FPT it’s a very slippery slope when you start judging people for needing the NHS. When does it end?
@Leon guzzles booze like nobody’s business. That’s a positive act that is likely to be an NHS resource drain in the future. Driving a car at 120mph is also a positive act. Refusing a vaccine is an omission.
It feels profoundly wrong to force people to put something into their own body.
I say this as someone who has had an operation cancelled 3 times already due to NHS pressures. 4th attempt is currently scheduled for Monday.
Except you're talking about compulsion in a situation of dire national emergency as if it were a totally novel and unprecedented moral outrage. It isn't.
Not so very long ago, millions of our forebears were conscripted to fight in wars. When society was faced with an existential threat, it demanded, amongst other things, that young people fight in battles and get blown up, shot through the head or drown in icy cold seas. And if you were called up then, unless you had a very good excuse (e.g. a reserved occupation or being medically unfit) then you bloody well went. The small minority of hardcore pacifists who refused to do service of any kind were complete social pariahs who ended up imprisoned.
Fast forward a few decades and now it's considered unforgivable to ask people to have a scratch on the arm every three or six months so as to try and avoid the entire bloody country ending up under house arrest for months on end, with the education of the nation's children wrecked, otherwise viable businesses driven to the wall en masse, and the state hurtling every closer to the cliff edge of bankruptcy into the bargain.
And if the cost of your repeated cancelled operations was that you ended up dead, I doubt your surviving relatives would feel so sanguine about this problem.
Yes, exactly
I confess my patience has ENTIRELY snapped with vax refuseniks like Dura, however entertaining he might be, on occasion. It especially snaps when he starts opining on bloody politics. To continue your analogy, it is like some conscientious objector in 1944 complaining about the awful tactics during D Day and demanding resignations. Jeez no. Do one. Fuck. Right. Off. Never speak again
But my anger - which is genuine - is running away with me, and I will rein it in, for the sake of the site. And the mods. FWIW I have the same anger to refuseniks in my personal life, I now find it very hard not to slap them. This is not "personal"
Singapore will no longer pay for hospitalisation for unvaccinated COVID patients. All arrivals have to have been double jabbed AND have insurance for hospital treatment for COVID.
Some light reading for Andrew Windsor, formerly known as a prince.
- “Despite assertions that there is no reason to pursue these abuse cases following Epstein’s death, the cases do not end just because the alleged ringleader cannot be convicted. Former US Attorney General Bill Barr said, “Any co-conspirators should not rest easy. The victims deserve justice and they will get it.” Many others, including the “powerful men, moguls, media giants” Sternheim spoke of have yet to be charged or tried for their alleged abuses in connection with this case.”
Singapore will no longer pay for hospitalisation for unvaccinated COVID patients. All arrivals have to have been double jabbed AND have insurance for hospital treatment for COVID.
How bad is the situation in Singapore's hospitals?
"An MP has lodged a bid for the controversial renaming of an historic Scots pub called the ‘Black Bitch’ to be debated in Parliament.
Linlithgow MP Martyn Day tabled the early day motion after major pub chain Greene King confirmed plans to change the name of the town’s bar to more “inclusive” title the Black Hound.
The move has sparked outrage in the town, with a petition calling for the name to remain gathering more than 6,000 signatures in a matter of days and former First Minister Alex Salmond wading into the row."
Vox pops are a good indicator or programs with a TV audience. HIGNFY has an audience that's there for a laugh. Tonight's seemed worked up in a way I can't remember seeing before.. A change has taken place.
It wasn't a year old Christmas Party. It was a repulsion against privilege and entitlement. Why it happened this week I can't say. But that's the way zeitgeist works. Several things at the same time that you can't put your finger on.
For me it was Johnson 's grin Allegra's smirk and the policeman's costume but it could just be the weather.
“ Vast majority of Britons have NO PROTECTION against Omicron: After 100 days two AstraZeneca doses offer virtually zero defence while two Pfizer jabs provide just 37% protection against new variant - but boosters cut risk of falling ill by 75%”
This is the simplistic nonsense that will lead us into lockdown before Christmas. Because our PM and Cabinet are too thick and poorly educated to understand why this sound byte is wrong.
Indeed it’s fascinating to read US news right now. Mainly it’s inflation, a storm that killed 2, Russia-Ukraine and abortion in Texas. Covid is being reported largely through the prism of the uk.
But wait I hear you say. The US had its head up its arse in Feb-March 2020, allowing for a historic one way trading bet for anyone aware of what was happening in Italy.
So let’s refer to the South African news. Some race issues, a retiring MP, Zuma, cricket, poaching… there’s a story about “trace levels of omicron found in Cape Town waste water” and another about the difficulty of enforcing any covid restrictions on the beach.
Either our country has gone entirely fucking mad. Or the whole lot of you doomcasters should stop wasting your time betting on a bye election and use every scrap of available liquidity to buy deep out the money NYSE puts with expiry about 6-8 weeks from now.
I don't trade stonks, I just buy companies I like and sit on them forever, or sometimes I let my cat pick them from the Nikkei listing page. But last time they were quite weird: Nothing happened for a while and we were all staring at them wondering why they weren't crashing, had the markets not noticed the incoming global pandemic or what. Then they finally did an almighty crash, and everything seemed to make sense, in a world where pb readers knew what was going on ahead of time but the rest of the world was dozy... but then they bounced back and proceeded to go to record highs.
I don't think just knowing what was happening in Italy would have got you to profitable trades. Working out that the market was going to shit the bed wasn't enough, you also had to know that it was going to unshit it.
“ Vast majority of Britons have NO PROTECTION against Omicron: After 100 days two AstraZeneca doses offer virtually zero defence while two Pfizer jabs provide just 37% protection against new variant - but boosters cut risk of falling ill by 75%”
This is the simplistic nonsense that will lead us into lockdown before Christmas. Because our PM and Cabinet are too thick and poorly educated to understand why this sound byte is wrong.
Indeed it’s fascinating to read US news right now. Mainly it’s inflation, a storm that killed 2, Russia-Ukraine and abortion in Texas. Covid is being reported largely through the prism of the uk.
But wait I hear you say. The US had its head up its arse in Feb-March 2020, allowing for a historic one way trading bet for anyone aware of what was happening in Italy.
So let’s refer to the South African news. Some race issues, a retiring MP, Zuma, cricket, poaching… there’s a story about “trace levels of omicron found in Cape Town waste water” and another about the difficulty of enforcing any covid restrictions on the beach.
