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Last stop before the midterms: Virginia 2021 – politicalbetting.com

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  • Leon said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Oh God, here it comes. Flower of Scotland

    How did Scotland end up with this terrible dirge? It makes God Save the Queen look like Men of Harlech

    They could have gone for Sunshine on Leith. Wonderful song

    The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap.
    There is a tendency for nations to choose dutiful, pompous dirges when they have superb popular melodies

    How did Australia end up with Advance Australia Fair when they could have had Waltzing Matilda, which, when sung by 100,000 Aussies in a Melbourne stadium sends shivers down the spine. The official anthem, to be polite, does not

    Ditto Ireland with that awful Ireland Ireland anthem, when they had Molly Malone in the wings

    Advance Australia Fair is terrible, but still leaps ahead of the dirge that is GSTQ.

    The problem for me with Waltzing Matilda is as a teenager when down under, it was the dirty lyrics that got stuck in my head. Which kind of makes it hard to take seriously after that.

    Waltzing Matilda
    Who bloody killed her?
    Lying in the grass
    With her finger up her arse
    The Fijian anthem when the men’s rugby sevens team sang it at the Olympics was just magnificent
    God Save the Queen is OK. It has the advantage of being short, memorable, easy to sing, and modestly rousing - SEND HER VICTORIOUS

    But it is no masterpiece. There are many better anthems

    Not SEND BRITAIN VICTORIOUS?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,774

    IanB2 said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Oh God, here it comes. Flower of Scotland

    How did Scotland end up with this terrible dirge? It makes God Save the Queen look like Men of Harlech

    They could have gone for Sunshine on Leith. Wonderful song

    The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap.
    There is a tendency for nations to choose dutiful, pompous dirges when they have superb popular melodies

    How did Australia end up with Advance Australia Fair when they could have had Waltzing Matilda, which, when sung by 100,000 Aussies in a Melbourne stadium sends shivers down the spine. The official anthem, to be polite, does not

    Ditto Ireland with that awful Ireland Ireland anthem, when they had Molly Malone in the wings

    The French did alright with theirs though.

    Edit: and don’t forget the old USSR.
    Oh yes. The old Soviet national anthem is simply the best one going (or not as the case may now be). So good that even the British spies sang it at their Christmas party :)
    Isn't it so good that Russia re-adopted it?
    Shout out for the Italian one too.
    The Italian one is superb. Same words sung to two different tunes, barely scanning with either.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxzN4J0RVbc
    The Italians are good at that sort of thing:

    Bandiera Rossa

    Bella ciao

    And then there's all that opera stuff.
    Here's a version for our Morris:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Lj1bzioht0
  • The more I think about it, the more I really do think that HYUFD would make an excellent negotiator.

    The fact that he can be exasperating can be a plus (the Soviets did well with it for many decades) and there is no doubt HYUFD does delve into facts and (esp) figures and knows how to deploy them in arguing for his points of view.

    Plus despite his crusty exterior within there is a willingness to strike a deal IF he's convinced (or becomes convinced) a deal can be struck.
  • Leon said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Oh God, here it comes. Flower of Scotland

    How did Scotland end up with this terrible dirge? It makes God Save the Queen look like Men of Harlech

    They could have gone for Sunshine on Leith. Wonderful song

    The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap.
    There is a tendency for nations to choose dutiful, pompous dirges when they have superb popular melodies

    How did Australia end up with Advance Australia Fair when they could have had Waltzing Matilda, which, when sung by 100,000 Aussies in a Melbourne stadium sends shivers down the spine. The official anthem, to be polite, does not

    Ditto Ireland with that awful Ireland Ireland anthem, when they had Molly Malone in the wings

    Advance Australia Fair is terrible, but still leaps ahead of the dirge that is GSTQ.

    The problem for me with Waltzing Matilda is as a teenager when down under, it was the dirty lyrics that got stuck in my head. Which kind of makes it hard to take seriously after that.

    Waltzing Matilda
    Who bloody killed her?
    Lying in the grass
    With her finger up her arse
    The Fijian anthem when the men’s rugby sevens team sang it at the Olympics was just magnificent
    God Save the Queen is OK. It has the advantage of being short, memorable, easy to sing, and modestly rousing - SEND HER VICTORIOUS

    But it is no masterpiece. There are many better anthems

    When you think of the songs we could have had, from Jerusalem to Land of Hope and Glory to Rule Britannia to Hey Jude to the very greatest song of all, Bohemian Rhapsody

    Which I see has now been adopted as a kind of global anthem (helped by Green Day). Makes yer praaaad


    America:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdDimyd6cj4


    Argentina:


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfCcYxMhq5w


    Canada:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A6Pp_kqTqE

    There's a hundred of these, from Mexico to Croatia, Italy to Poland


    But the best remains the famous one in Hyde Park

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZnBNuqqz5g
    If we're branching out beyond national anthems then surely one of the best on the planet has to be You'll Never Walk Alone.

    Here's 95,000 singing it at the MCG: https://youtu.be/5iLL57puZPM?t=247
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I'm sorry, I just don't believe scoring a try against TONGA, in a half-filled Murrayfield, is the "moment of a lifetime" for a Scottish rugby player

    If it is, that shows somewhat diminished ambitions

    It's his debut ffs..
    I noted that in my edit. I still think it's faintly tragic. TONGA


    Also, he's playing for SCOTLAND, who have never won anything, in any sport. I can't see how playing for Scotland could ever be that exciting or memorable, even for a Scot
    Why the fuck are watching it then? I can only think you're hoping for a humiliating Scotland defeat for whatever screwed up reasons.

    Edit: poor, dashed hopes.
    It hasn't occurred to you that I am just trying to wind you up, and succeeding?

    I'm watching the cricket you idiot, I turned over after 10 minutes, when it became clear it would be yet another boring walkover by a tier 1 team against tier 2

    To be serious, rugby has a real problem with finding competitive new nations. Arguably it is getting WORSE, as Italy decline from not being very good at all, to being terrible

    Japan is maybe the only bright hope, but we need to fold them into the calendar
    What is wrong with wanting Scotland to lose? They hope England lose all the time.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,342

    IanB2 said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Oh God, here it comes. Flower of Scotland

    How did Scotland end up with this terrible dirge? It makes God Save the Queen look like Men of Harlech

    They could have gone for Sunshine on Leith. Wonderful song

    The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap.
    There is a tendency for nations to choose dutiful, pompous dirges when they have superb popular melodies

    How did Australia end up with Advance Australia Fair when they could have had Waltzing Matilda, which, when sung by 100,000 Aussies in a Melbourne stadium sends shivers down the spine. The official anthem, to be polite, does not

    Ditto Ireland with that awful Ireland Ireland anthem, when they had Molly Malone in the wings

    The French did alright with theirs though.

    Edit: and don’t forget the old USSR.
    Oh yes. The old Soviet national anthem is simply the best one going (or not as the case may now be). So good that even the British spies sang it at their Christmas party :)
    Isn't it so good that Russia re-adopted it?
    Shout out for the Italian one too.
    The Italian one is superb. Same words sung to two different tunes, barely scanning with either.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxzN4J0RVbc
    The Italians are good at that sort of thing:

    Bandiera Rossa

    Bella ciao

    And then there's all that opera stuff.
    And Volare. The most famous Eurovision losing song.
  • Clément Beaune is saying that unless Britain makes a "significant gesture" by Tuesday they will start preventing British boats from landing and implementing a go slow for processing British goods.

    https://twitter.com/CBeaune/status/1454441755575824384

    They're just going to lose as customers and have people divert around them to unload in Brussels or Spain etc aren't they?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586
    Aslan said:

    Aslan said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MattW said:

    kjh said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    kjh said:

    RobD said:

    kjh said:

    Brilliant, both @CarlottaVance and @boulay detailed analysis re the French case is 'they don't have one' as opposed to them not finding out whether they actually do have a case or not.

    And we get ridiculous responses of 'well you should have kept your log book for a boat you stopped owning up to 5 years ago'

    How many people here keep their car registration details of a car they sold years ago and I assume a log book goes with the boat and is a more substantial document. Actually I don't know that but do you Carlotta or Boulay?

    This is just nationalist nonsense; we are right because we are British and the Foreigner's are wrong. None of us here know the facts.

    How is that a ridiculous response? You're expected to keep tax records for seven years, IIRC.
    Well I answered that.

    a) The log book probably goes with the boat.

    b) Do you keep your old car records?

    c) Is there a requirement to keep records of a boat you have sold?

    And of course this was just one example of how people arguing here have no idea what the French case is. They just assume they are in the wrong. They may be. They may not. It is bizarre though to just assume they don't have a case.
    I’m no expert on fishing, but if I wanted to sell, for example, an aeroplane or a classic racing car, there are sure as hell protocols and discussions around documentation that are worked through at the time of sale. Some documents will remain with the vehicle, others remain with the original owner, and others with various authorities and third parties, setting out everyone’s future rights and obligations.

    Why would a fishing boat be any different? If he’s selling his boat for scrap and upgrading to a new vessel, he’ll want to keep the fishing rights associated with it. If he’s selling his boat to another fisherman, and upgrading to a new boat, there will need to be an agreement between the buyer, seller and fishing authorities, as to future fishing rights of the two boats. The buyer (and his lawyer) sure as hell wants to know if he’s buying a boat, or buying fishing rights.
    Also (and here I do confess ignorance) if you need the old log book, why not just go and get it, and borrow it from the new owner? Then make a copy? Nip round St Malo, use your phonecam, Le Bingo

    How hard is that? Or have these boats all weirdly disappeared to Papeete?
    This sort of 'papers please' pettyfogging mentality led to the Windrush scandal and to countless other injustices over the piece. There could be valid reasons why the fisherfolk can't produce the exact docs required per the exact wording of some form or other. Agreements need to be implemented according to their spirit not simply their letter. It's a myth put about by jobbing lawyers that they don't. Are we behaving well here? Or are we nitpicking? I honestly don't know and I'm pretty skeptical of anybody who says they do - unless they write a really good post explaining why France has no case PLUS they say without caveat that Johnson is being a dick on the NI protocol. This is the magic combo, weighty looking post slagging off Macron on the fish plus demonstrated intellectual integrity. That'd nail it for me. I could get off the wheel and have some cheese.
    This sort of attitude @kinabalu will get you deported, at least. For simply suggesting there might just be two sides to an argument I have been told I hate my country.
    I think calling "papers, please" pettufogging is fascinating and revealing rhetoric.

    So, then, we should not have to have an Insurance Certificate or an MOT Cert for our cars, and just be allowed to drive in them by asserting that we do have the paperwork?

    I'm incline to ask @kinabalu to turn up at the local airport to pilot the next passenger flight out, and see if harrumphing about checks on "papers", rather than providing any, suffices for getting into the cockpit.

    Licenses are important in this case, because it is a license to make a livelihood, and it is in the ratified agreement that historic evidence of participation is required. It is notable that the local French fishermen based near Jersey are amongst those asserting that the ones not issued licenses do not have a history of participation.

    That's all, really.
    The French fishermen are in exactly the position of people who could not demonstrate lost earnings for COVID purposes because they had been working cash in hand. Hoist with their own
    That's exactly right. If there were good arguments for the absence of records, the French would be making them. But there aren't so instead they are trying to turn this into an abstract argument about punishing perfidious Albion.
    I wonder if the situation is something like this -

    - Previously enforcement was a slack on small boats. They just did their thing.
    - When Brexit came in, the new rules are actually being enforced.
    - A number of people who didn't actually have the fishing rights, or had them and didn't exercise them are now being asked to sign up to formal licensing and have got a bit stuck.

    I am reminded of the following - before Brexit, you could bring in pretty much unlimited amount of wine from France, as long as it was for personal use. Customs and Excise fought a long and losing battle to stop this.

    Post Brexit, they introduced small personal allowances and enforced them.

    Certain small UK wine dealers were used to drive a transit van over to see their mates in the various vineyards and coming back with multiple metric tons of high end wine. Which they could then sell at a keen price, with an increased profit.

    This trade has now come to a screeching halt.

    Unfair, or proper license enforcement? They were certainly abusing the "for personal use" provisions.
    Quite clearly proper license enforcement. Just because something isn't enforced doesn't mean you should break the law. These French fishermen were selfishly fishing over quota, at the expense of everyone else, whether British, Dutch, Danish or others. It is notable that the Dutch and Danish are not complaining about a lack of licences, because they have a law abiding culture. The French are getting their just deserts.
    What about customary usage?

    You buy a boat and fish in an area for a decade. Sure, you are bit sloppy with your book keeping and you sold a log book to a friend who needed proof for a license... but so what?

    Suddenly the fish police rock up and tell you to fuck off.

    Another interesting comparison. The New York taxi medallions - the city kept the number of medallions down, keeping fares high and also meant when they sold some new ones into the market... the price was a nice little earner.

    People invested in medallions. Borrowed mortgage level sums to buy them.

    Then Uber came along....
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,314
    Oh yes!
  • To merge the conversations of anthems and the Cricket then another Queen one fits . . .

    Another one bites the dust!
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,639

    Aslan said:

    Aslan said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MattW said:

    kjh said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    kjh said:

    RobD said:

    kjh said:

    Brilliant, both @CarlottaVance and @boulay detailed analysis re the French case is 'they don't have one' as opposed to them not finding out whether they actually do have a case or not.

    And we get ridiculous responses of 'well you should have kept your log book for a boat you stopped owning up to 5 years ago'

    How many people here keep their car registration details of a car they sold years ago and I assume a log book goes with the boat and is a more substantial document. Actually I don't know that but do you Carlotta or Boulay?

    This is just nationalist nonsense; we are right because we are British and the Foreigner's are wrong. None of us here know the facts.

    How is that a ridiculous response? You're expected to keep tax records for seven years, IIRC.
    Well I answered that.

    a) The log book probably goes with the boat.

    b) Do you keep your old car records?

    c) Is there a requirement to keep records of a boat you have sold?

    And of course this was just one example of how people arguing here have no idea what the French case is. They just assume they are in the wrong. They may be. They may not. It is bizarre though to just assume they don't have a case.
    I’m no expert on fishing, but if I wanted to sell, for example, an aeroplane or a classic racing car, there are sure as hell protocols and discussions around documentation that are worked through at the time of sale. Some documents will remain with the vehicle, others remain with the original owner, and others with various authorities and third parties, setting out everyone’s future rights and obligations.

    Why would a fishing boat be any different? If he’s selling his boat for scrap and upgrading to a new vessel, he’ll want to keep the fishing rights associated with it. If he’s selling his boat to another fisherman, and upgrading to a new boat, there will need to be an agreement between the buyer, seller and fishing authorities, as to future fishing rights of the two boats. The buyer (and his lawyer) sure as hell wants to know if he’s buying a boat, or buying fishing rights.
    Also (and here I do confess ignorance) if you need the old log book, why not just go and get it, and borrow it from the new owner? Then make a copy? Nip round St Malo, use your phonecam, Le Bingo

    How hard is that? Or have these boats all weirdly disappeared to Papeete?
    This sort of 'papers please' pettyfogging mentality led to the Windrush scandal and to countless other injustices over the piece. There could be valid reasons why the fisherfolk can't produce the exact docs required per the exact wording of some form or other. Agreements need to be implemented according to their spirit not simply their letter. It's a myth put about by jobbing lawyers that they don't. Are we behaving well here? Or are we nitpicking? I honestly don't know and I'm pretty skeptical of anybody who says they do - unless they write a really good post explaining why France has no case PLUS they say without caveat that Johnson is being a dick on the NI protocol. This is the magic combo, weighty looking post slagging off Macron on the fish plus demonstrated intellectual integrity. That'd nail it for me. I could get off the wheel and have some cheese.
    This sort of attitude @kinabalu will get you deported, at least. For simply suggesting there might just be two sides to an argument I have been told I hate my country.
    I think calling "papers, please" pettufogging is fascinating and revealing rhetoric.

    So, then, we should not have to have an Insurance Certificate or an MOT Cert for our cars, and just be allowed to drive in them by asserting that we do have the paperwork?

    I'm incline to ask @kinabalu to turn up at the local airport to pilot the next passenger flight out, and see if harrumphing about checks on "papers", rather than providing any, suffices for getting into the cockpit.

    Licenses are important in this case, because it is a license to make a livelihood, and it is in the ratified agreement that historic evidence of participation is required. It is notable that the local French fishermen based near Jersey are amongst those asserting that the ones not issued licenses do not have a history of participation.

    That's all, really.
    The French fishermen are in exactly the position of people who could not demonstrate lost earnings for COVID purposes because they had been working cash in hand. Hoist with their own
    That's exactly right. If there were good arguments for the absence of records, the French would be making them. But there aren't so instead they are trying to turn this into an abstract argument about punishing perfidious Albion.
    I wonder if the situation is something like this -

    - Previously enforcement was a slack on small boats. They just did their thing.
    - When Brexit came in, the new rules are actually being enforced.
    - A number of people who didn't actually have the fishing rights, or had them and didn't exercise them are now being asked to sign up to formal licensing and have got a bit stuck.

    I am reminded of the following - before Brexit, you could bring in pretty much unlimited amount of wine from France, as long as it was for personal use. Customs and Excise fought a long and losing battle to stop this.

    Post Brexit, they introduced small personal allowances and enforced them.

    Certain small UK wine dealers were used to drive a transit van over to see their mates in the various vineyards and coming back with multiple metric tons of high end wine. Which they could then sell at a keen price, with an increased profit.

    This trade has now come to a screeching halt.

    Unfair, or proper license enforcement? They were certainly abusing the "for personal use" provisions.
    Quite clearly proper license enforcement. Just because something isn't enforced doesn't mean you should break the law. These French fishermen were selfishly fishing over quota, at the expense of everyone else, whether British, Dutch, Danish or others. It is notable that the Dutch and Danish are not complaining about a lack of licences, because they have a law abiding culture. The French are getting their just deserts.
    What about customary usage?

    You buy a boat and fish in an area for a decade. Sure, you are bit sloppy with your book keeping and you sold a log book to a friend who needed proof for a license... but so what?

    Suddenly the fish police rock up and tell you to fuck off.

    Another interesting comparison. The New York taxi medallions - the city kept the number of medallions down, keeping fares high and also meant when they sold some new ones into the market... the price was a nice little earner.

    People invested in medallions. Borrowed mortgage level sums to buy them.

    Then Uber came along....
    They coulod claim aboriginal rights or something. Like the Inuit and Faroe whale hunters, and the Lewis gannet chick collectors.
  • BigRichBigRich Posts: 3,491
    Leon said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Oh God, here it comes. Flower of Scotland

    How did Scotland end up with this terrible dirge? It makes God Save the Queen look like Men of Harlech

    They could have gone for Sunshine on Leith. Wonderful song

    The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap.
    There is a tendency for nations to choose dutiful, pompous dirges when they have superb popular melodies

    How did Australia end up with Advance Australia Fair when they could have had Waltzing Matilda, which, when sung by 100,000 Aussies in a Melbourne stadium sends shivers down the spine. The official anthem, to be polite, does not

    Ditto Ireland with that awful Ireland Ireland anthem, when they had Molly Malone in the wings

    Advance Australia Fair is terrible, but still leaps ahead of the dirge that is GSTQ.

    The problem for me with Waltzing Matilda is as a teenager when down under, it was the dirty lyrics that got stuck in my head. Which kind of makes it hard to take seriously after that.

