Best Of

As I've already said, the WhatsApp backup is fairly unreliable.

The iCloud backup significantly less so - but it's not clear what backup is being referred to.

In any case, to get the messages back they need to restore them to a new phone that McSweeney owns or has access to. I am not sure how that works from a data privacy POV, whether he can be compelled to restore the backup. I am sure lawyers would know.

On the last thread, @Alanbrooke blamed the UK's low birthrate on its 300,000 abortions per year.

So, I wonderd... is there a correlation between abortion legality and birthrates?

The three European countries -as far as I can tell- with the tightest laws on abortion are: Malta, Poland and Andorra.

In Malta, abortions are only available in the event of imminent danger to the mother's life. In Poland, abortion laws were really tightened up in 2020. And in Andorra they are basically completely illegal.

Malta has a TFR of 1.01. That's significantly worse than the UK. Andorra's TFR isn't much better, it's 1.09.

What about Poland... you'd expect it's TFR to have improved post the tightening of abortion controls, right?

Wrong. Their TFR remains mired at all time lows. In 2024, they had the fewest live births (240,000) in the post WW2 period.

And some of the countries with the least restrictive abortion laws (Bulgaria, France and Ireland) have some of the highest TFRs.

Basically: abortion access and legality don't seem to have any correlation with birthrates.

@jaylyall.bsky.social‬

Russia sending improved Geran-2 drones to Iran, along with intel and humanitarian aid designed to shore up regime. Also looks like they're delivering man-portable anti-aircraft Verba systems

https://bsky.app/profile/jaylyall.bsky.social/post/3mhw3gxqsts2i

This confuses The Donald.

Easier for him not to believe that it's happening I would guess. Is anyone in the administration going to make a big thing about it to force him to confront it? I would doubt it.

This is the sort of thing that makes decision-making so bad in an authoritarian state, and it's one reason why we should think of the US in those terms.

See also the daily "cool videos of explosions" breifing that the Donissimo gets each morning;

Each day since the start of the war in Iran, U.S. military officials compile a video update for President Donald Trump that shows video of the biggest, most successful strikes on Iranian targets over the previous 48 hours, three current U.S. officials and a former U.S. official said. The daily montage typically runs for about two minutes, sometimes longer, the officials said. One described each daily video as a series of clips of “stuff blowing up.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trumps-daily-iran-video-briefing-fuels-concerns-hes-not-getting-a-full-picture-on-the-war/

Yes, I was thinking of that too. Trump is someone who doesn't want to be troubled by uncomfortable truth. We're in a situation where his best anchor on reality might be Fox News updates on the market reaction.

I think Trump's judgement is astonishingly bad, but he's also making decisions on the basis of bad information, because he's trained people to lie to him, to not give him bad news.

The obituary can't come soon enough.

Is he aware just how bad his polling is now?

More and more Americans seem to be seeing through the charlatan, with the mid terms not that far away now. Once again tonight his aggregate net approval rating as measured by Nate Silver has reached a record low, this time of -16.6%.

https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-silver-bulletin

More examples of the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, reminding Boris to answer the question put forward to him.

There’s no excuse for allowing Keir Starmer to evade every question time and time again during #PMQs

https://x.com/archrose90/status/2036907788140437739?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

Also Starmer seems to use the beginning to announce what the govenment has done or achieved recently before questions get going.

Betty Boothroyd would never have allowed any of this!

People were mentioning Bob Monkhouse yesterday on here. Here are three classic Monkhouseisms - I think I heard him give the middle one live -

- "I'm not saying my wife's a bad cook, but he uses our smoke alarm as a timer"
- "I got a horse for my wife. Fair trade, wouldn't you say?"
- "I still enjoy sex at 74. I live at 75, so it's just across the road"

"When I first said I wanted to be a comedian, everybody laughed. They're not laughing now."

That's my all time favourite Monkhouse joke.

He was the master of timing.

The only person I can think of who compares -and it's a very, very different kind of humour- is Ricky Gervais.

Only with Ricky, he's throwing in something so wildly outrageous, you can't believe he said it. "Don't worry, I didn't kill her." (And we all know how that one ends.)

The successor to Bob Monkhouse is Jimmy Carr. I will die on this hill. Very similar in terms of delivery, dealing with hecklers, being able to think on his feet.

Annoying laugh, though.

But he's even made that into a joke.
"After I rubbed the lamp, the genie misheard my first wish and instead of being hung like a donkey, I laugh like one."

Am I the only person on PB who thinks Mrs Browns Boys can be moderately amusing at times?

Yes

Early series very funny.

Gone on 5 or 6 years too long.

Many series go on too long. Even the last series of Dads Army was pretty much a dud.

Knowing when to stop is hard. Fawlty towers has so few episodes but is probably better for it.

The same is true of the UK Office.

The number of series -comedy or drama- that did not go downhill at some point is small indeed. Breaking Bad. The Sopranos. And errrr. That's about it.

I think the peep show got funnier as it evolved mainly due to good character foundation in the early episodes . Ditto dad’s army . The very end of only fools and horses was terrible but its zenith was the middle stuff which was better than the early stuff.