Either our country has gone entirely fucking mad. Or the whole lot of you doomcasters should stop wasting your time betting on a bye election and use every scrap of available liquidity to buy deep out the money NYSE puts with expiry about 6-8 weeks from now.
I don't trade stonks, I just buy companies I like and sit on them forever, or sometimes I let my cat pick them from the Nikkei listing page. But last time they were quite weird: Nothing happened for a while and we were all staring at them wondering why they weren't crashing, had the markets not noticed the incoming global pandemic or what. Then they finally did an almighty crash, and everything seemed to make sense, in a world where pb readers knew what was going on ahead of time but the rest of the world was dozy... but then they bounced back and proceeded to go to record highs.
I don't think just knowing what was happening in Italy would have got you to profitable trades. Working out that the market was going to shit the bed wasn't enough, you also had to know that it was going to unshit it.
Spot on!
The fundamental flaw with all these superficially wise insights into equity market trades is that you have to be right *TWICE*.
FPT it’s a very slippery slope when you start judging people for needing the NHS. When does it end?
@Leon guzzles booze like nobody’s business. That’s a positive act that is likely to be an NHS resource drain in the future. Driving a car at 120mph is also a positive act. Refusing a vaccine is an omission.
It feels profoundly wrong to force people to put something into their own body.
I say this as someone who has had an operation cancelled 3 times already due to NHS pressures. 4th attempt is currently scheduled for Monday.
Except you're talking about compulsion in a situation of dire national emergency as if it were a totally novel and unprecedented moral outrage. It isn't.
Not so very long ago, millions of our forebears were conscripted to fight in wars. When society was faced with an existential threat, it demanded, amongst other things, that young people fight in battles and get blown up, shot through the head or drown in icy cold seas. And if you were called up then, unless you had a very good excuse (e.g. a reserved occupation or being medically unfit) then you bloody well went. The small minority of hardcore pacifists who refused to do service of any kind were complete social pariahs who ended up imprisoned.
Fast forward a few decades and now it's considered unforgivable to ask people to have a scratch on the arm every three or six months so as to try and avoid the entire bloody country ending up under house arrest for months on end, with the education of the nation's children wrecked, otherwise viable businesses driven to the wall en masse, and the state hurtling every closer to the cliff edge of bankruptcy into the bargain.
And if the cost of your repeated cancelled operations was that you ended up dead, I doubt your surviving relatives would feel so sanguine about this problem.
I still profoundly disagree. I think people are panicking and trying to find someone, anyone, to ‘blame’ and in doing so are retreating to a level of authoritarianism to impose this panic on others.
The country does not need to be under house arrest. We’re very highly vaccinated. Thats good. The odd person who isn’t isnt going to make a difference.
But of course keep blaming others
People are scared. Some of the virus. Others of another lockdown. Yet others of societal disorder if there is another lockdown. Of the effect on their mental health. On their physical health. On their personal finances. On their kids' education and future. The common factor is fear as a result of the uncertainty and lack of control. After two years of it. And six months when many have thought it over, it is too much to process. Hence panic. And the febrile atmosphere on here and elsewhere. Doesn't help that it has sunk in with most that our leader isn't up to it.
“ Vast majority of Britons have NO PROTECTION against Omicron: After 100 days two AstraZeneca doses offer virtually zero defence while two Pfizer jabs provide just 37% protection against new variant - but boosters cut risk of falling ill by 75%”
This is the simplistic nonsense that will lead us into lockdown before Christmas. Because our PM and Cabinet are too thick and poorly educated to understand why this sound byte is wrong.
Indeed it’s fascinating to read US news right now. Mainly it’s inflation, a storm that killed 2, Russia-Ukraine and abortion in Texas. Covid is being reported largely through the prism of the uk.
But wait I hear you say. The US had its head up its arse in Feb-March 2020, allowing for a historic one way trading bet for anyone aware of what was happening in Italy.
So let’s refer to the South African news. Some race issues, a retiring MP, Zuma, cricket, poaching… there’s a story about “trace levels of omicron found in Cape Town waste water” and another about the difficulty of enforcing any covid restrictions on the beach.
Either our country has gone entirely fucking mad. Or the whole lot of you doomcasters should stop wasting your time betting on a bye election and use every scrap of available liquidity to buy deep out the money NYSE puts with expiry about 6-8 weeks from now.
I don't trade stonks, I just buy companies I like and sit on them forever, or sometimes I let my cat pick them from the Nikkei listing page. But last time they were quite weird: Nothing happened for a while and we were all staring at them wondering why they weren't crashing, had the markets not noticed the incoming global pandemic or what. Then they finally did an almighty crash, and everything seemed to make sense, in a world where pb readers knew what was going on ahead of time but the rest of the world was dozy... but then they bounced back and proceeded to go to record highs.
I don't think just knowing what was happening in Italy would have got you to profitable trades. Working out that the market was going to shit the bed wasn't enough, you also had to know that it was going to unshit it.
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
This time it is harder. We know that large sectors of the economy are actually pretty robust, so likely to be less affected by a massive sell off. There is also increasing pointers to stagflation both here and the USA. Investing for that prospect is quite tricky.
Yesterday's anaemic GDP figures, and the poor trade figures, with us falling further and further behind equally covid affected benchmarks also make stockpicking difficult. At the moment I am 95% equities but in ones not particularly exposed to UK Consumer spending.
The markets Santa rally seems particularly crazy at a time of Omicron, but as the saying goes, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
Even by my own standards as a connoisseur of insomnia, had an abysmal night's sleep. Glad the race isn't today.
Stay off the booze is my advice.
I had a white month recently and I’ve not slept better since my childhood.
I reckon that 80% of sleep problems are directly attributable to alcohol and other intoxicants. I can heartily recommend a thorough detox. Christmas is an excellent time to start: all that faux joviality just makes the Jan/Feb dip even worse.
My hunch is that if you are going to back the tories in North Shropshire the odds will improve as the week goes on; as punters abandon their over optimistic positions in favour of a blue win.
I wouldn't be suprised if, by election day, they are down to something like 4/1. And that will be the time to back the tories; not now.
“ Vast majority of Britons have NO PROTECTION against Omicron: After 100 days two AstraZeneca doses offer virtually zero defence while two Pfizer jabs provide just 37% protection against new variant - but boosters cut risk of falling ill by 75%”
This is the simplistic nonsense that will lead us into lockdown before Christmas. Because our PM and Cabinet are too thick and poorly educated to understand why this sound byte is wrong.
Indeed it’s fascinating to read US news right now. Mainly it’s inflation, a storm that killed 2, Russia-Ukraine and abortion in Texas. Covid is being reported largely through the prism of the uk.
