Tomorrow sees the first of the December by-elections in the outer London seat of Old Bexley and Sidcup which was held by the Tories at GE2019 with a majority of 40% plus. It is what happened last time that is driving the betting that currently rates the Tory chance at 91%. This, I believe, ignores the current troubles for the party and it leader.
Comments
So would it be fair to say that the earth is flat?
But then we get into the issue of oblate spheroids.
Edit: Used to be a really big thing, even on Unst, which is basically go north to Inverness and keep going twice each time you think you've come to the end, till you really do.
https://canmore.org.uk/site/203253/unst-baltasound-buness-memorial-stone
I'm tempted to go in at 1.62.
Denmark has reported a record number of new daily Covid infections.
He said it was unfortunate, and that he would have preferred if they did not react like their former colonisers over the discovery of the new coronavirus variant Omicron.
https://youtu.be/SPkioWKREDY
The last week has been dramatic in the pandemic with possible serious implications for the people of the UK with potential lockdowns etc.
So rather than ask the questions that the British public what to know answers to in regards to Omicron, SKS decides to ask if the PM had a party a year ago. Who is advising him???
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limnic_eruption
If/when lake Kivu goes fizz, it’ll be nasty.
Also, Cambridge isn't full of toffs, but honest working class kids who have worked hard to get into the finest university in the world.
POSH students claim that their university experience is crumbling — because their college does not have a pastry chef.
Undergraduates at Cambridge University’s Corpus Christi College no longer get handmade artisan breakfasts after kitchen staff walked out.
Hungry toffs now slink off to other colleges for their morning grub as brekkie has been axed altogether. Food quality has also taken a battering, with horrified students confronted with cakes bought from shops.
The college — once home to Downton Abbey star Hugh Bonneville — has seen several catering staff leave, including a MasterChef quarter-finalist, in a conflict with management.
One student complained that it feels like a “loss of the Cambridge experience”.
A source said college management had “prioritised cost over quality” and “the freezers were stuffed”.
They added: “Fresh ingredients were replaced with bulk-bought food, cakes were shop-bought, and vegetables were pre-cut.”
Posh “formals” — black-tie gatherings — will also no longer take place at the college, founded in 1352.
Its kitchen was said to have become “one of the highest performing in Cambridge”.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/16901172/uni-students-experience-ruined-no-pastry-chef/
Late to the game so I'll save mine for the next time it comes round.
Wiktionary tells me this is a good-for-nothing, ne'er-do-well or a boorish person.
I like it.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gougnafier
Re: the live chess
I'd go for NxB
Horseys are rubbish compared to Bishops.
Surely Queen's Gambit - The Board Game is..er..chess.
Let's start it up again.
I don't really have a top ten, but...
Spirited Away
Casablanca
Vertigo
Dr Strangelove
Yojimbo
The Band Wagon
Memories of Murder
Apocalypse Now
All About Eve
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Would be entirely different tomorrow.
Certainly, we're not in Hartlepool in May any more, or even Batley in July. But a 20%+ swing is a huge ask for Labour when the Conservatives are still doing okay in the polls, and this is a fairly Brexit-y seat. Possibly a turnout issue, possibly Tice stripping off some votes. But it's hard to see it being enough.
Lib Dems always find it easier to get the really big swings in this sort of situation - they come from nowhere, flood it, and feel both fresh and a safe way to protest. Labour are more reliant on Tories staying at home. Reading between the lines from the Labour candidate - and I know they play their cards close to their chest - his suggestion is a lot of Tories will sit it out but he's not seeing the switchers.
It also isn't clear to me that the Tory candidate is an obvious dud like Peter Fleet in Chesham, or that Labour have found a big local issue (although I may be wrong on that).
Reduced majority on low turnout has long looked the most likely outcome - hope I'm wrong, but there we are.
Sorry to be pedantic (what are we on PB if not pedantic). But it turns out that "Twitter" in this case was, er, Times Radio. So your "Twitter doesn't like Boris, but Times Radio does" is non-sensical.
If we're being pedantic.
Yeah, horseys are alright; but bishops are better.
I much preferred My Neighbour Totoro (and Ponyo).
So what's the plural of task force? I wrote task forces and it seemed just wrong, is it like attorneys general and thus tasks force?
Task forces is correct, I think.
(And it is definitely not like attorneys general.)
That's a good Top Ten.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=04n4_4v5gQMC&q="task+forces"+usn&dq="task+forces"+usn&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&redir_esc=y
Cool Hand Luke
Hombre
The Sting
The Godfather
The Godfather ptII
Waynes World
Carry On Abroad
The Lives of Others
One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest
Another list might contain another of his movies, but Spirited Away is simply superb.