    Waltzing Matilda
    Who bloody killed her?
    Lying in the grass
    With her finger up her arse
    The Fijian anthem when the men’s rugby sevens team sang it at the Olympics was just magnificent
    God Save the Queen is OK. It has the advantage of being short, memorable, easy to sing, and modestly rousing - SEND HER VICTORIOUS

    But it is no masterpiece. There are many better anthems

    When you think of the songs we could have had, from Jerusalem to Land of Hope and Glory to Rule Britannia to Hey Jude to the very greatest song of all, Bohemian Rhapsody

    Which I see has now been adopted as a kind of global anthem (helped by Green Day). Makes yer praaaad


    America:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdDimyd6cj4


    Argentina:


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfCcYxMhq5w


    Canada:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A6Pp_kqTqE

    There's a hundred of these, from Mexico to Croatia, Italy to Poland


    But the best remains the famous one in Hyde Park

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZnBNuqqz5g
    Those are amazing I had not seen them before!

    Lets hope with the end of COVID we can have more of that type of stuff.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,677
    edited October 2021
    Aslan said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I'm sorry, I just don't believe scoring a try against TONGA, in a half-filled Murrayfield, is the "moment of a lifetime" for a Scottish rugby player

    If it is, that shows somewhat diminished ambitions

    It's his debut ffs..
    I noted that in my edit. I still think it's faintly tragic. TONGA


    Also, he's playing for SCOTLAND, who have never won anything, in any sport. I can't see how playing for Scotland could ever be that exciting or memorable, even for a Scot
    Why the fuck are watching it then? I can only think you're hoping for a humiliating Scotland defeat for whatever screwed up reasons.

    Edit: poor, dashed hopes.
    It hasn't occurred to you that I am just trying to wind you up, and succeeding?

    I'm watching the cricket you idiot, I turned over after 10 minutes, when it became clear it would be yet another boring walkover by a tier 1 team against tier 2

    To be serious, rugby has a real problem with finding competitive new nations. Arguably it is getting WORSE, as Italy decline from not being very good at all, to being terrible

    Japan is maybe the only bright hope, but we need to fold them into the calendar
    What is wrong with wanting Scotland to lose? They hope England lose all the time.
    Because (apologies Scotland) I simply don't care about Scotland that much to take such a perverse position. Scots are Brits, I generally want them to win, unless they are playing England. It doesn't really impact me either way

    I tuned in for the rugby sincerely hoping to see a competitive game of running rugby (you never know with a team like Tonga). Sadly, it is another rugby walkover, I switched to the cricket

    I have faint but probably forlorn hopes that Wales will put up a fight against the All Blax later, even tho it seems unlikely
  • dixiedean said:

    IanB2 said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Oh God, here it comes. Flower of Scotland

    How did Scotland end up with this terrible dirge? It makes God Save the Queen look like Men of Harlech

    They could have gone for Sunshine on Leith. Wonderful song

    The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap.
    There is a tendency for nations to choose dutiful, pompous dirges when they have superb popular melodies

    How did Australia end up with Advance Australia Fair when they could have had Waltzing Matilda, which, when sung by 100,000 Aussies in a Melbourne stadium sends shivers down the spine. The official anthem, to be polite, does not

    Ditto Ireland with that awful Ireland Ireland anthem, when they had Molly Malone in the wings

    The French did alright with theirs though.

    Edit: and don’t forget the old USSR.
    Oh yes. The old Soviet national anthem is simply the best one going (or not as the case may now be). So good that even the British spies sang it at their Christmas party :)
    Isn't it so good that Russia re-adopted it?
    Shout out for the Italian one too.
    The Italian one is superb. Same words sung to two different tunes, barely scanning with either.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxzN4J0RVbc
    The Italians are good at that sort of thing:

    Bandiera Rossa

    Bella ciao

    And then there's all that opera stuff.
    And Volare. The most famous Eurovision losing song.
    It didn't even come second, it was third! In 1958.
  • Clément Beaune is saying that unless Britain makes a "significant gesture" by Tuesday they will start preventing British boats from landing and implementing a go slow for processing British goods.

    https://twitter.com/CBeaune/status/1454441755575824384

    They're just going to lose as customers and have people divert around them to unload in Brussels or Spain etc aren't they?
    Laura's on the case

    https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1454461547741388818?t=9Eyz_EHdnAHgfnXk7gKmvg&s=19
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    Thread:

    1/7 I would like to set out where things stand between the UK and the EU on fisheries and related issues, and why recent French rhetoric and threats, potentially leading to a breach by the EU of its Treaty obligations, are such an important matter for us....

    2 We have been in talks with the EU Commission for weeks on fisheries licensing & have granted 98% of applications. We do so in good faith & are fully delivering on our TCA obligation - to license vessels which can prove they have actually fished previously in our 6-12nm limit.

    6 As I set out yesterday to @MarosSefcovic, these threats, if implemented on 2 November, would put the EU in breach of its obligations under our trade agreement. So we are actively considering launching dispute settlement proceedings as set out in Article 738 of the TCA.


    https://twitter.com/DavidGHFrost/status/1454460931937812488?s=20
  • Aslan said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MattW said:

    kjh said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    kjh said:

    RobD said:

    kjh said:

    Brilliant, both @CarlottaVance and @boulay detailed analysis re the French case is 'they don't have one' as opposed to them not finding out whether they actually do have a case or not.

    And we get ridiculous responses of 'well you should have kept your log book for a boat you stopped owning up to 5 years ago'

    How many people here keep their car registration details of a car they sold years ago and I assume a log book goes with the boat and is a more substantial document. Actually I don't know that but do you Carlotta or Boulay?

    This is just nationalist nonsense; we are right because we are British and the Foreigner's are wrong. None of us here know the facts.

    How is that a ridiculous response? You're expected to keep tax records for seven years, IIRC.
    Well I answered that.

    a) The log book probably goes with the boat.

    b) Do you keep your old car records?

    c) Is there a requirement to keep records of a boat you have sold?

    And of course this was just one example of how people arguing here have no idea what the French case is. They just assume they are in the wrong. They may be. They may not. It is bizarre though to just assume they don't have a case.
    I’m no expert on fishing, but if I wanted to sell, for example, an aeroplane or a classic racing car, there are sure as hell protocols and discussions around documentation that are worked through at the time of sale. Some documents will remain with the vehicle, others remain with the original owner, and others with various authorities and third parties, setting out everyone’s future rights and obligations.

    Why would a fishing boat be any different? If he’s selling his boat for scrap and upgrading to a new vessel, he’ll want to keep the fishing rights associated with it. If he’s selling his boat to another fisherman, and upgrading to a new boat, there will need to be an agreement between the buyer, seller and fishing authorities, as to future fishing rights of the two boats. The buyer (and his lawyer) sure as hell wants to know if he’s buying a boat, or buying fishing rights.
    Also (and here I do confess ignorance) if you need the old log book, why not just go and get it, and borrow it from the new owner? Then make a copy? Nip round St Malo, use your phonecam, Le Bingo

    How hard is that? Or have these boats all weirdly disappeared to Papeete?
    This sort of 'papers please' pettyfogging mentality led to the Windrush scandal and to countless other injustices over the piece. There could be valid reasons why the fisherfolk can't produce the exact docs required per the exact wording of some form or other. Agreements need to be implemented according to their spirit not simply their letter. It's a myth put about by jobbing lawyers that they don't. Are we behaving well here? Or are we nitpicking? I honestly don't know and I'm pretty skeptical of anybody who says they do - unless they write a really good post explaining why France has no case PLUS they say without caveat that Johnson is being a dick on the NI protocol. This is the magic combo, weighty looking post slagging off Macron on the fish plus demonstrated intellectual integrity. That'd nail it for me. I could get off the wheel and have some cheese.
    This sort of attitude @kinabalu will get you deported, at least. For simply suggesting there might just be two sides to an argument I have been told I hate my country.
    I think calling "papers, please" pettufogging is fascinating and revealing rhetoric.

    So, then, we should not have to have an Insurance Certificate or an MOT Cert for our cars, and just be allowed to drive in them by asserting that we do have the paperwork?

    I'm incline to ask @kinabalu to turn up at the local airport to pilot the next passenger flight out, and see if harrumphing about checks on "papers", rather than providing any, suffices for getting into the cockpit.

    Licenses are important in this case, because it is a license to make a livelihood, and it is in the ratified agreement that historic evidence of participation is required. It is notable that the local French fishermen based near Jersey are amongst those asserting that the ones not issued licenses do not have a history of participation.

    That's all, really.
    The French fishermen are in exactly the position of people who could not demonstrate lost earnings for COVID purposes because they had been working cash in hand. Hoist with their own
    That's exactly right. If there were good arguments for the absence of records, the French would be making them. But there aren't so instead they are trying to turn this into an abstract argument about punishing perfidious Albion.
    I wonder if the situation is something like this -

    - Previously enforcement was a slack on small boats. They just did their thing.
    - When Brexit came in, the new rules are actually being enforced.
    - A number of people who didn't actually have the fishing rights, or had them and didn't exercise them are now being asked to sign up to formal licensing and have got a bit stuck.

    I am reminded of the following - before Brexit, you could bring in pretty much unlimited amount of wine from France, as long as it was for personal use. Customs and Excise fought a long and losing battle to stop this.

    Post Brexit, they introduced small personal allowances and enforced them.

    Certain small UK wine dealers were used to drive a transit van over to see their mates in the various vineyards and coming back with multiple metric tons of high end wine. Which they could then sell at a keen price, with an increased profit.

    This trade has now come to a screeching halt.

    Unfair, or proper license enforcement? They were certainly abusing the "for personal use" provisions.
    Proper licence enforcement in both cases. The issue is not that the laws are now being enforced but that they were not before. Don't pass laws that you either cannot or choose not to enforce.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586
    Carnyx said:

    Aslan said:

    Aslan said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MattW said:

    kjh said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    kjh said:

    RobD said:

    kjh said:

    Brilliant, both @CarlottaVance and @boulay detailed analysis re the French case is 'they don't have one' as opposed to them not finding out whether they actually do have a case or not.

    And we get ridiculous responses of 'well you should have kept your log book for a boat you stopped owning up to 5 years ago'

    How many people here keep their car registration details of a car they sold years ago and I assume a log book goes with the boat and is a more substantial document. Actually I don't know that but do you Carlotta or Boulay?

    This is just nationalist nonsense; we are right because we are British and the Foreigner's are wrong. None of us here know the facts.

    How is that a ridiculous response? You're expected to keep tax records for seven years, IIRC.
    Well I answered that.

    a) The log book probably goes with the boat.

    b) Do you keep your old car records?

    c) Is there a requirement to keep records of a boat you have sold?

    And of course this was just one example of how people arguing here have no idea what the French case is. They just assume they are in the wrong. They may be. They may not. It is bizarre though to just assume they don't have a case.
    I’m no expert on fishing, but if I wanted to sell, for example, an aeroplane or a classic racing car, there are sure as hell protocols and discussions around documentation that are worked through at the time of sale. Some documents will remain with the vehicle, others remain with the original owner, and others with various authorities and third parties, setting out everyone’s future rights and obligations.

    Why would a fishing boat be any different? If he’s selling his boat for scrap and upgrading to a new vessel, he’ll want to keep the fishing rights associated with it. If he’s selling his boat to another fisherman, and upgrading to a new boat, there will need to be an agreement between the buyer, seller and fishing authorities, as to future fishing rights of the two boats. The buyer (and his lawyer) sure as hell wants to know if he’s buying a boat, or buying fishing rights.
    Also (and here I do confess ignorance) if you need the old log book, why not just go and get it, and borrow it from the new owner? Then make a copy? Nip round St Malo, use your phonecam, Le Bingo

    How hard is that? Or have these boats all weirdly disappeared to Papeete?
    This sort of 'papers please' pettyfogging mentality led to the Windrush scandal and to countless other injustices over the piece. There could be valid reasons why the fisherfolk can't produce the exact docs required per the exact wording of some form or other. Agreements need to be implemented according to their spirit not simply their letter. It's a myth put about by jobbing lawyers that they don't. Are we behaving well here? Or are we nitpicking? I honestly don't know and I'm pretty skeptical of anybody who says they do - unless they write a really good post explaining why France has no case PLUS they say without caveat that Johnson is being a dick on the NI protocol. This is the magic combo, weighty looking post slagging off Macron on the fish plus demonstrated intellectual integrity. That'd nail it for me. I could get off the wheel and have some cheese.
    This sort of attitude @kinabalu will get you deported, at least. For simply suggesting there might just be two sides to an argument I have been told I hate my country.
    I think calling "papers, please" pettufogging is fascinating and revealing rhetoric.

    So, then, we should not have to have an Insurance Certificate or an MOT Cert for our cars, and just be allowed to drive in them by asserting that we do have the paperwork?

    I'm incline to ask @kinabalu to turn up at the local airport to pilot the next passenger flight out, and see if harrumphing about checks on "papers", rather than providing any, suffices for getting into the cockpit.

    Licenses are important in this case, because it is a license to make a livelihood, and it is in the ratified agreement that historic evidence of participation is required. It is notable that the local French fishermen based near Jersey are amongst those asserting that the ones not issued licenses do not have a history of participation.

    That's all, really.
    The French fishermen are in exactly the position of people who could not demonstrate lost earnings for COVID purposes because they had been working cash in hand. Hoist with their own
    That's exactly right. If there were good arguments for the absence of records, the French would be making them. But there aren't so instead they are trying to turn this into an abstract argument about punishing perfidious Albion.
    I wonder if the situation is something like this -

    - Previously enforcement was a slack on small boats. They just did their thing.
    - When Brexit came in, the new rules are actually being enforced.
    - A number of people who didn't actually have the fishing rights, or had them and didn't exercise them are now being asked to sign up to formal licensing and have got a bit stuck.

    I am reminded of the following - before Brexit, you could bring in pretty much unlimited amount of wine from France, as long as it was for personal use. Customs and Excise fought a long and losing battle to stop this.

    Post Brexit, they introduced small personal allowances and enforced them.

    Certain small UK wine dealers were used to drive a transit van over to see their mates in the various vineyards and coming back with multiple metric tons of high end wine. Which they could then sell at a keen price, with an increased profit.

    This trade has now come to a screeching halt.

    Unfair, or proper license enforcement? They were certainly abusing the "for personal use" provisions.
    Quite clearly proper license enforcement. Just because something isn't enforced doesn't mean you should break the law. These French fishermen were selfishly fishing over quota, at the expense of everyone else, whether British, Dutch, Danish or others. It is notable that the Dutch and Danish are not complaining about a lack of licences, because they have a law abiding culture. The French are getting their just deserts.
    What about customary usage?

    You buy a boat and fish in an area for a decade. Sure, you are bit sloppy with your book keeping and you sold a log book to a friend who needed proof for a license... but so what?

    Suddenly the fish police rock up and tell you to fuck off.

    Another interesting comparison. The New York taxi medallions - the city kept the number of medallions down, keeping fares high and also meant when they sold some new ones into the market... the price was a nice little earner.

    People invested in medallions. Borrowed mortgage level sums to buy them.

    Then Uber came along....
    They coulod claim aboriginal rights or something. Like the Inuit and Faroe whale hunters, and the Lewis gannet chick collectors.
    The Inuit and Faroe whale hunters have records* of the exercise of their "aboriginal rights"** going back centuries. Not sure about the Lewis chaps.....

    *Mostly mode by outsiders visiting, true....
    **Personally I think they are a bunch of slackers. Real Men (TM) wouldn't use modern gear - a harpoon with a bone spearhead thrown from a canoe that you stitched together yourself is properly traditional.
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673
    The UK has granted 98% of fishing license applications. Presumably the high rate is from the Irish, Danish, Dutch and Germans, who don't illegally fish.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/DavidGHFrost/status/1454460925549887490
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,677

    Leon said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Oh God, here it comes. Flower of Scotland

    How did Scotland end up with this terrible dirge? It makes God Save the Queen look like Men of Harlech

    They could have gone for Sunshine on Leith. Wonderful song

    The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap.
    There is a tendency for nations to choose dutiful, pompous dirges when they have superb popular melodies

    How did Australia end up with Advance Australia Fair when they could have had Waltzing Matilda, which, when sung by 100,000 Aussies in a Melbourne stadium sends shivers down the spine. The official anthem, to be polite, does not

    Ditto Ireland with that awful Ireland Ireland anthem, when they had Molly Malone in the wings

    Advance Australia Fair is terrible, but still leaps ahead of the dirge that is GSTQ.

    The problem for me with Waltzing Matilda is as a teenager when down under, it was the dirty lyrics that got stuck in my head. Which kind of makes it hard to take seriously after that.

    Waltzing Matilda
    Who bloody killed her?
    Lying in the grass
    With her finger up her arse
    The Fijian anthem when the men’s rugby sevens team sang it at the Olympics was just magnificent
    God Save the Queen is OK. It has the advantage of being short, memorable, easy to sing, and modestly rousing - SEND HER VICTORIOUS

    But it is no masterpiece. There are many better anthems

    When you think of the songs we could have had, from Jerusalem to Land of Hope and Glory to Rule Britannia to Hey Jude to the very greatest song of all, Bohemian Rhapsody

    Which I see has now been adopted as a kind of global anthem (helped by Green Day). Makes yer praaaad


    America:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdDimyd6cj4


    Argentina:


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfCcYxMhq5w


    Canada:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A6Pp_kqTqE

    There's a hundred of these, from Mexico to Croatia, Italy to Poland


    But the best remains the famous one in Hyde Park

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZnBNuqqz5g
    If we're branching out beyond national anthems then surely one of the best on the planet has to be You'll Never Walk Alone.

    Here's 95,000 singing it at the MCG: https://youtu.be/5iLL57puZPM?t=247
    That's remarkable. There are 100,000 passionate Liverpool fans in Oz?

    I feel quite a few of them are just pommies being temporary fans for a hit of homeland nostalgia. Nonetheless impressive!
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,314
    < aussie_accent >
    You’re gonna need to score a few more runs than this, mate..
    < / aussie_accent >
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,947
    MattW said:

    kjh said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    kjh said:

    RobD said:

    kjh said:

    Brilliant, both @CarlottaVance and @boulay detailed analysis re the French case is 'they don't have one' as opposed to them not finding out whether they actually do have a case or not.

    And we get ridiculous responses of 'well you should have kept your log book for a boat you stopped owning up to 5 years ago'

    How many people here keep their car registration details of a car they sold years ago and I assume a log book goes with the boat and is a more substantial document. Actually I don't know that but do you Carlotta or Boulay?

    This is just nationalist nonsense; we are right because we are British and the Foreigner's are wrong. None of us here know the facts.

    How is that a ridiculous response? You're expected to keep tax records for seven years, IIRC.
    Well I answered that.

    a) The log book probably goes with the boat.

    b) Do you keep your old car records?

    c) Is there a requirement to keep records of a boat you have sold?

    And of course this was just one example of how people arguing here have no idea what the French case is. They just assume they are in the wrong. They may be. They may not. It is bizarre though to just assume they don't have a case.
    I’m no expert on fishing, but if I wanted to sell, for example, an aeroplane or a classic racing car, there are sure as hell protocols and discussions around documentation that are worked through at the time of sale. Some documents will remain with the vehicle, others remain with the original owner, and others with various authorities and third parties, setting out everyone’s future rights and obligations.