But wait I hear you say. The US had its head up its arse in Feb-March 2020, allowing for a historic one way trading bet for anyone aware of what was happening in Italy.
So let’s refer to the South African news. Some race issues, a retiring MP, Zuma, cricket, poaching… there’s a story about “trace levels of omicron found in Cape Town waste water” and another about the difficulty of enforcing any covid restrictions on the beach.
Either our country has gone entirely fucking mad. Or the whole lot of you doomcasters should stop wasting your time betting on a bye election and use every scrap of available liquidity to buy deep out the money NYSE puts with expiry about 6-8 weeks from now.
I don't trade stonks, I just buy companies I like and sit on them forever, or sometimes I let my cat pick them from the Nikkei listing page. But last time they were quite weird: Nothing happened for a while and we were all staring at them wondering why they weren't crashing, had the markets not noticed the incoming global pandemic or what. Then they finally did an almighty crash, and everything seemed to make sense, in a world where pb readers knew what was going on ahead of time but the rest of the world was dozy... but then they bounced back and proceeded to go to record highs.
I don't think just knowing what was happening in Italy would have got you to profitable trades. Working out that the market was going to shit the bed wasn't enough, you also had to know that it was going to unshit it.
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
This time it is harder. We know that large sectors of the economy are actually pretty robust, so likely to be less affected by a massive sell off. There is also increasing pointers to stagflation both here and the USA. Investing for that prospect is quite tricky.
Yesterday's anaemic GDP figures, and the poor trade figures, with us falling further and further behind equally covid affected benchmarks also make stockpicking difficult. At the moment I am 95% equities but in ones not particularly exposed to UK Consumer spending.
The markets Santa rally seems particularly crazy at a time of Omicron, but as the saying goes, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
Nice. Out of interest what motivated the buying back part? Did the crash just seem like it had gone further than it should, or did your take on the underlying situation change between February and April?
Starmer repeatedly used the word “lies” about the prime minister in the clip broadcast by Radio 4’s Midnight News. I was a bit taken aback. This is highly unusual language. He must be very, very confident that the case against BJ is rock solid.
Not really, everyone in the whole World knows that the disingenuous fat philanderer is one of the biggest liars out there.
We know the unvaxxed basically take up a huge proportion of critical care facilities. They also stay longer, next to age - and noone can change their age it's the single biggest factor in healthcare clogging. I think we're moving to a point where the choices are basically
i) Healthcare system collapses. ii) Mandatory vaccination. iii) More lockdowns for all.
4) more nhs staff
They're all off driving lorries, I think.
I know a guy that’s just resigned from a *very* lucrative job in the North Sea to work as an HGV driver.
He reckons the pay is about the same, although he will lose his quite astonishing amount of time off. But he reckons the switch is worth it, as his North Sea job was extremely demanding: exhausting, dangerous, scary and unpleasant. In other words, much like nursing, except they don’t even get the lucrative pay and generous time off.
Starmer repeatedly used the word “lies” about the prime minister in the clip broadcast by Radio 4’s Midnight News. I was a bit taken aback. This is highly unusual language. He must be very, very confident that the case against BJ is rock solid.
Not really, everyone in the whole World knows that the disingenuous fat philanderer is one of the biggest liars out there.
Indeed, but senior and experienced lawyers, not to mention Leaders of the Opposition, almost never use the word about a prime minister.
It just felt like a watershed moment. Folk are no longer nervous about pointing at the obese, drunken, lazy, mendacious, unfaithful emperor and pointing out that he has no clothes.
I've off-topicced @Foxy 's post, as there has never been a police complaint, never mind a trial and a guilty verdict, and even the Daily Mail is being more nuanced in its language.
IMO one to avoid. But I'm just one PBer.
Jennifer Arcuri is currently exploring the boundaries of liability in making edgy conclusions.
FPT it’s a very slippery slope when you start judging people for needing the NHS. When does it end?
@Leon guzzles booze like nobody’s business. That’s a positive act that is likely to be an NHS resource drain in the future. Driving a car at 120mph is also a positive act. Refusing a vaccine is an omission.
It feels profoundly wrong to force people to put something into their own body.
I say this as someone who has had an operation cancelled 3 times already due to NHS pressures. 4th attempt is currently scheduled for Monday.
Except you're talking about compulsion in a situation of dire national emergency as if it were a totally novel and unprecedented moral outrage. It isn't.
Not so very long ago, millions of our forebears were conscripted to fight in wars. When society was faced with an existential threat, it demanded, amongst other things, that young people fight in battles and get blown up, shot through the head or drown in icy cold seas. And if you were called up then, unless you had a very good excuse (e.g. a reserved occupation or being medically unfit) then you bloody well went. The small minority of hardcore pacifists who refused to do service of any kind were complete social pariahs who ended up imprisoned.
Fast forward a few decades and now it's considered unforgivable to ask people to have a scratch on the arm every three or six months so as to try and avoid the entire bloody country ending up under house arrest for months on end, with the education of the nation's children wrecked, otherwise viable businesses driven to the wall en masse, and the state hurtling every closer to the cliff edge of bankruptcy into the bargain.
And if the cost of your repeated cancelled operations was that you ended up dead, I doubt your surviving relatives would feel so sanguine about this problem.
I still profoundly disagree. I think people are panicking and trying to find someone, anyone, to ‘blame’ and in doing so are retreating to a level of authoritarianism to impose this panic on others.
The country does not need to be under house arrest. We’re very highly vaccinated. Thats good. The odd person who isn’t isnt going to make a difference.
But of course keep blaming others
You're just too fucking stupid to understand how vaccination works. It only works if a certain high percentage agree to do it. That's it. Otherwise everyone suffers and the disease wins.
Your miserable IQ is too low to grasp this central fact
Rubbish. I’m vaccinated therefore my immune system is better placed to fight off covid. I couldn’t give two hoots if other people are or not. Not my problem not my business.
Oh god. Oh my fucking good god
Go to bed man
I always guessed you didn't have much of a brain. i never guessed you actually don't possess a BRAIN-STEM
I think you're both wrong. The new variant is so transmissable the vaccines won't stop the spread (AIUI), even if the DAs of the world get it. So the traditional, herd immunity argument is out - this is like the common cold now.
However, if the DAs start filling up the hospitals then operations like the one GG is getting (and me too, next week) will be cancelled as the NHS collapses under the pressure.
Basically, anti-vaxxers should get a choice: Vaxx or private healthcare. No restrictions on your life, as long as you don't restrict my access to the NHS.
