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I’m struggling to get excited by politics at the moment. Somehow the summer and the sunshine suck the interest out of me. This is the time I start to obsess over weather models.

And there is potentially something for the ages in store there. Several global models and their ensemble sets are throwing out the landmark heatwave, the one which gets remembered for posterity: in other words, that June-July 1976 spell but with 50 years of climate change.

In these scenarios this current hot spell is just a warm up act.

Several are not though. They’re just showing an extended spell of quite hot weather with some showers.

One to keep an eye on.

I have to say looking at tonight's output, apart from the possibility of a brief (18-24 hour) incursion into the south in ten days, it all looks pretty average through to the end of the month.

I've also heard early August may be less settled (to be fair, August can be a very wet month) but that's a very long way off.

Are you on ayahuasca?

Whatever this is, it certainly is not “average”

It’s glorious, and it looks like a forecast for Rome rather than London, but it is not average

Apart from Saturday 19th, my home town is forecast for two weeks of Scorchio. Up here in the far north, the next couple of days look more mixed but next week is shaping up to be another fairly decent one.

Roll on Autumn, this hot weather absolutely does my head in.

I adore it. The world seems kinder and sweeter

It's spelled sweatier.

Macron

This pilot framework will be decided once the legal issues are resolved and agreed in the EU

So not agreed yet

Hello ECHR

Oh god. He hasn’t actually got any agreement at all, yet?

He is so dismally wet

Got an agreement to try to agree an agreement....

I know I keep banging on about this, but Starmer needs to stop seeking agreements by consent using legal frameworks, and start imposing solutions by force without consent. The small boats should be turned around and sent back whence they came.

If the French disapprove they can start a war. If the lawyers disapprove then laws should be passed to disapply human rights legislation outside the UK jurisdiction against the armed forces. If the Navy disagree, then a new branch ("Border Security") should be created to do it and the RN can bugger off to the Falklands.

But we need to stop asking people, since they obviously aren't getting it done.

You’re asking those deemed with that task to try and force boats to turn back to France and what happens when some sink and people drown. Practically forcing a boat to turn round isn’t easy notwithstanding the moral issues.

You bring them ashore safely then fly them to a processing centre outside Europe

And if necessary leave the ECHR

This present position cannot continue if the country wants to prevent a Farage coronation

Leaving the ECHR is not a good idea. Are you Reform with HYUFD now?

I'm still Tory better than I ever did. Lookin' like a true survivor, feelin' like a little kid. And I'm still Tory after all this time....

Care4Calais, a refugee charity, has condemned the ‘one in, one out’ deal that has just been announced. It says:

A grubby deal between two Governments that trades human lives. A deal that will likely be expensive, will make life harder for people who seek safety in the UK, but will do nothing to tackle the root cause of crossings - a lack of safe routes

If the policy gets off the ground then it might make some not risk the journey if they have family members in the UK .

Rwanda was a better policy

The problem with Rwanda is that no genuine asylum seekers would be processed and the backlog could have become much worse .

Would it have been beyond the wit of an incoming Labour gov with a huge majority to have tweaked Rwanda, especially with all the capital already ploughed into it, so that all illegal arrivals and asylum seekers were sent there and processed there and successful applicants would be brought to the UK whilst the unsuccessful would have the option of being sent home or staying on for a new life in Rwanda.

Labour just couldn’t bring themselves to do what might have worked because it was too close to Tory policy.

The Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) are offering 1.4% for university lecturers (i.e. below inflation). The union is recommending strike action.

Weren't you complaining the other day that universities are running out of money and tuition fees don't cover costs?

Seems like controlling costs would be sensible in those circumstances.

The labour market may have other ideas. All my colleagues who work on AI may be tempted by jobs elsewhere.

Good for them, no reason for a strike then, is there? Just let supply and demand do its work.

Indeed. I'm off!

(Actually - I had a job offer yesterday that I'm probably going to accept, just negotiating details. University pay and, in particular, promotion freezes, were a big part of me looking elsewhere)

Why would anyone us Royal Mail????? target for first class now only 90pc and second class will turn up when they can fit it in...

Why would anyone use snail mail?

Emails are free and instantaneous.

I don't think I've posted any letters in years, only parcels.

To send a birthday card, Christmas cards, postcards etc. Lots of companies still use it for bills.

Plus of course Royal Mail also send parcels and are the only company with the network to cover even the most remote rural areas, even Amazon use Royal Mail for the final mile and the only company that provides the universal service obligation so it costs the same to post to a rural hamlet as an inner city

I'm curious if there's an age split on the sending of cards. The only people I know who send cards nowadays are either old people, or young fogies who are old at heart.

My wife and I don't send or expect cards, with the exception of family living overseas. The only people we get cards for are people whom we're close enough to see in person to celebrate their birthday/Christmas and we'll give the cards in person then.

If you're not close enough to see them in person, why send a card?

Don't send postcards to anyone. My wife will upload pictures to Facebook which family and friends can keep in touch with. I mostly just don't bother.

Yes so older people still send cards and will use RM to send them. I tend to send online Christmas cards now and put holiday pictures on Facebook too but my parents still send Christmas and birthday cards and postcards by post. I also send birthday cards by post still and if the friend or relative having the birthday is not nearby and it is not a big birthday we won't see them in person for it

My family have stopped sending all cards

We tend to express happy birthday, anniversary etc on our Whats app or facebook pages

Most everything we do today is by e mail and bcs payments

Indeed my daughters house sale and purchase, plus survey is done entirely by e mail

We receive virtually no post and to be honest, for a couple of oldies, we are quite proud how we have embraced modern tech communications

You still can't send parcels online

Yes, you can

Many parcel companies offer an online service to book and collect from your home

So as I said you can't send parcels online, you have to get them collected and delivered even on that example

What a bizarre response

As has been said by other posters you book online and it is collected

Amazon is an online company who deliver to your door

Are you saying they are not an online business

I really do wonder about your thought processes

So as I said the parcels are not sent online are they? You cannot send a parcel over the internet it has to be collected and delivered by hand

By hand to your door is online.

You don't need to go to a shop/post office/postbox.

No it isn't, you may order it online but it is delivered by hand not over the internet like email

What on earth are you rabbiting on about?

I think this discussion started with a HYUFD statement along the lines that the postal service is still necessary because they deliver parcels, which aren't delivered to your house via broadband - but it's since devolved to a battle of semantics and will.

Two of PB's titans in the knocking head on a brick wall contest are engaged in the opening stages of a bout that might last the entire day.

My money is on the pirate!

Like Big G I've said all I've got to say on the matter.

There is no point in going any further. The point has been made, there's no point taking it any further.

WHAT? Where would PB be if we simply gave up on arguments just because “everything possible has been said and everyone is now dying of boredom”?

That’s exactly when PB doubles down and continues for another 18 months of futile argument

I've got no qualms with an interesting debate going back and forth, I enjoy that.

This is so dumb, there's no fun in it.

Its like trying to competitively arm wrestle a 5 year old, even if you win, what is the point?

You haven't really got this Internet forum thing have you?

Duty calls.