    Why would a fishing boat be any different? If he’s selling his boat for scrap and upgrading to a new vessel, he’ll want to keep the fishing rights associated with it. If he’s selling his boat to another fisherman, and upgrading to a new boat, there will need to be an agreement between the buyer, seller and fishing authorities, as to future fishing rights of the two boats. The buyer (and his lawyer) sure as hell wants to know if he’s buying a boat, or buying fishing rights.
    Also (and here I do confess ignorance) if you need the old log book, why not just go and get it, and borrow it from the new owner? Then make a copy? Nip round St Malo, use your phonecam, Le Bingo

    How hard is that? Or have these boats all weirdly disappeared to Papeete?
    This sort of 'papers please' pettyfogging mentality led to the Windrush scandal and to countless other injustices over the piece. There could be valid reasons why the fisherfolk can't produce the exact docs required per the exact wording of some form or other. Agreements need to be implemented according to their spirit not simply their letter. It's a myth put about by jobbing lawyers that they don't. Are we behaving well here? Or are we nitpicking? I honestly don't know and I'm pretty skeptical of anybody who says they do - unless they write a really good post explaining why France has no case PLUS they say without caveat that Johnson is being a dick on the NI protocol. This is the magic combo, weighty looking post slagging off Macron on the fish plus demonstrated intellectual integrity. That'd nail it for me. I could get off the wheel and have some cheese.
    This sort of attitude @kinabalu will get you deported, at least. For simply suggesting there might just be two sides to an argument I have been told I hate my country.
    I think calling "papers, please" pettifogging is fascinating and revealing rhetoric.

    So, then, we should not have to have an Insurance Certificate or an MOT Cert for our cars, and just be allowed to drive in them by asserting that we do have the paperwork?

    I'm incline to ask you, @kinabalu (if the quotes are still or order :smile:), to turn up at the local airport to pilot the next passenger flight out, and see if harrumphing about checks on "papers", rather than providing any, suffices for getting into the cockpit.

    Licenses are important in this case, because it is a license to make a livelihood (and potentially deny others a livelihood), and it is in the ratified agreement that historic evidence of participation is required. It is notable that the local French fishermen based near Jersey are amongst those asserting that the ones not issued licenses do not have a history of participation.

    That's all, really.
    Yes, when the Authorities ask somebody to produce hard documentary proof of something it's usually for good reason - as per your transport examples. And in fact I'm a big fan of it. However, and this was my contribution, there are many instances where some leeway is in order, and where the refusal to allow any is unfair and/or oppressive. The question is, do these fishermen who are apparently struggling to show the necessary have a valid reason for this? I don't know. I note various people's theories with interest but I still don't know. I also note the argument that they can't have a valid reason since if they did they'd be serving a writ. This is appealing but only superficially. Because maybe Macron actively wants a big high-octane row rather than a quiet mousy legal case. So that's where I am. Others are off down the road and gone, but I'm content to be the tortoise on this.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586

    Aslan said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MattW said:

    kjh said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    kjh said:

    RobD said:

    kjh said:

    Brilliant, both @CarlottaVance and @boulay detailed analysis re the French case is 'they don't have one' as opposed to them not finding out whether they actually do have a case or not.

    And we get ridiculous responses of 'well you should have kept your log book for a boat you stopped owning up to 5 years ago'

    How many people here keep their car registration details of a car they sold years ago and I assume a log book goes with the boat and is a more substantial document. Actually I don't know that but do you Carlotta or Boulay?

    This is just nationalist nonsense; we are right because we are British and the Foreigner's are wrong. None of us here know the facts.

    How is that a ridiculous response? You're expected to keep tax records for seven years, IIRC.
    Well I answered that.

    a) The log book probably goes with the boat.

    b) Do you keep your old car records?

    c) Is there a requirement to keep records of a boat you have sold?

    And of course this was just one example of how people arguing here have no idea what the French case is. They just assume they are in the wrong. They may be. They may not. It is bizarre though to just assume they don't have a case.
    I’m no expert on fishing, but if I wanted to sell, for example, an aeroplane or a classic racing car, there are sure as hell protocols and discussions around documentation that are worked through at the time of sale. Some documents will remain with the vehicle, others remain with the original owner, and others with various authorities and third parties, setting out everyone’s future rights and obligations.

    Why would a fishing boat be any different? If he’s selling his boat for scrap and upgrading to a new vessel, he’ll want to keep the fishing rights associated with it. If he’s selling his boat to another fisherman, and upgrading to a new boat, there will need to be an agreement between the buyer, seller and fishing authorities, as to future fishing rights of the two boats. The buyer (and his lawyer) sure as hell wants to know if he’s buying a boat, or buying fishing rights.
    Also (and here I do confess ignorance) if you need the old log book, why not just go and get it, and borrow it from the new owner? Then make a copy? Nip round St Malo, use your phonecam, Le Bingo

    How hard is that? Or have these boats all weirdly disappeared to Papeete?
    This sort of 'papers please' pettyfogging mentality led to the Windrush scandal and to countless other injustices over the piece. There could be valid reasons why the fisherfolk can't produce the exact docs required per the exact wording of some form or other. Agreements need to be implemented according to their spirit not simply their letter. It's a myth put about by jobbing lawyers that they don't. Are we behaving well here? Or are we nitpicking? I honestly don't know and I'm pretty skeptical of anybody who says they do - unless they write a really good post explaining why France has no case PLUS they say without caveat that Johnson is being a dick on the NI protocol. This is the magic combo, weighty looking post slagging off Macron on the fish plus demonstrated intellectual integrity. That'd nail it for me. I could get off the wheel and have some cheese.
    This sort of attitude @kinabalu will get you deported, at least. For simply suggesting there might just be two sides to an argument I have been told I hate my country.
    I think calling "papers, please" pettufogging is fascinating and revealing rhetoric.

    So, then, we should not have to have an Insurance Certificate or an MOT Cert for our cars, and just be allowed to drive in them by asserting that we do have the paperwork?

    I'm incline to ask @kinabalu to turn up at the local airport to pilot the next passenger flight out, and see if harrumphing about checks on "papers", rather than providing any, suffices for getting into the cockpit.

    Licenses are important in this case, because it is a license to make a livelihood, and it is in the ratified agreement that historic evidence of participation is required. It is notable that the local French fishermen based near Jersey are amongst those asserting that the ones not issued licenses do not have a history of participation.

    That's all, really.
    The French fishermen are in exactly the position of people who could not demonstrate lost earnings for COVID purposes because they had been working cash in hand. Hoist with their own
    That's exactly right. If there were good arguments for the absence of records, the French would be making them. But there aren't so instead they are trying to turn this into an abstract argument about punishing perfidious Albion.
    I wonder if the situation is something like this -

    - Previously enforcement was a slack on small boats. They just did their thing.
    - When Brexit came in, the new rules are actually being enforced.
    - A number of people who didn't actually have the fishing rights, or had them and didn't exercise them are now being asked to sign up to formal licensing and have got a bit stuck.

    I am reminded of the following - before Brexit, you could bring in pretty much unlimited amount of wine from France, as long as it was for personal use. Customs and Excise fought a long and losing battle to stop this.

    Post Brexit, they introduced small personal allowances and enforced them.

    Certain small UK wine dealers were used to drive a transit van over to see their mates in the various vineyards and coming back with multiple metric tons of high end wine. Which they could then sell at a keen price, with an increased profit.

    This trade has now come to a screeching halt.

    Unfair, or proper license enforcement? They were certainly abusing the "for personal use" provisions.
    Proper licence enforcement in both cases. The issue is not that the laws are now being enforced but that they were not before. Don't pass laws that you either cannot or choose not to enforce.
    But changing the enforcement of laws can produce such cases - and often has.

    Much of law enforcement , in the real world, is discretionary.
  • Thread:

    1/7 I would like to set out where things stand between the UK and the EU on fisheries and related issues, and why recent French rhetoric and threats, potentially leading to a breach by the EU of its Treaty obligations, are such an important matter for us....

    2 We have been in talks with the EU Commission for weeks on fisheries licensing & have granted 98% of applications. We do so in good faith & are fully delivering on our TCA obligation - to license vessels which can prove they have actually fished previously in our 6-12nm limit.

    6 As I set out yesterday to @MarosSefcovic, these threats, if implemented on 2 November, would put the EU in breach of its obligations under our trade agreement. So we are actively considering launching dispute settlement proceedings as set out in Article 738 of the TCA.


    https://twitter.com/DavidGHFrost/status/1454460931937812488?s=20

    It will be very interesting how this plays out
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,774
    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Oh God, here it comes. Flower of Scotland

    How did Scotland end up with this terrible dirge? It makes God Save the Queen look like Men of Harlech

    They could have gone for Sunshine on Leith. Wonderful song

    The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap.
    There is a tendency for nations to choose dutiful, pompous dirges when they have superb popular melodies

    How did Australia end up with Advance Australia Fair when they could have had Waltzing Matilda, which, when sung by 100,000 Aussies in a Melbourne stadium sends shivers down the spine. The official anthem, to be polite, does not

    Ditto Ireland with that awful Ireland Ireland anthem, when they had Molly Malone in the wings

    The French did alright with theirs though.

    Edit: and don’t forget the old USSR.
    Oh yes. The old Soviet national anthem is simply the best one going (or not as the case may now be). So good that even the British spies sang it at their Christmas party :)
    Isn't it so good that Russia re-adopted it?
    Shout out for the Italian one too.
    The Italian one is superb. Same words sung to two different tunes, barely scanning with either.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxzN4J0RVbc
    The Italians are good at that sort of thing:

    Bandiera Rossa

    Bella ciao

    And then there's all that opera stuff.
    Here's a version for our Morris:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Lj1bzioht0
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjj1-dJN2KQ
  • Clément Beaune is saying that unless Britain makes a "significant gesture" by Tuesday they will start preventing British boats from landing and implementing a go slow for processing British goods.

    https://twitter.com/CBeaune/status/1454441755575824384

    They're just going to lose as customers and have people divert around them to unload in Brussels or Spain etc aren't they?
    Laura's on the case

    https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1454461547741388818?t=9Eyz_EHdnAHgfnXk7gKmvg&s=19
    @Leon might be interested to note this Tweet.

    David Frost
    @DavidGHFrost
    3 That is why we are concerned and surprised by the comments seemingly made by @JeanCASTEX to @vonderLeyen that:

    “it is indispensable to show European public opinion that … it causes more damage to leave the EU than to stay in.”
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586
    kinabalu said:

    MattW said:

    kjh said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    kjh said:

    RobD said:

    kjh said:

    Brilliant, both @CarlottaVance and @boulay detailed analysis re the French case is 'they don't have one' as opposed to them not finding out whether they actually do have a case or not.

    And we get ridiculous responses of 'well you should have kept your log book for a boat you stopped owning up to 5 years ago'

    How many people here keep their car registration details of a car they sold years ago and I assume a log book goes with the boat and is a more substantial document. Actually I don't know that but do you Carlotta or Boulay?

    This is just nationalist nonsense; we are right because we are British and the Foreigner's are wrong. None of us here know the facts.

    How is that a ridiculous response? You're expected to keep tax records for seven years, IIRC.
    Well I answered that.

    a) The log book probably goes with the boat.

    b) Do you keep your old car records?

    c) Is there a requirement to keep records of a boat you have sold?

    And of course this was just one example of how people arguing here have no idea what the French case is. They just assume they are in the wrong. They may be. They may not. It is bizarre though to just assume they don't have a case.
    I’m no expert on fishing, but if I wanted to sell, for example, an aeroplane or a classic racing car, there are sure as hell protocols and discussions around documentation that are worked through at the time of sale. Some documents will remain with the vehicle, others remain with the original owner, and others with various authorities and third parties, setting out everyone’s future rights and obligations.

    Why would a fishing boat be any different? If he’s selling his boat for scrap and upgrading to a new vessel, he’ll want to keep the fishing rights associated with it. If he’s selling his boat to another fisherman, and upgrading to a new boat, there will need to be an agreement between the buyer, seller and fishing authorities, as to future fishing rights of the two boats. The buyer (and his lawyer) sure as hell wants to know if he’s buying a boat, or buying fishing rights.
    Also (and here I do confess ignorance) if you need the old log book, why not just go and get it, and borrow it from the new owner? Then make a copy? Nip round St Malo, use your phonecam, Le Bingo

    How hard is that? Or have these boats all weirdly disappeared to Papeete?
    This sort of 'papers please' pettyfogging mentality led to the Windrush scandal and to countless other injustices over the piece. There could be valid reasons why the fisherfolk can't produce the exact docs required per the exact wording of some form or other. Agreements need to be implemented according to their spirit not simply their letter. It's a myth put about by jobbing lawyers that they don't. Are we behaving well here? Or are we nitpicking? I honestly don't know and I'm pretty skeptical of anybody who says they do - unless they write a really good post explaining why France has no case PLUS they say without caveat that Johnson is being a dick on the NI protocol. This is the magic combo, weighty looking post slagging off Macron on the fish plus demonstrated intellectual integrity. That'd nail it for me. I could get off the wheel and have some cheese.
    This sort of attitude @kinabalu will get you deported, at least. For simply suggesting there might just be two sides to an argument I have been told I hate my country.
    I think calling "papers, please" pettifogging is fascinating and revealing rhetoric.

    So, then, we should not have to have an Insurance Certificate or an MOT Cert for our cars, and just be allowed to drive in them by asserting that we do have the paperwork?

    I'm incline to ask you, @kinabalu (if the quotes are still or order :smile:), to turn up at the local airport to pilot the next passenger flight out, and see if harrumphing about checks on "papers", rather than providing any, suffices for getting into the cockpit.

    Licenses are important in this case, because it is a license to make a livelihood (and potentially deny others a livelihood), and it is in the ratified agreement that historic evidence of participation is required. It is notable that the local French fishermen based near Jersey are amongst those asserting that the ones not issued licenses do not have a history of participation.

    That's all, really.
    Yes, when the Authorities ask somebody to produce hard documentary proof of something it's usually for good reason - as per your transport examples. And in fact I'm a big fan of it. However, and this was my contribution, there are many instances where some leeway is in order, and where the refusal to allow any is unfair and/or oppressive. The question is, do these fishermen who are apparently struggling to show the necessary have a valid reason for this? I don't know. I note various people's theories with interest but I still don't know. I also note the argument that they can't have a valid reason since if they did they'd be serving a writ. This is appealing but only superficially. Because maybe Macron actively wants a big high-octane row rather than a quiet mousy legal case. So that's where I am. Others are off down the road and gone, but I'm content to be the tortoise on this.
    I would have thought that legal proceedings would have been launched by the fisherman (or their association) rather than by the French Government - at least in the first instance.

    If I understand correctly, there have been a number of extensions to temporary licenses reported, which suggests that some kind of formal process was ongoing.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    Aslan said:

    The UK has granted 98% of fishing license applications. Presumably the high rate is from the Irish, Danish, Dutch and Germans, who don't illegally fish.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/DavidGHFrost/status/1454460925549887490

    I read that the UK has granted more fishing licences to the French than the rest of the EU (ex-Ireland) put together
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586

    Aslan said:

    The UK has granted 98% of fishing license applications. Presumably the high rate is from the Irish, Danish, Dutch and Germans, who don't illegally fish.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/DavidGHFrost/status/1454460925549887490

    I read that the UK has granted more fishing licences to the French than the rest of the EU (ex-Ireland) put together
    Proximity and all that - I would assume that the more numerous small boats would be mostly French.

    Other nations would have fewer, but larger boats, since they would be travelling longer distance....
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,677

    Thread:

    1/7 I would like to set out where things stand between the UK and the EU on fisheries and related issues, and why recent French rhetoric and threats, potentially leading to a breach by the EU of its Treaty obligations, are such an important matter for us....

    2 We have been in talks with the EU Commission for weeks on fisheries licensing & have granted 98% of applications. We do so in good faith & are fully delivering on our TCA obligation - to license vessels which can prove they have actually fished previously in our 6-12nm limit.

    6 As I set out yesterday to @MarosSefcovic, these threats, if implemented on 2 November, would put the EU in breach of its obligations under our trade agreement. So we are actively considering launching dispute settlement proceedings as set out in Article 738 of the TCA.


    https://twitter.com/DavidGHFrost/status/1454460931937812488?s=20

    It will be very interesting how this plays out
    I can't believe the French are actually going to blockade their ports against us. A crazy escalation. And pointless - no way can a British government capitulate to such open hostility. So it's not going to help a single French fisherman

    in the meantime we should be looking to move our freight through Belgium and Holland in future, cutting the French out altogether. They cannot be trusted
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,947

    kinabalu said:

    RobD said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    boulay said:

    kinabalu said:

    boulay said:

    kinabalu said:

    boulay said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    boulay said:

    MattW said:

    Morning all.

    Does anyone happen to have a link to the FT interview with Mr Macron this morning?

    Thanks

    Unfortunately not but from the Today programme this morning (and frankly at least the last few weeks) I’m getting completely fed up with how the BBC is reporting this situation Re fishing.

    They seem to give more credence to the French govt position that we are breaking an agreement and we are not to be trusted etc.

    Why is it beyond the wit of the BBC to get the French ambassador on and ask him outright:

    1. Does the agreement signed with the EU demand that French boats prove they fished those areas in the required timeframe?

    2. As the agreement does demand proof then why haven’t those boats provided proof?

    3. If they cannot provide proof then as the French are so big on the EU being a “rules based organisation” do the French govt not agree that it would be wrong to break these rules?

    4. If the French govt think that these rules should be broken then why are they attacking the UK and accusing us of not respecting the treaty when it is they who are not?

    5. Why is Macron slagging off the UK saying we are not a reliable partner when it is clearly the French having epic meltdowns threatening electricity supplies, trade, removing. Ambassadors- clearly it is they who are unreliable temperamental partners.

    6. If the French PM thinks the EU is so amazing then why would anyone want to leave - therefore why do they think they need to damage countries that leave if it’s so terrible anyway?

    7. Why is France so angry about Brexit - surely it’s better for them as increases their weight and influence and removes the UK as an anchor on more EU?

    Can’t imagine it’s too hard to ask these questions instead of accepting that because we are the UK it must be us who are wrong……
    Yes, two sides to every argument etc, but we shouldn't rule out the possibility (probability?) that this Boris Johnson government are (again) acting in bad faith and (again) showing they can't be trusted. It would be totally in character.
    On the other side there's Macron, who tried his very best to destroy the reputation of the one vaccine being made for the poorest people in the world.

    What sort of 'character' does that?
    Yep, fair comment. Macron is no slouch at picking fights with foreigners for domestic consumption. All rather pathetic. I suspect he's got a good case on this fishing thing but no doubt he's also grandstanding. And that vaccine trashing he did was abysmal. I marked him down bigtime for that. Moved him down a whole drawer. He's in the middle one of 5 now and he's not totally safe there.
    He hasn’t got a “good case” on this fishing thing. He has no case. The French govt headed by Monsieur Macron are members of the EU, a rules based organisation no less, and under the terms of this membership (the leaving of which is so dreadful by the way) the EU are responsible for the management of fishing rights in EU waters and signed, as a rules based organisation, a treaty which laid out the conditions for continued fishing arrangements.

    The fact that the French discovered that a number of their boats had been very forgetful in keeping their logs of their fishing up to date, or even keeping them at all (perhaps some French fishermen think that writing is for softies like Moliere and it’s nothing to do with ensuring they can’t be busted for overfishing or fishing in protected areas, no sir) means that under the terms of the treaty that the rules based organisation signed on behalf of France in line with their rules of the organisation has left the French fishers caught at low tide with their waders round their ankles.