Private healthcare as punishment? Thatcher’s children.
Even by my own standards as a connoisseur of insomnia, had an abysmal night's sleep. Glad the race isn't today.
Stay off the booze is my advice.
I had a white month recently and I’ve not slept better since my childhood.
I reckon that 80% of sleep problems are directly attributable to alcohol and other intoxicants. I can heartily recommend a thorough detox. Christmas is an excellent time to start: all that faux joviality just makes the Jan/Feb dip even worse.
We know the unvaxxed basically take up a huge proportion of critical care facilities. They also stay longer, next to age - and noone can change their age it's the single biggest factor in healthcare clogging. I think we're moving to a point where the choices are basically
i) Healthcare system collapses. ii) Mandatory vaccination. iii) More lockdowns for all.
4) more nhs staff
1,3,and 4 means everyone else having to pay for their decisions how about no
We have to pay for lots of decisions. Obesity, alcohol, drugs, sports, bosses stressing out their workers. This line of thinking is a ridiculous slippery slope.
Obesity....often you dont get operation until you lose weight Alcohol and drugs again nhs help is often restricted till you give up smoking...smokers have to pay extra to fund their care via tax Seems making anti vaxxers pay is in the same vein.
However if you dont want that here is an idea
Perhaps we should use the home office bill everyone hates before it gets repealed and deprive anti vaxxers of their british citizenship and deport them.....problem solved
Cyclefree’s article did beg the question: when will someone get creative?
This is only the start. Tories are about to come up with thousands of reasons for arbitrary removal of citizenship for folk they don’t like.
I've off-topicced @Foxy 's post, as there has never been a police complaint, never mind a trial and a guilty verdict, and even the Daily Mail is being more nuanced in its language.
IMO one to avoid. But I'm just one PBer.
Jennifer Arcuri is currently exploring the boundaries of liability in making edgy conclusions.
Yeah, I think we need to be careful with this. “Judge says” needs to be attached to it because he’s not been found guilty of rape.
Starmer repeatedly used the word “lies” about the prime minister in the clip broadcast by Radio 4’s Midnight News. I was a bit taken aback. This is highly unusual language. He must be very, very confident that the case against BJ is rock solid.
Not really, everyone in the whole World knows that the disingenuous fat philanderer is one of the biggest liars out there.
Indeed, but senior and experienced lawyers, not to mention Leaders of the Opposition, almost never use the word about a prime minister.
It just felt like a watershed moment. Folk are no longer nervous about pointing at the obese, drunken, lazy, mendacious, unfaithful emperor and pointing out that he has no clothes.
He used the word 'lies' at PMQs in the week. The attribution of those lies is left in the air, so nobody is accused and thus it is not unparliamentary, but it is clear where SKS thinks they are emanating from.
It feels more natural than directly pointing at Boris and using 'must be mistaken', 'correct the record', 'economical with the actualite' and all that circuitous shite that just turns voters off to parliament. It is a good move.
Mr. Dickson, I haven't had any alcohol for a couple of months at least.
Combination of standard insomnia, bug bites, and some cracked skin on my heel that delivered a delightful jab of pain if it brushed anything.
Good on you! That’s fantastic!
Ah well, my 80% guesstimate still leaves a huge 20% worth of “other”. In my case I went through a tricky period at work once with a dreadful boss. Now thankfully a faded memory. But jeepers it did weird things with my body.
My darling wife gave me an impromptu foot massage the other evening, as she says all this snow and cold weather is drying out everyone’s skin. It was a highly pleasant experience. Buy yourself a luxury foot cream and some expensive new cotton socks.
“ Vast majority of Britons have NO PROTECTION against Omicron: After 100 days two AstraZeneca doses offer virtually zero defence while two Pfizer jabs provide just 37% protection against new variant - but boosters cut risk of falling ill by 75%”
This is the simplistic nonsense that will lead us into lockdown before Christmas. Because our PM and Cabinet are too thick and poorly educated to understand why this sound byte is wrong.
Indeed it’s fascinating to read US news right now. Mainly it’s inflation, a storm that killed 2, Russia-Ukraine and abortion in Texas. Covid is being reported largely through the prism of the uk.
But wait I hear you say. The US had its head up its arse in Feb-March 2020, allowing for a historic one way trading bet for anyone aware of what was happening in Italy.
So let’s refer to the South African news. Some race issues, a retiring MP, Zuma, cricket, poaching… there’s a story about “trace levels of omicron found in Cape Town waste water” and another about the difficulty of enforcing any covid restrictions on the beach.
Either our country has gone entirely fucking mad. Or the whole lot of you doomcasters should stop wasting your time betting on a bye election and use every scrap of available liquidity to buy deep out the money NYSE puts with expiry about 6-8 weeks from now.
I don't trade stonks, I just buy companies I like and sit on them forever, or sometimes I let my cat pick them from the Nikkei listing page. But last time they were quite weird: Nothing happened for a while and we were all staring at them wondering why they weren't crashing, had the markets not noticed the incoming global pandemic or what. Then they finally did an almighty crash, and everything seemed to make sense, in a world where pb readers knew what was going on ahead of time but the rest of the world was dozy... but then they bounced back and proceeded to go to record highs.
I don't think just knowing what was happening in Italy would have got you to profitable trades. Working out that the market was going to shit the bed wasn't enough, you also had to know that it was going to unshit it.
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
This time it is harder. We know that large sectors of the economy are actually pretty robust, so likely to be less affected by a massive sell off. There is also increasing pointers to stagflation both here and the USA. Investing for that prospect is quite tricky.
Yesterday's anaemic GDP figures, and the poor trade figures, with us falling further and further behind equally covid affected benchmarks also make stockpicking difficult. At the moment I am 95% equities but in ones not particularly exposed to UK Consumer spending.
The markets Santa rally seems particularly crazy at a time of Omicron, but as the saying goes, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
Nice. Out of interest what motivated the buying back part? Did the crash just seem like it had gone further than it should, or did your take on the underlying situation change between February and April?
The first wave was visibly receding so I thought it safe to go back in, a bit tentatively at first.
“ Vast majority of Britons have NO PROTECTION against Omicron: After 100 days two AstraZeneca doses offer virtually zero defence while two Pfizer jabs provide just 37% protection against new variant - but boosters cut risk of falling ill by 75%”
This is the simplistic nonsense that will lead us into lockdown before Christmas. Because our PM and Cabinet are too thick and poorly educated to understand why this sound byte is wrong.
