an unpleasant topic as and where you disagree as opposed to 'being uincomfortable with the concept' please do state your logical objections and I will adrfress them as well as I can.

Orlanth wrote:Despite the denials posted above, which come up to absolutely nothing you still havent addressed the issues.

1. Why only relabel Christmas, why not include Diwali, Guy Fawkes and New Year?

2. Why relabel at all when it is shown to cause offense, when we are expected under Equality and Diversity to avoid mass actions that cause offense to religious and cultural groups?

I cannot refute when you don't actually offer any proof other than the usual nebulous feeling and hearsy. There is no issue here except one you are trying to make. They didn't relabel xmas.. as Xmas doesn't start in November.. which is when this marketing promotion started. You can repeat this lie as often as you want but it still won't be true. Seeing as this promotion did run for/over the duration of most/much of the events you ask about I don't see how they could just be relabeling Xmas and not anything else. Except of course that wouldn't fit with the BS "argument" you're trying to present. Without any actual evidence or support for it. Again. that's why there's so many references to Xmas and all the xmas events, still called as such, in the event when they ran it. YOu have not offered a single actual shred of evidence of any "conspiracy" or even intent to "relabel" Xmas whatsoever.

Seriously, you're coming across as delusional now.

I wasn't offended by it at all, neither were most people. Seeing as most people didn't give a feth either way it failed to cause "mass offense". In fact the only people with a genuine grievance are the poor sods who work for Birmimgham council who are still forced to deal with the fallout from this thing even now.

reds8n wrote: I cannot refute when you don't actually offer any proof other than the usual nebulous feeling and hearsy.

I offered you set dates, then duration and estimates for the next year. What more proof would you need. Or is proof irrelevant in the face of your prefered opinion of events.

reds8n wrote: Seeing as this promotion did run for/over the duration of most/much of the events you ask about I don't see how they could just be relabeling Xmas and not anything else.

Pure un-thinking denial of the facts.
Leads me to wonder if you can actually read a calender?

Orlanth wrote:
The case to note is that the individuial can always override and membership of any one allegiance or origin is not indicative of ability or character.

If that's the case, how is it possible to separate national character from individual choice? It isn't as though we can meet a suitable sample of any given nation's constituents.

There's also issues of translation to be considered. You can go to Ireland and discover that everyone gets piss drunk on a nightly basis, and so conclude that they are lazy folk. However, that conclusion need not have relevance to the actual productivity of the nation. Different things in different niches and all that.

Orlanth wrote:
After all on the field of battle (nearly) all moralising and bs is swept away and the cultural cohesion of a people is shown.

Cultural cohesion is a defining feature of nationality. Without it there simply is no nation.

Orlanth wrote:
This is undoubtably true, so long as the monkey is at the wheel we will always be living in banana republics, but a stable nation is one that serves its BS on an old plate. Stability is just another word for control. however when the control balance shifts the balance point is often 'lower' than before, is equilibrium is regained at all. Most people in the UK not understand that a revolution has occured and the nation is destabilised.

I can explain a little more but best as answer to direct questin s to avoid textwalling you.

I don't mind being textwalled when the wall is pertinent to a direct query. Which is good, because I'm not sure what you're getting at here. I understand the idea that stability requires that one foot be planted squarely on tradition, but I'm not sure what you would consider as the revolutionary point in UK politics. Perhaps you could elaborate?

Orlanth wrote:
2. Introduction of bureaucracy - The children see first hand the bureaucracy behind the dogmas bwecause things are done often in circular ways. This puts bureaucratic reasoning i.e excuses and technicalities high on ther list of things learned. These are lifeskills taught at an education age, so why ber suprised that we get a generation of system players again.

I'm not sure this touches on the desire to excess. Are you beginning from a stance of necessary wickedness?

Orlanth wrote:
...There are tremendous opportunities for exploitation here expectially as the social workers cannot see themselves being used because they only see the comparative education levels between themselves and their clients, not their relative grasps of political reality...

Yeah, I completely agree with this.

Orlanth wrote:
1. Overcrowded prisons and inadequate punishment - Prisons are full so custodial sentences are rare, many forms of punishment are also ineffective because the sentences are simply honours by another name.

That seems as though its an intrinsic feature of criminal culture. I can't think of many instances in history in which those of a malign bent would perceive others similarly marked as negative for the marking.

