Best Of

Good morning from Zhytomyr, Ukraine.

Now that the air raid sirens have stopped sounding, the next task is to try and find a bar that can show the cricket!

Whereabouts in relation to the front is Zhytomyr ?

It’s 120km West of Kyiv, so not in the middle of the war, although all cities still get regular sirens and drones flying around.

To be honest the city looks clean and tidy, apart from the town hall being obviously fortified and the memorial in the main square outside, there’s a lot less evidence of war than there was when I was here two years ago.

Still a lot of military uniforms worn in public, a few military cars and trucks, and the people walking around at the weekend were predominantly women and children.

The idea that trans is completely like homosexuality is bogus

Evidence: the recent rapid rise of trans identifying girls inversely correlates with the fall in cases of anorexia nervosa. Strongly suggesting that in many teens trans is actually a symptom of other mental issues - autism, repressed gayness, asexuality, simple teen misery

That's a polycausal defect view: that trans is caused by something wrong, and the task of the diagnostician is to search for that something wrong and treat that. I think that if you are saying that the cause is "autism, repressed gayness, asexuality, simple teen misery" then what you are saying is that you don't know what causes it.

One number that I don't know is the percentage of children who are referred per year. Most analysis have looked at the proportions of the referred (eg "X% of the referred are girls"), but what I want is the proportion of the population who are referred and the proportions of the referred who then undergo surgery/hormones. Those are different numbers.

Consider the diagram in this article: https://theconversation.com/critics-claim-gender-clinics-are-seeing-an-excess-of-trans-boys-but-new-data-suggest-otherwise-257817 . It demonstrates that in the Netherlands and Australia women and girls are referred earlier, men and boys are referred later. Is this a cohort effect, an actual phenomenon, or something else? Netherlands and Australia are liberal with regards to trans rights: what does this graph look like in a more conservative one?

How much earlier?

Women/girls go through puberty earlier, so if teenage angst/uncertainty in own body that is a factor then girls perhaps should go sooner.

The author of that article clearly has an agenda to promote "gender affirming" care but their data could be interpreted an entirely different way. The fact that biological girls are more likely to identify as trans as teenagers but that collapses as adults, could indicate that it is a stage of teen angst that girls grow out of.

People banging on about defying woke are only ever going to get examples, as with pornography. How about the Peggie vs Fife case? Here you have senior members of staff claiming not to know if they are man or woman based on not having their chromosomes tested. You have a man with cock and balls allowed to use the womens single sex changing because that’s what he wants to happen, with no one asking the women if they have an issue with this. You have senior medical staff seemingly without scientific understanding of biology.
Whatever your views of Peggie’s Glaswegian racism (Chinky, and Paki for instance), the treatment of her in the name of EDI has been shocking and is a classic case of Woke behaviour.

'Woke' is about awareness of social and political issues. Social and political issues effect both women and trans people; hence, it is possible to be 'woke' and be for, or against, trans. In the same way many feminists are pro-trans, and many are anti-trans.

Which is one of the reasons there is such a massive and stupid controversy over it.

The issue for me is the denial of basic science. Trans women can feel that they are a woman all they like, but biology says no. And you have clinicians, consultants no less, tying themselves in knots about this idea.

There is an old saying ‘Give them an inch and they will steal a mile’ and this is wha5 happens in the EDI world. People trying to be fair and do right by all end up with men in women’s changing rooms because ‘they feel that’s where they should be’. It’s bollocks (ironically enough).

Have you known, and talked, to anyone who is trans?

Yes. Next question.

*) And do you think it is as simple as you put above?
*) What about transmen?
*) Do you think the anti-woke and anti-EDI 'world' is positive?
*) What about transwomen who have had the op and been living as women for decades?

1. Yes, except for those who are biologically unclear.
2. Not generally a safeguarding issue, so safeguarding matters come into play less.
3. No.
4. Even having an op doesn't change your real sex, however anyone who has had the op should be treated as the gender they have had the op towards, except potentially for matters such as sport which should remain reserved exclusively to those who really are of that sex.

