Best Of

WRT the one in one out deal with France, which I suspect won't work, I suggest the plan which might work is this: For one week (or even less) starting on date X - the date being the day after it is announced,
100% of all boat arrivals will be returned immediately to France.

The probability is that people will then stop arriving, and wait for the week to be out. If that happens, then the short period, 24 hours before it ends, is extended a further few days, and so on without limit, just a few days at a time.

If they do keep arriving, then again, extending a few days at a time would fairly soon see a big drop in the numbers.

The problem with this is that the people on the boats are not well-informed about UK government policy and practice. You can make that announcement, but the people on the ground won't know about it, and the people smugglers aren't going to tell them.

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.

Several of my elderly relatives (albeit a decreasing number) either don't use email or don't like them. They like having physical letters to read and re-read.

Indeed I still know over 80s who don't even have internet

I am surprised you have it yourself, given how stuck in the past your attitudes are. Surely when you were first shown the internet, you must have thought "this is the Devil's work, and no good will come of it..." ?

Well it did bring PB....

I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?

My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.

It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.

https://labourheartlands.com/british-politics-nepotism-cronyism-and-the-failing-democracy/

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/32234495/labour-nepotism-rachel-reeves-wes-streeting-mcfadden/

https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2023/05/celebrating-labour-party-nepo-babies

Wow.

I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04809/

Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.

I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.

It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.

Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?

I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.

FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.

I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.

Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.

It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.

I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.

My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.

Yes, he went to Cardiff not Oxford when graduates of the latter like Dimbleby Jr and Cambridge dominate national news media, nothing to do with his parentage otherwise

No. You know nothing!

ALL those with media ambitions like Susannah Reid, Emma Barnett , Jason Mohammed and many, many more do their post graduate degree at Cardiff School of Journalism. Perhaps you don't need to attend if your dad interviewed Richard Nixon.

Susannah Reid presents lifestyle and morning programmes and Emma Barnett Woman's Hour not the news

Check out their Wikipedia pages.

Emma Barnett presents BBC News flagship Today, and she's f*****' useless.

The thing is, lots of people can do lots of jobs, or they could if they got the chance, but the ones who get the chances are the ones with a recognisable name.

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

You can. I received an eBay item* last week from someone who told me RM picked up the parcel from their address.

[*Er, just some old style Transformer toys for my nephew ]

I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?

My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.

It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.

https://labourheartlands.com/british-politics-nepotism-cronyism-and-the-failing-democracy/

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/32234495/labour-nepotism-rachel-reeves-wes-streeting-mcfadden/

https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2023/05/celebrating-labour-party-nepo-babies

Wow.

I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04809/

Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.

I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.

It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.

Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?

I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.

FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.

I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.

Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.

It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.

I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.

My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.

Yes, he went to Cardiff not Oxford when graduates of the latter like Dimbleby Jr and Cambridge dominate national news media, nothing to do with his parentage otherwise

No. You know nothing!

ALL those with media ambitions like Susannah Reid, Emma Barnett , Jason Mohammed and many, many more do their post graduate degree at Cardiff School of Journalism. Perhaps you don't need to attend if your dad interviewed Richard Nixon.

Susannah Reid presents lifestyle and morning programmes and Emma Barnett Woman's Hour not the news

Check out their Wikipedia pages.

Emma Barnett presents BBC News flagship Today, and she's f*****' useless.

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

Royal Mail does

BBC News - Royal Mail given go-ahead to scrap second-class post on Saturdays - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c36x8k2612ko

Quite right, if you only pay for a second class stamp you should expect only a second class service.

If you want your mail to arrive quicker and a first class service pay for first class stamps and postage

We had about twenty items of post two days ago after days with nothing. Note we do not live in Wick, or the Isles of Scilly. We live in Southern England. The postal service is broken.

So you still get post then

We still have an excellent postal service. Every morning our postie empties the nearby postbox, drives round delivering bulky items, then walks round delivering letters and small packages, normally around the same time each day? Are we just lucky?

Partly luck - some posties know their rounds well and are reliable and diligent. Partly it falls out of the way jobs are allocated within the office, using the seniority system. Essentially once all the delivery rounds and other jobs having been revised - management's intention being to create jobs of equal workload (the unions, not always so much) - the longest serving employer gets to pick first, and so on down the list, with the least popular jobs left for the newest entrant, or sometimes not even filled at all and treated as training roles.

Even in a perfect world, with something like delivery it's not possible to create exactly equal jobs, and even if the now computer aided process has evened up the assumed workload, there will always be differences known to the staff based on which routes are hilly, have houses with steps, or other hidden complexities, and in the old days, posties also knew which routes were better for Xmas gifts and tips.

So it's probable that if you have a diligent, long-serving postie on your round, there is something about it that makes it relatively attractive to deliver. Feel sorry for the people on the rounds always covered by the newbies...

Aeons ago, when I was about 17 I spent the first half of the school's Christmas holiday being a temporary postman. Quite enjoyed it, actually; didn't rain a lot.... this was Essex .... and the people I came across were universally friendly and pleasant.
Must admit I didn't get a lot of tips, but it taught a middle-class youth a lot about work.