    So Macron has no case. The prosecutors of Dreyfus had more of a case. The best lawyers in Spiral would tell him he doesn’t have a case. What he does have a case of however is BDS and election fever.
    Sorry but putting only the UK side of the case doesn't show that France doesn't have one. It more likely shows your bias.

    It’s not the UK side of the case - it’s the Jersey side of the case. Jersey is not part of the UK.

    The reason I cannot put the French side of the case across is that they do not have one. They have been signed up by the EU to a treaty that’s ended up unfavourably for them in this particular sector and so they are having a tantrum.

    If they were convinced of their case they would take action in line with the provisions of the treaty - there are legal provisions if Jersey is breaking the terms.

    Instead they are threatening to cut off the electricity supply to an island of 110,000 people - over a matter of about 40 fishing boats.

    Think about it - they are threatening to cut electricity to 110,000 people because some of their fishermen are unable to meet the requirements of a treaty that the EU signed up to on behalf of the French govt.

    Jersey did not set the terms. Jersey isn’t in a strong position to set the terms. Jersey is applying the terms of the treaty as legally laid out. In return the French government is threatening to cut the electricity supply.

    If Russia threatened to cut off the electricity supply to a country over such a tiny issue would you say they were being ridiculous or that it’s perfectly acceptable? Or is it just blindness to European fallibility and that maybe just for once they are the bad guys….. I think it’s ultimately your bias that is showing.

    And the silence from other EU countries’ leaders in support of France on this is somewhat telling.
    I'll take your summary more seriously if you give the correct one word answer to the following question -

    Are we justified in threatening to tear up the NI protocol because its implementation will cause us problems?
    Please accept my sincerest apologies Kinabalu for overlooking your test on my intellectual integrity - I was busy making mud pies in the garden whilst burning French flags and scorning garlic.

    I do not have the same level of intellectual integrity as you so am unable to answer your test with one word - I merely have the low level intellect to answer thus:

    Is there legal provision within the NI protocol for either side to “tear it up” or maybe just activate a clause that ends it? Think UVDL might know as she has more intellectual integrity than I have.

    Is one side Re the NI protocol insisting on ignoring the rules agreed (including the agreement within the treaty allowing either side to withdraw) to and threatening hostile action to the other side who are abiding to the rules as set out in the treaty?

    Is anyone saying that if the UK government do potentially at some unknown point in the future break a treaty with regards NI that this potential unknown event justifies the French government trying to bully a party to ignore the legal demands of a treaty to suit the French governments wishes?

    I look forward to your enlightenment.
    To be brief. Point is, it's clear that Johnson/Frost are behaving badly in threatening to tear up an agreement they've just signed up to. There's no justification for it. They have no case. I asked you whether you agree with me there. A 'yes' would have shown to me your intellectual integrity in punditing on 'UK vs EU' matters (since I can sense you'd be one to strain and contort in order to support Johnson and 'us' regardless) and I'd have been ready to be influenced by your output on the fishing dispute. But sadly it's a 'no'. Lots of words, to be sure, and questions back to me, but in essence a 'no'. So we must leave it there. You posting about the nefarious French, me passing by and utterly unmoved.
    Why do you persist in this lie that anyone is behaving badly in tearing up an agreement when they are not tearing up an agreement?

    Are you too silly to understand Articles 13 and 16 are a part of the agreement? So Frost and Johnson are operating within it?

    Or are you too dishonest that you'd rather go with Trumpian Alternative Facts?
    A16 is for emergencies and there isn't one. But look, rather than tumbling around with a Brexit ultra like you to no great effect I'd like to say something nice. Absolutely no sign yet of you lapsing into "frogs" on this thread, despite it being all about the ghastly French and therefore presumably quite a struggle to stay respectable. Hats off, and I mean it.
    Article 16 mentions nothing of emergencies, in fact it talks about the opposite with situations that are "liable to persist".
    Serious unforeseen situations that can't be rectified within the agreement. This doesn't sound like the opposite of emergencies. Regardless, we don't have one. The NI problems need to be resolved without using the nuclear option - and they will be imo. Johnson won't be invoking A16, just as Macron won't be cutting off the power to Jersey. There are strong similarities to their behaviour. Bad faith grandstanding. This is actually what I'm seeking to highlight. Not to excuse Macron, but to get a clearer and fuller picture of how it is now, post Brexit, with us and France and the EU. You carry on with 'Us good, French bad' if you want, but you can't blame a person for trying to widen the lens.
    Article 16 doesn't say anything about unforeseen situations.
    No, it screams it.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    Scotland COVID cases not as alarming as they first appear (3867 vs 2403 wa) as a lab snafu has led to backlogged cases being included in today's numbers:

    https://twitter.com/UKCovid19Stats/status/1454459587244003333?s=20
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,344
    IIRC our Mr Sandpit was planning to be at the England vs Australia game. He’ll be a happy man at the moment!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,677
    Oh dear. A lack of atmos in Dubai?
  • Aslan said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MattW said:

    kjh said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    kjh said:

    RobD said:

    kjh said:

    Brilliant, both @CarlottaVance and @boulay detailed analysis re the French case is 'they don't have one' as opposed to them not finding out whether they actually do have a case or not.

    And we get ridiculous responses of 'well you should have kept your log book for a boat you stopped owning up to 5 years ago'

    How many people here keep their car registration details of a car they sold years ago and I assume a log book goes with the boat and is a more substantial document. Actually I don't know that but do you Carlotta or Boulay?

    This is just nationalist nonsense; we are right because we are British and the Foreigner's are wrong. None of us here know the facts.

    How is that a ridiculous response? You're expected to keep tax records for seven years, IIRC.
    Well I answered that.

    a) The log book probably goes with the boat.

    b) Do you keep your old car records?

    c) Is there a requirement to keep records of a boat you have sold?

    And of course this was just one example of how people arguing here have no idea what the French case is. They just assume they are in the wrong. They may be. They may not. It is bizarre though to just assume they don't have a case.
    I’m no expert on fishing, but if I wanted to sell, for example, an aeroplane or a classic racing car, there are sure as hell protocols and discussions around documentation that are worked through at the time of sale. Some documents will remain with the vehicle, others remain with the original owner, and others with various authorities and third parties, setting out everyone’s future rights and obligations.

    Why would a fishing boat be any different? If he’s selling his boat for scrap and upgrading to a new vessel, he’ll want to keep the fishing rights associated with it. If he’s selling his boat to another fisherman, and upgrading to a new boat, there will need to be an agreement between the buyer, seller and fishing authorities, as to future fishing rights of the two boats. The buyer (and his lawyer) sure as hell wants to know if he’s buying a boat, or buying fishing rights.
    Also (and here I do confess ignorance) if you need the old log book, why not just go and get it, and borrow it from the new owner? Then make a copy? Nip round St Malo, use your phonecam, Le Bingo

    How hard is that? Or have these boats all weirdly disappeared to Papeete?
    This sort of 'papers please' pettyfogging mentality led to the Windrush scandal and to countless other injustices over the piece. There could be valid reasons why the fisherfolk can't produce the exact docs required per the exact wording of some form or other. Agreements need to be implemented according to their spirit not simply their letter. It's a myth put about by jobbing lawyers that they don't. Are we behaving well here? Or are we nitpicking? I honestly don't know and I'm pretty skeptical of anybody who says they do - unless they write a really good post explaining why France has no case PLUS they say without caveat that Johnson is being a dick on the NI protocol. This is the magic combo, weighty looking post slagging off Macron on the fish plus demonstrated intellectual integrity. That'd nail it for me. I could get off the wheel and have some cheese.
    This sort of attitude @kinabalu will get you deported, at least. For simply suggesting there might just be two sides to an argument I have been told I hate my country.
    I think calling "papers, please" pettufogging is fascinating and revealing rhetoric.

    So, then, we should not have to have an Insurance Certificate or an MOT Cert for our cars, and just be allowed to drive in them by asserting that we do have the paperwork?

    I'm incline to ask @kinabalu to turn up at the local airport to pilot the next passenger flight out, and see if harrumphing about checks on "papers", rather than providing any, suffices for getting into the cockpit.

    Licenses are important in this case, because it is a license to make a livelihood, and it is in the ratified agreement that historic evidence of participation is required. It is notable that the local French fishermen based near Jersey are amongst those asserting that the ones not issued licenses do not have a history of participation.

    That's all, really.
    The French fishermen are in exactly the position of people who could not demonstrate lost earnings for COVID purposes because they had been working cash in hand. Hoist with their own
    That's exactly right. If there were good arguments for the absence of records, the French would be making them. But there aren't so instead they are trying to turn this into an abstract argument about punishing perfidious Albion.
    I wonder if the situation is something like this -

    - Previously enforcement was a slack on small boats. They just did their thing.
    - When Brexit came in, the new rules are actually being enforced.
    - A number of people who didn't actually have the fishing rights, or had them and didn't exercise them are now being asked to sign up to formal licensing and have got a bit stuck.

    I am reminded of the following - before Brexit, you could bring in pretty much unlimited amount of wine from France, as long as it was for personal use. Customs and Excise fought a long and losing battle to stop this.

    Post Brexit, they introduced small personal allowances and enforced them.

    Certain small UK wine dealers were used to drive a transit van over to see their mates in the various vineyards and coming back with multiple metric tons of high end wine. Which they could then sell at a keen price, with an increased profit.

    This trade has now come to a screeching halt.

    Unfair, or proper license enforcement? They were certainly abusing the "for personal use" provisions.
    Proper licence enforcement in both cases. The issue is not that the laws are now being enforced but that they were not before. Don't pass laws that you either cannot or choose not to enforce.
    Totally agreed. If a law doesn't need to be enforced, it shouldn't be the law.

    Otherwise you're just giving a competitive advantage to whoever is prepared to break the law.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,695
    kjh said:

    MaxPB said:

    kjh said:

    All I can say is I am glad I'm not in the dock with you lot deciding who is right and who is wrong in the jury.

    You seem happy to make a decision without much of the actually evidence and with only hearing the prosecution (or Daily Express) and not the defence, or maybe just deciding I'm a rum looking person so I must be guilty.

    This is extremely desperate. You just can't admit that the "rules based organisation" you've supported for so long is now on the brink of condoning France breaking the rules they just signed up to. You've condemned Boris for doing so wrt NI and yet you can't do it for France who have knowingly breached the TCA and are now retrospectively asking for the EU to sign up to what is not their fight. Worse still France are now trying to impose France specific tariffs on the UK which not only breaks the rules of the TCA but the also breach EU treaties.

    You love the EU so much that you're willing to see your own country impoverished and to blame the "daily express" mentality rather than see what the French are trying to do which is break the rules and get away with it.
    ...To the guillotine!!!!

    ...tis a far far better thing I do now...etc...
    I think @MaxPB lost it big time with that post or he thinks I'm someone else (I hope the latter). Goodness knows where the NI reference came from and anyone familiar with my posts knows how much I am someone who is not a fan of rules generally.
    Oh and I support England when they play France in the rugby.
  • kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    RobD said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    boulay said:

    kinabalu said:

    boulay said:

    kinabalu said:

    boulay said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    boulay said:

    MattW said:

    Morning all.

    Does anyone happen to have a link to the FT interview with Mr Macron this morning?

    Thanks

    Unfortunately not but from the Today programme this morning (and frankly at least the last few weeks) I’m getting completely fed up with how the BBC is reporting this situation Re fishing.

    They seem to give more credence to the French govt position that we are breaking an agreement and we are not to be trusted etc.

    Why is it beyond the wit of the BBC to get the French ambassador on and ask him outright:

    1. Does the agreement signed with the EU demand that French boats prove they fished those areas in the required timeframe?

    2. As the agreement does demand proof then why haven’t those boats provided proof?

    3. If they cannot provide proof then as the French are so big on the EU being a “rules based organisation” do the French govt not agree that it would be wrong to break these rules?

    4. If the French govt think that these rules should be broken then why are they attacking the UK and accusing us of not respecting the treaty when it is they who are not?

    5. Why is Macron slagging off the UK saying we are not a reliable partner when it is clearly the French having epic meltdowns threatening electricity supplies, trade, removing. Ambassadors- clearly it is they who are unreliable temperamental partners.

    6. If the French PM thinks the EU is so amazing then why would anyone want to leave - therefore why do they think they need to damage countries that leave if it’s so terrible anyway?

    7. Why is France so angry about Brexit - surely it’s better for them as increases their weight and influence and removes the UK as an anchor on more EU?

    Can’t imagine it’s too hard to ask these questions instead of accepting that because we are the UK it must be us who are wrong……
    Yes, two sides to every argument etc, but we shouldn't rule out the possibility (probability?) that this Boris Johnson government are (again) acting in bad faith and (again) showing they can't be trusted. It would be totally in character.
    On the other side there's Macron, who tried his very best to destroy the reputation of the one vaccine being made for the poorest people in the world.

    What sort of 'character' does that?
    Yep, fair comment. Macron is no slouch at picking fights with foreigners for domestic consumption. All rather pathetic. I suspect he's got a good case on this fishing thing but no doubt he's also grandstanding. And that vaccine trashing he did was abysmal. I marked him down bigtime for that. Moved him down a whole drawer. He's in the middle one of 5 now and he's not totally safe there.
    He hasn’t got a “good case” on this fishing thing. He has no case. The French govt headed by Monsieur Macron are members of the EU, a rules based organisation no less, and under the terms of this membership (the leaving of which is so dreadful by the way) the EU are responsible for the management of fishing rights in EU waters and signed, as a rules based organisation, a treaty which laid out the conditions for continued fishing arrangements.

    The fact that the French discovered that a number of their boats had been very forgetful in keeping their logs of their fishing up to date, or even keeping them at all (perhaps some French fishermen think that writing is for softies like Moliere and it’s nothing to do with ensuring they can’t be busted for overfishing or fishing in protected areas, no sir) means that under the terms of the treaty that the rules based organisation signed on behalf of France in line with their rules of the organisation has left the French fishers caught at low tide with their waders round their ankles.

    So Macron has no case. The prosecutors of Dreyfus had more of a case. The best lawyers in Spiral would tell him he doesn’t have a case. What he does have a case of however is BDS and election fever.
    Sorry but putting only the UK side of the case doesn't show that France doesn't have one. It more likely shows your bias.

    It’s not the UK side of the case - it’s the Jersey side of the case. Jersey is not part of the UK.

    The reason I cannot put the French side of the case across is that they do not have one. They have been signed up by the EU to a treaty that’s ended up unfavourably for them in this particular sector and so they are having a tantrum.

    If they were convinced of their case they would take action in line with the provisions of the treaty - there are legal provisions if Jersey is breaking the terms.

    Instead they are threatening to cut off the electricity supply to an island of 110,000 people - over a matter of about 40 fishing boats.

    Think about it - they are threatening to cut electricity to 110,000 people because some of their fishermen are unable to meet the requirements of a treaty that the EU signed up to on behalf of the French govt.

    Jersey did not set the terms. Jersey isn’t in a strong position to set the terms. Jersey is applying the terms of the treaty as legally laid out. In return the French government is threatening to cut the electricity supply.

    If Russia threatened to cut off the electricity supply to a country over such a tiny issue would you say they were being ridiculous or that it’s perfectly acceptable? Or is it just blindness to European fallibility and that maybe just for once they are the bad guys….. I think it’s ultimately your bias that is showing.

    And the silence from other EU countries’ leaders in support of France on this is somewhat telling.
    I'll take your summary more seriously if you give the correct one word answer to the following question -

    Are we justified in threatening to tear up the NI protocol because its implementation will cause us problems?
    Please accept my sincerest apologies Kinabalu for overlooking your test on my intellectual integrity - I was busy making mud pies in the garden whilst burning French flags and scorning garlic.

    I do not have the same level of intellectual integrity as you so am unable to answer your test with one word - I merely have the low level intellect to answer thus:

    Is there legal provision within the NI protocol for either side to “tear it up” or maybe just activate a clause that ends it? Think UVDL might know as she has more intellectual integrity than I have.

    Is one side Re the NI protocol insisting on ignoring the rules agreed (including the agreement within the treaty allowing either side to withdraw) to and threatening hostile action to the other side who are abiding to the rules as set out in the treaty?

    Is anyone saying that if the UK government do potentially at some unknown point in the future break a treaty with regards NI that this potential unknown event justifies the French government trying to bully a party to ignore the legal demands of a treaty to suit the French governments wishes?

    I look forward to your enlightenment.
    To be brief. Point is, it's clear that Johnson/Frost are behaving badly in threatening to tear up an agreement they've just signed up to. There's no justification for it. They have no case. I asked you whether you agree with me there. A 'yes' would have shown to me your intellectual integrity in punditing on 'UK vs EU' matters (since I can sense you'd be one to strain and contort in order to support Johnson and 'us' regardless) and I'd have been ready to be influenced by your output on the fishing dispute. But sadly it's a 'no'. Lots of words, to be sure, and questions back to me, but in essence a 'no'. So we must leave it there. You posting about the nefarious French, me passing by and utterly unmoved.
    Why do you persist in this lie that anyone is behaving badly in tearing up an agreement when they are not tearing up an agreement?

    Are you too silly to understand Articles 13 and 16 are a part of the agreement? So Frost and Johnson are operating within it?

    Or are you too dishonest that you'd rather go with Trumpian Alternative Facts?
    A16 is for emergencies and there isn't one. But look, rather than tumbling around with a Brexit ultra like you to no great effect I'd like to say something nice. Absolutely no sign yet of you lapsing into "frogs" on this thread, despite it being all about the ghastly French and therefore presumably quite a struggle to stay respectable. Hats off, and I mean it.
    Article 16 mentions nothing of emergencies, in fact it talks about the opposite with situations that are "liable to persist".
    Serious unforeseen situations that can't be rectified within the agreement. This doesn't sound like the opposite of emergencies. Regardless, we don't have one. The NI problems need to be resolved without using the nuclear option - and they will be imo. Johnson won't be invoking A16, just as Macron won't be cutting off the power to Jersey. There are strong similarities to their behaviour. Bad faith grandstanding. This is actually what I'm seeking to highlight. Not to excuse Macron, but to get a clearer and fuller picture of how it is now, post Brexit, with us and France and the EU. You carry on with 'Us good, French bad' if you want, but you can't blame a person for trying to widen the lens.
    Article 16 doesn't say anything about unforeseen situations.
    No, it screams it.
    I think that's the voices in your head you're hearing.

    Its not in the text of the Treaty.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    Anyone seen @DavidL?

    One of our members, conducting legitimate business, was removed from Edinburgh Sheriff Court today by @PoliceScotland on the instruction of @SCTScourtstribs
    This is an absolute outrage. You would expect this of a totalitarian state. An urgent investigation is required.


    https://twitter.com/EdinBarAssoc/status/1454454087739707399?s=20
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,528
    Leon said:

    Thread:

    1/7 I would like to set out where things stand between the UK and the EU on fisheries and related issues, and why recent French rhetoric and threats, potentially leading to a breach by the EU of its Treaty obligations, are such an important matter for us....

    2 We have been in talks with the EU Commission for weeks on fisheries licensing & have granted 98% of applications. We do so in good faith & are fully delivering on our TCA obligation - to license vessels which can prove they have actually fished previously in our 6-12nm limit.