Anyone who has not had the op definitely should not, no matter how they identify or live, if it violates safeguarding.

Which is different to what you wrote earlier, which was: "A man who identifies as a woman should not be in a woman's changing room, especially when there's gender-neutral facilities available they can use instead without violating women's safe spaces."

And that's a big issue with all of this: 'trans' people are far from being all the same, or even at the same stage of transition.

It also ignores the fact that the law states that someone has to live in their new identity for two years before they can have the op (a slightly shorter period in Scotland). Hence it makes it next-to impossible for someone to transition if they cannot use public toilets.

Besides, IMV the idea that banning trans people from women's bathrooms is unpoliceable, will cause massive harm to trans people, and will make f-all different to women's safety. And people on here routinely try to make the threats to women the 'other': trans people, or migrants. This is possibly because it allows them to ignore the massive threat to women: men like us. Your colleague at work. That kid's uncle. That cool guy who buys the drinks down the club.

Does the law state that people who are living in their new identity are forbidden from using gender-neutral facilities where they are available?

To take the Fife case, nurse Peggie was wrongly in my view told she should have gotten changed in a neutral cubicle if she didn't want to change with Beth Upton. The better solution would have been to tell Beth that if she didn't want to use the male toilets, then she could use the neutral one leaving the women's changing facilities free for women like Peggie.

Beth gets somewhere she can change, and women get somewhere they can and nobody loses out then.

As for unpoliceable, it is very policeable, especially in a workplace. If someone enters a changing facility they shouldn't be in, or violates any other form of safeguarding, then people who object should be able to whistleblow and the offending individual can then either get training or disciplinary action as appropriate. Same as any other workplace policing of rules.

May I enquire why you and others refer to Nurse Peggie as Peggie whilst referring to Dr Upton as Beth?

Good evening, everybody.

The preferred usage by the respondents (I.e. Fife NHS and Dr Upton). seemed to be Miss Peggie and a slight snigger because it sounds like Miss Piggy. Despite Peggie being married.

No, people refer to Nurse Peggie as Peggie by mistaken equivalence to Beth for Beth Upton because Peggie sounds like Peggy which used to be a common first name derived from Margaret. PBer Cyclefree sometimes makes a similar complaint (ironically of misgendering) because her surname sounds like a male first name.

I was referring to the tribunal, not users on PB

Decline and fall latest:


The Wonston Arms Pub Landlord
@thewonstonarms

Saturday 05:55pm mid service and we had no customers its Mad ! …..gorgeous sunny evening. Can’t believe this is happening. Consumer behaviours changing on top of Government actions to make hospitality #taxedout wow-we are all amazing folk operating hospitality venues at the mo

https://x.com/thewonstonarms/status/1951897617384014058

Worrying isn't it. i know I cast nastersiums on the Government but they really, really don't know how to run an economy. Not in "oh those lefties are awful" sense, more like "chimps randomly pressing buttons" sense. The left wing used to have brains, an underlying model of the world, and policies they believed would make life better. Now, they're professional politicians who just say nonsense words to get them thru the next day. I'm really annoyed.

(On this occasion I've snipped Leon's walloping.)

It's a pub in a small village outside Winchester, near Middle Mallop, that doesn't serve any food, so needs travel-in customers - either by motor, cycle, charabanc or foot. I wonder why it's empty at 6pm on a summer Saturday? As the landlady puts it:

The Wonston Arms Pub Landlord
@thewonstonarms 13h
Hello, yeah, the little ones Arms has never sold food in his history, which is going back something like 300 years. It’s a meeting place for people to come and socialise & mix together. Young and Old. Yeah, it’s a traditional old-fashioned British Pub
https://x.com/thewonstonarms/status/1952038825846526427

It's been like that for a long time. Someone needs an updated business model. I have ones like that locally that did not adapt, and are now houses, and others that did. They tried a community buyout a decade ago, and someone made a go of it.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/feb/28/hampshire-pub-wonston-arms-camra-pub-of-the-year

