In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us. To see oursels as ithers see us!
What really annoys me are people who are having excitingly busy social lives, making up for lost time, then coming onto social media and fear-mongering about how reckless Johnson is for not mandating masks, and that fear-mongering making other people feel too scared to go out and socialise at all.
Yesterday was 14 years since I first met my wife (outside a McDonald's in Brixton, naturally). Two years ago we were able to go out to celebrate. Last year, obviously, we celebrated at home. This year, we're fully vaccinated, but my wife still feels it's too risky to go out.
How can you argue against irrational fear when all the people she might trust a bit are telling her that the people she doesn't trust at all are being reckless and dangerous?
I'm becoming quite frustrated, so it's clearly time to step away for a bit.
Funnily enough (it's not funny, obvs) I think people are worse than earlier in the year when they were double jabbed. Now The Booster is the saviour and many are reluctant to do anything without having had it.
Whether by luck or design the government has presided over a scared nation (cf Max's Italy story).
How did we get to this.
Which always reminds me - where is @contrarian I hope he is ok.
Well, off topic but since it is the 11th day of the 11th month I hope I will be forgiven.
Ireland has put together an archive of its war dead. My great-uncle, a doctor, was one of those. I have his medical certificate from the University of Cambridge and his war diary.
He specialised in public health. He was called to an incident and did not have the right saddle for his horse. He fell and the saddle caused a wound which became infected which caused his death.
I recently found a letter from the War Ministry to a distant relative when I was clearing another relative's house - dated exactly for the anniversary today, maybe a day or two later. Her husband had been shot through the knee on 9 November 1918. Fortunately, he survived and became the local bank manager. But how easily ... my own grandfather served in France from 1915 onwards; how even more easily ...
What really annoys me are people who are having excitingly busy social lives, making up for lost time, then coming onto social media and fear-mongering about how reckless Johnson is for not mandating masks, and that fear-mongering making other people feel too scared to go out and socialise at all.
Yesterday was 14 years since I first met my wife (outside a McDonald's in Brixton, naturally). Two years ago we were able to go out to celebrate. Last year, obviously, we celebrated at home. This year, we're fully vaccinated, but my wife still feels it's too risky to go out.
How can you argue against irrational fear when all the people she might trust a bit are telling her that the people she doesn't trust at all are being reckless and dangerous?
I'm becoming quite frustrated, so it's clearly time to step away for a bit.
Funnily enough (it's not funny, obvs) I think people are worse than earlier in the year when they were double jabbed. Now The Booster is the saviour and many are reluctant to do anything without having had it.
Whether by luck or design the government has presided over a scared nation (cf Max's Italy story).
How did we get to this.
Which always reminds me - where is @contrarian I hope he is ok.
And Francis Urquhart. And gideonwise. A few PB regulars have abruptly gone missing of late
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
As far as I can tell there are two measures, with different methodologies.
On a quarterly basis, U.K. is the clear laggard of the G7; on a monthly basis there’s not much separating us from France and Germany.
The figures are construed as disappointing, however, and the pound has fallen on the news.
Analysts seem divided on whether we should expect a great Q4 or a sluggish one.
It's to do with where the quarterly measure starts I think. The monthly measure compares to Feb 2020 and the quarterly one compares to December 2019.
On Q4, the data is coming in pretty hot, the October indices were much stronger than expected and the real time data for November is a continuation of that with some sings of a pick up in activity. One of the key drivers has been the government standing firm on plan b and lockdown measures. Businesses seem more confident investing this month than they did in September.
The big question mark is still the whole plan b saga, the government needs to stand really firm on it and tell the forever lockdowners to get fucked.
And when the main advocate of Plan B remains Whitty / Taylor et al looking at pants-shitting NHS data? We don't need it now. We might do in a few weeks unless we see a sustained drop on all metrics.
Nobody sane wants more lockdown or masks. But the people saying that we should ignore the scientists and the NHS managers with their real world data because their personal clicky research / ideology disagrees can, how did you put it, "get fucked".
Seriously though, what pants-shitting NHS data?
Are we supposed to squash the sombrero for ever?
I don't think we are there yet, but they already have some hospitals beyond overflowing. Remember that Covid and cuts have utterly shagged the system so that everything is backlogged.
The way they set it out was that if we had another surge the NHS would be swamped. Whilst we have seen some encouraging data in the last week it needs to be sustained. If we swing back the other way (and the daily count already has) then we could be in trouble.
That is all they are planning for. Its their jobs. Not sure why planning by NHS managers based on science and live data to avoid massive problems warrants the "get fucked" approach from pray the pox away types. We all want it to be over. Its certainly better than it was. But clearly not over.
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
1. The pox is humour. The pox. The lurgy. The global pandemic. Lets be British and make light of seriously bad things. Its what we do. 2. A state-ordered medical procedure is not less of an imposition than please wear a mask. 3. Masks reduce the spread of Covid. We want to reduce the spread of Covid, so it is entirely rational. There are other things we could do which would also reduce the spread but those are either egregiously illiberal and frankly dangerous (the police pinning you down to inject you or a "your papers please" society), or they are over the top for the case numbers we now have (a full lockdown). Masks are the balance that most other societies have made.
What I do find odd is how certain people in England keep saying how much of a massive imposition masks are, that they are akin to lockdown. When you live in a nation where we still use masks and are not remotely locked down it is obvious how much of an "irrational position" that you and various other posters take.
Nope. Wrong, yet again.
Vaxports are not 'state-ordered medical procedures' are they? You can still refuse the jab, you simply won't be able to enter pubs and the like. Your choice.
Sure, I oppose vaxports, just as I oppose mask mandates in a post-vaccine era. I'm a liberal and both measures are illiberal in the extreme.
Your position, however, is both deeply inconsistent and highly irrational.
How do you explain it?
Read what I posted. "the police pinning you down to inject you OR a "your papers please" society". Vaxports are not forced injections which is why I gave an either / or example of both forced vaccinations and vaxports.
You keep asking "how do I explain". Perhaps it is your comprehension that is the issue. As nobody is telling you to wear a mask and you are endlessly commenting on them and people are telling us to wear them and we just get on with this supposed massive imposition, it does feel like it is just you.
I'm OK with the current situation where nobody is telling us we have to wear a mask.
You are the one calling for a change and the foolish notion that we should have a mask mandate.
I am not calling for a change though - I am supporting the experts (which isn't you or me) over the keyboard warriors that we *might* need a change. You aren't the man in the street on this subject so you will never agree with the majority.
You can support the experts all you like.
I'm saying the experts need to get back in their box and worry about their own activities, not ours.
Medical "experts" will of course want restrictions, that's not a good enough reason to have one.
And thats fine, but again you do understand that your views aren't exactly in line with the majority on this one? I'm not saying you can't have those views, just that you aren't going to find a lot of people with such a black and white perspective on the value of other people's lives vs your personal liberty.
Even those with unpopular views should still articulate them and argue for them if they hold them, that's the only way to get change.
Besides, I think my views are probably more in line with most people than you realise, even if others aren't willing to be as frank, honest and articulate them.
The fact that the overwhelming majority of people are choosing not to wear masks when its a case of personal choice should help demonstrate that.
Sure, you have the right to express yourself! But I am not talking about your attitude to masks, more to "fuck the NHS" and "people die, so what" etc etc
I never said fuck the NHS though, those were your words.
I said we've sacrificed years to save the NHS, given it billions, rolled out vaccines etc - eventually a point has to come where enough is enough.
Your exact line was "No, anyone who wants to send us back into lockdown restrictions needs to get fucked."
As one of the leading advocates for plan B - what you were reacting to - is the CEO of the NHS Confederation then I assume he - and therefore the NHS - are on your "get fucked" list.
There seems to be a running theme on this thread where certain uhh y I hung we ff red g people are confusing expenses and pay.
Expenses are provided as needed to enable you to do your work in a business. That's why they're expenses and not pay.
If you live and work in Derbyshire, say, and own a flat in London, are you required to stay there when travelling on business? Or can you stay in a hotel like your colleagues?
Can you stay in the flat overnight at immediate notice ? If so, no you can't expense the hotel.
Erste et eh Dewe we’re qq have qqqqbs BD MBF hi u
Cox can’t - he has a tenant
The relevant question is whether he was living in the flat when he became an MP, and only began renting it out î when he had an opportunity for the state to pay his rent on a different flat?
If he already had a tenant when he became an MP then it would be unreasonable to expect the tenant to be evicted, but otherwise I would see it as an abuse of the system.
AIUI he bought the flat and claimed mortgage interest as an expense when it was allowed
From 2011-2017 he lived there without claiming expenses
In 2017 he moved to a new rented apartment (which he claims for) and rented out the old flat
I’ve no idea why he moved out, but my guess is the flat was no longer what he needed (too large may be?) put rather than sell at a discount post Brexit he rented it out.
I really can’t see what he has done wrong.
That looks quite clearly like an abuse of the system to use it to extract extra income for himself, rather than for the reimbursement of reasonable expenses.
Typical Tory crook, completely and utterly shameless and will grift at every opportunity.
What really annoys me are people who are having excitingly busy social lives, making up for lost time, then coming onto social media and fear-mongering about how reckless Johnson is for not mandating masks, and that fear-mongering making other people feel too scared to go out and socialise at all.
Yesterday was 14 years since I first met my wife (outside a McDonald's in Brixton, naturally). Two years ago we were able to go out to celebrate. Last year, obviously, we celebrated at home. This year, we're fully vaccinated, but my wife still feels it's too risky to go out.
How can you argue against irrational fear when all the people she might trust a bit are telling her that the people she doesn't trust at all are being reckless and dangerous?
I'm becoming quite frustrated, so it's clearly time to step away for a bit.
Funnily enough (it's not funny, obvs) I think people are worse than earlier in the year when they were double jabbed. Now The Booster is the saviour and many are reluctant to do anything without having had it.
Whether by luck or design the government has presided over a scared nation (cf Max's Italy story).
How did we get to this.
Which always reminds me - where is @contrarian I hope he is ok.
And Francis Urquhart. And gideonwise. A few PB regulars have abruptly gone missing of late
Had a nice chat for, err, brunch I guess with one of my colleagues. She's Italian from Italy and she's booking her flight back to Italy for Xmas so the subject of how shit it is in Italy came up. More than anything else she's worried that this new "restraint" will become part of the national character and people are forgetting how to have fun and live freely. Everywhere she went last time she had to show her COVID pass, the bars are still socially distanced, the clubs are still closed or have turned into food venues, going to the cinema/theatre/opera means donning a mask for 3h at a time.
What's got her really upset is that the people have meekly surrendered to that lifestyle and they also can't seem to understand that the UK is basically completely out of this. Her family back home have been fed a diet of how awful everything in the UK is, people dying in the streets, society near collapse under the weight of COVID. When she tries to correct them they don't believe her and steadfastly stick to the idea that vaccine passes, social distancing and masks are the only way to beat COVID. She said it's almost like talking to anti-vaxxers about the virtues of the vaccine, they're so irrational about it that it becomes pointless.
Confucius: Keep the people scared and they will be easy to rule.
Tell bollox anecdotal fake stories and the jingobells will keep on jingoing. More union jack pants please I need two pairs on today.
I've been pondering how one distinguishes legitimate outside work done by MPs, and outside work that is, at best, dubious, and have come up with a solution.
Any MP that claims in the Register that their role is "providing strategic advice" to a profit-making concern is, in all likelihood, raking in money in exchange for influence on government decision-making, and is therefore corrupt. Easy.
I provided such a test yesterday. If the services the MP provides are ones unrelated to being an MP and for which someone would pay anyway, that's fine.
Good lad. Yes I know he is not short of a bob or two. But they respect that in Yarkshire. We need a northern PM instead of these southern wusses.
Honestly, Sunak is as far from these effete self-aggrandising idiots in most of the rest of the cabinet as you can get.
He doesn't need to do corruption. He already has all the cash
There's his hedge fund days though. The word is, not clean.
I have some rather more precise information about what those hedge funds were doing. It is quite a story.
That test would be a swamp of grey areas. What aspects of commercial life are untouched by government regulation? Every time the government does anything, or, crucially, decides NOT to do anything, someone wins and someone else loses. Your test is freighted with a conservative bias, because it's easier to deny a conflict of interest when MPs are changing nothing, doing nothing, talking about nothing.
I know. It is not an easy area because there are always edge cases. It was a suggestion. It is easier to accept an MP who is also a doctor working as a doctor one day a week because he or she is paid for their medical skills than because they are an MP. Being an MP is irrelevant to the payment.
Whereas in something like the IDS case, it is hard to see that he would be paid by the company were he not an MP.
So maybe some sort of "were it not" test is needed. But the real issue then is who judges and enforces that? If the party leaders won't or grant all sorts of exceptions and the voters aren't sufficiently bothered to let it affect their votes we're back where we started: relying on the "let's trust that they're all good chaps" and a bit stuffed if it turns out that some/many of them aren't.