    6 As I set out yesterday to @MarosSefcovic, these threats, if implemented on 2 November, would put the EU in breach of its obligations under our trade agreement. So we are actively considering launching dispute settlement proceedings as set out in Article 738 of the TCA.


    https://twitter.com/DavidGHFrost/status/1454460931937812488?s=20

    It will be very interesting how this plays out
    I can't believe the French are actually going to blockade their ports against us. A crazy escalation. And pointless - no way can a British government capitulate to such open hostility. So it's not going to help a single French fisherman

    in the meantime we should be looking to move our freight through Belgium and Holland in future, cutting the French out altogether. They cannot be trusted
    That is ultimately what is going to happen either way now. The main loser from this will be port towns in France who will hope that exports to Ireland will make up for the huge loss of business they will get because of this stuff. The French government ordering ports to slow British goods down inevitably means a competing port without that pressure will get our business, the Belgians and Dutch are already pitching to British businesses on this basis. I've seen some of it first hand at logistics online conventions where they literally advertise "government stability" as their selling point vs France.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,677
    BigRich said:

    Leon said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Oh God, here it comes. Flower of Scotland

    How did Scotland end up with this terrible dirge? It makes God Save the Queen look like Men of Harlech

    They could have gone for Sunshine on Leith. Wonderful song

    The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap.
    There is a tendency for nations to choose dutiful, pompous dirges when they have superb popular melodies

    How did Australia end up with Advance Australia Fair when they could have had Waltzing Matilda, which, when sung by 100,000 Aussies in a Melbourne stadium sends shivers down the spine. The official anthem, to be polite, does not

    Ditto Ireland with that awful Ireland Ireland anthem, when they had Molly Malone in the wings

    Advance Australia Fair is terrible, but still leaps ahead of the dirge that is GSTQ.

    The problem for me with Waltzing Matilda is as a teenager when down under, it was the dirty lyrics that got stuck in my head. Which kind of makes it hard to take seriously after that.

    Waltzing Matilda
    Who bloody killed her?
    Lying in the grass
    With her finger up her arse
    The Fijian anthem when the men’s rugby sevens team sang it at the Olympics was just magnificent
    God Save the Queen is OK. It has the advantage of being short, memorable, easy to sing, and modestly rousing - SEND HER VICTORIOUS

    But it is no masterpiece. There are many better anthems

    When you think of the songs we could have had, from Jerusalem to Land of Hope and Glory to Rule Britannia to Hey Jude to the very greatest song of all, Bohemian Rhapsody

    Which I see has now been adopted as a kind of global anthem (helped by Green Day). Makes yer praaaad


    America:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdDimyd6cj4


    Argentina:


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfCcYxMhq5w


    Canada:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A6Pp_kqTqE

    There's a hundred of these, from Mexico to Croatia, Italy to Poland


    But the best remains the famous one in Hyde Park

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZnBNuqqz5g
    Those are amazing I had not seen them before!

    Lets hope with the end of COVID we can have more of that type of stuff.
    The one in Hyde Park makes me tear up, a bit, every time I see it. The singing is so immaculate, they even do the guitar solo. 100,000 people

    It is deservedly a very famous video on Youtube. 27 million hits
  • Aslan said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MattW said:

    kjh said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    kjh said:

    RobD said:

    kjh said:

    Brilliant, both @CarlottaVance and @boulay detailed analysis re the French case is 'they don't have one' as opposed to them not finding out whether they actually do have a case or not.

    And we get ridiculous responses of 'well you should have kept your log book for a boat you stopped owning up to 5 years ago'

    How many people here keep their car registration details of a car they sold years ago and I assume a log book goes with the boat and is a more substantial document. Actually I don't know that but do you Carlotta or Boulay?

    This is just nationalist nonsense; we are right because we are British and the Foreigner's are wrong. None of us here know the facts.

    How is that a ridiculous response? You're expected to keep tax records for seven years, IIRC.
    Well I answered that.

    a) The log book probably goes with the boat.

    b) Do you keep your old car records?

    c) Is there a requirement to keep records of a boat you have sold?

    And of course this was just one example of how people arguing here have no idea what the French case is. They just assume they are in the wrong. They may be. They may not. It is bizarre though to just assume they don't have a case.
    I’m no expert on fishing, but if I wanted to sell, for example, an aeroplane or a classic racing car, there are sure as hell protocols and discussions around documentation that are worked through at the time of sale. Some documents will remain with the vehicle, others remain with the original owner, and others with various authorities and third parties, setting out everyone’s future rights and obligations.

    Why would a fishing boat be any different? If he’s selling his boat for scrap and upgrading to a new vessel, he’ll want to keep the fishing rights associated with it. If he’s selling his boat to another fisherman, and upgrading to a new boat, there will need to be an agreement between the buyer, seller and fishing authorities, as to future fishing rights of the two boats. The buyer (and his lawyer) sure as hell wants to know if he’s buying a boat, or buying fishing rights.
    Also (and here I do confess ignorance) if you need the old log book, why not just go and get it, and borrow it from the new owner? Then make a copy? Nip round St Malo, use your phonecam, Le Bingo

    How hard is that? Or have these boats all weirdly disappeared to Papeete?
    This sort of 'papers please' pettyfogging mentality led to the Windrush scandal and to countless other injustices over the piece. There could be valid reasons why the fisherfolk can't produce the exact docs required per the exact wording of some form or other. Agreements need to be implemented according to their spirit not simply their letter. It's a myth put about by jobbing lawyers that they don't. Are we behaving well here? Or are we nitpicking? I honestly don't know and I'm pretty skeptical of anybody who says they do - unless they write a really good post explaining why France has no case PLUS they say without caveat that Johnson is being a dick on the NI protocol. This is the magic combo, weighty looking post slagging off Macron on the fish plus demonstrated intellectual integrity. That'd nail it for me. I could get off the wheel and have some cheese.
    This sort of attitude @kinabalu will get you deported, at least. For simply suggesting there might just be two sides to an argument I have been told I hate my country.
    I think calling "papers, please" pettufogging is fascinating and revealing rhetoric.

    So, then, we should not have to have an Insurance Certificate or an MOT Cert for our cars, and just be allowed to drive in them by asserting that we do have the paperwork?

    I'm incline to ask @kinabalu to turn up at the local airport to pilot the next passenger flight out, and see if harrumphing about checks on "papers", rather than providing any, suffices for getting into the cockpit.

    Licenses are important in this case, because it is a license to make a livelihood, and it is in the ratified agreement that historic evidence of participation is required. It is notable that the local French fishermen based near Jersey are amongst those asserting that the ones not issued licenses do not have a history of participation.

    That's all, really.
    The French fishermen are in exactly the position of people who could not demonstrate lost earnings for COVID purposes because they had been working cash in hand. Hoist with their own
    That's exactly right. If there were good arguments for the absence of records, the French would be making them. But there aren't so instead they are trying to turn this into an abstract argument about punishing perfidious Albion.
    I wonder if the situation is something like this -

    - Previously enforcement was a slack on small boats. They just did their thing.
    - When Brexit came in, the new rules are actually being enforced.
    - A number of people who didn't actually have the fishing rights, or had them and didn't exercise them are now being asked to sign up to formal licensing and have got a bit stuck.

    I am reminded of the following - before Brexit, you could bring in pretty much unlimited amount of wine from France, as long as it was for personal use. Customs and Excise fought a long and losing battle to stop this.

    Post Brexit, they introduced small personal allowances and enforced them.

    Certain small UK wine dealers were used to drive a transit van over to see their mates in the various vineyards and coming back with multiple metric tons of high end wine. Which they could then sell at a keen price, with an increased profit.

    This trade has now come to a screeching halt.

    Unfair, or proper license enforcement? They were certainly abusing the "for personal use" provisions.
    Proper licence enforcement in both cases. The issue is not that the laws are now being enforced but that they were not before. Don't pass laws that you either cannot or choose not to enforce.
    Totally agreed. If a law doesn't need to be enforced, it shouldn't be the law.

    Otherwise you're just giving a competitive advantage to whoever is prepared to break the law.
    More dangerously to my mind you are giving the authorities licence to pick and choose how and when they enforce it to serve their own ends.
  • Sky now leading with the fishing dispute and in particular the French Minister comments
  • Aslan said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MattW said:

    kjh said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    kjh said:

    RobD said:

    kjh said:

    Brilliant, both @CarlottaVance and @boulay detailed analysis re the French case is 'they don't have one' as opposed to them not finding out whether they actually do have a case or not.

    And we get ridiculous responses of 'well you should have kept your log book for a boat you stopped owning up to 5 years ago'

    How many people here keep their car registration details of a car they sold years ago and I assume a log book goes with the boat and is a more substantial document. Actually I don't know that but do you Carlotta or Boulay?

    This is just nationalist nonsense; we are right because we are British and the Foreigner's are wrong. None of us here know the facts.

    How is that a ridiculous response? You're expected to keep tax records for seven years, IIRC.
    Well I answered that.

    a) The log book probably goes with the boat.

    b) Do you keep your old car records?

    c) Is there a requirement to keep records of a boat you have sold?

    And of course this was just one example of how people arguing here have no idea what the French case is. They just assume they are in the wrong. They may be. They may not. It is bizarre though to just assume they don't have a case.
    I’m no expert on fishing, but if I wanted to sell, for example, an aeroplane or a classic racing car, there are sure as hell protocols and discussions around documentation that are worked through at the time of sale. Some documents will remain with the vehicle, others remain with the original owner, and others with various authorities and third parties, setting out everyone’s future rights and obligations.

    Why would a fishing boat be any different? If he’s selling his boat for scrap and upgrading to a new vessel, he’ll want to keep the fishing rights associated with it. If he’s selling his boat to another fisherman, and upgrading to a new boat, there will need to be an agreement between the buyer, seller and fishing authorities, as to future fishing rights of the two boats. The buyer (and his lawyer) sure as hell wants to know if he’s buying a boat, or buying fishing rights.
    Also (and here I do confess ignorance) if you need the old log book, why not just go and get it, and borrow it from the new owner? Then make a copy? Nip round St Malo, use your phonecam, Le Bingo

    How hard is that? Or have these boats all weirdly disappeared to Papeete?
    This sort of 'papers please' pettyfogging mentality led to the Windrush scandal and to countless other injustices over the piece. There could be valid reasons why the fisherfolk can't produce the exact docs required per the exact wording of some form or other. Agreements need to be implemented according to their spirit not simply their letter. It's a myth put about by jobbing lawyers that they don't. Are we behaving well here? Or are we nitpicking? I honestly don't know and I'm pretty skeptical of anybody who says they do - unless they write a really good post explaining why France has no case PLUS they say without caveat that Johnson is being a dick on the NI protocol. This is the magic combo, weighty looking post slagging off Macron on the fish plus demonstrated intellectual integrity. That'd nail it for me. I could get off the wheel and have some cheese.
    This sort of attitude @kinabalu will get you deported, at least. For simply suggesting there might just be two sides to an argument I have been told I hate my country.
    I think calling "papers, please" pettufogging is fascinating and revealing rhetoric.

    So, then, we should not have to have an Insurance Certificate or an MOT Cert for our cars, and just be allowed to drive in them by asserting that we do have the paperwork?

    I'm incline to ask @kinabalu to turn up at the local airport to pilot the next passenger flight out, and see if harrumphing about checks on "papers", rather than providing any, suffices for getting into the cockpit.

    Licenses are important in this case, because it is a license to make a livelihood, and it is in the ratified agreement that historic evidence of participation is required. It is notable that the local French fishermen based near Jersey are amongst those asserting that the ones not issued licenses do not have a history of participation.

    That's all, really.
    The French fishermen are in exactly the position of people who could not demonstrate lost earnings for COVID purposes because they had been working cash in hand. Hoist with their own
    That's exactly right. If there were good arguments for the absence of records, the French would be making them. But there aren't so instead they are trying to turn this into an abstract argument about punishing perfidious Albion.
    I wonder if the situation is something like this -

    - Previously enforcement was a slack on small boats. They just did their thing.
    - When Brexit came in, the new rules are actually being enforced.
    - A number of people who didn't actually have the fishing rights, or had them and didn't exercise them are now being asked to sign up to formal licensing and have got a bit stuck.

    I am reminded of the following - before Brexit, you could bring in pretty much unlimited amount of wine from France, as long as it was for personal use. Customs and Excise fought a long and losing battle to stop this.

    Post Brexit, they introduced small personal allowances and enforced them.

    Certain small UK wine dealers were used to drive a transit van over to see their mates in the various vineyards and coming back with multiple metric tons of high end wine. Which they could then sell at a keen price, with an increased profit.

    This trade has now come to a screeching halt.

    Unfair, or proper license enforcement? They were certainly abusing the "for personal use" provisions.
    Proper licence enforcement in both cases. The issue is not that the laws are now being enforced but that they were not before. Don't pass laws that you either cannot or choose not to enforce.
    But changing the enforcement of laws can produce such cases - and often has.

    Much of law enforcement , in the real world, is discretionary.
    Which is why much of law enforcement is wrong.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,895
    The Brexiteers don't like it up 'em...

    BoZo and Frosty whining about unhelpful rhetoric is poetic.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,314
    edited October 2021

    IIRC our Mr Sandpit was planning to be at the England vs Australia game. He’ll be a happy man at the moment!

    Looking good so far! :D
    Lots of unhappy Aussies here, and again the prawn sandwich brigade haven’t turned up. I bet it doesn’t look sold out on TV, even with the social distancing seats?

    Edit: finally they get a six, only took 16 overs to get one!
  • Real value on backing Brighton to win at Anfield 40/1 over on Betfair.
  • Sky just now showing Boris standing beside Macron, Merkel and Biden following their meeting about Iranian nuclear situation
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,412

    Clément Beaune is saying that unless Britain makes a "significant gesture" by Tuesday they will start preventing British boats from landing and implementing a go slow for processing British goods.

    https://twitter.com/CBeaune/status/1454441755575824384

    They're just going to lose as customers and have people divert around them to unload in Brussels or Spain etc aren't they?
    Laura's on the case

    https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1454461547741388818?t=9Eyz_EHdnAHgfnXk7gKmvg&s=19
    @Leon might be interested to note this Tweet.

    David Frost
    @DavidGHFrost
    3 That is why we are concerned and surprised by the comments seemingly made by @JeanCASTEX to @vonderLeyen that:

    “it is indispensable to show European public opinion that … it causes more damage to leave the EU than to stay in.”
    It’s like when a girl dumps you for something such as a lack of intellectual integrity and then starts trying to mess up your new relationship by shit-stirring and demanding any mutual friends don’t invite you and your new girlfriend round to dinner parties…..

    You aren’t together anymore - it’s not her business anymore so they should get on with their life the way they’ve chosen it and let the ex get on with theirs…..

    NB this scenario is also applicable to an ex boyfriend interfering with an ex girlfriend just to ensure I’m not perceived as making any sexist point……
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,639

    Carnyx said:

    Aslan said:

    Aslan said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MattW said:

    kjh said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    kjh said:

    RobD said:

    kjh said:

    Brilliant, both @CarlottaVance and @boulay detailed analysis re the French case is 'they don't have one' as opposed to them not finding out whether they actually do have a case or not.

    And we get ridiculous responses of 'well you should have kept your log book for a boat you stopped owning up to 5 years ago'

    How many people here keep their car registration details of a car they sold years ago and I assume a log book goes with the boat and is a more substantial document. Actually I don't know that but do you Carlotta or Boulay?

    This is just nationalist nonsense; we are right because we are British and the Foreigner's are wrong. None of us here know the facts.

    How is that a ridiculous response? You're expected to keep tax records for seven years, IIRC.
    Well I answered that.

    a) The log book probably goes with the boat.

    b) Do you keep your old car records?

    c) Is there a requirement to keep records of a boat you have sold?

    And of course this was just one example of how people arguing here have no idea what the French case is. They just assume they are in the wrong. They may be. They may not. It is bizarre though to just assume they don't have a case.
    I’m no expert on fishing, but if I wanted to sell, for example, an aeroplane or a classic racing car, there are sure as hell protocols and discussions around documentation that are worked through at the time of sale. Some documents will remain with the vehicle, others remain with the original owner, and others with various authorities and third parties, setting out everyone’s future rights and obligations.

    Why would a fishing boat be any different? If he’s selling his boat for scrap and upgrading to a new vessel, he’ll want to keep the fishing rights associated with it. If he’s selling his boat to another fisherman, and upgrading to a new boat, there will need to be an agreement between the buyer, seller and fishing authorities, as to future fishing rights of the two boats. The buyer (and his lawyer) sure as hell wants to know if he’s buying a boat, or buying fishing rights.
    Also (and here I do confess ignorance) if you need the old log book, why not just go and get it, and borrow it from the new owner? Then make a copy? Nip round St Malo, use your phonecam, Le Bingo

    How hard is that? Or have these boats all weirdly disappeared to Papeete?
    This sort of 'papers please' pettyfogging mentality led to the Windrush scandal and to countless other injustices over the piece. There could be valid reasons why the fisherfolk can't produce the exact docs required per the exact wording of some form or other. Agreements need to be implemented according to their spirit not simply their letter. It's a myth put about by jobbing lawyers that they don't. Are we behaving well here? Or are we nitpicking? I honestly don't know and I'm pretty skeptical of anybody who says they do - unless they write a really good post explaining why France has no case PLUS they say without caveat that Johnson is being a dick on the NI protocol. This is the magic combo, weighty looking post slagging off Macron on the fish plus demonstrated intellectual integrity. That'd nail it for me. I could get off the wheel and have some cheese.
    This sort of attitude @kinabalu will get you deported, at least. For simply suggesting there might just be two sides to an argument I have been told I hate my country.
    I think calling "papers, please" pettufogging is fascinating and revealing rhetoric.

    So, then, we should not have to have an Insurance Certificate or an MOT Cert for our cars, and just be allowed to drive in them by asserting that we do have the paperwork?

    I'm incline to ask @kinabalu to turn up at the local airport to pilot the next passenger flight out, and see if harrumphing about checks on "papers", rather than providing any, suffices for getting into the cockpit.

    Licenses are important in this case, because it is a license to make a livelihood, and it is in the ratified agreement that historic evidence of participation is required. It is notable that the local French fishermen based near Jersey are amongst those asserting that the ones not issued licenses do not have a history of participation.

    That's all, really.
    The French fishermen are in exactly the position of people who could not demonstrate lost earnings for COVID purposes because they had been working cash in hand. Hoist with their own
    That's exactly right. If there were good arguments for the absence of records, the French would be making them. But there aren't so instead they are trying to turn this into an abstract argument about punishing perfidious Albion.
    I wonder if the situation is something like this -

    - Previously enforcement was a slack on small boats. They just did their thing.
    - When Brexit came in, the new rules are actually being enforced.
    - A number of people who didn't actually have the fishing rights, or had them and didn't exercise them are now being asked to sign up to formal licensing and have got a bit stuck.

    I am reminded of the following - before Brexit, you could bring in pretty much unlimited amount of wine from France, as long as it was for personal use. Customs and Excise fought a long and losing battle to stop this.

    Post Brexit, they introduced small personal allowances and enforced them.

    Certain small UK wine dealers were used to drive a transit van over to see their mates in the various vineyards and coming back with multiple metric tons of high end wine. Which they could then sell at a keen price, with an increased profit.

    This trade has now come to a screeching halt.

    Unfair, or proper license enforcement? They were certainly abusing the "for personal use" provisions.
    Quite clearly proper license enforcement. Just because something isn't enforced doesn't mean you should break the law. These French fishermen were selfishly fishing over quota, at the expense of everyone else, whether British, Dutch, Danish or others. It is notable that the Dutch and Danish are not complaining about a lack of licences, because they have a law abiding culture. The French are getting their just deserts.
    What about customary usage?