Indeed it’s fascinating to read US news right now. Mainly it’s inflation, a storm that killed 2, Russia-Ukraine and abortion in Texas. Covid is being reported largely through the prism of the uk.
But wait I hear you say. The US had its head up its arse in Feb-March 2020, allowing for a historic one way trading bet for anyone aware of what was happening in Italy.
So let’s refer to the South African news. Some race issues, a retiring MP, Zuma, cricket, poaching… there’s a story about “trace levels of omicron found in Cape Town waste water” and another about the difficulty of enforcing any covid restrictions on the beach.
Either our country has gone entirely fucking mad. Or the whole lot of you doomcasters should stop wasting your time betting on a bye election and use every scrap of available liquidity to buy deep out the money NYSE puts with expiry about 6-8 weeks from now.
I don't trade stonks, I just buy companies I like and sit on them forever, or sometimes I let my cat pick them from the Nikkei listing page. But last time they were quite weird: Nothing happened for a while and we were all staring at them wondering why they weren't crashing, had the markets not noticed the incoming global pandemic or what. Then they finally did an almighty crash, and everything seemed to make sense, in a world where pb readers knew what was going on ahead of time but the rest of the world was dozy... but then they bounced back and proceeded to go to record highs.
I don't think just knowing what was happening in Italy would have got you to profitable trades. Working out that the market was going to shit the bed wasn't enough, you also had to know that it was going to unshit it.
The trick with options is never to hold them to expiry. I made a years salary in a few days in March 2020, from only a few thousands pounds worth of premiums. I wasn’t greedy and then closed out, fortunately before the fed intervened.
But my point is being missed here. I’m not doing the same trade now. Because I don’t think we’re facing anywhere near the same kind of disaster, from looking at South African media and listening to their medical professionals. The theme that omicron is taking us back to square one (and that is clearly the Daily Mail’s messageg is a uk phenomenon and that disturbs me, because it makes me wonder who is pushing that narrative here and why.
I’m not remotely scared of the virus now, most people I know have caught covid at least once and been double or tripled vaxxed and I don’t believe omicron is going to cause serious problems for anyone in that position. It’s our media and political class that terrify me.
“ Vast majority of Britons have NO PROTECTION against Omicron: After 100 days two AstraZeneca doses offer virtually zero defence while two Pfizer jabs provide just 37% protection against new variant - but boosters cut risk of falling ill by 75%”
This is the simplistic nonsense that will lead us into lockdown before Christmas. Because our PM and Cabinet are too thick and poorly educated to understand why this sound byte is wrong.
Indeed it’s fascinating to read US news right now. Mainly it’s inflation, a storm that killed 2, Russia-Ukraine and abortion in Texas. Covid is being reported largely through the prism of the uk.
But wait I hear you say. The US had its head up its arse in Feb-March 2020, allowing for a historic one way trading bet for anyone aware of what was happening in Italy.
So let’s refer to the South African news. Some race issues, a retiring MP, Zuma, cricket, poaching… there’s a story about “trace levels of omicron found in Cape Town waste water” and another about the difficulty of enforcing any covid restrictions on the beach.
Either our country has gone entirely fucking mad. Or the whole lot of you doomcasters should stop wasting your time betting on a bye election and use every scrap of available liquidity to buy deep out the money NYSE puts with expiry about 6-8 weeks from now.
I don't trade stonks, I just buy companies I like and sit on them forever, or sometimes I let my cat pick them from the Nikkei listing page. But last time they were quite weird: Nothing happened for a while and we were all staring at them wondering why they weren't crashing, had the markets not noticed the incoming global pandemic or what. Then they finally did an almighty crash, and everything seemed to make sense, in a world where pb readers knew what was going on ahead of time but the rest of the world was dozy... but then they bounced back and proceeded to go to record highs.
I don't think just knowing what was happening in Italy would have got you to profitable trades. Working out that the market was going to shit the bed wasn't enough, you also had to know that it was going to unshit it.
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
This time it is harder. We know that large sectors of the economy are actually pretty robust, so likely to be less affected by a massive sell off. There is also increasing pointers to stagflation both here and the USA. Investing for that prospect is quite tricky.
Yesterday's anaemic GDP figures, and the poor trade figures, with us falling further and further behind equally covid affected benchmarks also make stockpicking difficult. At the moment I am 95% equities but in ones not particularly exposed to UK Consumer spending.
The markets Santa rally seems particularly crazy at a time of Omicron, but as the saying goes, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
What’s your 5% non-equities?
Cash.
Interesting.
I’m light on cash: nowhere near 5%.
I haven’t looked in detail at this for too long, but I’d guess I’m approx:
“ Vast majority of Britons have NO PROTECTION against Omicron: After 100 days two AstraZeneca doses offer virtually zero defence while two Pfizer jabs provide just 37% protection against new variant - but boosters cut risk of falling ill by 75%”
This is the simplistic nonsense that will lead us into lockdown before Christmas. Because our PM and Cabinet are too thick and poorly educated to understand why this sound byte is wrong.
Indeed it’s fascinating to read US news right now. Mainly it’s inflation, a storm that killed 2, Russia-Ukraine and abortion in Texas. Covid is being reported largely through the prism of the uk.
But wait I hear you say. The US had its head up its arse in Feb-March 2020, allowing for a historic one way trading bet for anyone aware of what was happening in Italy.
So let’s refer to the South African news. Some race issues, a retiring MP, Zuma, cricket, poaching… there’s a story about “trace levels of omicron found in Cape Town waste water” and another about the difficulty of enforcing any covid restrictions on the beach.
Either our country has gone entirely fucking mad. Or the whole lot of you doomcasters should stop wasting your time betting on a bye election and use every scrap of available liquidity to buy deep out the money NYSE puts with expiry about 6-8 weeks from now.
I don't trade stonks, I just buy companies I like and sit on them forever, or sometimes I let my cat pick them from the Nikkei listing page. But last time they were quite weird: Nothing happened for a while and we were all staring at them wondering why they weren't crashing, had the markets not noticed the incoming global pandemic or what. Then they finally did an almighty crash, and everything seemed to make sense, in a world where pb readers knew what was going on ahead of time but the rest of the world was dozy... but then they bounced back and proceeded to go to record highs.
I don't think just knowing what was happening in Italy would have got you to profitable trades. Working out that the market was going to shit the bed wasn't enough, you also had to know that it was going to unshit it.
The trick with options is never to hold them to expiry. I made a years salary in a few days in March 2020, from only a few thousands pounds worth of premiums. I wasn’t greedy and then closed out, fortunately before the fed intervened.
