Best Of
Re: Ed Miliband is impressing a key demographic – politicalbetting.com
Do they have Berni Inns though? There was something truly special about dining in a 1970s Berni Inn, an experience was both sophisticated and comforting. The plush red carpets. The dark wood panelling. The charm of upscale old-school gentlemen’s club.I remember when Britain was at its culinary nadir - mid 70s? - and we started to fuck up…. Fish and chips. Frozen fish, frozen chipsApologies for absurd typos in recent comments. Think my phone has gone mad from the heat and the steaksMakes sense to me. If its all they eat why would they produce top quality?
Anyway about those steaks. Last night I had a bad done. A bad, dry, overcooked, under seasoned steak
AND STEAK IS ALL THEY DO
It’s their one dish. They have 3m people and 10m cows. They go on and on about their fucking beef, especially the steaks. Yes ok everything else is hideous - the food is even worse than Brazil or Argentina or Peru - but surely the steaks will be ace, given it’s their solitary gastro product of note and they eat it every fucking day.
NO. THEY CAN’T EVEN DO THEM
Bread is a staple but the average loaf wont blow your socks off as the best thing since, well, sliced bread.
That’s where Uruguay is now
A prawn cocktail starter. A juicy sirloin steak. Most importantly, a show-stopping Black Forest gateaux. The crowning glory of Britain. Rich chocolate sponge, whipped cream, tart cherries, and a generous splash of kirsch. The contrast of sweet and sour, light and rich. The gateau wasn’t just a dessert—it was a statement, a symbol of sophistication that felt exotic yet familiar.
For those lucky enough to have experienced a Berni Inn meal in its prime (and I was only 5 in 1979) the memory of that Black Forest gateau—will always bring a smile. It was more than just a dessert; it was an experience, a slice of culinary history, it was BRITAIN. Its loss was the most terrible legacy of Thatcher.

11
Re: Ed Miliband is impressing a key demographic – politicalbetting.com
I see an Associate at Skadden has sent a firm-wide email resigning if the firm capitulates to Trump in the same way Paul Weiss has done.Some will hold out. Most won't.
We like to think we'd stand up to power, but usually dont.

6
Re: Ed Miliband is impressing a key demographic – politicalbetting.com
In David Beth’s thesis about impending civil war in the UK he notes the vulnerability of critical infrastructureIts not civil war. It is possibly a targeted attack by a foreign power. Nothing civil about it. Playing into the meme of "civil war" does the Russian subversives work for them, so stop being a fool and amplifying this rubbish. This is very similar to the attacks in France at the time of the Olympic games. Whether we choose to admit Russian involvement is an open question, because it would be a casus belli under most international law. On the other hand, we are not constrained if we catch the culprits- this is one of those "wanted dead or alive" cases.
And that, if you really wanted to sow chaos in the UK, - from whatever angle - that’s what you’d aim for. He might mention substations explicitly

6
Re: Ed Miliband is impressing a key demographic – politicalbetting.com
In David Beth’s thesis about impending civil war in the UK he notes the vulnerability of critical infrastructureIt's worse than that. We have to consider the possibility that a roaming band of woke Ewoks is responsible.
And that, if you really wanted to sow chaos in the UK, - from whatever angle - that’s what you’d aim for. He might mention substations explicitly
The same furry insurgents who took down the Galactic Empire with wooden spears and log traps could easily their attention to the UK's transport and energy infrastructure, targeting what they call the capitalist-industrial power grid.
We all know Ewoks have been radicalized by woke ideology after exposure to Earth media. Reports suggest they’ve been protesting deforestation, over-reliance on fossil fuels, and “speciesist” portrayals of primitive cultures in sci-fi films. One alleged manifesto, scrawled in an unknown dialect, shows crude pictographs of X-wing pilots bowing before an Ewok elder.
Completely made up eyewitness accounts are even more disturbing. One maintenance worker reported hearing strange chittering sounds moments before the fire broke out. Another swore they saw a tiny figure in a hood waving a protest sign made from repurposed stormtrooper armor.
This expert warns that if left unchecked, woke militant Ewoks may escalate their attacks—perhaps targeting 5G towers next, or worse, blocking Tube stations with log barricades until Heathrow agrees to run on 100% Ewok-approved renewable energy.

9
Re: Ed Miliband is impressing a key demographic – politicalbetting.com
I guess everyone in the Heathrow area is using cash at the moment, if they have any handy.

