Best Of

@GregTSargent

Amazing. NYT has more confirmation that Trump's decision to bomb Iran was motivated in large part by the way the Israeli strikes were "playing" on Fox News, which drove him to want some credit for it

https://x.com/GregTSargent/status/1937099961373483269

If the Palestinian protestors were serious they'd stop chucking paint about and instead have a whip round to advertise emaciated Gaza babies on Fox.

I note that Israel recovered three more hostages over the weekend.

Dead, of course.

Its hard for people to keep a sense of perspective, but never forget Hamas launched this campaign hoping to destroy Israel. I have the same sympathy for the everyday Gazan as I would have had for the everyday German in Berlin in 1945.

I just don't see how this stops.

BBC News - Scottish wingsuit flyer dies during Swiss Alps jump
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyepy2zz11o

Always feels like an activity that is a when not if.

Compared to base jumping and cave diving, it's actually pretty safe.

I am happy to give those two a miss as well....

A few years ago, being in the insurance business, I came across some stats on "death or serious injury per 1,000 incidences".

The things I took out of this were:

(1) My children will never be allowed to own motorcycles
(2) Skydiving is surprisingly safe
(3) Cave diving and base jumping are 10x more dangerous than wing suit flying, which is 100x more dangerous than a regular parachute jump
(4) Don't ever let your kids get into free climbing

At Stoke Mandeville Spinal Injuries Unit top 3 customers are:

1. Motorcycles
2. Horses
3. Swimming pools/shallow beaches.

You'd think it would be people.
No wonder the NHS is broke.

BBC News - Scottish wingsuit flyer dies during Swiss Alps jump
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyepy2zz11o

Always feels like an activity that is a when not if.

Compared to base jumping and cave diving, it's actually pretty safe.

I am happy to give those two a miss as well....

A few years ago, being in the insurance business, I came across some stats on "death or serious injury per 1,000 incidences".

The things I took out of this were:

(1) My children will never be allowed to own motorcycles
(2) Skydiving is surprisingly safe
(3) Cave diving and base jumping are 10x more dangerous than wing suit flying, which is 100x more dangerous than a regular parachute jump
(4) Don't ever let your kids get into free climbing

Scuba diving is surprisingly dangerous. More fatalities than almost any sport I believe

It is.

Horse riding also has a surprisingly large number of serious injuries.

I don't find the latter surprising at all. You are racing along at speeds in excess of 30mph, several feet in the air with no safety belt on a beast without brakes or a steering wheel. What do you think is going to happen?

London might be paradise to you southern softies, but get out of your bubble and head up the M1 and you'll find a different world.
Loughborough. Got the university and not much else . Any bit of land/ empty building finds itself turned into student accommodation or bulldozed for student accommodation.
The Carillion Shopping Centre has been the focal point of the Town Centre as long as I can remember. It's currently empty, shops having had all their tenancies terminated so the owners can knock it down and build an eight floor student accommodation block, right slap bang in the middle of the town. There's a planning wrangle currently going on.
The massive Cineworld has closed and the restaurants and bars that were destined to open in the adjoining development never really happened- fully half the units have been empty since it was completed. Very few shops survive in the town longer than 6 months, unless it's fast food, Turkish barber or nail bar. Even the charity shops are moving out.
We have no idea what a museum or art gallery is. Still, the empty shops do give the homeless some doorways to sleep in.

Tell me about it. Somebody took the little city I grew up in and loved and replaced it with a sweaty turd. Norwich is dying on its arse. There's no Thursday night late shopping anymore, the two shopping centres are deserted and full of nonsense shops and phone screen repair shacks. The nightlife is non existent or violent.
There's a big Primark and last year a massive Poundland opened. Grim. The last remaining treasures- the market and the lanes will no doubt get flattened soon enough.

Based on that I wonder how much correlation there is between "prefer/hate internet shopping" and "my area is getting better/worse to live".

Probably worse than that. We want to use internet shopping ourselves, because it's cheaper and more convenient. The bookshop on Gosport High Street was a good thing to have, but it was a bit rubbish. But we also want physical shops to be available- partly because we really want them when we want them (think back to March 2020), but also because shops make a town.

People are messed up.

We recently opened a new, bigger bookshop.

Focus is on the experience. The shop sales themselves will probably just about cover the day to day running costs it incurs this year, but the experience we provide is of huge value to our mostly online/mail-order business.

The only shops that have opened in our prosperous, historic, near-seaside market town this year are those that also market experiences, offer advice, or have alternative streams of income.

If you just sell a widget, you're always going to be undercut by the internet.

There is no need for an online sales tax; business just needs to adapt to the realities. You need to provide value add in a retail setting, or you die.

When I was a fund manager, I used to say that there were only two retail business models that would survive: shopping as an experience, and shopping as a convenience. If you aren't one ot the other, you are going to be in big trouble.

London might be paradise to you southern softies, but get out of your bubble and head up the M1 and you'll find a different world.
Loughborough. Got the university and not much else . Any bit of land/ empty building finds itself turned into student accommodation or bulldozed for student accommodation.
The Carillion Shopping Centre has been the focal point of the Town Centre as long as I can remember. It's currently empty, shops having had all their tenancies terminated so the owners can knock it down and build an eight floor student accommodation block, right slap bang in the middle of the town. There's a planning wrangle currently going on.
The massive Cineworld has closed and the restaurants and bars that were destined to open in the adjoining development never really happened- fully half the units have been empty since it was completed. Very few shops survive in the town longer than 6 months, unless it's fast food, Turkish barber or nail bar. Even the charity shops are moving out.
We have no idea what a museum or art gallery is. Still, the empty shops do give the homeless some doorways to sleep in.

Tell me about it. Somebody took the little city I grew up in and loved and replaced it with a sweaty turd. Norwich is dying on its arse. There's no Thursday night late shopping anymore, the two shopping centres are deserted and full of nonsense shops and phone screen repair shacks. The nightlife is non existent or violent.
There's a big Primark and last year a massive Poundland opened. Grim. The last remaining treasures- the market and the lanes will no doubt get flattened soon enough.

Based on that I wonder how much correlation there is between "prefer/hate internet shopping" and "my area is getting better/worse to live".

Probably worse than that. We want to use internet shopping ourselves, because it's cheaper and more convenient. The bookshop on Gosport High Street was a good thing to have, but it was a bit rubbish. But we also want physical shops to be available- partly because we really want them when we want them (think back to March 2020), but also because shops make a town.

People are messed up.

We recently opened a new, bigger bookshop.

Focus is on the experience. The shop sales themselves will probably just about cover the day to day running costs it incurs this year, but the experience we provide is of huge value to our mostly online/mail-order business.

The only shops that have opened in our prosperous, historic, near-seaside market town this year are those that also market experiences, offer advice, or have alternative streams of income.

If you just sell a widget, you're always going to be undercut by the internet.

There is no need for an online sales tax; business just needs to adapt to the realities. You need to provide value add in a retail setting, or you die.