Dogwash

Sunny has decided to pull the plug on the Pickled Politics blog. Probably just as well. The blog was held together by Rumbold, who was the only remotely sensible above-the-line poster. Rumbold now has other things to occupy his time. Sunny himself seems to have been absorbed by his heretofore mysterious software project to the extent that his presence above the line at PP and to a lesser extent at LC has consisted of quickie ill-considered and bad-tempered sideswipes and his interventions below-the-line have been little more than generic abuse. Which basically leaves Jai. Well, one doesn't wish to be unkind (omnes: "Oh go on, let yourself go!"), but Jai comes across as a saloon-bar bore with a thin skin. His ponderous dissertations on Indian history and culture have been interesting if a little one-sided, but his sallies into British "far-right" politics (BNP, EDL, Alan Lake, Breivik, ...) have been painful, his tiresome literalism like nothing so much as the desperate comma-wrangling of a defence brief whose client is 100% bang to rights. If Jai migrates to LC above the line without the admin rights to censor his critics below the line, he's going to be in a different and less-forgiving environment which may come as something of a reality-check to him.

All that said, PP has been an entertaining read. Given its largely Desi commentariat, it is a bit like watching a counterfactual "reverse Raj" at play. I find myself visualizing the Picklers as a motley crew of people in the Imperial Service of the Indian Empire in Europe, assembling socially at the Club in some kind of Cotswolds resort mirroring the real-world Ooty. Sipping their pink lassis as Col. Jai (retd) holds forth on the benefits of Indian rule in Europe, while they talk airily of the bloody natives — "Decent enough chaps in their way, doncha know, but essentially childlike. Apparently some of these English blightahs think themselves capable of ruling themselves. Ha! I say, another round here, Smithson, you lazy bugger. Jaldi jaldi!"

The undercurrent of ethnic arrogance is subtle but totally self-assured.

Pip! Pip!