Best Of

I'm sure we are very close to the point where AI will monitor all aspects of our life - and tax/regulate accordingly. I worry we are the last people who will have any degree of autonomy from all-pervasive technology. Kinda glad I'm (at best) in the final couple of decades of my life. It's going to be a lot less fun than I've experienced throughout my time. Safer, maybe. Healthier - as we have best outcomes imposed. And with no ability to effectively complain. The computer says - meh. Leave me alone.

I'm younger than you but wonder about this also.
It feels harder to have an adventure than it was before.

The older you get, the more it seems like the world is going to pot. That's been true from time immemorial.

Unfortunately it was also true in 1913 and 1938...

Feel for Heraclius. Magnificently saves the Roman Empire from near total destruction at the hands of the Persians, and lives long enough for Islam to arise and swallow up perhaps half his territory and the whole of Persia.

As the government are coming up with some radical ideas, here’s another one.

Don’t let senior public servants under investigation retire to avoid scrutiny.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgmrg71r0eo

The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.

Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.

Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.

I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!

Hmm. I'm not she that you can stop someone quitting, can you?

You can make sure that they don't get multiple years of pay given to them when they do so.

@Casino_Royale FPT

If an asset is non transferable then it might have a value in the market, but that is predicated on using outside of the terms and conditions. You might have a willing buyer and a willing seller of the restricted asset, but the original vendor has the ability to limit the rights attached to the asset (eg in the way that an easement restricts the free use of a property for a new owner).

Essentially the government’s proposal is to enforce the restrictions placed by the original vendor.

The challenge here is that artists are not necessarily value maximising from a single event. They are willing to sell at a lower than maximal price in order to sustain a fan base - they have calculated that this will build more long term value for them. The touts are trying to arbitrage between the short term value maximising of the ticket and the long term value maximising price set by the artist, but to capture that value for themselves. They are not creating anything or adding any value.

Good morning everyone.

Our Tesla correspondent's report rant about the 3p per mile tax for EVs.

Nice objective report on the Telegraph. Essentially "This is from the Telegraph, so half of it may be bollocks."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-Fv39zGyAc

Do we know exactly how they would go about making the ppm charge?

From the MOT mileage figure?

What about the first three years?

From the annual service.

My car doesn't have an annual service...

If they try and do pence per mile on all journeys on all roads I think they will struggle. Either they fit a black box to all cars or they extend the MOT bureaucracy to extend into taxation.

The tried and tested model is in France. Road pricing.

I'm not in favour if this btw - far from it. But I think it will happen eventually. And knowing the way this country is run we will find the most absurd complex inefficient way to organise it.

I thought the French model was "tolls in walled gardens" ie motorways - like the M6 Toll.

That is imo very different, unless there are aspects of which I am not aware.

Yep France charge for motorways - that doesn’t raise enough money and creates congestion as people avoid motorways to save cash.

The only way to do it is collect data during the MOT / sale and use that to enforce voluntary payments

In Norway they collect tolls as you pass fixed points, usually posted around the larger towns, or occasionally mid route on some long distance highway, or by a choke point like a bridge or tunnel. Conceptually that would be a better fit for the UK, discouraging driving into towns where congestion is the worst and avoiding the downsides of the French system, forcing HGVs off the motorways. It would also favour rural drivers where a vehicle is a necessity. But it's easier to manage in Norway where the road network is less dense and there are fewer ways to enter its towns.

Tax per mile is one of those things were it shows how bad Governments seem to be at planning things. The issue has been obvious since about 2018 yet it's only now they are looking at it, granted better late than neither but still way too late...

Good morning everyone.

Our Tesla correspondent's report rant about the 3p per mile tax for EVs.

Nice objective report on the Telegraph. Essentially "This is from the Telegraph, so half of it may be bollocks."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-Fv39zGyAc

No no, it was a rant. And a bit clickbaity. Successfully so.

Provoked the desired response from the kind of people who are reading the Telegraph/Mail and watching GBeebies/TalkTory and are OUTRAGED that Tesco have banned Christmas trees.

I am depressed at the moment. But having good fun calling out performative wazzockry.

Also check out Emergency Podcast where we tore into "British Culture" and I unveiled my war against wazzocks
https://youtu.be/VkvpriRHc8s

Wha?

Ah ...

"Tesco told the Daily Mail: 'We are at Tesco and have a range of real and artificial Christmas trees in store as part of a wide selection of Christmas products to help our customers celebrate Christmas this year.'

It said it is called an 'evergreen tree' to make it clear the type of Christmas tree inside the box."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15299775/Britons-rage-woke-Tescos-decision-rename-Christmas-trees-evergreen-trees.html

"Susan Hall, leader of the Conservatives in the London Assembly, was vocal about her thoughts on social media, writing on X: 'Wretched ridiculous nonsense, call it what it is, it's a Christmas tree. There, I said it out loud. I'm fed up with all this woke stupidity.'"

Call this out for what it is. She knows the truth, but expects that people listening to her are stupid. So she and all the rest of the grifters openly lie.

What has been genuinely entertaining is that the first picture of the "Evergreen Tree" boxes was heavily cropped. To exclude the "Merry Christmas" pallet wrap they were stood in. And the range of other types of tree - glitter, snow covered, lit etc.

To listen to her, all chocolate bars should be called "Chocolate". Because calling out the variations is a plot to impose Sharia law or something.

Best post? The utter wazzock foaming on about a surbey claiming the majority of Brits will shun turkey for Christmas Dinner and eat another meat. "Brits have eaten Turkey for Christmas for 2,000 years" he claimed.

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/shop/christmas/christmas-decorations/christmas-trees

It is true that some of the Tesco ones do not have the C-word on the box. Tbh I had not realised they also serve other sellers (marketplace) like Amazon.

With heating bills going through the roof, I wonder who will want even an artificial snow-covered indoor tree this year. Makes me shiver just to look at it.