People banging on about defying woke are only ever going to get examples, as with pornography. How about the Peggie vs Fife case? Here you have senior members of staff claiming not to know if they are man or woman based on not having their chromosomes tested. You have a man with cock and balls allowed to use the womens single sex changing because that’s what he wants to happen, with no one asking the women if they have an issue with this. You have senior medical staff seemingly without scientific understanding of biology.
Whatever your views of Peggie’s Glaswegian racism (Chinky, and Paki for instance), the treatment of her in the name of EDI has been shocking and is a classic case of Woke behaviour.

'Woke' is about awareness of social and political issues. Social and political issues effect both women and trans people; hence, it is possible to be 'woke' and be for, or against, trans. In the same way many feminists are pro-trans, and many are anti-trans.

Which is one of the reasons there is such a massive and stupid controversy over it.

The issue for me is the denial of basic science. Trans women can feel that they are a woman all they like, but biology says no. And you have clinicians, consultants no less, tying themselves in knots about this idea.

There is an old saying ‘Give them an inch and they will steal a mile’ and this is wha5 happens in the EDI world. People trying to be fair and do right by all end up with men in women’s changing rooms because ‘they feel that’s where they should be’. It’s bollocks (ironically enough).

Have you known, and talked, to anyone who is trans?

Yes. Next question.

*) And do you think it is as simple as you put above?
*) What about transmen?
*) Do you think the anti-woke and anti-EDI 'world' is positive?
*) What about transwomen who have had the op and been living as women for decades?

1. Yes, except for those who are biologically unclear.
2. Not generally a safeguarding issue, so safeguarding matters come into play less.
3. No.
4. Even having an op doesn't change your real sex, however anyone who has had the op should be treated as the gender they have had the op towards, except potentially for matters such as sport which should remain reserved exclusively to those who really are of that sex.

Anyone who has not had the op definitely should not, no matter how they identify or live, if it violates safeguarding.

Which is different to what you wrote earlier, which was: "A man who identifies as a woman should not be in a woman's changing room, especially when there's gender-neutral facilities available they can use instead without violating women's safe spaces."

And that's a big issue with all of this: 'trans' people are far from being all the same, or even at the same stage of transition.

It also ignores the fact that the law states that someone has to live in their new identity for two years before they can have the op (a slightly shorter period in Scotland). Hence it makes it next-to impossible for someone to transition if they cannot use public toilets.

Besides, IMV the idea that banning trans people from women's bathrooms is unpoliceable, will cause massive harm to trans people, and will make f-all different to women's safety. And people on here routinely try to make the threats to women the 'other': trans people, or migrants. This is possibly because it allows them to ignore the massive threat to women: men like us. Your colleague at work. That kid's uncle. That cool guy who buys the drinks down the club.

Does the law state that people who are living in their new identity are forbidden from using gender-neutral facilities where they are available?

To take the Fife case, nurse Peggie was wrongly in my view told she should have gotten changed in a neutral cubicle if she didn't want to change with Beth Upton. The better solution would have been to tell Beth that if she didn't want to use the male toilets, then she could use the neutral one leaving the women's changing facilities free for women like Peggie.

Beth gets somewhere she can change, and women get somewhere they can and nobody loses out then.

As for unpoliceable, it is very policeable, especially in a workplace. If someone enters a changing facility they shouldn't be in, or violates any other form of safeguarding, then people who object should be able to whistleblow and the offending individual can then either get training or disciplinary action as appropriate. Same as any other workplace policing of rules.

May I enquire why you and others refer to Nurse Peggie as Peggie whilst referring to Dr Upton as Beth?

Good evening, everybody.

Because when speaking its normal to drop titles unless being formal and just use first names.

Their first names respectively are Peggie and Beth, so those are the names to use.

Peggie is her surname (which was Anne’s point).

She is Sandie Peggie.

