Jottings
News from the UK and around the World
. . . the wild, the wacky, the wonderful, the weird and the downright infuriating
Snowflakes in summer
Despite the exceptionally warm weather
in the UK this summer, there have some
unwelcome sightings of snowflakes in
recent weeks. For example, a group of 28
exceptionally uninformed individuals in
Kent demanded that a movie made in
1964 should be excluded from a charity
screening because, they claimed, it is
“racist.” The pop-up festival at the Silver
Screen Cinema in Folkestone in late
June was organised to raise money for
the armed forces charity SSAFA, and the
programme included “Zulu,” an account
of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift in January
1879, in which Michael Caine made his
screen debut. The film has been
commended for depicting the
disciplined approach of an army of
4,000 Zulu warriors in their failed
attempt take a field hospital defended by
150 British soldiers, many of whom were
its patients. Folkestone’s mayor received
a letter from the protestors alleging that
the movie’s “inaccurate portrayal of
historical events and its distortions and
racist overtones, could have a negative
effect on relationships within the
changing and richly diverse
communities here in Folkestone.” In
fact, bar a few minor technical
inaccuracies, “Zulu” was praised by
critics on its release for being, “true and
largely accurate.”
Many locals branded the complaint
“ridiculous” and “political correctness
gone mad.” Another added, “This degree
of idiotic virtue signalling marks them
out as lefties of the worst kind.”
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Organisers of the event responded by
refusing to cancel but said later that the
snowflakes’ protest and subsequent
publicity “hijacked and then derailed”
the event, with fewer people attending
than expected. They admitted, “the
toxicity of the label ‘racist’ ...
unquestionably impacted on ticket
sales.”
Meanwhile, academics at Bath
University have been urged to avoid
saying “as you know” in lectures in case
“snowflake students” are left feeling
inadequate. The advice was given at a
meeting of Bath University’s equality
and diversity network, where members
were warned it might cause some
undergraduates to feel dimmer than
others if they did not know what was