Orlanth wrote:
2. Whitewashing - Crime figures are down year on year but crime is up. If anyone should know the truth of that its the chavs and criminal communities. Chavs know that the message that gun and knife crime is dropping to be propoganda because they themselves witness the rise. Whitewashing sends out a clear message, 'we will paste over what you do', if you think of that, its quite empowering really if you think from their perspective.

Its difficult for me to address this point, as I've not been to the UK in some time. I could post the standard objection from statistical error, but I'm sure you're aware of that so I won't trouble you other than to ask for greater elaboration with respect to the discrepancy.

Orlanth wrote:

I offered you set dates, then duration and estimates for the next year.

Incorrect ones, and the 2nd year... covered the events mentionned. And I want prooff that this was an attempt to relabel xmas, as you keep claiming, rather than a marketing exercise as every other source shows.

Pure un-thinking denial of the facts.
Leads me to wonder if you can actually read a calender?

Can you read at all ? Because you keep spouting thesame lies with no actual proof despite repeated asks for such.

You appear to be the only person in the world who thinks Christmas starts in November. And you don't seem to be all that aware of Diwali eitehr.. it moves around a lot and that year, being fairly significant in regards to the history of India, there were many celebrations of/for the festival, including in Birmingham, 22nd November.. which.. oh look.. is in the Winterval period. OH NOES ! THEY'RE RELABELLING DIWALI ! Except, like xmas they weren't. The festival started on the 17th of that month.. and runs for 5 days.. oh.. look.. that's Winterval !


Let's summarise

Birmingham City Council wants people to celebrate Christmas. Christmas is the very heart of Winterval; far from not talking about Christmas the events within Winterval and the publicity material for it are covered in Christmas greetings and traditional images, including angels and carol singers.

The council had drawn particular attention to the city's Anglican cathedral during the festival by placing Christmas lights.
The tradition of festive lighting for Christmas is a long standing tradition in many Christian countries, and has been adopted in secular fashion in a number of other cultures ....
in the trees around the building, and the greeting "Happy Christmas Birmingham" hung in large lights over the main entrance to the Council House as it had done every other year.

Clearlyt hey didn't want Xmas to happen.
can you ? Because you don't seem to e able to do so.

J.Black wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:
It seems only yesterday they celebrated their silver-plated jubilee.

Shouldn't that be 'Purple-helmeted' jubilee?

reds8n wrote:

Orlanth wrote:

I offered you set dates, then duration and estimates for the next year.

Incorrect ones, and the 2nd year... covered the events mentionned. And I want prooff that this was an attempt to relabel xmas, as you keep claiming, rather than a marketing exercise as every other source shows.

So the dates you quoted that I read and showed back to you were incorrect. Ok so why propose this as your own evidence?

The 1st year dates are stated and did not include Diwali and stopped just before New Year. Yes I later noted the typo of 30th.

The second year ran for 42 days and again did not include Diwali if it stopped on New Years Eve like the first and cannot include both festivals either way. Now you say it covered the dates mentioned, this is a bit of misinforamtion because its plain if you count the 42 days of Winterval that it physically cannot.

reds8n wrote:.....rather than a marketing exercise as every other source shows.

There are plenty of comments both ways on that one just Google Winterval and read on. It is interesting that you refuse to accept the numerous instances of critique by civic leaders including the Bishop of Birmingham as 'sources'. To be a 'source' is must agree with you, right?

reds8n wrote:
You appear to be the only person in the world who thinks Christmas starts in November.

This should not need explaining: A good way of including something but not something else is to mark a border between the two. My very point. Winterval started between Diwali and Christmas thus deliberately including one and not the other.

reds8n wrote:
And you don't seem to be all that aware of Diwali eitehr.. it moves around a lot and that year, being fairly significant in regards to the history of India, there were many celebrations of/for the festival, including in Birmingham, 22nd November.. which.. oh look.. is in the Winterval period. OH NOES ! THEY'RE RELABELLING DIWALI ! Except, like xmas they weren't. The festival started on the 17th of that month.. and runs for 5 days.. oh.. look.. that's Winterval !

I understand Diwali well enough to give correct dates for the festival, and a link in the above post. It was outside Winterval periods in both 1997/8 and 1998/9.