Your point about who judges is key, imo. Such judgments will be based on values, and then question of what's right or wrong is deferred to who gets to appoint the people who decide that. All the stuff people have been saying about charity work/medical work/etc can be seen through this lens. On the one hand, Paterson's employer (no, not us, the other one) is making sanitising gel. Yipee, that's a good thing. Saving lives, part of the healthcare industry... right? Well, not quite when you dig into it. And what about surgeons? Removing cancer is brilliant, but what if you're stuffing silicon implants into people instead? It suddenly seems less noble.
I'm coming round more and more to just saying no. No second jobs, no other income, NOTHING. Hold owned businesses in blind trust, etc. You probably need to apply the rules to direct family members too. Every way forward from here, including doing nothing is messy, and something unfair will happen. I'm just coming to the opinion that being unfair on a few prospective future MPs, putting them off with overstringent rules, is less harmful than being unfair to the whole voting public by leaving a safe space for corruption to flourish. I haven't come to a firm conclusion, but I'm feeling more and more hawkish on it.
Well, off topic but since it is the 11th day of the 11th month I hope I will be forgiven.
Ireland has put together an archive of its war dead. My great-uncle, a doctor, was one of those. I have his medical certificate from the University of Cambridge and his war diary.
He specialised in public health. He was called to an incident and did not have the right saddle for his horse. He fell and the saddle caused a wound which became infected which caused his death.
I recently found a letter from the War Ministry to a distant relative when I was clearing another relative's house - dated exactly for the anniversary today, maybe a day or two later. Her husband had been shot through the knee on 9 November 1918. Fortunately, he survived and became the local bank manager. But how easily ... my own grandfather served in France from 1915 onwards; how even more easily ...
Two of my great grandfathers died on the first day of the Somme. Their names are on the Menin Gate.
In WW2 my paternal grandfather was in the South African air force. He crashed a Blenheim in Libya, lied about it saying he got shot down and got a DFC.
My maternal grandfather spent the war years focussed on his IRA and smuggling careers.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
By complete coincidence, but timely also for today as Cyclefree points out, I've just finished reading a history of the Public [sic] Schools in the Great War.
An entirely competent and interesting, often fascinating, social history - but very disturbing book, not just because of the subject matter but also the social assumptions of the time and to some extent today. Unsettling; I still can't get my head around the Public School right to rule ethos. Which meant officering the British Army and air forces almost completely from the Public Schools in the Great War.
Edit: it's all very well going on about their great sacrifice. Yes, in one sense. Officers had a short life. But they didn't let anyone but PS old boys be officers. So ... And the other classes/ranks* had to do what they said.
*yes, I know about the likes of R. H. Tawney serving in the ran ks.
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
Well, off topic but since it is the 11th day of the 11th month I hope I will be forgiven.
Ireland has put together an archive of its war dead. My great-uncle, a doctor, was one of those. I have his medical certificate from the University of Cambridge and his war diary.
He specialised in public health. He was called to an incident and did not have the right saddle for his horse. He fell and the saddle caused a wound which became infected which caused his death.
I recently found a letter from the War Ministry to a distant relative when I was clearing another relative's house - dated exactly for the anniversary today, maybe a day or two later. Her husband had been shot through the knee on 9 November 1918. Fortunately, he survived and became the local bank manager. But how easily ... my own grandfather served in France from 1915 onwards; how even more easily ...
Yes - my Italian grandfather fought at Caporetto. My father was a Squadron Leader during WW2. My aunt a secretary in London during the Blitz. My mother's family endured the bombing of Naples. And so on and on.
How very easily ......
I am conscious how lucky my generation and my children are to have grown up and lived without the backdrop of war disrupting our lives, unlike my parents, grandparents. We are very lucky to have been born and lived in the time and part of the world we have been.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
This is clearly the big story of the day. My wife had a long and eye watering conversation with a friend who is a nurse with first hand experience of this - based on this second hand anecdata, I think 400 anal extractions a year is perhaps an underestimate - perhaps this only includes those instances which need the attention of an actual surgeon. I bet these are vastly outnumbered by those which can be dealt with by a nurse armed with a mole wrench and a bit of WD40. As an instinctive libertarian, I'm not sure how to feel about the fact that the state has issued advice about the most appropriate shape of object to shove up your arse. They're trolling us now, surely?
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
What really annoys me are people who are having excitingly busy social lives, making up for lost time, then coming onto social media and fear-mongering about how reckless Johnson is for not mandating masks, and that fear-mongering making other people feel too scared to go out and socialise at all.
Yesterday was 14 years since I first met my wife (outside a McDonald's in Brixton, naturally). Two years ago we were able to go out to celebrate. Last year, obviously, we celebrated at home. This year, we're fully vaccinated, but my wife still feels it's too risky to go out.
How can you argue against irrational fear when all the people she might trust a bit are telling her that the people she doesn't trust at all are being reckless and dangerous?
I'm becoming quite frustrated, so it's clearly time to step away for a bit.
I’m very sorry to hear this.
She seems to be being fed a load of nonsense from those “she might trust a bit”. It’s increasingly frustrating, would she take advice from a doctor?
I've been pondering how one distinguishes legitimate outside work done by MPs, and outside work that is, at best, dubious, and have come up with a solution.
Any MP that claims in the Register that their role is "providing strategic advice" to a profit-making concern is, in all likelihood, raking in money in exchange for influence on government decision-making, and is therefore corrupt. Easy.
I provided such a test yesterday. If the services the MP provides are ones unrelated to being an MP and for which someone would pay anyway, that's fine.
Good lad. Yes I know he is not short of a bob or two. But they respect that in Yarkshire. We need a northern PM instead of these southern wusses.
Honestly, Sunak is as far from these effete self-aggrandising idiots in most of the rest of the cabinet as you can get.
He doesn't need to do corruption. He already has all the cash
There's his hedge fund days though. The word is, not clean.
I have some rather more precise information about what those hedge funds were doing. It is quite a story.
That test would be a swamp of grey areas. What aspects of commercial life are untouched by government regulation? Every time the government does anything, or, crucially, decides NOT to do anything, someone wins and someone else loses. Your test is freighted with a conservative bias, because it's easier to deny a conflict of interest when MPs are changing nothing, doing nothing, talking about nothing.
I know. It is not an easy area because there are always edge cases. It was a suggestion. It is easier to accept an MP who is also a doctor working as a doctor one day a week because he or she is paid for their medical skills than because they are an MP. Being an MP is irrelevant to the payment.
Whereas in something like the IDS case, it is hard to see that he would be paid by the company were he not an MP.
So maybe some sort of "were it not" test is needed. But the real issue then is who judges and enforces that? If the party leaders won't or grant all sorts of exceptions and the voters aren't sufficiently bothered to let it affect their votes we're back where we started: relying on the "let's trust that they're all good chaps" and a bit stuffed if it turns out that some/many of them aren't.
Your point about who judges is key, imo. Such judgments will be based on values, and then question of what's right or wrong is deferred to who gets to appoint the people who decide that. All the stuff people have been saying about charity work/medical work/etc can be seen through this lens. On the one hand, Paterson's employer (no, not us, the other one) is making sanitising gel. Yipee, that's a good thing. Saving lives, part of the healthcare industry... right? Well, not quite when you dig into it. And what about surgeons? Removing cancer is brilliant, but what if you're stuffing silicon implants into people instead? It suddenly seems less noble.
I'm coming round more and more to just saying no. No second jobs, no other income, NOTHING. Hold owned businesses in blind trust, etc. You probably need to apply the rules to direct family members too. Every way forward from here, including doing nothing is messy, and something unfair will happen. I'm just coming to the opinion that being unfair on a few prospective future MPs, putting them off with overstringent rules, is less harmful than being unfair to the whole voting public by leaving a safe space for corruption to flourish. I haven't come to a firm conclusion, but I'm feeling more and more hawkish on it.
And so we end up with no Doctors as MPs or anyone else in a profession that requires continual work and training.
A blanket no second job rule would restrict the people who enter parliament even more to just those who wanted a political career and have no outside world experience.
Had a nice chat for, err, brunch I guess with one of my colleagues. She's Italian from Italy and she's booking her flight back to Italy for Xmas so the subject of how shit it is in Italy came up. More than anything else she's worried that this new "restraint" will become part of the national character and people are forgetting how to have fun and live freely. Everywhere she went last time she had to show her COVID pass, the bars are still socially distanced, the clubs are still closed or have turned into food venues, going to the cinema/theatre/opera means donning a mask for 3h at a time.
What's got her really upset is that the people have meekly surrendered to that lifestyle and they also can't seem to understand that the UK is basically completely out of this. Her family back home have been fed a diet of how awful everything in the UK is, people dying in the streets, society near collapse under the weight of COVID. When she tries to correct them they don't believe her and steadfastly stick to the idea that vaccine passes, social distancing and masks are the only way to beat COVID. She said it's almost like talking to anti-vaxxers about the virtues of the vaccine, they're so irrational about it that it becomes pointless.
Italy has more problems than even this. They have stopped wanting children, many Italians with a bit of enterprise want to live somewhere else or already do - many adorning the UK with their talents, and they don't want to make up the missing numbers with enterprising people from elsewhere, unlike the UK where 29% of births are to foreign born mothers (what a racist bunch we must be BTW).
This is the stuff on tragedy and nightmares for the world's most amazing culture.
Hang on. Hasn't Italy had emigration and low birth rates for over a century? Mussolini certainly had a campaign on the latter.
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
Had a nice chat for, err, brunch I guess with one of my colleagues. She's Italian from Italy and she's booking her flight back to Italy for Xmas so the subject of how shit it is in Italy came up. More than anything else she's worried that this new "restraint" will become part of the national character and people are forgetting how to have fun and live freely. Everywhere she went last time she had to show her COVID pass, the bars are still socially distanced, the clubs are still closed or have turned into food venues, going to the cinema/theatre/opera means donning a mask for 3h at a time.
What's got her really upset is that the people have meekly surrendered to that lifestyle and they also can't seem to understand that the UK is basically completely out of this. Her family back home have been fed a diet of how awful everything in the UK is, people dying in the streets, society near collapse under the weight of COVID. When she tries to correct them they don't believe her and steadfastly stick to the idea that vaccine passes, social distancing and masks are the only way to beat COVID. She said it's almost like talking to anti-vaxxers about the virtues of the vaccine, they're so irrational about it that it becomes pointless.
Confucius: Keep the people scared and they will be easy to rule.
Tell bollox anecdotal fake stories and the jingobells will keep on jingoing. More union jack pants please I need two pairs on today.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
Isn't that former Minister for Planning Jenrick's neck of the parking lot?
How can anyone look at this and think it’s a good idea? A fucking CAR PARK
Joni Mitchell needs somewhere to park her big yellow taxi.
It is grotesque, nonetheless. In 2021, no one should be chopping down beautiful mature trees to make a bloody car park. I hope the councilors sleep easy, knowing they have made the world that one tiny bit uglier, forever
Well, off topic but since it is the 11th day of the 11th month I hope I will be forgiven.
Ireland has put together an archive of its war dead. My great-uncle, a doctor, was one of those. I have his medical certificate from the University of Cambridge and his war diary.
He specialised in public health. He was called to an incident and did not have the right saddle for his horse. He fell and the saddle caused a wound which became infected which caused his death.
I recently found a letter from the War Ministry to a distant relative when I was clearing another relative's house - dated exactly for the anniversary today, maybe a day or two later. Her husband had been shot through the knee on 9 November 1918. Fortunately, he survived and became the local bank manager. But how easily ... my own grandfather served in France from 1915 onwards; how even more easily ...
Two of my great grandfathers died on the first day of the Somme. Their names are on the Menin Gate.
In WW2 my paternal grandfather was in the South African air force. He crashed a Blenheim in Libya, lied about it saying he got shot down and got a DFC.
My maternal grandfather spent the war years focussed on his IRA and smuggling careers.
I have a Fenian penny in my possession belonging to the previous generation of Irish Cyclefrees, who were involved in an attack on the Kilmallock police station by the IRB. (It was again the site of a fierce battle during the Irish civil war). Following this my ancestor fled to France for a bit to lay low, which is why there are a large number of very fine French books from that time in the family's possession. Always keen on education, as well as more disreputable activities!
There was an interesting split in the family between those who were ardently nationalist and those who were happy to fight on the British side. One of my great uncle's brothers refused to see him in his British Army uniform when he said goodbye to his family and then never got the chance to see him again. So sad.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Had a nice chat for, err, brunch I guess with one of my colleagues. She's Italian from Italy and she's booking her flight back to Italy for Xmas so the subject of how shit it is in Italy came up. More than anything else she's worried that this new "restraint" will become part of the national character and people are forgetting how to have fun and live freely. Everywhere she went last time she had to show her COVID pass, the bars are still socially distanced, the clubs are still closed or have turned into food venues, going to the cinema/theatre/opera means donning a mask for 3h at a time.