    You buy a boat and fish in an area for a decade. Sure, you are bit sloppy with your book keeping and you sold a log book to a friend who needed proof for a license... but so what?

    Suddenly the fish police rock up and tell you to fuck off.

    Another interesting comparison. The New York taxi medallions - the city kept the number of medallions down, keeping fares high and also meant when they sold some new ones into the market... the price was a nice little earner.

    People invested in medallions. Borrowed mortgage level sums to buy them.

    Then Uber came along....
    They coulod claim aboriginal rights or something. Like the Inuit and Faroe whale hunters, and the Lewis gannet chick collectors.
    The Inuit and Faroe whale hunters have records* of the exercise of their "aboriginal rights"** going back centuries. Not sure about the Lewis chaps.....

    *Mostly mode by outsiders visiting, true....
    **Personally I think they are a bunch of slackers. Real Men (TM) wouldn't use modern gear - a harpoon with a bone spearhead thrown from a canoe that you stitched together yourself is properly traditional.
    1549 MS record for the Leodhasachaid - Dean Munro on the Hebrides.

    "SUILSKERAY. Be sexteen myle of sea to this ile, towards the west, lyes ane ile callit Suilskeray, ane myle lang, without grasse or hedder, with highe blacke craigs, and black fouge thereupon part of them. This ile is full of wylde foulis, and quhen foulis hes ther birdes, men out of the parochin of Nesse in Lewis use to sail ther, and to stay ther seven or aught dayes, and to fetch hame with them their boitt full of dray wild foulis, with wyld foulis fedders. In this ile ther haunts ane kynd of foule callit the colk, little less nor a guise, quha comes in the ver to the land to lay hir eggis, and to clecke hir birds quhill she bring them to perfytness, and at that time her fleiche of fedderis falleth of her all hailly, and she sayles to the mayne sea againe, and comes never to land quhyll the zier end againe, and then she comes with her new fleiche of fedderis. This fleiche that she leaves zeirly upon her nest hes nae pens in the fedderis, nor nae kynd of hard thinge in them that may be felt or graipit, bot utter fyne downes."
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,162
    Sandpit said:

    IIRC our Mr Sandpit was planning to be at the England vs Australia game. He’ll be a happy man at the moment!

    Looking good so far! :D
    Lots of unhappy Aussies here, and again the prawn sandwich brigade haven’t turned up. I bet it doesn’t look sold out on TV, even with the social distancing seats?

    Edit: finally they get a six, only took 16 overs to get one!
    Another one straight after
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,314
    Taz said:

    Sandpit said:

    IIRC our Mr Sandpit was planning to be at the England vs Australia game. He’ll be a happy man at the moment!

    Looking good so far! :D
    Lots of unhappy Aussies here, and again the prawn sandwich brigade haven’t turned up. I bet it doesn’t look sold out on TV, even with the social distancing seats?

    Edit: finally they get a six, only took 16 overs to get one!
    Another one straight after
    20 from that over, only decent one they’ve had.
  • 20 off Woakes final over. What a contrast from his first 3 overs.

    Hopefully too little, too late, for the Aussies.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,314
    Farooq said:

    Real value on backing Brighton to win at Anfield 40/1 over on Betfair.

    I'm on them to win 4-2 :wink:
    Hope you've got 500/1 for that. Brighton to score 3 in the last half hour???
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,314
    Gotcha!
  • Needed that wicket. Agar out 20 (20) definitely the best of the Aussies innings, glad he's out.
  • Leon said:

    BigRich said:

    Leon said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Oh God, here it comes. Flower of Scotland

    How did Scotland end up with this terrible dirge? It makes God Save the Queen look like Men of Harlech

    They could have gone for Sunshine on Leith. Wonderful song

    The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap.
    There is a tendency for nations to choose dutiful, pompous dirges when they have superb popular melodies

    How did Australia end up with Advance Australia Fair when they could have had Waltzing Matilda, which, when sung by 100,000 Aussies in a Melbourne stadium sends shivers down the spine. The official anthem, to be polite, does not

    Ditto Ireland with that awful Ireland Ireland anthem, when they had Molly Malone in the wings

    Advance Australia Fair is terrible, but still leaps ahead of the dirge that is GSTQ.

    The problem for me with Waltzing Matilda is as a teenager when down under, it was the dirty lyrics that got stuck in my head. Which kind of makes it hard to take seriously after that.

    Waltzing Matilda
    Who bloody killed her?
    Lying in the grass
    With her finger up her arse
    The Fijian anthem when the men’s rugby sevens team sang it at the Olympics was just magnificent
    God Save the Queen is OK. It has the advantage of being short, memorable, easy to sing, and modestly rousing - SEND HER VICTORIOUS

    But it is no masterpiece. There are many better anthems

    When you think of the songs we could have had, from Jerusalem to Land of Hope and Glory to Rule Britannia to Hey Jude to the very greatest song of all, Bohemian Rhapsody

    Which I see has now been adopted as a kind of global anthem (helped by Green Day). Makes yer praaaad


    America:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdDimyd6cj4


    Argentina:


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfCcYxMhq5w


    Canada:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A6Pp_kqTqE

    There's a hundred of these, from Mexico to Croatia, Italy to Poland


    But the best remains the famous one in Hyde Park

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZnBNuqqz5g
    Those are amazing I had not seen them before!

    Lets hope with the end of COVID we can have more of that type of stuff.
    The one in Hyde Park makes me tear up, a bit, every time I see it. The singing is so immaculate, they even do the guitar solo. 100,000 people

    It is deservedly a very famous video on Youtube. 27 million hits
    Same here. That is bloody awesome.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,314
    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Real value on backing Brighton to win at Anfield 40/1 over on Betfair.

    I'm on them to win 4-2 :wink:
    Hope you've got 500/1 for that. Brighton to score 3 in the last half hour???
    It's just a joke. A back reference to my bet on Man U to beat Liverpool by that score that turned out to be somewhat less than prescient.
    Mind you, Brighton have just equalised.....
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 21,965

    Sky just now showing Boris standing beside Macron, Merkel and Biden following their meeting about Iranian nuclear situation

    Merkel? She's still Chancellor?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,314
    Replaced one big hitter with another though!
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,895
    My letter in The Times today on the reasons why taxes are increasing - including the economic consequences of Brexit. https://twitter.com/DavidGauke/status/1454469649324781571/photo/1
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,162
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Oh God, here it comes. Flower of Scotland

    How did Scotland end up with this terrible dirge? It makes God Save the Queen look like Men of Harlech

    They could have gone for Sunshine on Leith. Wonderful song

    The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap.
    There is a tendency for nations to choose dutiful, pompous dirges when they have superb popular melodies

    How did Australia end up with Advance Australia Fair when they could have had Waltzing Matilda, which, when sung by 100,000 Aussies in a Melbourne stadium sends shivers down the spine. The official anthem, to be polite, does not

    Ditto Ireland with that awful Ireland Ireland anthem, when they had Molly Malone in the wings

    Advance Australia Fair is terrible, but still leaps ahead of the dirge that is GSTQ.

    The problem for me with Waltzing Matilda is as a teenager when down under, it was the dirty lyrics that got stuck in my head. Which kind of makes it hard to take seriously after that.

    Waltzing Matilda
    Who bloody killed her?
    Lying in the grass
    With her finger up her arse
    The Fijian anthem when the men’s rugby sevens team sang it at the Olympics was just magnificent
    God Save the Queen is OK. It has the advantage of being short, memorable, easy to sing, and modestly rousing - SEND HER VICTORIOUS

    But it is no masterpiece. There are many better anthems

    When you think of the songs we could have had, from Jerusalem to Land of Hope and Glory to Rule Britannia to Hey Jude to the very greatest song of all, Bohemian Rhapsody

    Which I see has now been adopted as a kind of global anthem (helped by Green Day). Makes yer praaaad


    America:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdDimyd6cj4


    Argentina:


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfCcYxMhq5w


    Canada:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A6Pp_kqTqE

    There's a hundred of these, from Mexico to Croatia, Italy to Poland


    But the best remains the famous one in Hyde Park

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZnBNuqqz5g
    If we're branching out beyond national anthems then surely one of the best on the planet has to be You'll Never Walk Alone.

    Here's 95,000 singing it at the MCG: https://youtu.be/5iLL57puZPM?t=247
    That's remarkable. There are 100,000 passionate Liverpool fans in Oz?

    I feel quite a few of them are just pommies being temporary fans for a hit of homeland nostalgia. Nonetheless impressive!
    They’re just fans of Rogers and MC Hammerstein
  • Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Aslan said:

    Aslan said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MattW said:

    kjh said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    kjh said:

    RobD said:

    kjh said:

    Brilliant, both @CarlottaVance and @boulay detailed analysis re the French case is 'they don't have one' as opposed to them not finding out whether they actually do have a case or not.

    And we get ridiculous responses of 'well you should have kept your log book for a boat you stopped owning up to 5 years ago'

    How many people here keep their car registration details of a car they sold years ago and I assume a log book goes with the boat and is a more substantial document. Actually I don't know that but do you Carlotta or Boulay?

    This is just nationalist nonsense; we are right because we are British and the Foreigner's are wrong. None of us here know the facts.

    How is that a ridiculous response? You're expected to keep tax records for seven years, IIRC.
    Well I answered that.

    a) The log book probably goes with the boat.

    b) Do you keep your old car records?

    c) Is there a requirement to keep records of a boat you have sold?

    And of course this was just one example of how people arguing here have no idea what the French case is. They just assume they are in the wrong. They may be. They may not. It is bizarre though to just assume they don't have a case.
    I’m no expert on fishing, but if I wanted to sell, for example, an aeroplane or a classic racing car, there are sure as hell protocols and discussions around documentation that are worked through at the time of sale. Some documents will remain with the vehicle, others remain with the original owner, and others with various authorities and third parties, setting out everyone’s future rights and obligations.

    Why would a fishing boat be any different? If he’s selling his boat for scrap and upgrading to a new vessel, he’ll want to keep the fishing rights associated with it. If he’s selling his boat to another fisherman, and upgrading to a new boat, there will need to be an agreement between the buyer, seller and fishing authorities, as to future fishing rights of the two boats. The buyer (and his lawyer) sure as hell wants to know if he’s buying a boat, or buying fishing rights.
    Also (and here I do confess ignorance) if you need the old log book, why not just go and get it, and borrow it from the new owner? Then make a copy? Nip round St Malo, use your phonecam, Le Bingo

    How hard is that? Or have these boats all weirdly disappeared to Papeete?
    This sort of 'papers please' pettyfogging mentality led to the Windrush scandal and to countless other injustices over the piece. There could be valid reasons why the fisherfolk can't produce the exact docs required per the exact wording of some form or other. Agreements need to be implemented according to their spirit not simply their letter. It's a myth put about by jobbing lawyers that they don't. Are we behaving well here? Or are we nitpicking? I honestly don't know and I'm pretty skeptical of anybody who says they do - unless they write a really good post explaining why France has no case PLUS they say without caveat that Johnson is being a dick on the NI protocol. This is the magic combo, weighty looking post slagging off Macron on the fish plus demonstrated intellectual integrity. That'd nail it for me. I could get off the wheel and have some cheese.
    This sort of attitude @kinabalu will get you deported, at least. For simply suggesting there might just be two sides to an argument I have been told I hate my country.
    I think calling "papers, please" pettufogging is fascinating and revealing rhetoric.

    So, then, we should not have to have an Insurance Certificate or an MOT Cert for our cars, and just be allowed to drive in them by asserting that we do have the paperwork?

    I'm incline to ask @kinabalu to turn up at the local airport to pilot the next passenger flight out, and see if harrumphing about checks on "papers", rather than providing any, suffices for getting into the cockpit.

    Licenses are important in this case, because it is a license to make a livelihood, and it is in the ratified agreement that historic evidence of participation is required. It is notable that the local French fishermen based near Jersey are amongst those asserting that the ones not issued licenses do not have a history of participation.

    That's all, really.
    The French fishermen are in exactly the position of people who could not demonstrate lost earnings for COVID purposes because they had been working cash in hand. Hoist with their own
    That's exactly right. If there were good arguments for the absence of records, the French would be making them. But there aren't so instead they are trying to turn this into an abstract argument about punishing perfidious Albion.
    I wonder if the situation is something like this -

    - Previously enforcement was a slack on small boats. They just did their thing.
    - When Brexit came in, the new rules are actually being enforced.
    - A number of people who didn't actually have the fishing rights, or had them and didn't exercise them are now being asked to sign up to formal licensing and have got a bit stuck.

    I am reminded of the following - before Brexit, you could bring in pretty much unlimited amount of wine from France, as long as it was for personal use. Customs and Excise fought a long and losing battle to stop this.

    Post Brexit, they introduced small personal allowances and enforced them.

    Certain small UK wine dealers were used to drive a transit van over to see their mates in the various vineyards and coming back with multiple metric tons of high end wine. Which they could then sell at a keen price, with an increased profit.

    This trade has now come to a screeching halt.

    Unfair, or proper license enforcement? They were certainly abusing the "for personal use" provisions.
    Quite clearly proper license enforcement. Just because something isn't enforced doesn't mean you should break the law. These French fishermen were selfishly fishing over quota, at the expense of everyone else, whether British, Dutch, Danish or others. It is notable that the Dutch and Danish are not complaining about a lack of licences, because they have a law abiding culture. The French are getting their just deserts.
    What about customary usage?

    You buy a boat and fish in an area for a decade. Sure, you are bit sloppy with your book keeping and you sold a log book to a friend who needed proof for a license... but so what?

    Suddenly the fish police rock up and tell you to fuck off.

    Another interesting comparison. The New York taxi medallions - the city kept the number of medallions down, keeping fares high and also meant when they sold some new ones into the market... the price was a nice little earner.

    People invested in medallions. Borrowed mortgage level sums to buy them.

    Then Uber came along....
    They coulod claim aboriginal rights or something. Like the Inuit and Faroe whale hunters, and the Lewis gannet chick collectors.
    The Inuit and Faroe whale hunters have records* of the exercise of their "aboriginal rights"** going back centuries. Not sure about the Lewis chaps.....

    *Mostly mode by outsiders visiting, true....
    **Personally I think they are a bunch of slackers. Real Men (TM) wouldn't use modern gear - a harpoon with a bone spearhead thrown from a canoe that you stitched together yourself is properly traditional.
    1549 MS record for the Leodhasachaid - Dean Munro on the Hebrides.

    "SUILSKERAY. Be sexteen myle of sea to this ile, towards the west, lyes ane ile callit Suilskeray, ane myle lang, without grasse or hedder, with highe blacke craigs, and black fouge thereupon part of them. This ile is full of wylde foulis, and quhen foulis hes ther birdes, men out of the parochin of Nesse in Lewis use to sail ther, and to stay ther seven or aught dayes, and to fetch hame with them their boitt full of dray wild foulis, with wyld foulis fedders. In this ile ther haunts ane kynd of foule callit the colk, little less nor a guise, quha comes in the ver to the land to lay hir eggis, and to clecke hir birds quhill she bring them to perfytness, and at that time her fleiche of fedderis falleth of her all hailly, and she sayles to the mayne sea againe, and comes never to land quhyll the zier end againe, and then she comes with her new fleiche of fedderis. This fleiche that she leaves zeirly upon her nest hes nae pens in the fedderis, nor nae kynd of hard thinge in them that may be felt or graipit, bot utter fyne downes."
    There was an interesting programme last week on R4, 'Six Months on St Kilda', particularly moving to hear the recorded voices of some of the last native inhabitants. I imagine gannets would have been hunted on the islands for as long as it was inhabited, unfortunately no inheritors left to pick up any aboriginal rights :(
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,706
    Leon said:

    BigRich said:

    Leon said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Oh God, here it comes. Flower of Scotland

    How did Scotland end up with this terrible dirge? It makes God Save the Queen look like Men of Harlech

    They could have gone for Sunshine on Leith. Wonderful song

    The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap.
    There is a tendency for nations to choose dutiful, pompous dirges when they have superb popular melodies

    How did Australia end up with Advance Australia Fair when they could have had Waltzing Matilda, which, when sung by 100,000 Aussies in a Melbourne stadium sends shivers down the spine. The official anthem, to be polite, does not

    Ditto Ireland with that awful Ireland Ireland anthem, when they had Molly Malone in the wings

    Advance Australia Fair is terrible, but still leaps ahead of the dirge that is GSTQ.

    The problem for me with Waltzing Matilda is as a teenager when down under, it was the dirty lyrics that got stuck in my head. Which kind of makes it hard to take seriously after that.

    Waltzing Matilda
    Who bloody killed her?
    Lying in the grass
    With her finger up her arse
    The Fijian anthem when the men’s rugby sevens team sang it at the Olympics was just magnificent
    God Save the Queen is OK. It has the advantage of being short, memorable, easy to sing, and modestly rousing - SEND HER VICTORIOUS

    But it is no masterpiece. There are many better anthems

    When you think of the songs we could have had, from Jerusalem to Land of Hope and Glory to Rule Britannia to Hey Jude to the very greatest song of all, Bohemian Rhapsody

    Which I see has now been adopted as a kind of global anthem (helped by Green Day). Makes yer praaaad


    America:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdDimyd6cj4


    Argentina:


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfCcYxMhq5w


    Canada:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A6Pp_kqTqE

    There's a hundred of these, from Mexico to Croatia, Italy to Poland


    But the best remains the famous one in Hyde Park

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZnBNuqqz5g
    Those are amazing I had not seen them before!

    Lets hope with the end of COVID we can have more of that type of stuff.
    The one in Hyde Park makes me tear up, a bit, every time I see it. The singing is so immaculate, they even do the guitar solo. 100,000 people

    It is deservedly a very famous video on Youtube. 27 million hits
    The world before Covid. I want it back.
  • Six!
    Six!
    Gone!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,677
    BigRich said:

    Leon said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Oh God, here it comes. Flower of Scotland

    How did Scotland end up with this terrible dirge? It makes God Save the Queen look like Men of Harlech

    They could have gone for Sunshine on Leith. Wonderful song

    The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap.
    There is a tendency for nations to choose dutiful, pompous dirges when they have superb popular melodies

    How did Australia end up with Advance Australia Fair when they could have had Waltzing Matilda, which, when sung by 100,000 Aussies in a Melbourne stadium sends shivers down the spine. The official anthem, to be polite, does not

    Ditto Ireland with that awful Ireland Ireland anthem, when they had Molly Malone in the wings

    Advance Australia Fair is terrible, but still leaps ahead of the dirge that is GSTQ.

    The problem for me with Waltzing Matilda is as a teenager when down under, it was the dirty lyrics that got stuck in my head. Which kind of makes it hard to take seriously after that.

    Waltzing Matilda
    Who bloody killed her?
    Lying in the grass
    With her finger up her arse
    The Fijian anthem when the men’s rugby sevens team sang it at the Olympics was just magnificent
    God Save the Queen is OK. It has the advantage of being short, memorable, easy to sing, and modestly rousing - SEND HER VICTORIOUS

    But it is no masterpiece. There are many better anthems

    When you think of the songs we could have had, from Jerusalem to Land of Hope and Glory to Rule Britannia to Hey Jude to the very greatest song of all, Bohemian Rhapsody

    Which I see has now been adopted as a kind of global anthem (helped by Green Day). Makes yer praaaad


    America:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdDimyd6cj4


    Argentina:


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfCcYxMhq5w


    Canada:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A6Pp_kqTqE

    There's a hundred of these, from Mexico to Croatia, Italy to Poland


    But the best remains the famous one in Hyde Park

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZnBNuqqz5g
    Those are amazing I had not seen them before!