I will provide Diwali dates for both years in this handy link below:
http://www.iskcon.org.uk/ies/festival.html

So I don't know where you are geting your dates from, or did you just make them up?
Now if there was some Diwali service on 22nd November within Winterval I can accept that it occured within Winterval, but it is no more Diwali and an early December carol service is Christmas.

reds8n wrote:
Can you read at all ? Because you keep spouting thesame lies with no actual proof despite repeated asks for such.

Grab a calender look up the dates given and see where Winterval lies in relation to them. Even if we took Mike Chubbs commentary that you quoted requoted and underlined and tried to fit all the festivals listed within 41 days and nights you will find you cannot, without creating gaps. Now if Mike Chubb cant get his facts right over when Winterval is (see below), what hope have you to defend his claims.

reds8n wrote:
Let's summarise

Ok

reds8n wrote:
Birmingham City Council wants people to celebrate Christmas. Christmas is the very heart of Winterval; far from not talking about Christmas the events within Winterval and the publicity material for it are covered in Christmas greetings and traditional images, including angels and carol singers..... and the greeting "Happy Christmas Birmingham" hung in large lights over the main entrance to the Council House as it had done every other year.
Clearly they didn't want Xmas to happen.
can you ? Because you don't seem to e able to do so.

As others have pointed out Christmas and the trappings of Christmas are two different things. By placing Christmas at the heart of Winterval, Winterval embodies Christmas.

Note how Chiristmas is not included in the itinery in that you get: Christmas Lights Switch On, Frankfurt Christmas Market, Aston Hall by Candlelight (being at Aston I know this is a Chistmasy event).
What is not mentioned is Christmas itself, a sidelining if ever I saw one.

Well Christmas appears to be all of Winterval, which was apparently acording to your sources a marketing exercise. Let us look at that.

If its for increased retail that commercial Christmas long precedes the religious festival starting as early as October full on in retail circles, and many shops start to plug christmas far earlier in any case it should overlap Diwali. Christmas shopping season also logically ends on December 24th.
For the marketing to be Winter rather than Christmas based then it ought to include January sales, and in part does such as the 'January sales from Boxing day' but not into January itself.
Diwali is also a time of gifts and thus a commercial Winterval should logically predate Diwali for its own ends.
People celebrate the commercial aspects of Christmas with or without any church, and thus do not require a Winterval to get involved.


The dates for Winterval do not logically follow as a marketing exercise, its certainly doesnt follow to repeat the error a second year after the failure and offence caused by ther first. Putting backs up =/ marketing genius. Furthermore it is directly against the concepts of Equality and Diversity, which are very strongly enforced in the case of faiths and minority groups.

at the very least Birmingham Council ought to have looked at Winterval 97/8 and asked did this cause offense to religious groups? As it did this should have been respected under thier own Equality and Diversity mandate and not repeated the ofence. It is quite likely that Equality and Diversity was looked at, but only in relation to Diwali.

Again it is time to mention Hanukkah, which lies within Winterval. Judaism does not usually want its ceremonies as public events as it is by culture a private religion. Even Purim the most 'outward' of Jewish religious festivals is only really open within the Jewish community. Thus ignoring Hannukkah at Winterval in fact suits their purposes. Multi faith/culturalism and Judiasm normally goes no further than a few Rabbis attending a communal celebration. Noone Jew or otherwise seems to have any problems with this, nor should they.

Winterval only logically fits the facts as an attempt to relabel Christmas adn to limit its cultural footprint. Christmas itself is largely divorced from the trappings, which in many ways is a good thing, but the rtapping neverrtheless still highlight Christmas one way or another. By recategorising those customs Christmas itself is sidelined to some degree or other, this will only continue had the Winterval persisted. As changing a culture is something that takes time outside of a revolution there is good logical reason to suggest that Winterval existed to undermine Christmas, and as there appeared to be no other logical reason for Winterval to exist it raises fair question as to whether it was solely intended for such a purpose.

Now this is admittedly exactly what Christianity did sixteen centuries ago to the festivals of Yule and Ishtar (Christmas and Easter), so we know the tactic works! But doing it back now is not excused, after all 'we' (modern christians) didnt stomp on Yule any more than 'we' (modern English) stomped on the French.