What's got her really upset is that the people have meekly surrendered to that lifestyle and they also can't seem to understand that the UK is basically completely out of this. Her family back home have been fed a diet of how awful everything in the UK is, people dying in the streets, society near collapse under the weight of COVID. When she tries to correct them they don't believe her and steadfastly stick to the idea that vaccine passes, social distancing and masks are the only way to beat COVID. She said it's almost like talking to anti-vaxxers about the virtues of the vaccine, they're so irrational about it that it becomes pointless.
Confucius: Keep the people scared and they will be easy to rule.
Tell bollox anecdotal fake stories and the jingobells will keep on jingoing. More union jack pants please I need two pairs on today.
Hello Malky; hope you are keeping well. Sunny if cool over here at the moment, nice autumn colours.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
He didn’t ask that though - he implied that all Etonian have certain characteristics, which they don’t
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
Isn't that former Minister for Planning Jenrick's neck of the parking lot?
How can anyone look at this and think it’s a good idea? A fucking CAR PARK
People are irrational about car parking. Big story in Wigan is plans to knock down the little used market, with a car park (one third occupied) on the roof, to replace it with a smaller market, 400 new homes slap bang in the town centre and move parking slightly further away, Cue fury. People love an empty car park more than a full one. It's much more convenient. 400 new town centre homes will be "bad for the economy" somehow. No surprise the Red Wall remains deprived.
Well, off topic but since it is the 11th day of the 11th month I hope I will be forgiven.
Ireland has put together an archive of its war dead. My great-uncle, a doctor, was one of those. I have his medical certificate from the University of Cambridge and his war diary.
He specialised in public health. He was called to an incident and did not have the right saddle for his horse. He fell and the saddle caused a wound which became infected which caused his death.
I recently found a letter from the War Ministry to a distant relative when I was clearing another relative's house - dated exactly for the anniversary today, maybe a day or two later. Her husband had been shot through the knee on 9 November 1918. Fortunately, he survived and became the local bank manager. But how easily ... my own grandfather served in France from 1915 onwards; how even more easily ...
Two of my great grandfathers died on the first day of the Somme. Their names are on the Menin Gate.
In WW2 my paternal grandfather was in the South African air force. He crashed a Blenheim in Libya, lied about it saying he got shot down and got a DFC.
My maternal grandfather spent the war years focussed on his IRA and smuggling careers.
‘Tis a proud lineage. I sense you have a little bit of all of them in ye.
‘A pandemic advisory panel in the Netherlands on Thursday recommended imposing western Europe’s first partial lockdown since the summer, putting pressure on the government to take unpopular action to fight a Covid surge.
The caretaker prime minister Mark Rutte’s cabinet is expected to decide on Friday on measures following the recommendation of the Outbreak Management Team, broadcaster NOS reported.
The government often follows the expert panel’s recommendations.
Steps under consideration include cancelling events, closing theatres and cinemas, and earlier closing times for cafes and restaurants, the NOS report said. Schools would remain open.’
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
Isn't that former Minister for Planning Jenrick's neck of the parking lot?
How can anyone look at this and think it’s a good idea? A fucking CAR PARK
Joni Mitchell needs somewhere to park her big yellow taxi.
It is grotesque, nonetheless. In 2021, no one should be chopping down beautiful mature trees to make a bloody car park. I hope the councilors sleep easy, knowing they have made the world that one tiny bit uglier, forever
And in the week of COP 26 too. We should be planting trees not chopping them down.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
Isn't that former Minister for Planning Jenrick's neck of the parking lot?
How can anyone look at this and think it’s a good idea? A fucking CAR PARK
Joni Mitchell needs somewhere to park her big yellow taxi.
It is grotesque, nonetheless. In 2021, no one should be chopping down beautiful mature trees to make a bloody car park. I hope the councilors sleep easy, knowing they have made the world that one tiny bit uglier, forever
Maybe they'll take the trees and put them in a tree museum?
I've been pondering how one distinguishes legitimate outside work done by MPs, and outside work that is, at best, dubious, and have come up with a solution.
Any MP that claims in the Register that their role is "providing strategic advice" to a profit-making concern is, in all likelihood, raking in money in exchange for influence on government decision-making, and is therefore corrupt. Easy.
I provided such a test yesterday. If the services the MP provides are ones unrelated to being an MP and for which someone would pay anyway, that's fine.
Good lad. Yes I know he is not short of a bob or two. But they respect that in Yarkshire. We need a northern PM instead of these southern wusses.
Honestly, Sunak is as far from these effete self-aggrandising idiots in most of the rest of the cabinet as you can get.
He doesn't need to do corruption. He already has all the cash
There's his hedge fund days though. The word is, not clean.
I have some rather more precise information about what those hedge funds were doing. It is quite a story.
That test would be a swamp of grey areas. What aspects of commercial life are untouched by government regulation? Every time the government does anything, or, crucially, decides NOT to do anything, someone wins and someone else loses. Your test is freighted with a conservative bias, because it's easier to deny a conflict of interest when MPs are changing nothing, doing nothing, talking about nothing.
I know. It is not an easy area because there are always edge cases. It was a suggestion. It is easier to accept an MP who is also a doctor working as a doctor one day a week because he or she is paid for their medical skills than because they are an MP. Being an MP is irrelevant to the payment.
Whereas in something like the IDS case, it is hard to see that he would be paid by the company were he not an MP.
So maybe some sort of "were it not" test is needed. But the real issue then is who judges and enforces that? If the party leaders won't or grant all sorts of exceptions and the voters aren't sufficiently bothered to let it affect their votes we're back where we started: relying on the "let's trust that they're all good chaps" and a bit stuffed if it turns out that some/many of them aren't.
Your point about who judges is key, imo. Such judgments will be based on values, and then question of what's right or wrong is deferred to who gets to appoint the people who decide that. All the stuff people have been saying about charity work/medical work/etc can be seen through this lens. On the one hand, Paterson's employer (no, not us, the other one) is making sanitising gel. Yipee, that's a good thing. Saving lives, part of the healthcare industry... right? Well, not quite when you dig into it. And what about surgeons? Removing cancer is brilliant, but what if you're stuffing silicon implants into people instead? It suddenly seems less noble.
I'm coming round more and more to just saying no. No second jobs, no other income, NOTHING. Hold owned businesses in blind trust, etc. You probably need to apply the rules to direct family members too. Every way forward from here, including doing nothing is messy, and something unfair will happen. I'm just coming to the opinion that being unfair on a few prospective future MPs, putting them off with overstringent rules, is less harmful than being unfair to the whole voting public by leaving a safe space for corruption to flourish. I haven't come to a firm conclusion, but I'm feeling more and more hawkish on it.
And so we end up with no Doctors as MPs or anyone else in a profession that requires continual work and training.
A blanket no second job rule would restrict the people who enter parliament even more to just those who wanted a political career and have no outside world experience.
Not "no doctors". Just no doctors who are willing to give up their medical career. (Although, can you re-enter with some refresher training? Perhaps they'd just be suspending their medical career?)
That's a bullet I'm so far willing to bite. If someone becomes a politician and we lose a doctor, that's a choice. If such rules had meant that Liam Fox and Philippa Whitford had never chosen to become MPs, it's not the end of the world.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
I see there's a tweet up from an NHS hospital doctor: Another patient refusing to wear a mask in our waiting room. This time they got aggressive and it nearly became a physical altercation with one of our receptionists. “Boris doesn’t wear a mask so why should I?” He said
I took my father to a GP yesterday. Lots of vulnerable patients, all wearing a mask (including us).
The one person there not wearing a mask was the receptionist.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us. To see oursels as ithers see us!
Most Etonians are supremely self confident - which can come across as arrogance (it isn’t, but it’s a very thin line).
They are not particularly narcissistic and I suspect no more self centred than the average bear
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
Isn't that former Minister for Planning Jenrick's neck of the parking lot?
How can anyone look at this and think it’s a good idea? A fucking CAR PARK
People are irrational about car parking. Big story in Wigan is plans to knock down the little used market, with a car park (one third occupied) on the roof, to replace it with a smaller market, 400 new homes slap bang in the town centre and move parking slightly further away, Cue fury. People love an empty car park more than a full one. It's much more convenient. 400 new town centre homes will be "bad for the economy" somehow. No surprise the Red Wall remains deprived.
Yes.
It’s sad, but many of the people living in the Red Wall are basically living in the past.
I blame not the people themselves, but successive governments who deprive them of any real local agency.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
I see there's a tweet up from an NHS hospital doctor: Another patient refusing to wear a mask in our waiting room. This time they got aggressive and it nearly became a physical altercation with one of our receptionists. “Boris doesn’t wear a mask so why should I?” He said
I took my father to a GP yesterday. Lots of vulnerable patients, all wearing a mask (including us).
The one person there not wearing a mask was the receptionist.
Not behind a Perspex screen? That’s been the case at my doctor and the vet we use for over a year.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us. To see oursels as ithers see us!
Most Etonians are supremely self confident - which can come across as arrogance (it isn’t, but it’s a very thin line).
They are not particularly narcissistic and I suspect no more self centred than the average bear
Sounds very homogenised, almost like a production line..
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
He didn’t ask that though - he implied that all Etonian have certain characteristics, which they don’t
Calm down, Charles. It was a joke. I've known a handful of OEs and other products of our great public schools and they're a mixed bunch although a certain degree of entitlement seems to be fairly universal. Of course most of them would deny it because that kind of entitlement is so universal and ingrained in their social milieu that they can't even see it for what it is.
I still can't get my head around the Public School right to rule ethos. Which meant officering the British Army and air forces almost completely from the Public Schools in the Great War.
Edit: it's all very well going on about their great sacrifice. Yes, in one sense. Officers had a short life. But they didn't let anyone but PS old boys be officers. So ... And the other classes/ranks* had to do what they said.
*yes, I know about the likes of R. H. Tawney serving in the ran ks.
If the British army hadn't let anyone but PS old boys be officers, they would have run out of officers some time around 1915. See Douglas Haig's final despatch:
Our universities and public schools throughout the Empire proved once more, as they have proved time and again in the past, that in the formation of character, which is the root of discipline, they have no rivals. Not that universities and public schools enjoy a monopoly of the qualities which make good officers. The life of the British Empire generally has proved sound under the severest tests, and while giving men whom it is an honour for any officer to command, has furnished officers of the highest standard from all ranks of society and all quarters of the world.
Promotion has been entirely by merit, and the highest appointments were open to the humblest, provided he had the necessary qualifications of character, skill and knowledge. Many instances could be quoted of men who from civil or comparatively humble occupations have risen to important commands. A schoolmaster, a lawyer, a taxicab driver, and an ex-Serjeant-Major have commanded brigades; one editor has commanded a division, and another held successfully the position of Senior Staff Officer to a Regular division; the under-cook of a Cambridge College, a clerk to the Metropolitan Water Board, an insurance clerk, an architect's assistant, and a police inspector became efficient General Staff Officers; a Mess Serjeant, a railway signalman, a coal miner, a market gardener, an assistant secretary to a haberdashers' company, a Quartermaster-Serjeant, and many private soldiers have risen to command battalions; clerks have commanded batteries; a schoolmaster, a collier, the son of a blacksmith, an iron moulder, an instructor in tailoring, an assistant gas engineer, a grocer's assistant, as well as policemen, clerks and privates, have commanded companies or acted as adjutants.
They wouldn't have called them 'temporary gentlemen' if they'd been gentlemen already.
Rather strange set of local by-elections today. The simplest is Denbighshire which should be a PC hold. In Cardiff there is an Ind defence which will probably be a Labour gain. In Lancaster there is an Econ-Soc elected as Lab defence. In Melton there is an Opposition elected as Con defence. Finally there is a Green defence in Thanet. Try looking for trends in that lot.
I'm rarely shocked, but I am by that. A Green defence in Thanet? That seems about as likely as a UKIP defence in Brighton. Must be a bourgeois bit of Margate or something, I guess.
The ward is called Thanet Villages and so is pretty rural. There was an all-up election in 2019 which resulted in the following: Con 638,Con602, Green 599, LD 567, UKIP 551,Con 460, LD 416, Lab 223. Difficult to call - may depend on the virtue of each candidate.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Yeah me too. I feel much more comfortable working with foreigners than with the English upper middle classes.
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
Isn't that former Minister for Planning Jenrick's neck of the parking lot?
How can anyone look at this and think it’s a good idea? A fucking CAR PARK
People are irrational about car parking. Big story in Wigan is plans to knock down the little used market, with a car park (one third occupied) on the roof, to replace it with a smaller market, 400 new homes slap bang in the town centre and move parking slightly further away, Cue fury. People love an empty car park more than a full one. It's much more convenient. 400 new town centre homes will be "bad for the economy" somehow. No surprise the Red Wall remains deprived.
