Caravans in the Park.

Looks like a big group of travellers have landed in the Park near the New River Gate, there are a lot of them. Doesn't look like film crew to me.
I don't know if we are allowed to say gypsies?
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Comments

  • They had a film crew there on Thursday night I ran past it.
  • edited March 2019
    I think I saw something about this on Twitter, police and a council representative have attended and 'monitoring the situation'. Or that could have been somewhere else in Finsbury Park, not clear.

    I thought there were film vans there this morning. Plenty of scrap metal availability then.
  • @miss annie no, you're not allowed to say gypsies,
    @krappyrubsnif no you're not allowed to use tired cliches that denigrate a group of people
  • Oooooh. This forum is really losing its sense of humour and getting a bit too PC.

    @cmo I suggest you might be less of a snowflake if you lived next to a bunch of people of the wrong type living in caravans.
  • edited March 2019
    @KRS Maybe if you were from a minority group and had tired cliches thrown at you all the time the joke would wear thin. And btw, I lived on a shared housing co-op by an 'English' traveller site on Clays Lane, Stratford (leveled to make way for the Oympic Site) in the 90s for a few years. Never a problem. Just saying as all the anti-PC like to say.
  • edited March 2019
    I wasn't really seeking permission, it was more of a general enquiry.
    If they lived on the same site for years are we even allowed to say Travellers? If they don't travel surely it's just a trailer park?

  • So if "it's just a trailer park", @miss annie , with which epithet would you tar the residents in order to summarily denigrate them?
  • @krappyrubsnif what's the 'right' type of people you approve of living near you?
  • grennersgrenners Ferme Park Road, N4
    Total PC nonsense in my view. Surely it depends how you use the word gypsy and that's a valid word to use. We have been using that word for hundreds of years. Very few people use the word Roma or Romany in everyday conversation. Probably some people would think you are talking about Romans or Romanians. Traveller is a vague word but it might be more appropriate. In fact a quick Google search and I can see the word being used by the BBC, guardian, Trevor Phillips and the Equalaties and Hunan Rights commission.


  • I would use people for those who live in a trailer park.
  • It’s always PC nonsense when people are challenged to think about the words they’re using.

    Roma, just like Romany, is an ethnic term and so hardly applies to every community of travelling people.
  • I correct my last post, they are there, just by the film crew, loads of police there earlier as well.

    They should just give them all parking tickets every day.
  • Look, I really don't see why I should be bullied and harassed by virtue-signalling, holier-than-thou PC merchants on this forum and have to justify my choice of words. For the record, when I say 'people of the wrong type' that's exactly what I mean. That is specifically *not* stereotyping all people in caravans as 'the wrong type'. I've interviewed representatives of the Gypsy community in the past. People in caravans - travellers, gypsies, Roma, call them and label how what you will , come in many shades. I am referencing the anti-social ones and I don't see why I should apologise.

    If you want confirmation that 'the wrong sort of person' is no asset to this area go and talk to any of the pub managers around here. Not so long ago the Stapleton had to shut early because of the anti-social behaviour of some 'travellers', the manager of the White Lion had to do sentry duty on his front door, the pubs were calling each other and the police were blue-lighting it up and down SG Road - I know because I was there.

    I have no reason to think that the people in the park are anti-social. I hope not. But *some* travellers are. Get over it. And by the way, my only comment was a lame joke about old iron - I cant believe you can get so mightily offended.

    Anyway, as I said, this forum has lost its sparkle and is becoming far too PC. It is quite boring now. I have better things to do, so I think I'll take myself elsewhere for a while. Enjoy your safe space.

    @Arkady, please tell me how I can delete my account.

  • While I wouldn’t agree with @cmo declaring what people are “not allowed to say” (on whose authority?), @krappyrubsnif does seem (I’m using third person here, as he may well have left this forum by now) to have prejudged that at least some the people in these caravans are “people of the wrong type” (whether scrap metal dealers or not!) Otherwise why the references in the first place?

    Well, anyway, I’ll miss his comments, as he’s been one of the more interesting and prolific posters here.
  • (And should he ever return, I hope it'll be with just one "p" in his moniker.)
  • Krappy, what you said was reasonable and meant in good humour.

    I'll bet that many of the brigade who take offence at a light-hearted line like that would never raise such an issue with someone who made a gammon joke or shouted 'Tory Scum'.
  • Not sure about gammons, but Tory's aren't an ethnicity but a chosen political affiliation, and it's definitely fine to say rude things about them or suggest stereotypes.

    Stereotyping ethnicity is something that the civilised should surely avoid. If you wouldn't do it about black people or Jewish people I'm not sure why it would be OK to do it about Irish Travellers or Romani.