Just to put this issue to bed:

reds8n wrote:
And I want prooff that this was an attempt to relabel xmas, as you keep claiming, rather than a marketing exercise as every other source shows.

You want proof. Actual empriical proof is hard to find for motive but here goes.

Your quote, which presdumably you think authentic because you quoted it:

I am Mike Chubb, as Head of Events for Birmingham at the time I invented the term Winterval (41 days and nights of festive fun!), fully supported by The Council and the cultural and business community. I am continually fascinated that the term Winterval, ever caused (and still does) such a furore.

Quite simply, as Head of events at that time, we needed a vehicle which could cover the marketing of a whole season of events…Diwali (festival of Lights), Christmas lights switch on, BBC Children in Need, Aston Hall by Candlelight, Chinese New year, New Years eve etc. Also a season that included theatre shows and open air ice rink, Frankfurt open air Christmas market and the Christmas seasonal retail offer. Christmas, called Christmas! and its celebration, lay at the heart of Winterval.

Now this is blatantly bollocks. Even if we accepted the spurious mid-January end date for Winterval Chinese New Year lies outside it*. When taking the 41 days of the first calender or 42 days of the second festival calender all the religous ceremoies outside of Christmas are excluded. Now these dates do inlcude Hannukkah but it is interesting that that is not included in the text quoted.

Mike Chubb was himself not even attemtpting to be accurate accurate, his figures cant be a simple mistaske because of his position and because Winterval would have been about twice as long as it was to actually get all the festivals included. The commentary you posted was a face saving exercise after Winterval blew up in their faces. A snap shot denial.

*Chinese New Year
Year of the Tiger - Jan 28th 1998
Year of the Rabbit - Feb 16th 1999

41 days and nights of Winterval 97/8: between Diwali 20th October 1997 and Chinese New Year Jan 28th 1998
42 days and nights of Winterval 98/9: between Diwali 7th November 1998 and Chinese New Year Feb 16th 1999

Hmm..bit pushed for time now. My understandingw as that Diwali in 1997 was on/around the 17th of November and therefore did indeed run into/overlap with the start of Winterval. This was also, from my understanding, tied in with some independence/commeration of India's independence ( 50th year of ?). there's a moral about web searches here..

Apologies.

Sorry for any snarkiness too.. at work I have to type fast etc. Sorry again. NOt you really..more the $%^&% I am forced to work with right now. Honest... we've spoke before.. if it was you I'd come out and straight say it

I don't see how Winterval is Xmas still.. especially if it doesn't --ending at the end of December-- encroach upon the full 12 days of after the main day. And itstarts lone before any Xtian ceremony or services. Mainstream ones anyway.

In some of the other quotes Mr. Chubb does indeed mention Hannukkah.

Note how Chiristmas is not included in the itinery in that you get: Christmas Lights Switch On, Frankfurt Christmas Market, Aston Hall by Candlelight (being at Aston I know this is a Chistmasy event).
What is not mentioned is Christmas itself, a sidelining if ever I saw one.

..err what ? Xmas is still there.. still a bank holiday.... churches open... I don't see any sidelining whatsoever here. What more is the council supposed to do here.. come round and check people are eating Turkey ?

dogma wrote:
There's also issues of translation to be considered. You can go to Ireland and discover that everyone gets piss drunk on a nightly basis, and so conclude that they are lazy folk. However, that conclusion need not have relevance to the actual productivity of the nation. Different things in different niches and all that.

Yes indeed, however now you are seeing that national characteristics are something that exist but are sometimes taboo if the characteristic is 'uncompetetive'. Hence the problem with looking at national character as you wwere uncomfortable with earlier. National characteristics label the individual and are unfair and lead to discrimination. In the eyes of a bigot national characteristsc are dangerous as a bigot acceptuates a poor national character for fun or gain. However in battle business communications and whatever they are nevertheless factoras to be taken account of, or exploited.
So as for your example a wise businessman knows the Irish national characteristics relative strengths and weaknesses and tailors his approach based on good solid evidence. He knows what to say and what not to say, based on the average Irish businessmans paradigm, and thus secures good business and friendly trade links with Ireland. This is why being 'well travelled' is a great boon for a businessmans employment credentials. A bigot might know the same Irish national characteristcs but discards the positive ones, magnifies the negative ones, and loudly proclaim those as true of all Irish.
Same stock info, radically different approaches to using it.

dogma wrote:
With regard to the bs I would point out that virtually every human enterprise is manifested from the stuff. The real question is not whether or not something is bs, but whether or not any given kind of bs is useful.