Yes.
It’s sad, but many of the people living in the Red Wall are basically living in the past.
I blame not the people themselves, but successive governments who deprive them of any real local agency.
It is that. And gerontification too. The loss of half of a couple of generations to internal emigration. The half with the ideas. A town centre is for parking and shops, not living in. Even if the shops and car parking are entirely deserted.
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
Isn't that former Minister for Planning Jenrick's neck of the parking lot?
How can anyone look at this and think it’s a good idea? A fucking CAR PARK
People are irrational about car parking. Big story in Wigan is plans to knock down the little used market, with a car park (one third occupied) on the roof, to replace it with a smaller market, 400 new homes slap bang in the town centre and move parking slightly further away, Cue fury. People love an empty car park more than a full one. It's much more convenient. 400 new town centre homes will be "bad for the economy" somehow. No surprise the Red Wall remains deprived.
I won't name the Council (not red wall) but one Council indicated that it would redevelop a car park and was cancelling permits accordingly. Cue outrage from people who say how much they use it, what a lifeline, etc.
Reader, it had been closed for six months already.
I've been pondering how one distinguishes legitimate outside work done by MPs, and outside work that is, at best, dubious, and have come up with a solution.
Any MP that claims in the Register that their role is "providing strategic advice" to a profit-making concern is, in all likelihood, raking in money in exchange for influence on government decision-making, and is therefore corrupt. Easy.
I provided such a test yesterday. If the services the MP provides are ones unrelated to being an MP and for which someone would pay anyway, that's fine.
Good lad. Yes I know he is not short of a bob or two. But they respect that in Yarkshire. We need a northern PM instead of these southern wusses.
Honestly, Sunak is as far from these effete self-aggrandising idiots in most of the rest of the cabinet as you can get.
He doesn't need to do corruption. He already has all the cash
There's his hedge fund days though. The word is, not clean.
I have some rather more precise information about what those hedge funds were doing. It is quite a story.
That test would be a swamp of grey areas. What aspects of commercial life are untouched by government regulation? Every time the government does anything, or, crucially, decides NOT to do anything, someone wins and someone else loses. Your test is freighted with a conservative bias, because it's easier to deny a conflict of interest when MPs are changing nothing, doing nothing, talking about nothing.
I know. It is not an easy area because there are always edge cases. It was a suggestion. It is easier to accept an MP who is also a doctor working as a doctor one day a week because he or she is paid for their medical skills than because they are an MP. Being an MP is irrelevant to the payment.
Whereas in something like the IDS case, it is hard to see that he would be paid by the company were he not an MP.
So maybe some sort of "were it not" test is needed. But the real issue then is who judges and enforces that? If the party leaders won't or grant all sorts of exceptions and the voters aren't sufficiently bothered to let it affect their votes we're back where we started: relying on the "let's trust that they're all good chaps" and a bit stuffed if it turns out that some/many of them aren't.
Your point about who judges is key, imo. Such judgments will be based on values, and then question of what's right or wrong is deferred to who gets to appoint the people who decide that. All the stuff people have been saying about charity work/medical work/etc can be seen through this lens. On the one hand, Paterson's employer (no, not us, the other one) is making sanitising gel. Yipee, that's a good thing. Saving lives, part of the healthcare industry... right? Well, not quite when you dig into it. And what about surgeons? Removing cancer is brilliant, but what if you're stuffing silicon implants into people instead? It suddenly seems less noble.
I'm coming round more and more to just saying no. No second jobs, no other income, NOTHING. Hold owned businesses in blind trust, etc. You probably need to apply the rules to direct family members too. Every way forward from here, including doing nothing is messy, and something unfair will happen. I'm just coming to the opinion that being unfair on a few prospective future MPs, putting them off with overstringent rules, is less harmful than being unfair to the whole voting public by leaving a safe space for corruption to flourish. I haven't come to a firm conclusion, but I'm feeling more and more hawkish on it.
And so we end up with no Doctors as MPs or anyone else in a profession that requires continual work and training.
A blanket no second job rule would restrict the people who enter parliament even more to just those who wanted a political career and have no outside world experience.
Not "no doctors". Just no doctors who are willing to give up their medical career. (Although, can you re-enter with some refresher training? Perhaps they'd just be suspending their medical career?)
That's a bullet I'm so far willing to bite. If someone becomes a politician and we lose a doctor, that's a choice. If such rules had meant that Liam Fox and Philippa Whitford had never chosen to become MPs, it's not the end of the world.
Mr Sarwar MSP too. He's still operating, so to speak, as a dentist, I believe, a little bit a week.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Yeah me too. I feel much more comfortable working with foreigners than with the English upper middle classes.
Me too.
I find foreigners tend not to make sheep jokes about NZers, which most posh Englishmen find irresistibly hilarious.
I presume the posh Englishmen were all rogered senseless by their gym teachers, so I am willing to cut them a little slack.
I still can't get my head around the Public School right to rule ethos. Which meant officering the British Army and air forces almost completely from the Public Schools in the Great War.
Edit: it's all very well going on about their great sacrifice. Yes, in one sense. Officers had a short life. But they didn't let anyone but PS old boys be officers. So ... And the other classes/ranks* had to do what they said.
*yes, I know about the likes of R. H. Tawney serving in the ran ks.
If the British army hadn't let anyone but PS old boys be officers, they would have run out of officers some time around 1915. See Douglas Haig's final despatch:
Our universities and public schools throughout the Empire proved once more, as they have proved time and again in the past, that in the formation of character, which is the root of discipline, they have no rivals. Not that universities and public schools enjoy a monopoly of the qualities which make good officers. The life of the British Empire generally has proved sound under the severest tests, and while giving men whom it is an honour for any officer to command, has furnished officers of the highest standard from all ranks of society and all quarters of the world.
Promotion has been entirely by merit, and the highest appointments were open to the humblest, provided he had the necessary qualifications of character, skill and knowledge. Many instances could be quoted of men who from civil or comparatively humble occupations have risen to important commands. A schoolmaster, a lawyer, a taxicab driver, and an ex-Serjeant-Major have commanded brigades; one editor has commanded a division, and another held successfully the position of Senior Staff Officer to a Regular division; the under-cook of a Cambridge College, a clerk to the Metropolitan Water Board, an insurance clerk, an architect's assistant, and a police inspector became efficient General Staff Officers; a Mess Serjeant, a railway signalman, a coal miner, a market gardener, an assistant secretary to a haberdashers' company, a Quartermaster-Serjeant, and many private soldiers have risen to command battalions; clerks have commanded batteries; a schoolmaster, a collier, the son of a blacksmith, an iron moulder, an instructor in tailoring, an assistant gas engineer, a grocer's assistant, as well as policemen, clerks and privates, have commanded companies or acted as adjutants.
They wouldn't have called them 'temporary gentlemen' if they'd been gentlemen already.
Quite. but that was very much forced on the Army. The old standards returned with a bang in peacetime
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Yeah me too. I feel much more comfortable working with foreigners than with the English upper middle classes.
Me too.
I find foreigners tend not to make sheep jokes about NZers, which most posh Englishmen find irresistibly hilarious.
I presume the posh Englishmen were all rogered senseless by their gym teachers fencing masters, so I am willing to cut them a little slack.
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
Isn't that former Minister for Planning Jenrick's neck of the parking lot?
How can anyone look at this and think it’s a good idea? A fucking CAR PARK
People are irrational about car parking. Big story in Wigan is plans to knock down the little used market, with a car park (one third occupied) on the roof, to replace it with a smaller market, 400 new homes slap bang in the town centre and move parking slightly further away, Cue fury. People love an empty car park more than a full one. It's much more convenient. 400 new town centre homes will be "bad for the economy" somehow. No surprise the Red Wall remains deprived.
Yes.
It’s sad, but many of the people living in the Red Wall are basically living in the past.
I blame not the people themselves, but successive governments who deprive them of any real local agency.
I'm not sure the curse of NIMBYism is especially unique to the red wall.
Just down the road from Wigan in Warrington the old market etc also got bulldozed a few years ago along with about a quarter of the town centre. No new homes getting built though, a new cinema complex etc built instead so no NIMBY objections to that.
However 400 homes and less parking is an odd combination. 400 homes surely should come with 800 parking spaces for those homes.
What really annoys me are people who are having excitingly busy social lives, making up for lost time, then coming onto social media and fear-mongering about how reckless Johnson is for not mandating masks, and that fear-mongering making other people feel too scared to go out and socialise at all.
Yesterday was 14 years since I first met my wife (outside a McDonald's in Brixton, naturally). Two years ago we were able to go out to celebrate. Last year, obviously, we celebrated at home. This year, we're fully vaccinated, but my wife still feels it's too risky to go out.
How can you argue against irrational fear when all the people she might trust a bit are telling her that the people she doesn't trust at all are being reckless and dangerous?
I'm becoming quite frustrated, so it's clearly time to step away for a bit.
Funnily enough (it's not funny, obvs) I think people are worse than earlier in the year when they were double jabbed. Now The Booster is the saviour and many are reluctant to do anything without having had it.
Whether by luck or design the government has presided over a scared nation (cf Max's Italy story).
How did we get to this.
Which always reminds me - where is @contrarian I hope he is ok.
And Francis Urquhart. And gideonwise. A few PB regulars have abruptly gone missing of late
Concerning
@Casino_Royale is also AWOL. It would be great to get all of these posters back.
I still can't get my head around the Public School right to rule ethos. Which meant officering the British Army and air forces almost completely from the Public Schools in the Great War.
Edit: it's all very well going on about their great sacrifice. Yes, in one sense. Officers had a short life. But they didn't let anyone but PS old boys be officers. So ... And the other classes/ranks* had to do what they said.
*yes, I know about the likes of R. H. Tawney serving in the ran ks.
If the British army hadn't let anyone but PS old boys be officers, they would have run out of officers some time around 1915. See Douglas Haig's final despatch:
Our universities and public schools throughout the Empire proved once more, as they have proved time and again in the past, that in the formation of character, which is the root of discipline, they have no rivals. Not that universities and public schools enjoy a monopoly of the qualities which make good officers. The life of the British Empire generally has proved sound under the severest tests, and while giving men whom it is an honour for any officer to command, has furnished officers of the highest standard from all ranks of society and all quarters of the world.
Promotion has been entirely by merit, and the highest appointments were open to the humblest, provided he had the necessary qualifications of character, skill and knowledge. Many instances could be quoted of men who from civil or comparatively humble occupations have risen to important commands. A schoolmaster, a lawyer, a taxicab driver, and an ex-Serjeant-Major have commanded brigades; one editor has commanded a division, and another held successfully the position of Senior Staff Officer to a Regular division; the under-cook of a Cambridge College, a clerk to the Metropolitan Water Board, an insurance clerk, an architect's assistant, and a police inspector became efficient General Staff Officers; a Mess Serjeant, a railway signalman, a coal miner, a market gardener, an assistant secretary to a haberdashers' company, a Quartermaster-Serjeant, and many private soldiers have risen to command battalions; clerks have commanded batteries; a schoolmaster, a collier, the son of a blacksmith, an iron moulder, an instructor in tailoring, an assistant gas engineer, a grocer's assistant, as well as policemen, clerks and privates, have commanded companies or acted as adjutants.
They wouldn't have called them 'temporary gentlemen' if they'd been gentlemen already.
Quite. but that was very much forced on the Army. The old standards returned with a bang in peacetime
What really annoys me are people who are having excitingly busy social lives, making up for lost time, then coming onto social media and fear-mongering about how reckless Johnson is for not mandating masks, and that fear-mongering making other people feel too scared to go out and socialise at all.
Yesterday was 14 years since I first met my wife (outside a McDonald's in Brixton, naturally). Two years ago we were able to go out to celebrate. Last year, obviously, we celebrated at home. This year, we're fully vaccinated, but my wife still feels it's too risky to go out.
How can you argue against irrational fear when all the people she might trust a bit are telling her that the people she doesn't trust at all are being reckless and dangerous?
I'm becoming quite frustrated, so it's clearly time to step away for a bit.
Funnily enough (it's not funny, obvs) I think people are worse than earlier in the year when they were double jabbed. Now The Booster is the saviour and many are reluctant to do anything without having had it.
Whether by luck or design the government has presided over a scared nation (cf Max's Italy story).
How did we get to this.
Which always reminds me - where is @contrarian I hope he is ok.
And Francis Urquhart. And gideonwise. A few PB regulars have abruptly gone missing of late
Concerning
@Casino_Royale is also AWOL. It would be great to get all of these posters back.
Casino Royale is no doubt busy setting up a madrassa for the anti-wokification of “young people”.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
And increasing selection by house price.
Had quite an argument with one of my children over the education of his children. Why, Mrs C & I wanted to know, wasn't he sending them to the school at the bottom of the road. Poor Ofsted report was his answer. So he and his wife had to drive about 5 miles to the one with the 'good Ofsted'. By the time the grandchildren left the situation was reversed.