But my point is being missed here. I’m not doing the same trade now. Because I don’t think we’re facing anywhere near the same kind of disaster, from looking at South African media and listening to their medical professionals. The theme that omicron is taking us back to square one (and that is clearly the Daily Mail’s messageg is a uk phenomenon and that disturbs me, because it makes me wonder who is pushing that narrative here and why.
I’m not remotely scared of the virus now, most people I know have caught covid at least once and been double or tripled vaxxed and I don’t believe omicron is going to cause serious problems for anyone in that position. It’s our media and political class that terrify me.
I think our biggest risk is that like South Africa we will have 20% of healthcare staff off isolating, at a time where services are already stretched. None of my colleagues have had it in the last few weeks, but with our entire imaging department having a Friday night on the town...
Singapore will no longer pay for hospitalisation for unvaccinated COVID patients. All arrivals have to have been double jabbed AND have insurance for hospital treatment for COVID.
How bad is the situation in Singapore's hospitals?
Not bad at all. They have 95% at least double vaxxed. But so I gather under 100 critical care beds for 5.5 million people.
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
Nice. Out of interest what motivated the buying back part? Did the crash just seem like it had gone further than it should, or did your take on the underlying situation change between February and April?
The first wave was visibly receding so I thought it safe to go back in, a bit tentatively at first.
A pal of mine, who built a small fortune on a lucrative patent, did much the same as you. He just bought himself a Tesla Y.
Talking of which, I’ve just started doing some research for our next car purchase. I just cannot decide on a safe strategy. Is it really wise to have 2 electric cars (not hybrids, but 100% electric)? My wife has just ordered a small electric car for delivery in March, but the big car needs replaced in the summer, and I just can’t make up my mind between all-electric for that one too, or a conventional internal combustion engine. (I’ve pretty much decided against hybrid.)
“ Vast majority of Britons have NO PROTECTION against Omicron: After 100 days two AstraZeneca doses offer virtually zero defence while two Pfizer jabs provide just 37% protection against new variant - but boosters cut risk of falling ill by 75%”
This is the simplistic nonsense that will lead us into lockdown before Christmas. Because our PM and Cabinet are too thick and poorly educated to understand why this sound byte is wrong.
Indeed it’s fascinating to read US news right now. Mainly it’s inflation, a storm that killed 2, Russia-Ukraine and abortion in Texas. Covid is being reported largely through the prism of the uk.
But wait I hear you say. The US had its head up its arse in Feb-March 2020, allowing for a historic one way trading bet for anyone aware of what was happening in Italy.
So let’s refer to the South African news. Some race issues, a retiring MP, Zuma, cricket, poaching… there’s a story about “trace levels of omicron found in Cape Town waste water” and another about the difficulty of enforcing any covid restrictions on the beach.
Either our country has gone entirely fucking mad. Or the whole lot of you doomcasters should stop wasting your time betting on a bye election and use every scrap of available liquidity to buy deep out the money NYSE puts with expiry about 6-8 weeks from now.
I don't trade stonks, I just buy companies I like and sit on them forever, or sometimes I let my cat pick them from the Nikkei listing page. But last time they were quite weird: Nothing happened for a while and we were all staring at them wondering why they weren't crashing, had the markets not noticed the incoming global pandemic or what. Then they finally did an almighty crash, and everything seemed to make sense, in a world where pb readers knew what was going on ahead of time but the rest of the world was dozy... but then they bounced back and proceeded to go to record highs.
I don't think just knowing what was happening in Italy would have got you to profitable trades. Working out that the market was going to shit the bed wasn't enough, you also had to know that it was going to unshit it.
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
This time it is harder. We know that large sectors of the economy are actually pretty robust, so likely to be less affected by a massive sell off. There is also increasing pointers to stagflation both here and the USA. Investing for that prospect is quite tricky.
Yesterday's anaemic GDP figures, and the poor trade figures, with us falling further and further behind equally covid affected benchmarks also make stockpicking difficult. At the moment I am 95% equities but in ones not particularly exposed to UK Consumer spending.
The markets Santa rally seems particularly crazy at a time of Omicron, but as the saying goes, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
What’s your 5% non-equities?
Cash.
Interesting.
I’m light on cash: nowhere near 5%.
I haven’t looked in detail at this for too long, but I’d guess I’m approx:
(Probably miles out! I suddenly feel a compulsion to check the facts!)
The cash is a temporary holding, until I see some equities that look appealing. It is the float in my account really.
I am referring to my SIPP and ISA, the value of equity in my house and field is probably about the same, so 50/50 in terms of disposable assets. Also a large defined benefit pension probably worth as much as equities and property combined. So I can afford to take a riskier approach to my equities.
“ Vast majority of Britons have NO PROTECTION against Omicron: After 100 days two AstraZeneca doses offer virtually zero defence while two Pfizer jabs provide just 37% protection against new variant - but boosters cut risk of falling ill by 75%”
This is the simplistic nonsense that will lead us into lockdown before Christmas. Because our PM and Cabinet are too thick and poorly educated to understand why this sound byte is wrong.
Indeed it’s fascinating to read US news right now. Mainly it’s inflation, a storm that killed 2, Russia-Ukraine and abortion in Texas. Covid is being reported largely through the prism of the uk.
But wait I hear you say. The US had its head up its arse in Feb-March 2020, allowing for a historic one way trading bet for anyone aware of what was happening in Italy.
So let’s refer to the South African news. Some race issues, a retiring MP, Zuma, cricket, poaching… there’s a story about “trace levels of omicron found in Cape Town waste water” and another about the difficulty of enforcing any covid restrictions on the beach.
Either our country has gone entirely fucking mad. Or the whole lot of you doomcasters should stop wasting your time betting on a bye election and use every scrap of available liquidity to buy deep out the money NYSE puts with expiry about 6-8 weeks from now.
I don't trade stonks, I just buy companies I like and sit on them forever, or sometimes I let my cat pick them from the Nikkei listing page. But last time they were quite weird: Nothing happened for a while and we were all staring at them wondering why they weren't crashing, had the markets not noticed the incoming global pandemic or what. Then they finally did an almighty crash, and everything seemed to make sense, in a world where pb readers knew what was going on ahead of time but the rest of the world was dozy... but then they bounced back and proceeded to go to record highs.
I don't think just knowing what was happening in Italy would have got you to profitable trades. Working out that the market was going to shit the bed wasn't enough, you also had to know that it was going to unshit it.