Orlanth wrote:
This is undoubtably true, so long as the monkey is at the wheel we will always be living in banana republics, but a stable nation is one that serves its BS on an old plate. Stability is just another word for control. however when the control balance shifts the balance point is often 'lower' than before, is equilibrium is regained at all. Most people in the UK not understand that a revolution has occured and the nation is destabilised.

I can explain a little more but best as answer to direct questin s to avoid textwalling you.

dogma wrote:
I don't mind being textwalled when the wall is pertinent to a direct query. Which is good, because I'm not sure what you're getting at here. I understand the idea that stability requires that one foot be planted squarely on tradition, but I'm not sure what you would consider as the revolutionary point in UK politics. Perhaps you could elaborate?

Yes, tradition is key just as you understand. The best example of this is the USA. The US has far less standing in tradition than the UK, but after being around for over 200 years it is undoubtably established. Those traditions you do have a very well kept honoured and entrenched as according to their nature, though individual opinions vary as widely as anywhere else in the world. here in the UK was far more traditon to stand on traditon is easy to ignore, it surrounds us,. Its also a potential enemy for those who wish to engineer change.
A nation is based upon its fashions and its traditions. To remoever one is stagnant, to remove the latter destabilises as tradition is the foundation of a culture.

Now the 'monkey at the wheel' means that however well established a nation is the peiople at the top are self serving. The only way out of that problem is to have a society not led by humans, which is currently not possible.
Tradition keeps the same people in power and stabilises, when the stability is removed it does not empower more people but does enable some who were previously not in control to seize control, this causes ruptures and casualties political and economic.
Either way the system is unfair, but with the same old same old you got a stability. With a political revolution, which is what has happened in the Uk behind peoples backs you get desstabilisation. Part of the destabilisation is because of political warring factions, partly because those people adjacent to power in the past could not grasp it and were thus not threats, now with the gates blown for want of a better phrase more people at the top can have access to the cake, so those with the cake need crush more fingers.

Ultimately this political culture is the political culture of central rather than north America, and once a nation heads that way its difficult to head back.

In the Uk New Labour party politicised the civil service. Before you could be of any party within reason, and join and rise up. Labour/Tory it didnt matter who was in power the other two parts of the triangle* were in place. Blair party politicised the Civil Serivce early, using politcal correctness as a tool to restaff its senior echelons. If you were not New Labour you did not fit in PC dogma was used as a control tool and if needds be evidence and 'offenders' were sidelined quickly. It was a devastating move and few even today see what has gone on. the Tories in the civil service are thus equally in tune with the PC dogmas, this is why New Tory (though ti is not named as such) very closely emulates New Labour in outlook and point of governance.
People are beginning to realise that you will get the same bs regardless of who is in power, but dont see it beyond similar morality (or lack thereof) as a rule. in fact the changes go m ucg deeper, New Labour and Tory are identical in ideological outlook when it comes to central government. The cycle is complete, just without a stable triangle.

* The political triangle is the bedrock of any stable political system. it relies on a healthy logical approach to human politics, and involves in some level three political forces acting in equilibrium, two can if needs be gang up to prevent the third monkey from getting too many bananas. Normally or or two have power and the last has a veto power or the ability to otherwise make ruling difficult.
in the Uk the political triangle is Parlaiment, Civil Service and Monarchy. In the US it is President Congress and Supreme Court. the Soviet Union was very deliberately formed on this pattern and was ruled by Party, Army and KGB, and unpleasant triangle but one that was, internally at least, very stable. Others include Upper House, Lower House, Head of State, King, Church and council of Nobles. Etc. Those nations without the triangle get screwed to put it mildly.
Its the principle difference between stable North American nations and coup struck South American nations, though in some cases there is a corner of the triangle, the Catholic church, but it is not playinfg the same game and is not stabilising the triangle, just acting as a false corner that prevents a stabilising corner from being established. i.e if one occured you get a square not a triangle, and 4 is a poltically unstable number as even sides occur.

dogma wrote:

Orlanth wrote:
2. Introduction of bureaucracy - The children see first hand the bureaucracy behind the dogmas bwecause things are done often in circular ways. This puts bureaucratic reasoning i.e excuses and technicalities high on ther list of things learned. These are lifeskills taught at an education age, so why ber suprised that we get a generation of system players again.