That was quite a few years ago now. All the grandchildren's friends live some distance away.
Don't get me wrong, I convinced my sister to send her kids to the school literally across the road from her house. Her eldest had been at nursery at a school a mile away and she wasn't sure it was a good idea to split her from her friends. But I told her that she would be fine and she has been. Most primary/junior schools are much of a muchness (though, Salebian's experience is interesting, and it would certainly put me off).
But I think it's a much bigger issue when it comes to secondary schools. My sister is saying that over her dead body will her kids go to the secondary that we went to (and it's a 10 minute walk away). I'm much less inclined to argue in favour of convenience when the kids get to that age.
An observation I made back in my borough council days was that the way places are allocated using the parental preference system isn't very sophisticated (a subject sure to interest any electoral aficionado for whom PB is your asylum). As far as I can see it simply allocated based on first choice and other relevant criteria until each school was full, then those that hadn't made their first choice got sent to whichever schools still had places, pretty much regardless of preference or geography. Hence we had a minority of parents extremely unhappy at getting a place at one of their very low preference schools and/or that was miles from home.
I was never close enough to it to be able to delve into the matter and offer a more sophisticated solution (and it may well be governed by national rules, anyhow - education was never my field in local government), but I always felt that it should have been possible to reduce the number of extremely unhappy 'losers' from the system by allocating people to the less popular schools who had at least made one their second choice (perhaps because it was near their home if not seen as the 'best' school), who would be a lot less unhappy than filling it up with pupils who really didn't want to go there.
No, that isn't how it works at all and is based on a common myth - the idea that naming a school as first preference gives you priority. It doesn't.
All admission authorities in England are required to use the "equal preference" system. This means that the process starts with the LA putting together a list of applicants for each school. Everyone who has named the school as a preference is on this list, regardless of whether it was their first preference or their last one. The applicants are then placed in order based on the school's admission criteria - typically something like looked after children first, then special medical needs, then siblings, then everyone else with distance as the tie breaker, but this varies from school to school. That then determines who qualifies for an offer from that school.
The order of preferences only comes into play if you qualify for offers from two or more schools. If that happens, you will be offered only the higher preference. So, if you qualify for offers from your second and fourth preferences, you will only be offered the second preference.
The only way you get a school that wasn't one of your preferences is if you didn't qualify for any of them. You will not miss out on a place just because you've named the school as second choice.
‘A pandemic advisory panel in the Netherlands on Thursday recommended imposing western Europe’s first partial lockdown since the summer, putting pressure on the government to take unpopular action to fight a Covid surge.
The caretaker prime minister Mark Rutte’s cabinet is expected to decide on Friday on measures following the recommendation of the Outbreak Management Team, broadcaster NOS reported.
The government often follows the expert panel’s recommendations.
Steps under consideration include cancelling events, closing theatres and cinemas, and earlier closing times for cafes and restaurants, the NOS report said. Schools would remain open.’
Yes, the Netherlands was on our list of countries likely to go back into some kind of lockdown. Greece and Germany are as well, Austria has been added as a possibility too.
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
Isn't that former Minister for Planning Jenrick's neck of the parking lot?
How can anyone look at this and think it’s a good idea? A fucking CAR PARK
People are irrational about car parking. Big story in Wigan is plans to knock down the little used market, with a car park (one third occupied) on the roof, to replace it with a smaller market, 400 new homes slap bang in the town centre and move parking slightly further away, Cue fury. People love an empty car park more than a full one. It's much more convenient. 400 new town centre homes will be "bad for the economy" somehow. No surprise the Red Wall remains deprived.
Yes.
It’s sad, but many of the people living in the Red Wall are basically living in the past.
I blame not the people themselves, but successive governments who deprive them of any real local agency.
I'm not sure the curse of NIMBYism is especially unique to the red wall.
Just down the road from Wigan in Warrington the old market etc also got bulldozed a few years ago along with about a quarter of the town centre. No new homes getting built though, a new cinema complex etc built instead so no NIMBY objections to that.
However 400 homes and less parking is an odd combination. 400 homes surely should come with 800 parking spaces for those homes.
It’s not nimbyism per se, but the general mistrust of any town planning ideas from later than about 1975.
I’ve made this example before (and was criticised for it), but compare the roll-out of cycle hire schemes across U.K. cities ex London, with European comparator nations.
I have learned today that @RochdalePioneers actually currently supports the status quo on restrictions, so we are actually in agreement. It's taken a painful fortnight to get there but I am glad we have found consensus.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Yeah me too. I feel much more comfortable working with foreigners than with the English upper middle classes.
Me too.
I find foreigners tend not to make sheep jokes about NZers, which most posh Englishmen find irresistibly hilarious.
I presume the posh Englishmen were all rogered senseless by their gym teachers, so I am willing to cut them a little slack.
Bullshit!
I grew up in Victoria, Australia and New Zealanders being sheep shaggers was ubiquitous there.
If you're excluding Australia from the rest of the world then surely not realising New Zealand even exists is the issue for the rest of the world?
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
Isn't that former Minister for Planning Jenrick's neck of the parking lot?
How can anyone look at this and think it’s a good idea? A fucking CAR PARK
People are irrational about car parking. Big story in Wigan is plans to knock down the little used market, with a car park (one third occupied) on the roof, to replace it with a smaller market, 400 new homes slap bang in the town centre and move parking slightly further away, Cue fury. People love an empty car park more than a full one. It's much more convenient. 400 new town centre homes will be "bad for the economy" somehow. No surprise the Red Wall remains deprived.
I won't name the Council (not red wall) but one Council indicated that it would redevelop a car park and was cancelling permits accordingly. Cue outrage from people who say how much they use it, what a lifeline, etc.
Reader, it had been closed for six months already.
Reminds me of the story of a USAF base commander. On the base was an SR-71 training unit. So, regular as clockwork, the damage claims for sonic booms would roll in.
The training flights were announced locally, so that locals would know in advance when the bangs would come.
Being a humorist, he announced some non-existent flights.
Some claims for the damage from the non-existent flights duly rolled in.....
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Yeah me too. I feel much more comfortable working with foreigners than with the English upper middle classes.
Me too.
I find foreigners tend not to make sheep jokes about NZers, which most posh Englishmen find irresistibly hilarious.
I presume the posh Englishmen were all rogered senseless by their gym teachers, so I am willing to cut them a little slack.
Bullshit!
I grew up in Victoria, Australia and New Zealanders being sheep shaggers was ubiquitous there.
If you're excluding Australia from the rest of the world then surely not realising New Zealand even exists is the issue for the rest of the world?
I am profoundly uninterested in your observations about NZ.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Yeah me too. I feel much more comfortable working with foreigners than with the English upper middle classes.
Me too.
I find foreigners tend not to make sheep jokes about NZers, which most posh Englishmen find irresistibly hilarious.
I presume the posh Englishmen were all rogered senseless by their gym teachers, so I am willing to cut them a little slack.
Bullshit!
I grew up in Victoria, Australia and New Zealanders being sheep shaggers was ubiquitous there.
If you're excluding Australia from the rest of the world then surely not realising New Zealand even exists is the issue for the rest of the world?
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
I see there's a tweet up from an NHS hospital doctor: Another patient refusing to wear a mask in our waiting room. This time they got aggressive and it nearly became a physical altercation with one of our receptionists. “Boris doesn’t wear a mask so why should I?” He said
I took my father to a GP yesterday. Lots of vulnerable patients, all wearing a mask (including us).
The one person there not wearing a mask was the receptionist.
Not behind a Perspex screen? That’s been the case at my doctor and the vet we use for over a year.
There is an small perspex screen in front of the part of the desk with a chair (spoiler: non-continuous screens of limited size don't work and may be actively harmful).
Shame she was standing up and talking to people over a different part of the desk without a screen so that she could hand over some paperwork.
I wasn't particularly bothered, BTW, but it was more to illustrate that not everyone in the NHS is acting "perfectly" whilst having to deal with a recalcitrant public.
Clinical staff were all wearing them as you'd expect, although the treatment rooms are stuffy as anything.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Yeah me too. I feel much more comfortable working with foreigners than with the English upper middle classes.
Me too.
I find foreigners tend not to make sheep jokes about NZers, which most posh Englishmen find irresistibly hilarious.
I presume the posh Englishmen were all rogered senseless by their gym teachers, so I am willing to cut them a little slack.
Bullshit!
I grew up in Victoria, Australia and New Zealanders being sheep shaggers was ubiquitous there.
If you're excluding Australia from the rest of the world then surely not realising New Zealand even exists is the issue for the rest of the world?
I am profoundly uninterested in your observations about NZ.
It wasn't an observation about NZ, it was an observation on how foreigners make jokes about NZ.
If you think nobody outside of the UK makes NZ are sheep shagger jokes then you've clearly not spent much time downunder.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Yeah me too. I feel much more comfortable working with foreigners than with the English upper middle classes.
Me too.
I find foreigners tend not to make sheep jokes about NZers, which most posh Englishmen find irresistibly hilarious.
I presume the posh Englishmen were all rogered senseless by their gym teachers, so I am willing to cut them a little slack.
Please!
The schools I attended were so formal that gym was called James.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Ditto. I am often the only state schooled person in a meeting, or at a dinner
Erotic Flint Knapping is a surprisingly pukka world
Indeed I am still discovering quite how many of my friends are posh in this way. eg last week I learned that one of my oldest friends went to Fettes (Blair's old school, the Eton of Scotland). We were druggies together at UCL and I never thought to ask him about his schooling, ever. An odd omission, but heroin takes priority when you're 23
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Ditto. I am very often the only state schooled person in a meeting, or at a dinner
Erotic Flint Knapping is a surprisingly pukka world
What really annoys me are people who are having excitingly busy social lives, making up for lost time, then coming onto social media and fear-mongering about how reckless Johnson is for not mandating masks, and that fear-mongering making other people feel too scared to go out and socialise at all.
Yesterday was 14 years since I first met my wife (outside a McDonald's in Brixton, naturally). Two years ago we were able to go out to celebrate. Last year, obviously, we celebrated at home. This year, we're fully vaccinated, but my wife still feels it's too risky to go out.
How can you argue against irrational fear when all the people she might trust a bit are telling her that the people she doesn't trust at all are being reckless and dangerous?
I'm becoming quite frustrated, so it's clearly time to step away for a bit.
Funnily enough (it's not funny, obvs) I think people are worse than earlier in the year when they were double jabbed. Now The Booster is the saviour and many are reluctant to do anything without having had it.
Whether by luck or design the government has presided over a scared nation (cf Max's Italy story).
How did we get to this.
Which always reminds me - where is @contrarian I hope he is ok.
And Francis Urquhart. And gideonwise. A few PB regulars have abruptly gone missing of late
Concerning
@Casino_Royale is also AWOL. It would be great to get all of these posters back.
Casino is still active on Twitter as for the others..
IIRC Francis was going to take up a job that would preclude him posting on PB, GideonWise is still recovering from Long Covid and was wound up by someone who originally dismissed Covid, Contrarian pissed OGH with his fake news about Covid-19 and threats of violence towards other posters.
I have learned today that @RochdalePioneers actually currently supports the status quo on restrictions, so we are actually in agreement. It's taken a painful fortnight to get there but I am glad we have found consensus.
Wow. I've been saying that continuously in my support for having plan B etc in the back pocket. As the docs don't want to impose that here and now and I back their expertise rather than mine I am fine with that.
The difference is that I support having a plan B and some posters do not. Also, if you weren't so fixated on my "irrational" position on masks and actually read what I posted you may have got here quicker, You keep asking what I would do / think / want and I keep referring you back to the medics and scientists. They know what they are talking about, we do not.
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
Isn't that former Minister for Planning Jenrick's neck of the parking lot?
How can anyone look at this and think it’s a good idea? A fucking CAR PARK
People are irrational about car parking. Big story in Wigan is plans to knock down the little used market, with a car park (one third occupied) on the roof, to replace it with a smaller market, 400 new homes slap bang in the town centre and move parking slightly further away, Cue fury. People love an empty car park more than a full one. It's much more convenient. 400 new town centre homes will be "bad for the economy" somehow. No surprise the Red Wall remains deprived.
Yes.
It’s sad, but many of the people living in the Red Wall are basically living in the past.
I blame not the people themselves, but successive governments who deprive them of any real local agency.
I'm not sure the curse of NIMBYism is especially unique to the red wall.
Just down the road from Wigan in Warrington the old market etc also got bulldozed a few years ago along with about a quarter of the town centre. No new homes getting built though, a new cinema complex etc built instead so no NIMBY objections to that.
However 400 homes and less parking is an odd combination. 400 homes surely should come with 800 parking spaces for those homes.