    Lets hope with the end of COVID we can have more of that type of stuff.
    This also happened at my niece's wedding in Rhodes, Greece, in 2019 (sob, it all seems so innocent and far away now).

    During the dinner someone started singing Bohemian Rhapsody and then half the entire wedding party joined in and we carried it all the way to end, word perfect. It is a miraculous song in its ability to do that, over 6 minutes. It is partly because it is so varied, and also because it has three or four moments of very different ecstasy. That makes it easy to remember and sing, somehow, and it is always moving when sung with passion
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,677
    Great catch
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,314
    Wicket was the other end

    Six!
    Six!
    Gone!

  • TazTaz Posts: 14,162
    Leon said:

    BigRich said:

    Leon said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Oh God, here it comes. Flower of Scotland

    How did Scotland end up with this terrible dirge? It makes God Save the Queen look like Men of Harlech

    They could have gone for Sunshine on Leith. Wonderful song

    The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap.
    There is a tendency for nations to choose dutiful, pompous dirges when they have superb popular melodies

    How did Australia end up with Advance Australia Fair when they could have had Waltzing Matilda, which, when sung by 100,000 Aussies in a Melbourne stadium sends shivers down the spine. The official anthem, to be polite, does not

    Ditto Ireland with that awful Ireland Ireland anthem, when they had Molly Malone in the wings

    Advance Australia Fair is terrible, but still leaps ahead of the dirge that is GSTQ.

    The problem for me with Waltzing Matilda is as a teenager when down under, it was the dirty lyrics that got stuck in my head. Which kind of makes it hard to take seriously after that.

    Waltzing Matilda
    Who bloody killed her?
    Lying in the grass
    With her finger up her arse
    The Fijian anthem when the men’s rugby sevens team sang it at the Olympics was just magnificent
    God Save the Queen is OK. It has the advantage of being short, memorable, easy to sing, and modestly rousing - SEND HER VICTORIOUS

    But it is no masterpiece. There are many better anthems

    When you think of the songs we could have had, from Jerusalem to Land of Hope and Glory to Rule Britannia to Hey Jude to the very greatest song of all, Bohemian Rhapsody

    Which I see has now been adopted as a kind of global anthem (helped by Green Day). Makes yer praaaad


    America:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdDimyd6cj4


    Argentina:


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfCcYxMhq5w


    Canada:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A6Pp_kqTqE

    There's a hundred of these, from Mexico to Croatia, Italy to Poland


    But the best remains the famous one in Hyde Park

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZnBNuqqz5g
    Those are amazing I had not seen them before!

    Lets hope with the end of COVID we can have more of that type of stuff.
    This also happened at my niece's wedding in Rhodes, Greece, in 2019 (sob, it all seems so innocent and far away now).

    During the dinner someone started singing Bohemian Rhapsody and then half the entire wedding party joined in and we carried it all the way to end, word perfect. It is a miraculous song in its ability to do that, over 6 minutes. It is partly because it is so varied, and also because it has three or four moments of very different ecstasy. That makes it easy to remember and sing, somehow, and it is always moving when sung with passion
    Not quite on the same level but I remember during the height of Britp going to a pub in Sheffield and a guy started playing the Oasis song Don’t look back in Anger on the piano and most of the pub joined in. It still remains a really happy memory.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,947

    kinabalu said:

    boulay said:

    kinabalu said:

    boulay said:

    kinabalu said:

    boulay said:

    kinabalu said:

    boulay said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    boulay said:

    MattW said:

    Morning all.

    Does anyone happen to have a link to the FT interview with Mr Macron this morning?

    Thanks

    Unfortunately not but from the Today programme this morning (and frankly at least the last few weeks) I’m getting completely fed up with how the BBC is reporting this situation Re fishing.

    They seem to give more credence to the French govt position that we are breaking an agreement and we are not to be trusted etc.

    Why is it beyond the wit of the BBC to get the French ambassador on and ask him outright:

    1. Does the agreement signed with the EU demand that French boats prove they fished those areas in the required timeframe?

    2. As the agreement does demand proof then why haven’t those boats provided proof?

    3. If they cannot provide proof then as the French are so big on the EU being a “rules based organisation” do the French govt not agree that it would be wrong to break these rules?

    4. If the French govt think that these rules should be broken then why are they attacking the UK and accusing us of not respecting the treaty when it is they who are not?

    5. Why is Macron slagging off the UK saying we are not a reliable partner when it is clearly the French having epic meltdowns threatening electricity supplies, trade, removing. Ambassadors- clearly it is they who are unreliable temperamental partners.

    6. If the French PM thinks the EU is so amazing then why would anyone want to leave - therefore why do they think they need to damage countries that leave if it’s so terrible anyway?

    7. Why is France so angry about Brexit - surely it’s better for them as increases their weight and influence and removes the UK as an anchor on more EU?

    Can’t imagine it’s too hard to ask these questions instead of accepting that because we are the UK it must be us who are wrong……
    Yes, two sides to every argument etc, but we shouldn't rule out the possibility (probability?) that this Boris Johnson government are (again) acting in bad faith and (again) showing they can't be trusted. It would be totally in character.
    On the other side there's Macron, who tried his very best to destroy the reputation of the one vaccine being made for the poorest people in the world.

    What sort of 'character' does that?
    Yep, fair comment. Macron is no slouch at picking fights with foreigners for domestic consumption. All rather pathetic. I suspect he's got a good case on this fishing thing but no doubt he's also grandstanding. And that vaccine trashing he did was abysmal. I marked him down bigtime for that. Moved him down a whole drawer. He's in the middle one of 5 now and he's not totally safe there.
    He hasn’t got a “good case” on this fishing thing. He has no case. The French govt headed by Monsieur Macron are members of the EU, a rules based organisation no less, and under the terms of this membership (the leaving of which is so dreadful by the way) the EU are responsible for the management of fishing rights in EU waters and signed, as a rules based organisation, a treaty which laid out the conditions for continued fishing arrangements.

    The fact that the French discovered that a number of their boats had been very forgetful in keeping their logs of their fishing up to date, or even keeping them at all (perhaps some French fishermen think that writing is for softies like Moliere and it’s nothing to do with ensuring they can’t be busted for overfishing or fishing in protected areas, no sir) means that under the terms of the treaty that the rules based organisation signed on behalf of France in line with their rules of the organisation has left the French fishers caught at low tide with their waders round their ankles.

    So Macron has no case. The prosecutors of Dreyfus had more of a case. The best lawyers in Spiral would tell him he doesn’t have a case. What he does have a case of however is BDS and election fever.
    Sorry but putting only the UK side of the case doesn't show that France doesn't have one. It more likely shows your bias.

    It’s not the UK side of the case - it’s the Jersey side of the case. Jersey is not part of the UK.

    The reason I cannot put the French side of the case across is that they do not have one. They have been signed up by the EU to a treaty that’s ended up unfavourably for them in this particular sector and so they are having a tantrum.

    If they were convinced of their case they would take action in line with the provisions of the treaty - there are legal provisions if Jersey is breaking the terms.

    Instead they are threatening to cut off the electricity supply to an island of 110,000 people - over a matter of about 40 fishing boats.

    Think about it - they are threatening to cut electricity to 110,000 people because some of their fishermen are unable to meet the requirements of a treaty that the EU signed up to on behalf of the French govt.

    Jersey did not set the terms. Jersey isn’t in a strong position to set the terms. Jersey is applying the terms of the treaty as legally laid out. In return the French government is threatening to cut the electricity supply.

    If Russia threatened to cut off the electricity supply to a country over such a tiny issue would you say they were being ridiculous or that it’s perfectly acceptable? Or is it just blindness to European fallibility and that maybe just for once they are the bad guys….. I think it’s ultimately your bias that is showing.

    And the silence from other EU countries’ leaders in support of France on this is somewhat telling.
    I'll take your summary more seriously if you give the correct one word answer to the following question -

    Are we justified in threatening to tear up the NI protocol because its implementation will cause us problems?
    Please accept my sincerest apologies Kinabalu for overlooking your test on my intellectual integrity - I was busy making mud pies in the garden whilst burning French flags and scorning garlic.

    I do not have the same level of intellectual integrity as you so am unable to answer your test with one word - I merely have the low level intellect to answer thus:

    Is there legal provision within the NI protocol for either side to “tear it up” or maybe just activate a clause that ends it? Think UVDL might know as she has more intellectual integrity than I have.

    Is one side Re the NI protocol insisting on ignoring the rules agreed (including the agreement within the treaty allowing either side to withdraw) to and threatening hostile action to the other side who are abiding to the rules as set out in the treaty?

    Is anyone saying that if the UK government do potentially at some unknown point in the future break a treaty with regards NI that this potential unknown event justifies the French government trying to bully a party to ignore the legal demands of a treaty to suit the French governments wishes?

    I look forward to your enlightenment.
    To be brief. Point is, it's clear that Johnson/Frost are behaving badly in threatening to tear up an agreement they've just signed up to. There's no justification for it. They have no case. I asked you whether you agree with me there. A 'yes' would have shown to me your intellectual integrity in punditing on 'UK vs EU' matters (since I can sense you'd be one to strain and contort in order to support Johnson and 'us' regardless) and I'd have been ready to be influenced by your output on the fishing dispute. But sadly it's a 'no'. Lots of words, to be sure, and questions back to me, but in essence a 'no'. So we must leave it there. You posting about the nefarious French, me passing by and utterly unmoved.
    If you had asked “do you think it’s wrong for Boris to rip up the NI protocol without any legal right or clauses that allow cancellation” then I would say it was wrong.

    If you ask “do you think it is wrong for Boris to exercise a legally applicable clause in the NI protocol in lines with the agreement signed and agreed by both parties in the same legal right that UVDL did” then I would say it is ok. It doesn’t mean I want him to do it or it is wise to do so but there is a major difference between not abiding by the terms of a treaty and using a mechanism within the treaty.

    You use the phrase “tear up” when you could equally, if balance was your thing, say “activate a clause”.

    if the French govt think that jersey has broken the terms of the treaty then there are legal measures they can enact, or rather the EU would enact as the injured party as signatory to the treaty.

    The fact that they are not simply enacting the legal measures and resorting to unilateral threats (when the treaty is between the EU - acting on behalf of all members - and Jersey) suggests that they know that they cannot win through a legal route.

    However as I have very little intellectual integrity I bow to your greater wisdom and knowledge on political matters, intellectual heft and the situation on the ground in the place I live.
    Oh ffs, dancing on a pin there. I'm simply asking you to agree that Johnson is acting in bad faith on the Protocol. A 'yes' (which is just so totally and obviously the case) unlocks for me the gates to your posts on the fishing dispute. Which I'm keen to see happen because they look quite solid, especially now I find out you live in Jersey. So it'd be good for both of us. Just write and say Johnson - or even call him "Boris" if you want - is acting in bad faith on NI and bingo, I can lap up your knowledge and expertise on this other matter. I sense you're close to saying it and it's only that I'm asking which is stopping you.
    There is no bad faith.

    The Protocol was implemented. It has safeguard conditions, which have been met. So now they're seeking to use those provisions to get the Protocol replaced as was envisioned and using the process laid down . . . in the Protocol.

    You are the one operating in bad faith trying to write off Article 13 altogether and rewrite Article 16 with conditions you have invented entirely in your own head rather than the ones that are actually there in writing.
    Philip. This is 'post-truth society' stuff. You're seeking to gaslight but my gas can't be lit. Unwanted memories, now, of "Chris Fenwick", school badboy, setting fire to his farts in a Chemistry lesson, instead of learning his periodic table, so thank you for that.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,162
    Leon said:

    Great catch

    Magnificent.
  • Sandpit said:

    Wicket was the other end

    Six!
    Six!
    Gone!

    Fair enough but they've both gone by the next ball.
  • What an over from Chris Jordan!
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,177
    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    BigRich said:

    Leon said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Oh God, here it comes. Flower of Scotland

    How did Scotland end up with this terrible dirge? It makes God Save the Queen look like Men of Harlech

    They could have gone for Sunshine on Leith. Wonderful song

    The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap.
    There is a tendency for nations to choose dutiful, pompous dirges when they have superb popular melodies

    How did Australia end up with Advance Australia Fair when they could have had Waltzing Matilda, which, when sung by 100,000 Aussies in a Melbourne stadium sends shivers down the spine. The official anthem, to be polite, does not

    Ditto Ireland with that awful Ireland Ireland anthem, when they had Molly Malone in the wings

    Advance Australia Fair is terrible, but still leaps ahead of the dirge that is GSTQ.

    The problem for me with Waltzing Matilda is as a teenager when down under, it was the dirty lyrics that got stuck in my head. Which kind of makes it hard to take seriously after that.

    Waltzing Matilda
    Who bloody killed her?
    Lying in the grass
    With her finger up her arse
    The Fijian anthem when the men’s rugby sevens team sang it at the Olympics was just magnificent
    God Save the Queen is OK. It has the advantage of being short, memorable, easy to sing, and modestly rousing - SEND HER VICTORIOUS

    But it is no masterpiece. There are many better anthems

    When you think of the songs we could have had, from Jerusalem to Land of Hope and Glory to Rule Britannia to Hey Jude to the very greatest song of all, Bohemian Rhapsody

    Which I see has now been adopted as a kind of global anthem (helped by Green Day). Makes yer praaaad


    America:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdDimyd6cj4


    Argentina:


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfCcYxMhq5w


    Canada:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A6Pp_kqTqE

    There's a hundred of these, from Mexico to Croatia, Italy to Poland


    But the best remains the famous one in Hyde Park

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZnBNuqqz5g
    Those are amazing I had not seen them before!

    Lets hope with the end of COVID we can have more of that type of stuff.
    The one in Hyde Park makes me tear up, a bit, every time I see it. The singing is so immaculate, they even do the guitar solo. 100,000 people

    It is deservedly a very famous video on Youtube. 27 million hits
    The world before Covid. I want it back.
    We’re getting there. Watch match of the the day tonight. Tens of thousands of happy fans in stadia. Next year will have all the festivals back.
  • kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    boulay said:

    kinabalu said:

    boulay said:

    kinabalu said:

    boulay said:

    kinabalu said:

    boulay said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    boulay said:

    MattW said:

    Morning all.

    Does anyone happen to have a link to the FT interview with Mr Macron this morning?

    Thanks

    Unfortunately not but from the Today programme this morning (and frankly at least the last few weeks) I’m getting completely fed up with how the BBC is reporting this situation Re fishing.

    They seem to give more credence to the French govt position that we are breaking an agreement and we are not to be trusted etc.

    Why is it beyond the wit of the BBC to get the French ambassador on and ask him outright:

    1. Does the agreement signed with the EU demand that French boats prove they fished those areas in the required timeframe?

    2. As the agreement does demand proof then why haven’t those boats provided proof?

    3. If they cannot provide proof then as the French are so big on the EU being a “rules based organisation” do the French govt not agree that it would be wrong to break these rules?

    4. If the French govt think that these rules should be broken then why are they attacking the UK and accusing us of not respecting the treaty when it is they who are not?

    5. Why is Macron slagging off the UK saying we are not a reliable partner when it is clearly the French having epic meltdowns threatening electricity supplies, trade, removing. Ambassadors- clearly it is they who are unreliable temperamental partners.

    6. If the French PM thinks the EU is so amazing then why would anyone want to leave - therefore why do they think they need to damage countries that leave if it’s so terrible anyway?

    7. Why is France so angry about Brexit - surely it’s better for them as increases their weight and influence and removes the UK as an anchor on more EU?

    Can’t imagine it’s too hard to ask these questions instead of accepting that because we are the UK it must be us who are wrong……
    Yes, two sides to every argument etc, but we shouldn't rule out the possibility (probability?) that this Boris Johnson government are (again) acting in bad faith and (again) showing they can't be trusted. It would be totally in character.
    On the other side there's Macron, who tried his very best to destroy the reputation of the one vaccine being made for the poorest people in the world.

    What sort of 'character' does that?
    Yep, fair comment. Macron is no slouch at picking fights with foreigners for domestic consumption. All rather pathetic. I suspect he's got a good case on this fishing thing but no doubt he's also grandstanding. And that vaccine trashing he did was abysmal. I marked him down bigtime for that. Moved him down a whole drawer. He's in the middle one of 5 now and he's not totally safe there.
    He hasn’t got a “good case” on this fishing thing. He has no case. The French govt headed by Monsieur Macron are members of the EU, a rules based organisation no less, and under the terms of this membership (the leaving of which is so dreadful by the way) the EU are responsible for the management of fishing rights in EU waters and signed, as a rules based organisation, a treaty which laid out the conditions for continued fishing arrangements.

    The fact that the French discovered that a number of their boats had been very forgetful in keeping their logs of their fishing up to date, or even keeping them at all (perhaps some French fishermen think that writing is for softies like Moliere and it’s nothing to do with ensuring they can’t be busted for overfishing or fishing in protected areas, no sir) means that under the terms of the treaty that the rules based organisation signed on behalf of France in line with their rules of the organisation has left the French fishers caught at low tide with their waders round their ankles.

    So Macron has no case. The prosecutors of Dreyfus had more of a case. The best lawyers in Spiral would tell him he doesn’t have a case. What he does have a case of however is BDS and election fever.
    Sorry but putting only the UK side of the case doesn't show that France doesn't have one. It more likely shows your bias.

    It’s not the UK side of the case - it’s the Jersey side of the case. Jersey is not part of the UK.

    The reason I cannot put the French side of the case across is that they do not have one. They have been signed up by the EU to a treaty that’s ended up unfavourably for them in this particular sector and so they are having a tantrum.

    If they were convinced of their case they would take action in line with the provisions of the treaty - there are legal provisions if Jersey is breaking the terms.

    Instead they are threatening to cut off the electricity supply to an island of 110,000 people - over a matter of about 40 fishing boats.

    Think about it - they are threatening to cut electricity to 110,000 people because some of their fishermen are unable to meet the requirements of a treaty that the EU signed up to on behalf of the French govt.

    Jersey did not set the terms. Jersey isn’t in a strong position to set the terms. Jersey is applying the terms of the treaty as legally laid out. In return the French government is threatening to cut the electricity supply.

    If Russia threatened to cut off the electricity supply to a country over such a tiny issue would you say they were being ridiculous or that it’s perfectly acceptable? Or is it just blindness to European fallibility and that maybe just for once they are the bad guys….. I think it’s ultimately your bias that is showing.

    And the silence from other EU countries’ leaders in support of France on this is somewhat telling.
    I'll take your summary more seriously if you give the correct one word answer to the following question -

    Are we justified in threatening to tear up the NI protocol because its implementation will cause us problems?
    Please accept my sincerest apologies Kinabalu for overlooking your test on my intellectual integrity - I was busy making mud pies in the garden whilst burning French flags and scorning garlic.

    I do not have the same level of intellectual integrity as you so am unable to answer your test with one word - I merely have the low level intellect to answer thus:

    Is there legal provision within the NI protocol for either side to “tear it up” or maybe just activate a clause that ends it? Think UVDL might know as she has more intellectual integrity than I have.

    Is one side Re the NI protocol insisting on ignoring the rules agreed (including the agreement within the treaty allowing either side to withdraw) to and threatening hostile action to the other side who are abiding to the rules as set out in the treaty?