I'm not sure this touches on the desire to excess. Are you beginning from a stance of necessary wickedness?

Not moralism, just a consequence of natural education. People learn more in their formulative years. So I ask you when should people learn bureaucracy, back covering and double dealing? Those who learn early develop those 'life skills' well and grow up to be system players. Due to empowerment the dynamics of social work is not hidden from the client, as to do so would be exclusion, two nice PC dogmas that are supposed to mean keeping s client informed of what the state does for them, but instead because a very good education in how to play the system.
As the clientsd are often not in school, they are not learning much else but most attend their dogma classes with youth or social workers, sometimes as legal requirements, and so pick up on this 'training' from an increasdingly assymetrical perspective.

dogma wrote:

Orlanth wrote:
1. Overcrowded prisons and inadequate punishment - Prisons are full so custodial sentences are rare, many forms of punishment are also ineffective because the sentences are simply honours by another name.

That seems as though its an intrinsic feature of criminal culture. I can't think of many instances in history in which those of a malign bent would perceive others similarly marked as negative for the marking.

How true, but ASBO's are not only toothless, it involves little actual punishment and are heavily publicised as punishment.
To give its historical equivalent branding at least had a down side. Many chavs seek ASBO's.

dogma wrote:

Orlanth wrote:
Crime figures are down year on year but crime is up.

Its difficult for me to address this point, as I've not been to the UK in some time. I could post the standard objection from statistical error, but I'm sure you're aware of that so I won't trouble you other than to ask for greater elaboration with respect to the discrepancy.

Sadly this is difficult, the government are very good at keeping figures underwraps. However the methodolgies get leaked from time to time.
A good example is how reported crime figures only include a particular method of reported crime. It doesnt help that if a fiddle is discovered and printed in some papers it is immedaitely discredited by traditional opinion on the varacity of reporting. Daily Mail comes to mind, a culture has arisen by which anything it prints is suspect, not in any way fairly in respect to the comperable authenticity of any other newspaper in the UK. You will have seen that here. Daily Mail = lie being a common schitick on dakka political threads.
Furthermore until two weeks ago the two most rabid gurtter papers the Sun and the Mirror were both on the same side party politics wise. However the Sun long a Tory gutter paper has abansdoned New Labour and returned to Tory. Thus the hard hitting headlines they like to throw at the people are now no longer saying the same story.

Evben so the second problem is because the security services in the Uk are very effective, and have been actively party politicised, see the triangle above. This is why while every government likes to keep stuff underwraps the current lot have been able to use official secrets act to secure knowledge that is no more than a party politcal embarassment.
If I knew of such incidents I cannot write about them anyway, even though I am not a journalist. I can only point you to differences between the Uk and foreign press on certain uissues. 'Holes in the press' is a good way of seeing what is going on.

Even so we get snippets from time to time, i recommend you think of them as iceberg tips:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/4177738/Fiddling-statistics-is-no-way-to-restore-public-confidence.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1165312/Ministry-Justice-shambles-crime-statistics-dont-add-up.html
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/01/09/government-accused-of-fiddling-youth-crime-figures-115875-21026975/

Now for the Daily Mirror to be saying this something is up!

What I hear is that crime statsistics reported a certain way, which can vary, are recoreded crime figures those reported by other means are not 'official reported crime' and thus for nartional statistics do not exist. This is irregardless of severity. So if two womern are raped and one phones 999 (our equivalent of 911) and another goes to the local police station and reports it official stats will likely show that one rape occured that night.
Thus everything is fine in New Britain, noone should worry and everyone should trust in our glorious leaders and their wise policies. If you dont then you are just hysterical, ignorant and/or a Daily Mail reader.

I remember just such a case, but cannot find it: A rape councilling group complained that they had seen more clients who had reported their rapes to the Police than the official statistics claimed exist for the region in the same period of time.

If any practising Christians were offended by the Winterval episode, they must be absolutely outraged at what the Free Market has done to the Celebration of the Birth of their Lord.
Was it not Christ that threw the money-lenders out of the Temple?
And now His Name is taken in vain for the profits of already-rich businessmen.