Philip, I know this is an old trope of yours but town centre housing does not need two parking spaces per home. We could talk idealistically about this, but I know we differ: but pragmatically, people choosing to live close to the town centre tend to have fewer cars per family, and to use those cars less. Such spaces would be empty, or occupied by cars which would be unused most of the time. It is a very inefficient way of using town centre land. Plus Wigan town centre is massively over-provided for my car parking already. The resource-efficient solution here would be car clubs.
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
Isn't that former Minister for Planning Jenrick's neck of the parking lot?
How can anyone look at this and think it’s a good idea? A fucking CAR PARK
People are irrational about car parking. Big story in Wigan is plans to knock down the little used market, with a car park (one third occupied) on the roof, to replace it with a smaller market, 400 new homes slap bang in the town centre and move parking slightly further away, Cue fury. People love an empty car park more than a full one. It's much more convenient. 400 new town centre homes will be "bad for the economy" somehow. No surprise the Red Wall remains deprived.
Yes.
It’s sad, but many of the people living in the Red Wall are basically living in the past.
I blame not the people themselves, but successive governments who deprive them of any real local agency.
I'm not sure the curse of NIMBYism is especially unique to the red wall.
Just down the road from Wigan in Warrington the old market etc also got bulldozed a few years ago along with about a quarter of the town centre. No new homes getting built though, a new cinema complex etc built instead so no NIMBY objections to that.
However 400 homes and less parking is an odd combination. 400 homes surely should come with 800 parking spaces for those homes.
It’s not nimbyism per se, but the general mistrust of any town planning ideas from later than about 1975.
I’ve made this example before (and was criticised for it), but compare the roll-out of cycle hire schemes across U.K. cities ex London, with European comparator nations.
I would say most planning ideas after 1945 are mistrusted.
Which in turn has much to do with the belief, that if you let your guard down for one millisecond, the planners will cover the place in either
‘A pandemic advisory panel in the Netherlands on Thursday recommended imposing western Europe’s first partial lockdown since the summer, putting pressure on the government to take unpopular action to fight a Covid surge.
The caretaker prime minister Mark Rutte’s cabinet is expected to decide on Friday on measures following the recommendation of the Outbreak Management Team, broadcaster NOS reported.
The government often follows the expert panel’s recommendations.
Steps under consideration include cancelling events, closing theatres and cinemas, and earlier closing times for cafes and restaurants, the NOS report said. Schools would remain open.’
Yes, the Netherlands was on our list of countries likely to go back into some kind of lockdown. Greece and Germany are as well, Austria has been added as a possibility too.
Any country that is in lockdown a year after vaccines were available has dismally failed in its handling of the pandemic.
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
Isn't that former Minister for Planning Jenrick's neck of the parking lot?
How can anyone look at this and think it’s a good idea? A fucking CAR PARK
People are irrational about car parking. Big story in Wigan is plans to knock down the little used market, with a car park (one third occupied) on the roof, to replace it with a smaller market, 400 new homes slap bang in the town centre and move parking slightly further away, Cue fury. People love an empty car park more than a full one. It's much more convenient. 400 new town centre homes will be "bad for the economy" somehow. No surprise the Red Wall remains deprived.
Yes.
It’s sad, but many of the people living in the Red Wall are basically living in the past.
I blame not the people themselves, but successive governments who deprive them of any real local agency.
I'm not sure the curse of NIMBYism is especially unique to the red wall.
Just down the road from Wigan in Warrington the old market etc also got bulldozed a few years ago along with about a quarter of the town centre. No new homes getting built though, a new cinema complex etc built instead so no NIMBY objections to that.
However 400 homes and less parking is an odd combination. 400 homes surely should come with 800 parking spaces for those homes.
It’s not nimbyism per se, but the general mistrust of any town planning ideas from later than about 1975.
I’ve made this example before (and was criticised for it), but compare the roll-out of cycle hire schemes across U.K. cities ex London, with European comparator nations.
I would say most planning ideas after 1945 are mistrusted.
Which in turn has much to do with the belief, that if you let your guard down for one millisecond, the planners will cover the place in either
How to regain the trust of the people when it comes to town planning and architecture? Copy Germany, copy the past. Rebuild what we lost, brick by brick
"In Germany, Potsdam is rebuilding itself. The DDR era behemoth has already been taken down. Before, After."
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
Isn't that former Minister for Planning Jenrick's neck of the parking lot?
How can anyone look at this and think it’s a good idea? A fucking CAR PARK
People are irrational about car parking. Big story in Wigan is plans to knock down the little used market, with a car park (one third occupied) on the roof, to replace it with a smaller market, 400 new homes slap bang in the town centre and move parking slightly further away, Cue fury. People love an empty car park more than a full one. It's much more convenient. 400 new town centre homes will be "bad for the economy" somehow. No surprise the Red Wall remains deprived.
Yes.
It’s sad, but many of the people living in the Red Wall are basically living in the past.
I blame not the people themselves, but successive governments who deprive them of any real local agency.
I'm not sure the curse of NIMBYism is especially unique to the red wall.
Just down the road from Wigan in Warrington the old market etc also got bulldozed a few years ago along with about a quarter of the town centre. No new homes getting built though, a new cinema complex etc built instead so no NIMBY objections to that.
However 400 homes and less parking is an odd combination. 400 homes surely should come with 800 parking spaces for those homes.
It’s not nimbyism per se, but the general mistrust of any town planning ideas from later than about 1975.
I’ve made this example before (and was criticised for it), but compare the roll-out of cycle hire schemes across U.K. cities ex London, with European comparator nations.
Lets be honest there have been some truly shocking planning decisions with regards to town centres! The simple reality though now more than ever is that there is too much retail space and in densely packed suburbia too many competing "centres" like Wigan.
Towns either find a way to bring in local and distinctive stores or they will lose to the big centres like Manchester. In which case there is no point preserving a decaying mess of empty shop units as Rochdale does, you may as well flatten them like Stockton.
What really annoys me are people who are having excitingly busy social lives, making up for lost time, then coming onto social media and fear-mongering about how reckless Johnson is for not mandating masks, and that fear-mongering making other people feel too scared to go out and socialise at all.
Yesterday was 14 years since I first met my wife (outside a McDonald's in Brixton, naturally). Two years ago we were able to go out to celebrate. Last year, obviously, we celebrated at home. This year, we're fully vaccinated, but my wife still feels it's too risky to go out.
How can you argue against irrational fear when all the people she might trust a bit are telling her that the people she doesn't trust at all are being reckless and dangerous?
I'm becoming quite frustrated, so it's clearly time to step away for a bit.
Funnily enough (it's not funny, obvs) I think people are worse than earlier in the year when they were double jabbed. Now The Booster is the saviour and many are reluctant to do anything without having had it.
Whether by luck or design the government has presided over a scared nation (cf Max's Italy story).
How did we get to this.
Which always reminds me - where is @contrarian I hope he is ok.
And Francis Urquhart. And gideonwise. A few PB regulars have abruptly gone missing of late
Concerning
@Casino_Royale is also AWOL. It would be great to get all of these posters back.
I think @Casino was starting a new job so that might explain it but yes. Get yourselves back here for reasoned, thoughtful discussions about Brexit, Brexit, how useless SKS is, Brexit, what a twat BoJo is, Brexit, er, Covid lockdowns, um, actually, can't say I blame them.
What really annoys me are people who are having excitingly busy social lives, making up for lost time, then coming onto social media and fear-mongering about how reckless Johnson is for not mandating masks, and that fear-mongering making other people feel too scared to go out and socialise at all.
Yesterday was 14 years since I first met my wife (outside a McDonald's in Brixton, naturally). Two years ago we were able to go out to celebrate. Last year, obviously, we celebrated at home. This year, we're fully vaccinated, but my wife still feels it's too risky to go out.
How can you argue against irrational fear when all the people she might trust a bit are telling her that the people she doesn't trust at all are being reckless and dangerous?
I'm becoming quite frustrated, so it's clearly time to step away for a bit.
Funnily enough (it's not funny, obvs) I think people are worse than earlier in the year when they were double jabbed. Now The Booster is the saviour and many are reluctant to do anything without having had it.
Whether by luck or design the government has presided over a scared nation (cf Max's Italy story).
How did we get to this.
Which always reminds me - where is @contrarian I hope he is ok.
And Francis Urquhart. And gideonwise. A few PB regulars have abruptly gone missing of late
Concerning
@Casino_Royale is also AWOL. It would be great to get all of these posters back.
Casino is still active on Twitter as for the others..
IIRC Francis was going to take up a job that would preclude him posting on PB, GideonWise is still recovering from Long Covid and was wound up by someone who originally dismissed Covid, Contrarian pissed OGH with his fake news about Covid-19 and threats of violence towards other posters.
Shame about them all - we need contrarians and @contrarian in particular.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Ditto. I am often the only state schooled person in a meeting, or at a dinner
Erotic Flint Knapping is a surprisingly pukka world
Indeed I am still discovering quite how many of my friends are posh in this way. eg last week I learned that one of my oldest friends went to Fettes (Blair's old school, the Eton of Scotland). We were druggies together at UCL and I never thought to ask him about his schooling, ever. An odd omission, but heroin takes priority when you're 23
It is hard to move in middle class London circles without realising, slowly, that you are surrounded by them.
It’s like that Harry Enfield sketch on “Birds”, except instead of working class folk, it’s privately educated chaps called Toby or Seb.
I don’t mind personally, but it’s sobering to think of what it implies in terms of wasted human capital.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Ditto. I am often the only state schooled person in a meeting, or at a dinner
Erotic Flint Knapping is a surprisingly pukka world
Indeed I am still discovering quite how many of my friends are posh in this way. eg last week I learned that one of my oldest friends went to Fettes (Blair's old school, the Eton of Scotland). We were druggies together at UCL and I never thought to ask him about his schooling, ever. An odd omission, but heroin takes priority when you're 23
Intrigued by this... How do you know? As alluded to in your last paragraph, it's not something I know about several people I count as friends; I know the school sector of very few of my colleagues.
I would guess that most of them were state educated, but I do not know.
Having said that, most people of my acquaintance whom I know to have been privately educated have tended to make that known (the most reticent of those was someone who was at Eton, on a scholarship, with Prince Harry - I didn't know he was an Etonian until Harry came up in conversation one day and he made clear his unfavourable view from personal experience!)
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Ditto. I am often the only state schooled person in a meeting, or at a dinner
Erotic Flint Knapping is a surprisingly pukka world
Indeed I am still discovering quite how many of my friends are posh in this way. eg last week I learned that one of my oldest friends went to Fettes (Blair's old school, the Eton of Scotland). We were druggies together at UCL and I never thought to ask him about his schooling, ever. An odd omission, but heroin takes priority when you're 23
It is hard to move in middle class London circles without realising, slowly, that you are surrounded by them.
It’s like that Harry Enfield sketch on “Birds”, except instead of working class folk, it’s privately educated chaps called Toby or Seb.
I don’t mind personally, but it’s sobering to think of what it implies in terms of wasted human capital.
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
Isn't that former Minister for Planning Jenrick's neck of the parking lot?
How can anyone look at this and think it’s a good idea? A fucking CAR PARK
People are irrational about car parking. Big story in Wigan is plans to knock down the little used market, with a car park (one third occupied) on the roof, to replace it with a smaller market, 400 new homes slap bang in the town centre and move parking slightly further away, Cue fury. People love an empty car park more than a full one. It's much more convenient. 400 new town centre homes will be "bad for the economy" somehow. No surprise the Red Wall remains deprived.
Yes.
It’s sad, but many of the people living in the Red Wall are basically living in the past.
I blame not the people themselves, but successive governments who deprive them of any real local agency.
I'm not sure the curse of NIMBYism is especially unique to the red wall.
Just down the road from Wigan in Warrington the old market etc also got bulldozed a few years ago along with about a quarter of the town centre. No new homes getting built though, a new cinema complex etc built instead so no NIMBY objections to that.
However 400 homes and less parking is an odd combination. 400 homes surely should come with 800 parking spaces for those homes.
Philip, I know this is an old trope of yours but town centre housing does not need two parking spaces per home. We could talk idealistically about this, but I know we differ: but pragmatically, people choosing to live close to the town centre tend to have fewer cars per family, and to use those cars less. Such spaces would be empty, or occupied by cars which would be unused most of the time. It is a very inefficient way of using town centre land. Plus Wigan town centre is massively over-provided for my car parking already. The resource-efficient solution here would be car clubs.
I'm sorry but no, absolutely not, Wigan is a town not Islington.
What percentage of households in Wigan own one or two cars? Do you have the actual facts?
400 homes without 800 parking spaces is a failure of planning. And for joined up thinking facing the green future they should be off-road parking with the ability to charge vehicles via plugging in.
300 homes with 600 spaces would be a better use of space than 400 homes with no parking.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
last week I learned that one of my oldest friends went to Fettes (Blair's old school, the Eton of Scotland).
As an (OE) friend of mine put it when this came up once with an Old Fettesian or whatever they are called - "Eton is the Eton of Scotland".