    Is anyone saying that if the UK government do potentially at some unknown point in the future break a treaty with regards NI that this potential unknown event justifies the French government trying to bully a party to ignore the legal demands of a treaty to suit the French governments wishes?

    I look forward to your enlightenment.
    To be brief. Point is, it's clear that Johnson/Frost are behaving badly in threatening to tear up an agreement they've just signed up to. There's no justification for it. They have no case. I asked you whether you agree with me there. A 'yes' would have shown to me your intellectual integrity in punditing on 'UK vs EU' matters (since I can sense you'd be one to strain and contort in order to support Johnson and 'us' regardless) and I'd have been ready to be influenced by your output on the fishing dispute. But sadly it's a 'no'. Lots of words, to be sure, and questions back to me, but in essence a 'no'. So we must leave it there. You posting about the nefarious French, me passing by and utterly unmoved.
    If you had asked “do you think it’s wrong for Boris to rip up the NI protocol without any legal right or clauses that allow cancellation” then I would say it was wrong.

    If you ask “do you think it is wrong for Boris to exercise a legally applicable clause in the NI protocol in lines with the agreement signed and agreed by both parties in the same legal right that UVDL did” then I would say it is ok. It doesn’t mean I want him to do it or it is wise to do so but there is a major difference between not abiding by the terms of a treaty and using a mechanism within the treaty.

    You use the phrase “tear up” when you could equally, if balance was your thing, say “activate a clause”.

    if the French govt think that jersey has broken the terms of the treaty then there are legal measures they can enact, or rather the EU would enact as the injured party as signatory to the treaty.

    The fact that they are not simply enacting the legal measures and resorting to unilateral threats (when the treaty is between the EU - acting on behalf of all members - and Jersey) suggests that they know that they cannot win through a legal route.

    However as I have very little intellectual integrity I bow to your greater wisdom and knowledge on political matters, intellectual heft and the situation on the ground in the place I live.
    Oh ffs, dancing on a pin there. I'm simply asking you to agree that Johnson is acting in bad faith on the Protocol. A 'yes' (which is just so totally and obviously the case) unlocks for me the gates to your posts on the fishing dispute. Which I'm keen to see happen because they look quite solid, especially now I find out you live in Jersey. So it'd be good for both of us. Just write and say Johnson - or even call him "Boris" if you want - is acting in bad faith on NI and bingo, I can lap up your knowledge and expertise on this other matter. I sense you're close to saying it and it's only that I'm asking which is stopping you.
    There is no bad faith.

    The Protocol was implemented. It has safeguard conditions, which have been met. So now they're seeking to use those provisions to get the Protocol replaced as was envisioned and using the process laid down . . . in the Protocol.

    You are the one operating in bad faith trying to write off Article 13 altogether and rewrite Article 16 with conditions you have invented entirely in your own head rather than the ones that are actually there in writing.
    Philip. This is 'post-truth society' stuff. You're seeking to gaslight but my gas can't be lit. Unwanted memories, now, of "Chris Fenwick", school badboy, setting fire to his farts in a Chemistry lesson, instead of learning his periodic table, so thank you for that.
    You're the gaslighter inventing terms like "emergency" and "unforeseen circumstances" that are not in the Protocol.

    Try telling the truth and reading the Article as actually written instead of inventing your own terminologies for it.

    Or are you so far gone that you have genuinely convinced yourself that the Protocol says things it doesn't actually say? Your claims of bad faith have as much validity as a Trumpist claiming Trump won the election.
  • I'm a dick
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,677
    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    BigRich said:

    Leon said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Oh God, here it comes. Flower of Scotland

    How did Scotland end up with this terrible dirge? It makes God Save the Queen look like Men of Harlech

    They could have gone for Sunshine on Leith. Wonderful song

    The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap.
    There is a tendency for nations to choose dutiful, pompous dirges when they have superb popular melodies

    How did Australia end up with Advance Australia Fair when they could have had Waltzing Matilda, which, when sung by 100,000 Aussies in a Melbourne stadium sends shivers down the spine. The official anthem, to be polite, does not

    Ditto Ireland with that awful Ireland Ireland anthem, when they had Molly Malone in the wings

    Advance Australia Fair is terrible, but still leaps ahead of the dirge that is GSTQ.

    The problem for me with Waltzing Matilda is as a teenager when down under, it was the dirty lyrics that got stuck in my head. Which kind of makes it hard to take seriously after that.

    Waltzing Matilda
    Who bloody killed her?
    Lying in the grass
    With her finger up her arse
    The Fijian anthem when the men’s rugby sevens team sang it at the Olympics was just magnificent
    God Save the Queen is OK. It has the advantage of being short, memorable, easy to sing, and modestly rousing - SEND HER VICTORIOUS

    But it is no masterpiece. There are many better anthems

    When you think of the songs we could have had, from Jerusalem to Land of Hope and Glory to Rule Britannia to Hey Jude to the very greatest song of all, Bohemian Rhapsody

    Which I see has now been adopted as a kind of global anthem (helped by Green Day). Makes yer praaaad


    America:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdDimyd6cj4


    Argentina:


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfCcYxMhq5w


    Canada:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A6Pp_kqTqE

    There's a hundred of these, from Mexico to Croatia, Italy to Poland


    But the best remains the famous one in Hyde Park

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZnBNuqqz5g
    Those are amazing I had not seen them before!

    Lets hope with the end of COVID we can have more of that type of stuff.
    This also happened at my niece's wedding in Rhodes, Greece, in 2019 (sob, it all seems so innocent and far away now).

    During the dinner someone started singing Bohemian Rhapsody and then half the entire wedding party joined in and we carried it all the way to end, word perfect. It is a miraculous song in its ability to do that, over 6 minutes. It is partly because it is so varied, and also because it has three or four moments of very different ecstasy. That makes it easy to remember and sing, somehow, and it is always moving when sung with passion
    Not quite on the same level but I remember during the height of Britp going to a pub in Sheffield and a guy started playing the Oasis song Don’t look back in Anger on the piano and most of the pub joined in. It still remains a really happy memory.
    Communal singing brings joy always, if you belt it out, especially if it is spontaneous

    Pure hit of endorphines

    I remember a Christmas night in the Coach and Horses pub in Soho. Probably Christmas 2019 actually. Jeez. Sob.

    Anyway they have a piano and they play tunes and people sing and when it works its great, and that night everyone was happy and drunk and when they played Can't Help Falling In Love With You everyone linked arms and swayed and the entire packed pub sang it word for word, loud enough to wake up Belgravia, then we all whooped and hugged

    Getting pins and needles now, somewhat, just remembering it
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,177

    I'm a dick

    Turpin? Whittington? Carry on...
  • I'm a dick

    Are you trying to get likes?
  • I'm lonely
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,677

    I'm lonely

    Cheer up. We are here. Seriously
  • DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    BigRich said:

    Leon said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Oh God, here it comes. Flower of Scotland

    How did Scotland end up with this terrible dirge? It makes God Save the Queen look like Men of Harlech

    They could have gone for Sunshine on Leith. Wonderful song

    The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap.
    There is a tendency for nations to choose dutiful, pompous dirges when they have superb popular melodies

    How did Australia end up with Advance Australia Fair when they could have had Waltzing Matilda, which, when sung by 100,000 Aussies in a Melbourne stadium sends shivers down the spine. The official anthem, to be polite, does not

    Ditto Ireland with that awful Ireland Ireland anthem, when they had Molly Malone in the wings

    Advance Australia Fair is terrible, but still leaps ahead of the dirge that is GSTQ.

    The problem for me with Waltzing Matilda is as a teenager when down under, it was the dirty lyrics that got stuck in my head. Which kind of makes it hard to take seriously after that.

    Waltzing Matilda
    Who bloody killed her?
    Lying in the grass
    With her finger up her arse
    The Fijian anthem when the men’s rugby sevens team sang it at the Olympics was just magnificent
    God Save the Queen is OK. It has the advantage of being short, memorable, easy to sing, and modestly rousing - SEND HER VICTORIOUS

    But it is no masterpiece. There are many better anthems

    When you think of the songs we could have had, from Jerusalem to Land of Hope and Glory to Rule Britannia to Hey Jude to the very greatest song of all, Bohemian Rhapsody

    Which I see has now been adopted as a kind of global anthem (helped by Green Day). Makes yer praaaad


    America:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdDimyd6cj4


    Argentina:


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfCcYxMhq5w


    Canada:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A6Pp_kqTqE

    There's a hundred of these, from Mexico to Croatia, Italy to Poland


    But the best remains the famous one in Hyde Park

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZnBNuqqz5g
    Those are amazing I had not seen them before!

    Lets hope with the end of COVID we can have more of that type of stuff.
    The one in Hyde Park makes me tear up, a bit, every time I see it. The singing is so immaculate, they even do the guitar solo. 100,000 people

    It is deservedly a very famous video on Youtube. 27 million hits
    The world before Covid. I want it back.
    We’re getting there. Watch match of the the day tonight. Tens of thousands of happy fans in stadia. Next year will have all the festivals back.
    Not sure there'll be tens of thousands of happy fans in many stadia today.

    As it stands the only Premier League home team to have won or be winning at the moment is Burnley. Liverpool are drawing and every other home team today is losing or lost.
  • I'm sad
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,314
    A better second half from the convicts, 126 the target, which still seems about 30 short of where it could have been.

    England fans the happy ones in the stadium at half time.
  • Aus 125 all out from exactly 20 overs. Those sixes in the final 4 overs really helped their scoreline.

    The Aussies have a chance now, but fingers crossed we can get this.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,677
    Sandpit said:

    A better second half from the convicts, 126 the target, which still seems about 30 short of where it could have been.

    England fans the happy ones in the stadium at half time.

    The stadium atmos seems a bit lacklustre on the telly. Is it better there?

    I'm still well jel. I'd love to be there in the warmth, with a cold beer!
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,177

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    BigRich said:

    Leon said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Oh God, here it comes. Flower of Scotland

    How did Scotland end up with this terrible dirge? It makes God Save the Queen look like Men of Harlech

    They could have gone for Sunshine on Leith. Wonderful song

    The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap.
    There is a tendency for nations to choose dutiful, pompous dirges when they have superb popular melodies

    How did Australia end up with Advance Australia Fair when they could have had Waltzing Matilda, which, when sung by 100,000 Aussies in a Melbourne stadium sends shivers down the spine. The official anthem, to be polite, does not

    Ditto Ireland with that awful Ireland Ireland anthem, when they had Molly Malone in the wings

    Advance Australia Fair is terrible, but still leaps ahead of the dirge that is GSTQ.

    The problem for me with Waltzing Matilda is as a teenager when down under, it was the dirty lyrics that got stuck in my head. Which kind of makes it hard to take seriously after that.

    Waltzing Matilda
    Who bloody killed her?
    Lying in the grass
    With her finger up her arse
    The Fijian anthem when the men’s rugby sevens team sang it at the Olympics was just magnificent
    God Save the Queen is OK. It has the advantage of being short, memorable, easy to sing, and modestly rousing - SEND HER VICTORIOUS

    But it is no masterpiece. There are many better anthems

    When you think of the songs we could have had, from Jerusalem to Land of Hope and Glory to Rule Britannia to Hey Jude to the very greatest song of all, Bohemian Rhapsody

    Which I see has now been adopted as a kind of global anthem (helped by Green Day). Makes yer praaaad


    America:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdDimyd6cj4


    Argentina:


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfCcYxMhq5w


    Canada:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A6Pp_kqTqE

    There's a hundred of these, from Mexico to Croatia, Italy to Poland


    But the best remains the famous one in Hyde Park

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZnBNuqqz5g
    Those are amazing I had not seen them before!

    Lets hope with the end of COVID we can have more of that type of stuff.
    The one in Hyde Park makes me tear up, a bit, every time I see it. The singing is so immaculate, they even do the guitar solo. 100,000 people

    It is deservedly a very famous video on Youtube. 27 million hits
    The world before Covid. I want it back.
    We’re getting there. Watch match of the the day tonight. Tens of thousands of happy fans in stadia. Next year will have all the festivals back.
    Not sure there'll be tens of thousands of happy fans in many stadia today.

    As it stands the only Premier League home team to have won or be winning at the moment is Burnley. Liverpool are drawing and every other home team today is losing or lost.
    Shows how quick we forget. How long is it since they were playing in empty stadia with piped crowds for the tv?
  • 41,278 and 166 deaths
  • MattWMattW Posts: 22,703

    MattW said:

    ping said:

    Just been shopping at ALDI. Noticeably more missing items, compared to usual.

    I'm due at Aldi at 8pm, when it's dark. Will see.

    No shortages last time, but they did admit to juggling some items.
    Shop at Aldi under cover of darkness, then make a big show of unloading the Waitrose carrier bags from your car when you get home?
    Why would I have a Waitrose carrier bag? Grrr.

    Closest W is about 18 miles (except for the sandwich shop on the motorway.)

    That's even further away than the closest Lib Dem Councillor.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,947
    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Real value on backing Brighton to win at Anfield 40/1 over on Betfair.

    I'm on them to win 4-2 :wink:
    Hope you've got 500/1 for that. Brighton to score 3 in the last half hour???
    It's just a joke. A back reference to my bet on Man U to beat Liverpool by that score that turned out to be somewhat less than prescient.
    But that's in its own special way extremely impressive. To go for 5/0 and it turns out 0/5 takes a hell of a lot of doing. Being wrong is ten a penny, being utterly and diametrically wrong, that's something else. Many never manage it.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,528

    I'm sad

    Get the cricket on!
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,344

    I'm sad

    What would cheer you up? Drinks with friends? A lady? Sunshine?
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,177
    kinabalu said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Real value on backing Brighton to win at Anfield 40/1 over on Betfair.

    I'm on them to win 4-2 :wink:
    Hope you've got 500/1 for that. Brighton to score 3 in the last half hour???
    It's just a joke. A back reference to my bet on Man U to beat Liverpool by that score that turned out to be somewhat less than prescient.
    But that's in its own special way extremely impressive. To go for 5/0 and it turns out 0/5 takes a hell of a lot of doing. Being wrong is ten a penny, being utterly and diametrically wrong, that's something else. Many never manage it.
    It wasn’t quite that, his bet was 4-2 to Utd. Still a big ‘turnaround’
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,314
    edited October 2021
    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    A better second half from the convicts, 126 the target, which still seems about 30 short of where it could have been.

    England fans the happy ones in the stadium at half time.

    The stadium atmos seems a bit lacklustre on the telly. Is it better there?

    I'm still well jel. I'd love to be there in the warmth, with a cold beer!
    General admission areas are packed and having a party, great atmosphere here.

    Lots of no-shows in the sponsors and hospitality though, probably Indians and Pakistanis who went to that match and will go to the final. Shame.

    Am now in a long queue for the bar!
  • MattWMattW Posts: 22,703
    edited October 2021
    ..
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,677
    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    A better second half from the convicts, 126 the target, which still seems about 30 short of where it could have been.

    England fans the happy ones in the stadium at half time.

    The stadium atmos seems a bit lacklustre on the telly. Is it better there?

    I'm still well jel. I'd love to be there in the warmth, with a cold beer!
    General admission areas are packed and having a party, great atmosphere here.

    Lots of no-shows in the sponsors and hospitality though, probably Indians and Pakistanis who went to that match and will go to the final. Shame.

    Am now in a long queue for the bar!
    Ah. Good to hear. Enjoy!
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,342
    7/4 Newcastle to be relegated looks value to me.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,177
    MattW said:

    ..

    All I’m thinking is that 6-12 nano metres is a bit tight...
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,947
    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    BigRich said:

    Leon said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Oh God, here it comes. Flower of Scotland

    How did Scotland end up with this terrible dirge? It makes God Save the Queen look like Men of Harlech

    They could have gone for Sunshine on Leith. Wonderful song

    The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap.
    There is a tendency for nations to choose dutiful, pompous dirges when they have superb popular melodies

    How did Australia end up with Advance Australia Fair when they could have had Waltzing Matilda, which, when sung by 100,000 Aussies in a Melbourne stadium sends shivers down the spine. The official anthem, to be polite, does not

    Ditto Ireland with that awful Ireland Ireland anthem, when they had Molly Malone in the wings

    Advance Australia Fair is terrible, but still leaps ahead of the dirge that is GSTQ.

    The problem for me with Waltzing Matilda is as a teenager when down under, it was the dirty lyrics that got stuck in my head. Which kind of makes it hard to take seriously after that.

    Waltzing Matilda
    Who bloody killed her?
    Lying in the grass
    With her finger up her arse
    The Fijian anthem when the men’s rugby sevens team sang it at the Olympics was just magnificent
    God Save the Queen is OK. It has the advantage of being short, memorable, easy to sing, and modestly rousing - SEND HER VICTORIOUS

    But it is no masterpiece. There are many better anthems

    When you think of the songs we could have had, from Jerusalem to Land of Hope and Glory to Rule Britannia to Hey Jude to the very greatest song of all, Bohemian Rhapsody

    Which I see has now been adopted as a kind of global anthem (helped by Green Day). Makes yer praaaad


    America:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdDimyd6cj4


    Argentina:


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfCcYxMhq5w


    Canada:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A6Pp_kqTqE

    There's a hundred of these, from Mexico to Croatia, Italy to Poland


    But the best remains the famous one in Hyde Park

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZnBNuqqz5g
    Those are amazing I had not seen them before!

    Lets hope with the end of COVID we can have more of that type of stuff.
    This also happened at my niece's wedding in Rhodes, Greece, in 2019 (sob, it all seems so innocent and far away now).

    During the dinner someone started singing Bohemian Rhapsody and then half the entire wedding party joined in and we carried it all the way to end, word perfect. It is a miraculous song in its ability to do that, over 6 minutes. It is partly because it is so varied, and also because it has three or four moments of very different ecstasy. That makes it easy to remember and sing, somehow, and it is always moving when sung with passion
    Not quite on the same level but I remember during the height of Britp going to a pub in Sheffield and a guy started playing the Oasis song Don’t look back in Anger on the piano and most of the pub joined in. It still remains a really happy memory.
    That was the song that wrapped up Our Friends In The North, as Craig walked over the Tyne bridge. Why has that series never been repeated? Seems odd.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,947
    Farooq said:

    kinabalu said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Real value on backing Brighton to win at Anfield 40/1 over on Betfair.

    I'm on them to win 4-2 :wink:
    Hope you've got 500/1 for that. Brighton to score 3 in the last half hour???
    It's just a joke. A back reference to my bet on Man U to beat Liverpool by that score that turned out to be somewhat less than prescient.
    But that's in its own special way extremely impressive. To go for 5/0 and it turns out 0/5 takes a hell of a lot of doing. Being wrong is ten a penny, being utterly and diametrically wrong, that's something else. Many never manage it.
    I went for 4-2, not 5-0. I was "only" 7 goals off!
    Ah. Still a great effort though.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    Meeting on the sidelines of the #G20RomeSummit: Germany, the U.S., France & the U.K. highlight growing concerns over Iran’s nuclear program and call for the return to full compliance with the Vienna agreement. Joint Statement (in German): https://bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/gemeinsame-erklaerung-frankreichs-deutschlands-des-vereinigten-koenigreichs-und-der-vereinigten-staaten-zum-iranischen-nuklearprogramm-1973608 #JCPOA #G20Italy

    https://twitter.com/germanyintheeu/status/1454470572646223873?s=20
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