The trick with options is never to hold them to expiry. I made a years salary in a few days in March 2020, from only a few thousands pounds worth of premiums. I wasn’t greedy and then closed out, fortunately before the fed intervened.
But my point is being missed here. I’m not doing the same trade now. Because I don’t think we’re facing anywhere near the same kind of disaster, from looking at South African media and listening to their medical professionals. The theme that omicron is taking us back to square one (and that is clearly the Daily Mail’s messageg is a uk phenomenon and that disturbs me, because it makes me wonder who is pushing that narrative here and why.
I’m not remotely scared of the virus now, most people I know have caught covid at least once and been double or tripled vaxxed and I don’t believe omicron is going to cause serious problems for anyone in that position. It’s our media and political class that terrify me.
I think our biggest risk is that like South Africa we will have 20% of healthcare staff off isolating, at a time where services are already stretched. None of my colleagues have had it in the last few weeks, but with our entire imaging department having a Friday night on the town...
This is in line with Leon’s worry with the bakers and the milkmen all going down together. A pingdemic on steroids. That’s highly plausible if we continue to undertake routine tests and make asymptomatic cases isolate. Or contacts of asymptomatic cases as in Scotland.
But this isn’t the narrative that’s developing. It’s that the most infectious virus ever seen to man is about it to sweep the country and “most people” have no immunity to it.
“ Vast majority of Britons have NO PROTECTION against Omicron: After 100 days two AstraZeneca doses offer virtually zero defence while two Pfizer jabs provide just 37% protection against new variant - but boosters cut risk of falling ill by 75%”
This is the simplistic nonsense that will lead us into lockdown before Christmas. Because our PM and Cabinet are too thick and poorly educated to understand why this sound byte is wrong.
Indeed it’s fascinating to read US news right now. Mainly it’s inflation, a storm that killed 2, Russia-Ukraine and abortion in Texas. Covid is being reported largely through the prism of the uk.
But wait I hear you say. The US had its head up its arse in Feb-March 2020, allowing for a historic one way trading bet for anyone aware of what was happening in Italy.
So let’s refer to the South African news. Some race issues, a retiring MP, Zuma, cricket, poaching… there’s a story about “trace levels of omicron found in Cape Town waste water” and another about the difficulty of enforcing any covid restrictions on the beach.
Either our country has gone entirely fucking mad. Or the whole lot of you doomcasters should stop wasting your time betting on a bye election and use every scrap of available liquidity to buy deep out the money NYSE puts with expiry about 6-8 weeks from now.
I don't trade stonks, I just buy companies I like and sit on them forever, or sometimes I let my cat pick them from the Nikkei listing page. But last time they were quite weird: Nothing happened for a while and we were all staring at them wondering why they weren't crashing, had the markets not noticed the incoming global pandemic or what. Then they finally did an almighty crash, and everything seemed to make sense, in a world where pb readers knew what was going on ahead of time but the rest of the world was dozy... but then they bounced back and proceeded to go to record highs.
I don't think just knowing what was happening in Italy would have got you to profitable trades. Working out that the market was going to shit the bed wasn't enough, you also had to know that it was going to unshit it.
The trick with options is never to hold them to expiry. I made a years salary in a few days in March 2020, from only a few thousands pounds worth of premiums. I wasn’t greedy and then closed out, fortunately before the fed intervened.
But my point is being missed here. I’m not doing the same trade now. Because I don’t think we’re facing anywhere near the same kind of disaster, from looking at South African media and listening to their medical professionals. The theme that omicron is taking us back to square one (and that is clearly the Daily Mail’s messageg is a uk phenomenon and that disturbs me, because it makes me wonder who is pushing that narrative here and why.
I’m not remotely scared of the virus now, most people I know have caught covid at least once and been double or tripled vaxxed and I don’t believe omicron is going to cause serious problems for anyone in that position. It’s our media and political class that terrify me.
I think our biggest risk is that like South Africa we will have 20% of healthcare staff off isolating, at a time where services are already stretched. None of my colleagues have had it in the last few weeks, but with our entire imaging department having a Friday night on the town...
This is in line with Leon’s worry with the bakers and the milkmen all going down together. A pingdemic on steroids. That’s highly plausible if we continue to undertake routine tests and make asymptomatic cases isolate. Or contacts of asymptomatic cases as in Scotland.
But this isn’t the narrative that’s developing. It’s that the most infectious virus ever seen to man is about it to sweep the country and “most people” have no immunity to it.
“ Vast majority of Britons have NO PROTECTION against Omicron: After 100 days two AstraZeneca doses offer virtually zero defence while two Pfizer jabs provide just 37% protection against new variant - but boosters cut risk of falling ill by 75%”
This is the simplistic nonsense that will lead us into lockdown before Christmas. Because our PM and Cabinet are too thick and poorly educated to understand why this sound byte is wrong.
Indeed it’s fascinating to read US news right now. Mainly it’s inflation, a storm that killed 2, Russia-Ukraine and abortion in Texas. Covid is being reported largely through the prism of the uk.
But wait I hear you say. The US had its head up its arse in Feb-March 2020, allowing for a historic one way trading bet for anyone aware of what was happening in Italy.
So let’s refer to the South African news. Some race issues, a retiring MP, Zuma, cricket, poaching… there’s a story about “trace levels of omicron found in Cape Town waste water” and another about the difficulty of enforcing any covid restrictions on the beach.
Either our country has gone entirely fucking mad. Or the whole lot of you doomcasters should stop wasting your time betting on a bye election and use every scrap of available liquidity to buy deep out the money NYSE puts with expiry about 6-8 weeks from now.
I don't trade stonks, I just buy companies I like and sit on them forever, or sometimes I let my cat pick them from the Nikkei listing page. But last time they were quite weird: Nothing happened for a while and we were all staring at them wondering why they weren't crashing, had the markets not noticed the incoming global pandemic or what. Then they finally did an almighty crash, and everything seemed to make sense, in a world where pb readers knew what was going on ahead of time but the rest of the world was dozy... but then they bounced back and proceeded to go to record highs.
I don't think just knowing what was happening in Italy would have got you to profitable trades. Working out that the market was going to shit the bed wasn't enough, you also had to know that it was going to unshit it.
The trick with options is never to hold them to expiry. I made a years salary in a few days in March 2020, from only a few thousands pounds worth of premiums. I wasn’t greedy and then closed out, fortunately before the fed intervened.
But my point is being missed here. I’m not doing the same trade now. Because I don’t think we’re facing anywhere near the same kind of disaster, from looking at South African media and listening to their medical professionals. The theme that omicron is taking us back to square one (and that is clearly the Daily Mail’s messageg is a uk phenomenon and that disturbs me, because it makes me wonder who is pushing that narrative here and why.