What really annoys me are people who are having excitingly busy social lives, making up for lost time, then coming onto social media and fear-mongering about how reckless Johnson is for not mandating masks, and that fear-mongering making other people feel too scared to go out and socialise at all.
Yesterday was 14 years since I first met my wife (outside a McDonald's in Brixton, naturally). Two years ago we were able to go out to celebrate. Last year, obviously, we celebrated at home. This year, we're fully vaccinated, but my wife still feels it's too risky to go out.
How can you argue against irrational fear when all the people she might trust a bit are telling her that the people she doesn't trust at all are being reckless and dangerous?
I'm becoming quite frustrated, so it's clearly time to step away for a bit.
Funnily enough (it's not funny, obvs) I think people are worse than earlier in the year when they were double jabbed. Now The Booster is the saviour and many are reluctant to do anything without having had it.
Whether by luck or design the government has presided over a scared nation (cf Max's Italy story).
How did we get to this.
Which always reminds me - where is @contrarian I hope he is ok.
And Francis Urquhart. And gideonwise. A few PB regulars have abruptly gone missing of late
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
Isn't that former Minister for Planning Jenrick's neck of the parking lot?
How can anyone look at this and think it’s a good idea? A fucking CAR PARK
People are irrational about car parking. Big story in Wigan is plans to knock down the little used market, with a car park (one third occupied) on the roof, to replace it with a smaller market, 400 new homes slap bang in the town centre and move parking slightly further away, Cue fury. People love an empty car park more than a full one. It's much more convenient. 400 new town centre homes will be "bad for the economy" somehow. No surprise the Red Wall remains deprived.
Yes.
It’s sad, but many of the people living in the Red Wall are basically living in the past.
I blame not the people themselves, but successive governments who deprive them of any real local agency.
I'm not sure the curse of NIMBYism is especially unique to the red wall.
Just down the road from Wigan in Warrington the old market etc also got bulldozed a few years ago along with about a quarter of the town centre. No new homes getting built though, a new cinema complex etc built instead so no NIMBY objections to that.
However 400 homes and less parking is an odd combination. 400 homes surely should come with 800 parking spaces for those homes.
It’s not nimbyism per se, but the general mistrust of any town planning ideas from later than about 1975.
I’ve made this example before (and was criticised for it), but compare the roll-out of cycle hire schemes across U.K. cities ex London, with European comparator nations.
I would say most planning ideas after 1945 are mistrusted.
Which in turn has much to do with the belief, that if you let your guard down for one millisecond, the planners will cover the place in either
"A full lockdown for the unvaccinated will begin Monday in the state of Upper Austria. The seven-day incidence rate per 100,000 people there stands at 1,193.4. 27% of intensive care beds in Upper Austria are occupied by COVID-19 patients. #CoronaVirusAT #COVID19at"
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Yeah me too. I feel much more comfortable working with foreigners than with the English upper middle classes.
Me too.
I find foreigners tend not to make sheep jokes about NZers, which most posh Englishmen find irresistibly hilarious.
I presume the posh Englishmen were all rogered senseless by their gym teachers, so I am willing to cut them a little slack.
Bullshit!
I grew up in Victoria, Australia and New Zealanders being sheep shaggers was ubiquitous there.
If you're excluding Australia from the rest of the world then surely not realising New Zealand even exists is the issue for the rest of the world?
Philip just wondered about this. Are....you....Australian!?!?
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Yeah me too. I feel much more comfortable working with foreigners than with the English upper middle classes.
Me too.
I find foreigners tend not to make sheep jokes about NZers, which most posh Englishmen find irresistibly hilarious.
I presume the posh Englishmen were all rogered senseless by their gym teachers, so I am willing to cut them a little slack.
Bullshit!
I grew up in Victoria, Australia and New Zealanders being sheep shaggers was ubiquitous there.
If you're excluding Australia from the rest of the world then surely not realising New Zealand even exists is the issue for the rest of the world?
Philip just wondered about this. Are....you....Australian!?!?
It would explain a huge amount, he’s a flamin’ drongo.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Ditto. I am often the only state schooled person in a meeting, or at a dinner
Erotic Flint Knapping is a surprisingly pukka world
Indeed I am still discovering quite how many of my friends are posh in this way. eg last week I learned that one of my oldest friends went to Fettes (Blair's old school, the Eton of Scotland). We were druggies together at UCL and I never thought to ask him about his schooling, ever. An odd omission, but heroin takes priority when you're 23
There was a story in Popbitch 2 weeks ago about a female who has bagged herself a millionaire author and is now having plastic surgery; not on her face but "down under". When I read it, I wondered if she had been overdoing it with the flint dildos.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Yeah me too. I feel much more comfortable working with foreigners than with the English upper middle classes.
Me too.
I find foreigners tend not to make sheep jokes about NZers, which most posh Englishmen find irresistibly hilarious.
I presume the posh Englishmen were all rogered senseless by their gym teachers, so I am willing to cut them a little slack.
Bullshit!
I grew up in Victoria, Australia and New Zealanders being sheep shaggers was ubiquitous there.
If you're excluding Australia from the rest of the world then surely not realising New Zealand even exists is the issue for the rest of the world?
Philip just wondered about this. Are....you....Australian!?!?
Tarmacking a lovely garden. Chopping down mature trees. Why? To build a much needed, beautiful building? No, to create a ‘22 space car park’
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
Isn't that former Minister for Planning Jenrick's neck of the parking lot?
How can anyone look at this and think it’s a good idea? A fucking CAR PARK
People are irrational about car parking. Big story in Wigan is plans to knock down the little used market, with a car park (one third occupied) on the roof, to replace it with a smaller market, 400 new homes slap bang in the town centre and move parking slightly further away, Cue fury. People love an empty car park more than a full one. It's much more convenient. 400 new town centre homes will be "bad for the economy" somehow. No surprise the Red Wall remains deprived.
Yes.
It’s sad, but many of the people living in the Red Wall are basically living in the past.
I blame not the people themselves, but successive governments who deprive them of any real local agency.
I'm not sure the curse of NIMBYism is especially unique to the red wall.
Just down the road from Wigan in Warrington the old market etc also got bulldozed a few years ago along with about a quarter of the town centre. No new homes getting built though, a new cinema complex etc built instead so no NIMBY objections to that.
However 400 homes and less parking is an odd combination. 400 homes surely should come with 800 parking spaces for those homes.
Philip, I know this is an old trope of yours but town centre housing does not need two parking spaces per home. We could talk idealistically about this, but I know we differ: but pragmatically, people choosing to live close to the town centre tend to have fewer cars per family, and to use those cars less. Such spaces would be empty, or occupied by cars which would be unused most of the time. It is a very inefficient way of using town centre land. Plus Wigan town centre is massively over-provided for my car parking already. The resource-efficient solution here would be car clubs.
I'm sorry but no, absolutely not, Wigan is a town not Islington.
What percentage of households in Wigan own one or two cars? Do you have the actual facts?
400 homes without 800 parking spaces is a failure of planning. And for joined up thinking facing the green future they should be off-road parking with the ability to charge vehicles via plugging in.
300 homes with 600 spaces would be a better use of space than 400 homes with no parking.
400 homes with 800 parking spaces hasn't been possible under planning since about um 1997 when Prescott changed the rules.
And there is zero money in an extra parking space but a lot of money in an extra house (or even an extra room rather than a garage).
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Ditto. I am often the only state schooled person in a meeting, or at a dinner
Erotic Flint Knapping is a surprisingly pukka world
Indeed I am still discovering quite how many of my friends are posh in this way. eg last week I learned that one of my oldest friends went to Fettes (Blair's old school, the Eton of Scotland). We were druggies together at UCL and I never thought to ask him about his schooling, ever. An odd omission, but heroin takes priority when you're 23
It is hard to move in middle class London circles without realising, slowly, that you are surrounded by them.
It’s like that Harry Enfield sketch on “Birds”, except instead of working class folk, it’s privately educated chaps called Toby or Seb.
I don’t mind personally, but it’s sobering to think of what it implies in terms of wasted human capital.
It's not so prevalent in Scotland though Edinburgh tries its best. What's more disturbing is the poshos' infiltration of the arts. The Old Etonian of today is more likely to win a BAFTA than an MC in some dusty ditch in Helmand.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Ditto. I am often the only state schooled person in a meeting, or at a dinner
Erotic Flint Knapping is a surprisingly pukka world
Indeed I am still discovering quite how many of my friends are posh in this way. eg last week I learned that one of my oldest friends went to Fettes (Blair's old school, the Eton of Scotland). We were druggies together at UCL and I never thought to ask him about his schooling, ever. An odd omission, but heroin takes priority when you're 23
Intrigued by this... How do you know? As alluded to in your last paragraph, it's not something I know about several people I count as friends; I know the school sector of very few of my colleagues.
I would guess that most of them were state educated, but I do not know.
Having said that, most of my acquaintance whom I know to have been privately educated have tended to make that known (the most reticent of those was someone who was at Eton, on a scholarship, with Prince Harry - I didn't know he was an Etonian until Harry came up in conversation one day and he made clear his unfavourable view from personal experience!)
Really? The privately educated people I know tend to be very quiet about it. It’s not exactly a source of shame, but some minor embarrassment at least – ‘actually, I had quite a few advantages to get where I am’. I find where people are from, grew up, went to school fascinating. I’m probably nosier than most about this, certainly if they went to school in Greater Manchester and I can therefore unearth some link to someone else they might know (‘oh, you went to Cheadle Hulme High? Did you know x?’ etc.)
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
As a non-Etonian who has known many Etonians they are generally no different from the cohorts at my old school, other private schools and groups of friends from state schools.
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
I went to Denstone; a fairly little-known and low-influence private school. There were a wide range of characters there (especially as there were loads of local kids on cheap fees or bursaries), and I can say the same for every other school I've met multiple people from.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
The version I always heard was:
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Ditto. I am often the only state schooled person in a meeting, or at a dinner
Erotic Flint Knapping is a surprisingly pukka world
Indeed I am still discovering quite how many of my friends are posh in this way. eg last week I learned that one of my oldest friends went to Fettes (Blair's old school, the Eton of Scotland). We were druggies together at UCL and I never thought to ask him about his schooling, ever. An odd omission, but heroin takes priority when you're 23
Intrigued by this... How do you know? As alluded to in your last paragraph, it's not something I know about several people I count as friends; I know the school sector of very few of my colleagues.
I would guess that most of them were state educated, but I do not know.
Having said that, most people of my acquaintance whom I know to have been privately educated have tended to make that known (the most reticent of those was someone who was at Eton, on a scholarship, with Prince Harry - I didn't know he was an Etonian until Harry came up in conversation one day and he made clear his unfavourable view from personal experience!)
Yes, the ones who went to ultra posh schools - Winchester, Westminster, Eton - generally make it known at some point. Perhaps quite early on in a friendship
You slowly guess the others as they reminisce, and talk about boarding, or their kids fees ("my school wasn't this much!")
I rather like being the prole in the room. It gives you counter-bragging rights
I am hugely outnumberd. 80%, at least, of my friendship network went to private skool
Comments
Whether by luck or design the government has presided over a scared nation (cf Max's Italy story).
How did we get to this.
Which always reminds me - where is @contrarian I hope he is ok.
I recently found a letter from the War Ministry to a distant relative when I was clearing another relative's house - dated exactly for the anniversary today, maybe a day or two later. Her husband had been shot through the knee on 9 November 1918. Fortunately, he survived and became the local bank manager. But how easily ... my own grandfather served in France from 1915 onwards; how even more easily ...
Concerning
There are arrogant entitled ones, intellectual ones, social animals, sports jocks, outsiders and geeks.
My impression has always been that there is just a larger ethos driven into Etonians that they can go on and do great things - they are surrounded by ghosts of famous alumni which no doubt is a driver to do exceptional things or believe they can do something special in some way.
Different schools, especially Public Schools, have a different ethos which has a major influence on the direction of travel after school and this combines with the fact that at the age of selecting the school the child has a certain personality or intellectual bent that directs them to a school where their individual character fits the school ethos/culture better.
So Etonians are like everyone else in terms of a spread of people and personality types in my experience.
Yes he is on my get fucked list.
No the NHS isn't.
‘How can this happen? How is this legal? Who could possibly think this is helpful? Explicitly racial hiring. For shame Dalhousie @DalhousieU’
https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/1458784868217806849?s=21
https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/politics/2021/11/11/monaco-based-anti-sleaze-candidate-to-stand-in-north-shropshire-by-election/
And what about surgeons? Removing cancer is brilliant, but what if you're stuffing silicon implants into people instead? It suddenly seems less noble.