On the spur, I'd include these:
No Country For Old Men
Mad Max Fury Road
There Will Be Blood
Fargo
Magnolia
Blue Ruin
The Battle of Algiers
Taxi Driver
@sailorrooscout
An official speaking on behalf of the World Health Organization has said most Omicron cases are 'mild' and there's no evidence to suggest vaccines may be less effective against the variant but did say some mutations of the virus indicate an increased risk of quicker transmission.
You seen My Neighbour Totoro? It may be the environmentalist slant that gets me
Local Hero
Shooting Fish
Where Eagles Dare
Breakfast on Pluto
The Sting
Casino
Glengarry Glen Ross
Meet the Parents
Rita Sue and Bob Too
The imitation game
A right mix of stuff !
13:08
A top official in Botswana’s health ministry said on Tuesday that 16 out of the total 19 cases of the Omicron variant detected in the country were asymptomatic, and said it was unfair to treat the country as ground zero of the new variant.
Pamela Smith-Lawrence, acting director of health in the ministry of health and wellness, told Reuters in an interview that the majority of the 19 people who were found to be infected with the new Omicron variant have already tested negative.
While 16 people were asymptomatic, the remaining two had “very, very mild” symptoms.
But if I was to do one I often ponder whether Bad Teacher would make it to it.
You follow them on Twitter.
Hence your "aren't as down as Boris as Twitter" was wrong.
And also your "not in the mood for the kind of pedantic, borderline doctor referral lunacy" comment is far, far more indicative of what's going inside your head rather than anyone else's.
Both leaders are less popular than at the end of Oct, although Boris has taken a far greater hit than Sir Keir, who is basically where he was
Boris leads by 4.7pts on Gross positives, down from 8.5 in Oct
Sir Keir leads by 6.5 on Net Satisfaction, having trailed by 3.9pts. He has improved by 0.8pts in NS over the last 2 months, and stayed the same GP
I'd say the Cons still have the edge but obviously not by as far as previously. What a
startling insight!
Opinium are a humongous outlier/Gospel depending on your POV
Donnie Darko
Spirited Away
L&D of Colonel Blimp
Pulp Fiction
Trois Couleurs (the trilogy)
The Birds
War Requiem
Citizen Kane
The Rock
Death in Venice
Could a bishop sacrifice on the h6 pay off?
1) The Wrath of Khan
2) The Usual Suspects
3) To Kill A Mockingbird
4) Avengers: Endgame
5) The LOTR Trilogy (as I consider that one film)
6) Aliens
7) The Godfather I or The Godfather II
8) The Shawshank Redemption
9) The Dollars Trilogy (like LOTR I consider that one film)
10) Love Actually
And I also need to add Metropolis to the list.
Still, less boring than a test match.
And Ghibli's Grave of the Fireflies would make my top ten list in another day.
https://twitter.com/MichaelPDeacon/status/659283863458443264
And I think you said you'd prefer Burnham to replace Starmer.
Given that - for what it's worth - I'd rather have the bishop.
Opinium -17 +1
J&L -21 -16
R&W -12 -10
IPSOS -27 -21
ComRes -14 -9
YouGov -35 -32
So the leads for Sir Keir are
18
5
2
6
5
3
Yet the firm who find 18 are the only ones ever used in Thread Headers talking about Leader Ratings, with no mention that they are an outlier of epic proportions. Usually massive outliers are highlighted as such, and we are told to be wary. But not when it comes to Opinium's leader ratings
There's a striking scene in Carry On Loving, where you see the exact moment the older social and generational order is crumbling down. The two "swinging" younger characters, one of whom is actually a middle-aged Terry Jones, are marooned in a Victorian-like atmosphere in a drawing room, where the extended older 'family' are having tea, stock-still like statues. Needless to say it ends in chaos and the action soon turns to Terry and the miniskirted heroine.
There's nothing like the head-on social clash in any of the other films - the 70's films get gradually more and more lewd and relaxed.
Bladerunner 2049
The Godfather (Parts I and II)
The Shawshank Redemption
The Constant Gardener
The Road
Fight Club
Aliens
Apocalypse Now!
Pulp Fiction
Road to Perdition
English is clearly designed to be like that to confound foreigners.
Attorney generals is also grammatically correct, of course, but just means something else.
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/A_Canticle_For_Leibowitz/4RCkBQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=leibowitz+dog+house&pg=PT22&printsec=frontcover
Is Magnus playing for a penalty shootout again? He's better at blitz.
Just as stopgap can have the plural stopsgaps.
Gonna be an awful winter across the channel.
It's amazing anyone wants to or manages to learn this absurd language.
2) The Human Centipede
3) Superman IV
4) Star Wars: the Phantom Menace
5) Cats
6) Speed 2 (again, sequels are always better)
7) The Blair Witch Project 2 (ditto)
8) American Pie Reunion
9) Police Academy (films 3-x - they're all brilliant and just get better!)
10) Star Trek V (or for the revisioned films, Star Trek Into Darkness)
An honourable mention to Mon Oncle.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/plural