5
Re: Ed Miliband is impressing a key demographic – politicalbetting.com
The National Grid network is built to withstand one or two faults/outages not causing a loss of supply however shutting down a whole substation to let the firefighters in counts as more than two! In this case the distribution network should be able to pick up the loss of supply by switching so that its substations are fed from a different National Grid substation. This takes time but you would expect it to be all done in a few hours. That there still is a problem suggests to me that the distribution network is such that it isn't possible to transfer all the demand fed from North Hyde to other National Grid supply points. IMHO they may have saved some money in assuming you wouldn't ever lose the entire North Hyde substation so didn't plan their network for that. As for Heathrow they may or may not have back up power but I would be suprised if they had back up power that covered more than their emergency lighting and equipment. It is expensive to maintain and they are a private company probably with an expectation that the distribution company would be able to supply even under fault conditions.Ha ha your last point is spot on. Every piece of regulation has its origin in something bad happening that was attributed to the regulation not being in place.It may be poor planning. But even planning done well isn’t perfect. Sometimes bad things can happen without anyone having been able to foresee the specific chain of events.Definitely poor planning at some level. One fire, airport down. That's interview without coffee time.I’m not sneering at “ordinary people”. I’m suggesting commentators on PB, who are demonstrably not “ordinary people”, should slow down before rushing to blame the Russians, net zero or poor planning.Today's outage is not nothing. What you sneer at is ordinary people asking obvious questions, the first of which is why no-one asked the obvious question.It'll be interesting to see whether planners at Heathrow Airport had even considered whether having the airport powered by one substation was a good idea or not. And if they had discussed it, why they thought it was appropriate. At the very least, you'd have expected each terminal to have had its own power source.It's interesting how much armchair experts are jumping to conclusions about Heathrow's electricity supply based on nothing.
Half the time, PB is complaining there are too many regulations. Half the time, PB is complaining that planners didn’t prevent every possible adverse event.
What intrigues me is why the transformer fire was not extinguished by its own fire deluge system. Once a fire is detected it should be put out in minutes by effectively flooding the transformer with high pressure water. I wonder whether one was installed here or if it malfunctioned.

8
Re: Ed Miliband is impressing a key demographic – politicalbetting.com
That's a great quote.no pockets in a shroudI'm quite tight when it comes to money. I think that helps the environment much more than if I was vegan or gave £10 weekly to Greenpeace, as I often don't buy the same sort of unnecessary tat other people do. Like a new iPhone each year...Apparently (my dad is telling me this), Richard Tice has claimed that Heathrow has ditched diesel back up generators in the name of net zero. A quick Google finds this from 2022:I went to see Kyoto (the play) the other day. About the negotiating of the Kyoto Agreement. Some great performances and the play illustrates the delay and obfuscating tactics of those opposed to any limit on, or reduction of carbon emissions. There is a great passage about the hypocrisy of the carbon trading scam.
https://www.heathrow.com/content/dam/heathrow/web/common/documents/company/heathrow-2-0-sustainability/futher-reading/Heathrow_Net Zero Carbon Strategy_v13.pdf
Stand-by generators currently operate using diesel as they need an independent power source to maintain resilient operations. They are used predominantly as back-up power for airfield ground lighting. We are investigating renewable-based alternatives that can still meet the stringent performance criteria for such a safety critical airport asset.
That suggests that any back up generators wouldn't be for the whole airport, so perhaps Heathrow is vulnerable to a single point of failure.
That said, Heathrow having a net zero plan is quite funny.
During the interval, there were two young people, a boy and a girl, sitting next to me and they were chattering about this and that. In particular, the boy was telling the girl about his impressive travel plans. He was going to go on a tour of the US and South America, fly here, then there, then come back via somewhere else, and this compared to his equally impressive travels this year (Iceland, then Amsterdam).
I turned to them and asked them, as representative of "youngsters" (we all laughed - they were young lawyers), what they thought about the play's subject matter and they both voiced enthusiastic approval.
I then said I couldn't help but overhear them talking about flying all over the world, to which the male responded "well obviously I'm a vegan on account of the planet, and..." and then blathered on, quite embarrassed.
I assured them that they didn't need to explain themselves to me and we settled down to watch the second half of the play.
But that is the reality of life and net zero and whatnot. People don't want to reduce their own activities while encouraging others to cut back theirs.
It also means we have much more than £1k in savings.
But that's not what I see 'tight' as being about. I spend money, and I have a good life. I have hobbies and fun.
As an example: I know a couple of triathletes who got top-end triathlon bikes for a song. Including one guy who bought a triathlon bike worth over £8k for £3k from a neighbour. The neighbour bought it to do a triathlon race, got bored in the training before using it, and sold it new at a massive discount in a garage sale.
That's the sort of waste I cannot stand. It's stupid. Try the hobby as cheaply as possible to see if you enjoy it, and *then* spend the money.
When I set out to do a sprint triathlon last year, I bought a cheap £450 road bike. I have enough money in the bank to buy something an order of magnitude more expensive, but that would have been stupid, as my bike racing skills were non-existent. So I raced the cheap bike and learnt skills on it, knowing that if I trashed it, or it got stolen, it would not matter much. This year, as I have enjoyed my triathlon races, I bought a Zwift Ride indoor bike setup for a grand - as it is safer and more convenient than riding on the roads, especially in winter. And I'm spending a couple of hundred on a bike fit, so I know what sort of second-hand triathlon or high-end road bikes to look for. Technically a waste of money, but far better than buying the wrong-sized bike.
I could easily have spent ten grand on kit for my triathlon hobby - and in fact know people only slightly above my level who have. £500 wetsuits instead of £150 ones. £3,000 bikes instead of £450 ones. Stuff that does not actually make them much faster, especially as they don't train much.
So 'being tight' in my view is not about not spending money: it is about being cautious about spending money. And that caution can save you a lot of money.
Re: Ed Miliband is impressing a key demographic – politicalbetting.com
But we can absolutely blame poor planning, that a critical piece of infrastructure is out of action for at least a day because of a single fire means it has been poorly planned. Anything that important can't have a single critical point of failure. If this wasn't terrorists or Russians the next one will be because they'll all be looking for other critical infrastructure that has these single points of failure.I’m not sneering at “ordinary people”. I’m suggesting commentators on PB, who are demonstrably not “ordinary people”, should slow down before rushing to blame the Russians, net zero or poor planning.Today's outage is not nothing. What you sneer at is ordinary people asking obvious questions, the first of which is why no-one asked the obvious question.It'll be interesting to see whether planners at Heathrow Airport had even considered whether having the airport powered by one substation was a good idea or not. And if they had discussed it, why they thought it was appropriate. At the very least, you'd have expected each terminal to have had its own power source.It's interesting how much armchair experts are jumping to conclusions about Heathrow's electricity supply based on nothing.