I'm coming round more and more to just saying no. No second jobs, no other income, NOTHING. Hold owned businesses in blind trust, etc. You probably need to apply the rules to direct family members too. Every way forward from here, including doing nothing is messy, and something unfair will happen. I'm just coming to the opinion that being unfair on a few prospective future MPs, putting them off with overstringent rules, is less harmful than being unfair to the whole voting public by leaving a safe space for corruption to flourish. I haven't come to a firm conclusion, but I'm feeling more and more hawkish on it.
In WW2 my paternal grandfather was in the South African air force. He crashed a Blenheim in Libya, lied about it saying he got shot down and got a DFC.
My maternal grandfather spent the war years focussed on his IRA and smuggling careers.
https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Public-Schools-and-the-Great-War-Paperback/p/15354
An entirely competent and interesting, often fascinating, social history - but very disturbing book, not just because of the subject matter but also the social assumptions of the time and to some extent today. Unsettling; I still can't get my head around the Public School right to rule ethos. Which meant officering the British Army and air forces almost completely from the Public Schools in the Great War.
Edit: it's all very well going on about their great sacrifice. Yes, in one sense. Officers had a short life. But they didn't let anyone but PS old boys be officers. So ... And the other classes/ranks* had to do what they said.
*yes, I know about the likes of R. H. Tawney serving in the ran ks.
Jesus. We are mad and stupid
‘Police watching fences go up at Newark Library Garden while local residents gather to try to defend the garden and its mature trees. The trees are due to be felled for an unnecessary car park extension 💔 /1‘
https://twitter.com/adamcormack_/status/1458760739326472196?s=21
How very easily ......
I am conscious how lucky my generation and my children are to have grown up and lived without the backdrop of war disrupting our lives, unlike my parents, grandparents. We are very lucky to have been born and lived in the time and part of the world we have been.
There was a joke: A Wykehamian, a Harrovian, and an Etonian are entertaining a lady. The Wykehamian pulls out the chair for the lady to sit, the Harrovian cleans the fabric for her, and the Etonian sits down, leaving the lady standing. Meanwhile, the Denstonian serves them all drinks.
I think it displays the status well.
Big Yellow Taxi incoming.
My wife had a long and eye watering conversation with a friend who is a nurse with first hand experience of this - based on this second hand anecdata, I think 400 anal extractions a year is perhaps an underestimate - perhaps this only includes those instances which need the attention of an actual surgeon. I bet these are vastly outnumbered by those which can be dealt with by a nurse armed with a mole wrench and a bit of WD40.
As an instinctive libertarian, I'm not sure how to feel about the fact that the state has issued advice about the most appropriate shape of object to shove up your arse. They're trolling us now, surely?
She seems to be being fed a load of nonsense from those “she might trust a bit”. It’s increasingly frustrating, would she take advice from a doctor?
A blanket no second job rule would restrict the people who enter parliament even more to just those who wanted a political career and have no outside world experience.
1950 46.5 million
2020 60.5 million
The current trend is the problem.
An Etonian, a Wykehamist and a Harrovian are in a room when a lady walks in. The Etonian demands a chair for the lady, the Wykehamist arranges a chair is brought to her and the Harrovian sits on it.
There was an interesting split in the family between those who were ardently nationalist and those who were happy to fight on the British side. One of my great uncle's brothers refused to see him in his British Army uniform when he said goodbye to his family and then never got the chance to see him again. So sad.
Cue fury. People love an empty car park more than a full one. It's much more convenient.
400 new town centre homes will be "bad for the economy" somehow.
No surprise the Red Wall remains deprived.
I sense you have a little bit of all of them in ye.
‘A pandemic advisory panel in the Netherlands on Thursday recommended imposing western Europe’s first partial lockdown since the summer, putting pressure on the government to take unpopular action to fight a Covid surge.
The caretaker prime minister Mark Rutte’s cabinet is expected to decide on Friday on measures following the recommendation of the Outbreak Management Team, broadcaster NOS reported.
The government often follows the expert panel’s recommendations.
Steps under consideration include cancelling events, closing theatres and cinemas, and earlier closing times for cafes and restaurants, the NOS report said. Schools would remain open.’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/nov/11/coronavirus-news-live-europe-covid-deaths-rise-10-in-a-week-10-us-states-sue-over-vaccine-mandates
That's a bullet I'm so far willing to bite. If someone becomes a politician and we lose a doctor, that's a choice. If such rules had meant that Liam Fox and Philippa Whitford had never chosen to become MPs, it's not the end of the world.
The one person there not wearing a mask was the receptionist.
They are not particularly narcissistic and I suspect no more self centred than the average bear
It’s sad, but many of the people living in the Red Wall are basically living in the past.
I blame not the people themselves, but successive governments who deprive them of any real local agency.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
I've known a handful of OEs and other products of our great public schools and they're a mixed bunch although a certain degree of entitlement seems to be fairly universal. Of course most of them would deny it because that kind of entitlement is so universal and ingrained in their social milieu that they can't even see it for what it is.
Our universities and public schools throughout the Empire proved once more, as they have proved time and again in the past, that in the formation of character, which is the root of discipline, they have no rivals. Not that universities and public schools enjoy a monopoly of the qualities which make good officers. The life of the British Empire generally has proved sound under the severest tests, and while giving men whom it is an honour for any officer to command, has furnished officers of the highest standard from all ranks of society and all quarters of the world.
Promotion has been entirely by merit, and the highest appointments were open to the humblest, provided he had the necessary qualifications of character, skill and knowledge. Many instances could be quoted of men who from civil or comparatively humble occupations have risen to important commands. A schoolmaster, a lawyer, a taxicab driver, and an ex-Serjeant-Major have commanded brigades; one editor has commanded a division, and another held successfully the position of Senior Staff Officer to a Regular division; the under-cook of a Cambridge College, a clerk to the Metropolitan Water Board, an insurance clerk, an architect's assistant, and a police inspector became efficient General Staff Officers; a Mess Serjeant, a railway signalman, a coal miner, a market gardener, an assistant secretary to a haberdashers' company, a Quartermaster-Serjeant, and many private soldiers have risen to command battalions; clerks have commanded batteries; a schoolmaster, a collier, the son of a blacksmith, an iron moulder, an instructor in tailoring, an assistant gas engineer, a grocer's assistant, as well as policemen, clerks and privates, have commanded companies or acted as adjutants.
They wouldn't have called them 'temporary gentlemen' if they'd been gentlemen already.
A town centre is for parking and shops, not living in. Even if the shops and car parking are entirely deserted.
Reader, it had been closed for six months already.
I find foreigners tend not to make sheep jokes about NZers, which most posh Englishmen find irresistibly hilarious.
I presume the posh Englishmen were all rogered senseless by their gym teachers, so I am willing to cut them a little slack.
Just down the road from Wigan in Warrington the old market etc also got bulldozed a few years ago along with about a quarter of the town centre. No new homes getting built though, a new cinema complex etc built instead so no NIMBY objections to that.
However 400 homes and less parking is an odd combination. 400 homes surely should come with 800 parking spaces for those homes.
All admission authorities in England are required to use the "equal preference" system. This means that the process starts with the LA putting together a list of applicants for each school. Everyone who has named the school as a preference is on this list, regardless of whether it was their first preference or their last one. The applicants are then placed in order based on the school's admission criteria - typically something like looked after children first, then special medical needs, then siblings, then everyone else with distance as the tie breaker, but this varies from school to school. That then determines who qualifies for an offer from that school.
The order of preferences only comes into play if you qualify for offers from two or more schools. If that happens, you will be offered only the higher preference. So, if you qualify for offers from your second and fourth preferences, you will only be offered the second preference.
The only way you get a school that wasn't one of your preferences is if you didn't qualify for any of them. You will not miss out on a place just because you've named the school as second choice.
I’ve made this example before (and was criticised for it), but compare the roll-out of cycle hire schemes across U.K. cities ex London, with European comparator nations.
I grew up in Victoria, Australia and New Zealanders being sheep shaggers was ubiquitous there.
If you're excluding Australia from the rest of the world then surely not realising New Zealand even exists is the issue for the rest of the world?
The training flights were announced locally, so that locals would know in advance when the bangs would come.
Being a humorist, he announced some non-existent flights.
Some claims for the damage from the non-existent flights duly rolled in.....
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/
Shame she was standing up and talking to people over a different part of the desk without a screen so that she could hand over some paperwork.
I wasn't particularly bothered, BTW, but it was more to illustrate that not everyone in the NHS is acting "perfectly" whilst having to deal with a recalcitrant public.
Clinical staff were all wearing them as you'd expect, although the treatment rooms are stuffy as anything.
If you think nobody outside of the UK makes NZ are sheep shagger jokes then you've clearly not spent much time downunder.
The schools I attended were so formal that gym was called James.
Ergo we didn't have gym teachers.
Ditto. I am often the only state schooled person in a meeting, or at a dinner
Erotic Flint Knapping is a surprisingly pukka world
Indeed I am still discovering quite how many of my friends are posh in this way. eg last week I learned that one of my oldest friends went to Fettes (Blair's old school, the Eton of Scotland). We were druggies together at UCL and I never thought to ask him about his schooling, ever. An odd omission, but heroin takes priority when you're 23
IIRC Francis was going to take up a job that would preclude him posting on PB, GideonWise is still recovering from Long Covid and was wound up by someone who originally dismissed Covid, Contrarian pissed OGH with his fake news about Covid-19 and threats of violence towards other posters.
The difference is that I support having a plan B and some posters do not. Also, if you weren't so fixated on my "irrational" position on masks and actually read what I posted you may have got here quicker, You keep asking what I would do / think / want and I keep referring you back to the medics and scientists. They know what they are talking about, we do not.
Plus Wigan town centre is massively over-provided for my car parking already.
The resource-efficient solution here would be car clubs.
Which in turn has much to do with the belief, that if you let your guard down for one millisecond, the planners will cover the place in either
- concrete brutalism
- hideous, microscopic flats.
I wonder where that perception came from?
I feel sorry for them.
"In Germany, Potsdam is rebuilding itself. The DDR era behemoth has already been taken down. Before, After."
https://twitter.com/wrathofgnon/status/1458398300990623745?s=20
Towns either find a way to bring in local and distinctive stores or they will lose to the big centres like Manchester. In which case there is no point preserving a decaying mess of empty shop units as Rochdale does, you may as well flatten them like Stockton.
It’s like that Harry Enfield sketch on “Birds”, except instead of working class folk, it’s privately educated chaps called Toby or Seb.
I don’t mind personally, but it’s sobering to think of what it implies in terms of wasted human capital.
I would guess that most of them were state educated, but I do not know.
Having said that, most people of my acquaintance whom I know to have been privately educated have tended to make that known (the most reticent of those was someone who was at Eton, on a scholarship, with Prince Harry - I didn't know he was an Etonian until Harry came up in conversation one day and he made clear his unfavourable view from personal experience!)
What percentage of households in Wigan own one or two cars? Do you have the actual facts?
400 homes without 800 parking spaces is a failure of planning. And for joined up thinking facing the green future they should be off-road parking with the ability to charge vehicles via plugging in.
300 homes with 600 spaces would be a better use of space than 400 homes with no parking.
But it is true that architecture took a misanthropic, totalitarian turn after Corbusier.
By the time we shook that off, Mr Market took over.
"A full lockdown for the unvaccinated will begin Monday in the state of Upper Austria. The seven-day incidence rate per 100,000 people there stands at 1,193.4. 27% of intensive care beds in Upper Austria are occupied by COVID-19 patients.
#CoronaVirusAT #COVID19at"
https://twitter.com/lahoare/status/1458801500197728257?s=20
I grew up there in the 90s though.
Notice how none of them actually gets the chair. In fact, the oik getting the chair isn't even mentioned. The English class system in action.
In my career I have constantly found myself in meetings being one of the few non-privately educated attendees.
It’s kind of terrifying.
(My career was consulting, then advertising, then digital tech).
Yeah me too. I feel much more comfortable working with foreigners than with the English upper middle classes.
Me too.
I find foreigners tend not to make sheep jokes about NZers, which most posh Englishmen find irresistibly hilarious.
I presume the posh Englishmen were all rogered senseless by their gym teachers, so I am willing to cut them a little slack.
A friend of mine at Shrewsbury in the 1970's and 80's is eternally grateful that he was not a good-looking boy.
And there is zero money in an extra parking space but a lot of money in an extra house (or even an extra room rather than a garage).
What's more disturbing is the poshos' infiltration of the arts. The Old Etonian of today is more likely to win a BAFTA than an MC in some dusty ditch in Helmand.
I find where people are from, grew up, went to school fascinating. I’m probably nosier than most about this, certainly if they went to school in Greater Manchester and I can therefore unearth some link to someone else they might know (‘oh, you went to Cheadle Hulme High? Did you know x?’ etc.)
You slowly guess the others as they reminisce, and talk about boarding, or their kids fees ("my school wasn't this much!")
I rather like being the prole in the room. It gives you counter-bragging rights
I am hugely outnumberd. 80%, at least, of my friendship network went to private skool