It was of course more dangerous back then, what with those German bombs dropping all over the place...

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.

Several of my elderly relatives (albeit a decreasing number) either don't use email or don't like them. They like having physical letters to read and re-read.

Indeed I still know over 80s who don't even have internet

My wife used to shop at a needlecraft shop near Leeds called Bonds of Farsley. When she asked if she could buy online the response was one of "t'internet, we haven't even got an inside toilet!"

I am on holiday in some distant EU hinterland so the only UK News available is Sky. Although I have Sky at home SkyNews is not a channel I watch. But man alive, is it poor?

My main observation is the Chief Anchor, a characterless droid, is David Frost's son. I also note that David Dimbleby's son is a reporter on ITN. It's not what you know but who you know.

It’s terrible, luckily the party of the people is absolutely against this nepotism going on in politics.

https://labourheartlands.com/british-politics-nepotism-cronyism-and-the-failing-democracy/

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/32234495/labour-nepotism-rachel-reeves-wes-streeting-mcfadden/

https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2023/05/celebrating-labour-party-nepo-babies

Wow.

I wasn't being politically partisan. However being as you couldn't resist, the traffic is not all one way. Your future Tory leader could be Aphra Brandreth the daughter of Gyles.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04809/

Yep, but I don’t really have a problem with nepotism, it’s been the case for most of humanity that people follow their family trades and get into roles and places because of their family connections - generations of farmers sons becoming farmers, children of teachers becoming teachers, lawyers the same, politicians was ever thus, look at the Romans.

I don’t think newsreaders following their parents footsteps is remotely an issue. More of a problem when BBC presenters write books which are then pushed on every BBC programme for example.

It’s anti aspiration, it leads to a de facto caste system.

Will you be encouraging or discouraging your children to go into law?

I will support whatever they choose, I’ve told them if they work hard they can achieve anything, look at me, the grandson of humble immigrants and how much I’ve achieved with hard work.

FWIW my eldest is thinking about becoming a doctor like his grandfather, my youngest is thinking about something physics/maths/F1 related, like me he loves physics, numbers, and F1.

I’ve told them if they are lazy, only the University of Oxford will accept them and they’ll spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.

Absolutely right, and I would do the same but criticising people for following their parents’ careers is a bit blinkered as, in that case, we have no idea if Sir David Frost told his boy “you must become a journalist or else” or he put him in a position to choose their own way with the best possible preparation and he chose journalism as he had seen it from the inside and liked what he saw.

It’s very easy to cry “nepotism” but usually it’s a lot less sinister than nepotism implies.

I have skin in this game. My son has a distinction in his MA from the very prestigious Cardiff School of Journalism, but his dad is a scumbag filth pessant. Up against even a tongue tied media royalty Dimbleby, the Dimbleby gets the gig.

My lad is doing OK, but all the cards are stacked against him.

Yes, he went to Cardiff not Oxford when graduates of the latter like Dimbleby Jr and Cambridge dominate national news media, nothing to do with his parentage otherwise

No. You know nothing!

ALL those with media ambitions like Susannah Reid, Emma Barnett , Jason Mohammed and many, many more do their post graduate degree at Cardiff School of Journalism. Perhaps you don't need to attend if your dad interviewed Richard Nixon.

BBC News - Royal Mail given go-ahead to scrap second-class post on Saturdays - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c36x8k2612ko

Quite right, if you only pay for a second class stamp you should expect only a second class service.

If you want your mail to arrive quicker and a first class service pay for first class stamps and postage

We had about twenty items of post two days ago after days with nothing. Note we do not live in Wick, or the Isles of Scilly. We live in Southern England. The postal service is broken.

So you still get post then

We still have an excellent postal service. Every morning our postie empties the nearby postbox, drives round delivering bulky items, then walks round delivering letters and small packages, normally around the same time each day? Are we just lucky?

Partly luck - some posties know their rounds well and are reliable and diligent. Partly it falls out of the way jobs are allocated within the office, using the seniority system. Essentially once all the delivery rounds and other jobs having been revised - management's intention being to create jobs of equal workload (the unions, not always so much) - the longest serving employer gets to pick first, and so on down the list, with the least popular jobs left for the newest entrant, or sometimes not even filled at all and treated as training roles.

Even in a perfect world, with something like delivery it's not possible to create exactly equal jobs, and even if the now computer aided process has evened up the assumed workload, there will always be differences known to the staff based on which routes are hilly, have houses with steps, or other hidden complexities, and in the old days, posties also knew which routes were better for Xmas gifts and tips.

So it's probable that if you have a diligent, long-serving postie on your round, there is something about it that makes it relatively attractive to deliver. Feel sorry for the people on the rounds always covered by the newbies...

Aeons ago, when I was about 17 I spent the first half of the school's Christmas holiday being a temporary postman. Quite enjoyed it, actually; didn't rain a lot.... this was Essex .... and the people I came across were universally friendly and pleasant.
Must admit I didn't get a lot of tips, but it taught a middle-class youth a lot about work.