6
Re: Ed Miliband is impressing a key demographic – politicalbetting.com
Another day, another mysterious fire at an electrical substation. Funny how these incidents keep happening, knocking out power for thousands, yet we’re all supposed to believe it’s just bad luck?
Meanwhile, National Grid and the woke energy companies are more focused on hitting their net-zero targets and enforcing pronoun training than actually keeping the lights on. Maybe if they spent less time pushing green pipe dreams at North London vegan dinner parties with their luvvie mates in the media/electricity wokerati complex, and more time maintaining infrastructure, we wouldn’t have to deal with power cuts every time a substation so much as overheats.
But sure, let’s keep pretending this is all just a coincidence. Nothing to see here.
(Am I doing this right?)
Meanwhile, National Grid and the woke energy companies are more focused on hitting their net-zero targets and enforcing pronoun training than actually keeping the lights on. Maybe if they spent less time pushing green pipe dreams at North London vegan dinner parties with their luvvie mates in the media/electricity wokerati complex, and more time maintaining infrastructure, we wouldn’t have to deal with power cuts every time a substation so much as overheats.
But sure, let’s keep pretending this is all just a coincidence. Nothing to see here.
(Am I doing this right?)

7
Re: Ed Miliband is impressing a key demographic – politicalbetting.com
I worked on the connection project for Heathrow T4. From what I remember the site was connected to the distribution substation at Slough which was in turn was fed from the 400kV National Grid substation at Laleham, not North Hyde. I thought the other terminals at Heathrow were fed from a different distribution substation which might be where the problem arises. I find it odd that the loss of this small National Grid 275kV substation should cause problems on the distribution network lasting more than a day especially at winter time when one would expect their network to be intact (and not with bits out for maintenance).I'm curious, what is the obvious question?Today's outage is not nothing. What you sneer at is ordinary people asking obvious questions, the first of which is why no-one asked the obvious question.It'll be interesting to see whether planners at Heathrow Airport had even considered whether having the airport powered by one substation was a good idea or not. And if they had discussed it, why they thought it was appropriate. At the very least, you'd have expected each terminal to have had its own power source.It's interesting how much armchair experts are jumping to conclusions about Heathrow's electricity supply based on nothing.
Regarding why there isn't more redundancy, I guess the answer is money.

7