The pub has problems of its own choosing, hours and food, but also things outside their control. Firstly Winchester is buzzing - was last there in February and everywhere heaving on a grey Saturday afternoon - Rick Stein rammed*, the Ivy didn’t even have space at the bar, even Côte looked full as I passed, the pubs absolutely chokka. I hear from friends it’s like this most weekends.

So if you live near Winchester you have the draw of loads of good restaurants and pubs with a great atmosphere rather than in the quiet of the local, which will appeal still to some but not many these days.

The second problem for them is Uber - it used to be quite difficult to get a taxi from the centre of towns/market towns/ cathedral cities - not enough drivers so a long wait, not guaranteed to get one back home due to demand and also some drivers who didn’t want to drive out to the country with no hope of a return fare. Uber increasing the numbers of drivers massively in places like this means that people happily go out knowing that they will likely get a driver relatively quickly when they are ready so the old thought process of going to your local in walking distance so you can drink and don’t have to worry about getting home has been removed.

*The restaurant of course, I didn’t just stumble across Mr Stein getting back-ended down an alleyway.

Decline and fall latest:


The Wonston Arms Pub Landlord
@thewonstonarms

Saturday 05:55pm mid service and we had no customers its Mad ! …..gorgeous sunny evening. Can’t believe this is happening. Consumer behaviours changing on top of Government actions to make hospitality #taxedout wow-we are all amazing folk operating hospitality venues at the mo

https://x.com/thewonstonarms/status/1951897617384014058

Worrying isn't it. i know I cast nastersiums on the Government but they really, really don't know how to run an economy. Not in "oh those lefties are awful" sense, more like "chimps randomly pressing buttons" sense. The left wing used to have brains, an underlying model of the world, and policies they believed would make life better. Now, they're professional politicians who just say nonsense words to get them thru the next day. I'm really annoyed.

Makes me very sad. Looks like a lovely pub as well

I know, let’s import seven million people who don’t understand pub culture and often fiercely reject it

That's near Sutton Scotney, near my parents. Just off the A303 so it should get some passing trade too.

On my list now.

Decline and fall latest:


The Wonston Arms Pub Landlord
@thewonstonarms

Saturday 05:55pm mid service and we had no customers its Mad ! …..gorgeous sunny evening. Can’t believe this is happening. Consumer behaviours changing on top of Government actions to make hospitality #taxedout wow-we are all amazing folk operating hospitality venues at the mo

https://x.com/thewonstonarms/status/1951897617384014058

Worrying isn't it. i know I cast nastersiums on the Government but they really, really don't know how to run an economy. Not in "oh those lefties are awful" sense, more like "chimps randomly pressing buttons" sense. The left wing used to have brains, an underlying model of the world, and policies they believed would make life better. Now, they're professional politicians who just say nonsense words to get them thru the next day. I'm really annoyed.

Makes me very sad. Looks like a lovely pub as well

I know, let’s import seven million people who don’t understand pub culture and often fiercely reject it

Yes, all those Muslims not going to The Wonston Arms in the pretty little Hampshire village of Wonston are to blame for the problems of that lovely pub.
You're going completely bonkers. The decline in pubs is nowt to do with immigrants, much more to do with regrettable changes in English culture - like cheap supermarket booze and Netflix etc..

Therer are several connected problems for publicans, but the major problem is the property market. Those PubCos with big estates can get a massive windfall if they convert to housing. The overhead on pubs, including large taxes on alcohol, makes many pubs marginally profitable, at best. Converting loss making pubs into residential buildings is a no brainer.
Demand for alcohol has fallen per capita, but selling beer is basically acting as a tax collector for the Revenue anyway, which is why so many pubs now try and boost their margins by selling food etc.
The competition from supermarkets- same tax, lower cost, so higher margin even if they sell at lower prices, has been an9ther major driver of pub closures.
If instead of Racism, Leon had simply read the trade press, like the Morning Advertiser, then he would understand the problem rather than spouting drivel.