Christ did mention something about rich men, and camels. Look it up in your favoured translation.

reds8n wrote:

Apologies.

Sorry for any snarkiness too.. at work I have to type fast etc. Sorry again. NOt you really..more the $%^&% I am forced to work with right now. Honest... we've spoke before.. if it was you I'd come out and straight say it [/

Do not worry, I was not entirely successful at holding myself back either. So I egged you on a bit, especially with my last comment. I have since edited it, let us dismantle a few walls even if not build bridges.

Yes Winterval never destroyed Christmas, and never could and I don't see how it could of itself get that far. But many are worried about a slow sidelining, and what would come next. In the same way like a boiled frog doesnt recognise the slow rise of the heat so a cultrual standpoint cen be removed over time.
This last analogy is why the church reacts and overreacts.

Some would claim that Winterval bans Christmas, that is an over-reaction, and is as incredulous to me as it is to you. However others more reaasonably saw it as a potention long term threat if the relabelling proliferated and thus asked that the practice was discontinued.

The church fears change, and many without react in fear, but over time some such fears have proven justifiable. Others that were stopped, we will never know. The church is a long established organisation and also one of the few social groups that still thinks long term. It helps to understand both sides, if you want to enjoy Winterval this year go ahead - you are harming none. But if the church needs to clear the mist that forms the ice that cracks the stone that chips the block of the foundation of the church - we are not really being picky, it's a survival instinct to us. I hope you understand this because wec are not out to stop your (or Birminghams) seasonal fun and attempts at integration. Or at the least I am not.

..I understand the "fear" of things being sidelined, especially with regards to what is, rightly or wrongly, pretty much the largest Xtain festival/event in the UK -- I'm aware there's a whole line of thought that says this should be Easter but, for whatever reasons ( £/$ s I suspect) it generally isn't. And that is a fair enough concern. Whilst I don't think the event in question was any such attempt, it would be foolish to claim that there aren't those out there who would leap at the chance to remove or drop the xtain celebrations of this or indeed all/any religious festivities : there clearly are on pretty much all sides of the political spectrum.

My problem here is that when "the church" -- although it was pretty much confined to one or two bishops and the obligatory rent a mobs who sit round waiting to spring into action ( akin to those who wait around to leap into outraged action on behalf of minority group X of course) -- says something as... as.. hmm.. wide of the mark or exaggerated as what they were saying/claiming it does them no favours and adds fuel to the fires for those who are.... hmm.. shall we say less tolerant than those the church intends to be speaking too. I'll clarify that I don't for one moment mean to say that Bishop whomever was trying to encourage Mr. Violent Thug to go out and hurl racial abuse or smash a store up and they can't be held (too) responsible for how others interpret their actions. This in turn adds fuel to those who oppose those groups and the church itself and the whole sad process grows and continues.
This annoys me mostly as it does tear open barriers and broaden divisions in society that otherwise tend to heal over as people.. well.. as they just get on with their lives and minding their own business. And, out of all the mainstream churches in the world the CoE is the one I have the mostr espect for precisely as it does modernise and adapt and, to an extent, move with the times, whilst also helping to perhaps slow certain changes and act as a voice for some who otherwise wouldn't be heard.

I wouldn't want to see the Bishops removed entirely from the HoL or indeed any such second chamber.. as long as of course there was a mix of other faiths/creeds/beliefs etc in there too.

I don't really have seasonal fun as such. I'm farly atheistic through and through and don't celebrate any religious festival as such. But I'm all for a few days off work, presents, good food and lil kiddies dressed in dressing gowns pretending to be shepherds etc. And all of that still goes on.. and will continue to do so as.. people enjoy it. Broadly speaking.... working in catering I often don't care if I eat another Turkey ever again come the 25th.

The problem with national characteristics is this:

It is a fact that bribery is more widely accepted in some countries than others.

Does that mean that citizens of that country are by nature easily bribable?

No.

It means that in a particular cultural milieu certain behaviours are more tolerated or less tolerated and therefore more or less prevalent.

To make some kind of analogy, if there is a fleet of ships, half of which are facing the wind and half of which are side on to the wind, the sideways ships will be blown to leeward faster than the rest. That isn't a characteristic of the ships, it is due to their facing, which can be changed.