Best Of

Airl

How and why did BA decline so much?

Airlines peak and trough, it can be financial or cultural. I used to fly a lot to South Africa from childhood and used to use South African Airways during the apartheid times. It was a smart airline. The planes were immaculate and the service and staffing were fantastic - very serious and polished. When they changed after apartheid ended they had a different approach and corporate culture that felt very different and I switched to BA. I tried SAA again years later and they were still sloppy which was a great shame.

I think the Mid east airlines will keep up their standards because they are an advert for the states so worth keeping the prestige but flag carriers elsewhere will reflect the needs and mores of the nation and the financial concerns of the shareholders.

I imagine the subset of people who want to see Mandelson in his pants is fairly small, but just for you..

https://x.com/mikeysmith/status/2017680644625604622?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q

That's going to replace that Farage photo as go to photo for PB headers.

Perhaps I'm old-fashioned but grown men should not be walking round houses in their pants in front of girls in bathrobes unless they are in some sort of intimate (and lawful) relationship - let alone being photographed while doing so.

Is there an element of him being gay where it would t have the same connotations and “feels” if they were at a weekend house party. He’s clearly not going to be interested in them sexually and vice versa so would just be “unthreatening”.

Sorry: still being old-fashioned. Being half undressed in front of each other is just .... yuck .... even if you're not interested in each other sexually. I've been to house parties - and had plenty of people to stay at mine - and they do not wander round half-dressed. These people have no manners.

British prudeness evaporates with money, so hope you never win the lottery I guess.

I'm not a prude. Or British, come to that. I do know how to behave.

I imagine the subset of people who want to see Mandelson in his pants is fairly small, but just for you..

https://x.com/mikeysmith/status/2017680644625604622?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q

That's going to replace that Farage photo as go to photo for PB headers.

Perhaps I'm old-fashioned but grown men should not be walking round houses in their pants in front of girls in bathrobes unless they are in some sort of intimate (and lawful) relationship - let alone being photographed while doing so.

Is there an element of him being gay where it would t have the same connotations and “feels” if they were at a weekend house party. He’s clearly not going to be interested in them sexually and vice versa so would just be “unthreatening”.

Sorry: still being old-fashioned. Being half undressed in front of each other is just .... yuck .... even if you're not interested in each other sexually. I've been to house parties - and had plenty of people to stay at mine - and they do not wander round half-dressed. These people have no manners.

How on earth was Epstein allowed to continue his debauchery over years

Andrew and Mandelson should both give evidence but many more as well

This must be the biggest scandal of its kind and what does it say of the elite

I fear what comes next and not least what happens to Trump and how he reacts

What a time we are living in

The elite are what they always are. The kind of men who crave that much power and wealth are often exactly the wrong people to have that much power and wealth, because they do things like this with it. What's more, they always have. Musing on it earlier, I was reminded of Katherine Howard's song from Six the Musical;

I thought this time was different
Why did I think he'd be different
But it's never, ever different...

And if you're the kind of person who would blow the whistle on that sort of thing, no matter the consequences, you don't get close enough to be able to do so.

And whilst there's a need for humbling and expelling all these rich scumbags from society, the story might not have a happy ending. The timeline from now to Gilead via "we have to have neo-Puritanism to protect our women and girls, whether they like it or not" is short and plausible. (If JDV manages to shake off his associations with Trump and his techbro patrons, it's very easy to imagine him saying it, for example.)

Don't have nightmares. (That's advice for me as well.)