  • Krappy didn't stereotype ethnicity, he made a joke about scrap metal to do with a bunch of people who pitched up their caravans in the park (a place you aren't allowed to pitch up a caravan) related to the traditionally higher likelihood of people living in caravans to deal in scrap metal.

    Krappy didn't mention ethnicity in the post that sparked the controversy.

    And I didn't mention it in mine either.

    Someone's ethnicity is not defined by whether they live in a caravan or not, those people in the park could have any kind of heritage.

    I could see how because of the 'gammon' mention you could relate it, but my point was about the modern-day offense-taking brigade and double standards.

    (I'm also defending a long-standing reasonable and rational member of this forum who I think has been jumped out of proportion.)
  • edited March 2019
    Agree @Papa L
    Things I have learned following this discussion - not all Travellers are Irish, Gypsies is a perfectly acceptable word used in conjunction with Romany and no one says Romani.
    So actually we are all wrong on some points, including the easily offended. Can we just get over ourselves and go back to gossiping about what is going to happen next? Any word from the rozzers?
  • edited March 2019
    "Krappy didn't stereotype ethnicity, he made a joke about scrap metal to do with a bunch of people who pitched up their caravans in the park"

    Mmm.

    It's admirable of you to want to defend a good man. He's a friend, and I sympathise.

    However, the *original* post started with the assumption that the travellers in question were 'gypsies' of one kind or another. To immediately follow that post with a quip about ironmongery strikes me as crass, for what little that's worth, and I'm far from surprised that some people felt the need to point that out.

    Again, if the original post had identified a different ethnicity, and someone else followed up with cliched quip about that ethnicity, would it be acceptable? I suggest not.

    I'm not sure that defending yourself by using alt-right terms like 'snowflake' does anyone any favours either, particularly while being conspicuously thin-skinned - which is the only double standard I'm seeing here too, incidentally.

    As Oscar Wilde (that terrible snowflake) said, a gentleman never offends unintentionally, and this strikes me as an easily avoidable accident.
  • @Papa L , can you really not distinguish between name-calling and characterisation?

    I don't take offence to any of this, but nor do I care whether you or anyone else thinks questioning the language applied to a particular group or community is PC nonsense (which is just a blanket phrase used by people who can't—or can't be bothered to—"reasonably" or "rationally" support what they say), and I will cheerfully jump in every time. It seems to me that the people who take offence are the ones who refer negatively to PC as if doing so constitutes a genuine argument.

    On not being bothered, I accept it can be boring when we start nit-picking and arguing about a phrase said in jest (personally, I find it interesting, thought-provoking, and sometimes revealing), but when something is in writing it's more likely to be taken to task, so even in a casual place like this, just a little caution might help.

    This is a generally friendly community, so let's accept that friends on either side of an argument can exasperate one and other from time to time.

    I agree with @miss annie — let's stop this and hear some news about what's going on in the park.

    ("Rozzers"! I haven't heard that since the days when they would bend their knees and announce themselves saying, "'Ello, 'ello, 'ello! What's going on 'ere then?", and cuff small boys across the back of the head.)
  • What Scruffy said. He's always a pillar of wisdom.
  • Scruffy, you did that thing again of putting words into my mouth.
    At what point did I suggest anything was PC nonsense?
  • Watch it, matey! I'm a pillock of wisdom!

    I wasn't quoting you, @Papa , but I can see how it seems I was, the sense of which I happily retract. I was associating the term with your own words (in quotes) to refer to the general tenor of one side of this discussion.
  • I am not really interested in snowflake conversations about what name we are using / attacking this week but the current crop of travellers are from Ireland after the law changes over there and are not actually Roma or Gypsy.

    The tinker type that were around when I was a kid are mostly housed in council property now in places like Thurrock.

    I work with all kinds of travellers and squatters and for landowners they can be a nightmare.
  • edited April 2019
    I'm taking a vow of silence on here.
  • Jolly good, probably for the best.
  • I haven’t been to the Park lately, except to walk from the Oxford Rd footbridge down to the Finsbury Gate, and didn’t see anything other than a fair setup. Where are these caravans, and what’s the latest, anyone?
  • They were at the north end, but were only there for couple of weeks. One of them clearly said FILM CREW on the side.
    So I don't know why people thought travellers had moved there.

    As for the comments on bigoted language - it's simple. Demonising the whole traveller community based on the actions of a fraction of that community is bigotry and a shitshow of being a decent person.
    If wanting people to be treated with dignity and respect is being a snowflake, then fair enough.
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