I’m not remotely scared of the virus now, most people I know have caught covid at least once and been double or tripled vaxxed and I don’t believe omicron is going to cause serious problems for anyone in that position. It’s our media and political class that terrify me.
I think our biggest risk is that like South Africa we will have 20% of healthcare staff off isolating, at a time where services are already stretched. None of my colleagues have had it in the last few weeks, but with our entire imaging department having a Friday night on the town...
This is in line with Leon’s worry with the bakers and the milkmen all going down together. A pingdemic on steroids. That’s highly plausible if we continue to undertake routine tests and make asymptomatic cases isolate. Or contacts of asymptomatic cases as in Scotland.
But this isn’t the narrative that’s developing. It’s that the most infectious virus ever seen to man is about it to sweep the country and “most people” have no immunity to it.
- “…most infectious virus ever seen to man…”
This place is hyperbole central.
What is your source for that astonishing claim?
I am referring to the general hyperbole that’s on offer in our media right now
Starmer repeatedly used the word “lies” about the prime minister in the clip broadcast by Radio 4’s Midnight News. I was a bit taken aback. This is highly unusual language. He must be very, very confident that the case against BJ is rock solid.
Not really, everyone in the whole World knows that the disingenuous fat philanderer is one of the biggest liars out there.
Indeed, but senior and experienced lawyers, not to mention Leaders of the Opposition, almost never use the word about a prime minister.
It just felt like a watershed moment. Folk are no longer nervous about pointing at the obese, drunken, lazy, mendacious, unfaithful emperor and pointing out that he has no clothes.
He used the word 'lies' at PMQs in the week. The attribution of those lies is left in the air, so nobody is accused and thus it is not unparliamentary, but it is clear where SKS thinks they are emanating from.
It feels more natural than directly pointing at Boris and using 'must be mistaken', 'correct the record', 'economical with the actualite' and all that circuitous shite that just turns voters off to parliament. It is a good move.
My hunch is that if you are going to back the tories in North Shropshire the odds will improve as the week goes on; as punters abandon their over optimistic positions in favour of a blue win.
I wouldn't be suprised if, by election day, they are down to something like 4/1. And that will be the time to back the tories; not now.
The Tories are certainly the value as things stand and if I were starting with a blank sheet I would back them now. If they drifted to 4/1 on the day I would back them again.
This rather assumes however no more 'events' and the facts stay the same. Quincel's earlier suggestion to back the Tories at 2/5 made perfect sense at the time and only looks a mistake because of the subsequent clusterfuck. That's not bad punting; it's bad luck and he is right to ignore it and look afresh at the new situation and new odds.
I would however hold back on this market now precisely because more 'events' can be expected before Thursday. I hear rumours of more pictures even in my isolated dugout near Heathrow. It is easy to imagine any one of these submerging Shropshire and/or the PM.
“ Vast majority of Britons have NO PROTECTION against Omicron: After 100 days two AstraZeneca doses offer virtually zero defence while two Pfizer jabs provide just 37% protection against new variant - but boosters cut risk of falling ill by 75%”
This is the simplistic nonsense that will lead us into lockdown before Christmas. Because our PM and Cabinet are too thick and poorly educated to understand why this sound byte is wrong.
Indeed it’s fascinating to read US news right now. Mainly it’s inflation, a storm that killed 2, Russia-Ukraine and abortion in Texas. Covid is being reported largely through the prism of the uk.
But wait I hear you say. The US had its head up its arse in Feb-March 2020, allowing for a historic one way trading bet for anyone aware of what was happening in Italy.
So let’s refer to the South African news. Some race issues, a retiring MP, Zuma, cricket, poaching… there’s a story about “trace levels of omicron found in Cape Town waste water” and another about the difficulty of enforcing any covid restrictions on the beach.
Either our country has gone entirely fucking mad. Or the whole lot of you doomcasters should stop wasting your time betting on a bye election and use every scrap of available liquidity to buy deep out the money NYSE puts with expiry about 6-8 weeks from now.
I don't trade stonks, I just buy companies I like and sit on them forever, or sometimes I let my cat pick them from the Nikkei listing page. But last time they were quite weird: Nothing happened for a while and we were all staring at them wondering why they weren't crashing, had the markets not noticed the incoming global pandemic or what. Then they finally did an almighty crash, and everything seemed to make sense, in a world where pb readers knew what was going on ahead of time but the rest of the world was dozy... but then they bounced back and proceeded to go to record highs.
I don't think just knowing what was happening in Italy would have got you to profitable trades. Working out that the market was going to shit the bed wasn't enough, you also had to know that it was going to unshit it.
The trick with options is never to hold them to expiry. I made a years salary in a few days in March 2020, from only a few thousands pounds worth of premiums. I wasn’t greedy and then closed out, fortunately before the fed intervened.
But my point is being missed here. I’m not doing the same trade now. Because I don’t think we’re facing anywhere near the same kind of disaster, from looking at South African media and listening to their medical professionals. The theme that omicron is taking us back to square one (and that is clearly the Daily Mail’s messageg is a uk phenomenon and that disturbs me, because it makes me wonder who is pushing that narrative here and why.
I’m not remotely scared of the virus now, most people I know have caught covid at least once and been double or tripled vaxxed and I don’t believe omicron is going to cause serious problems for anyone in that position. It’s our media and political class that terrify me.
I think our biggest risk is that like South Africa we will have 20% of healthcare staff off isolating, at a time where services are already stretched. None of my colleagues have had it in the last few weeks, but with our entire imaging department having a Friday night on the town...
This is in line with Leon’s worry with the bakers and the milkmen all going down together. A pingdemic on steroids. That’s highly plausible if we continue to undertake routine tests and make asymptomatic cases isolate. Or contacts of asymptomatic cases as in Scotland.
But this isn’t the narrative that’s developing. It’s that the most infectious virus ever seen to man is about it to sweep the country and “most people” have no immunity to it.
- “…most infectious virus ever seen to man…”
This place is hyperbole central.
What is your source for that astonishing claim?
I am referring to the general hyperbole that’s on offer in our media right now
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
Nice. Out of interest what motivated the buying back part? Did the crash just seem like it had gone further than it should, or did your take on the underlying situation change between February and April?
The first wave was visibly receding so I thought it safe to go back in, a bit tentatively at first.
A pal of mine, who built a small fortune on a lucrative patent, did much the same as you. He just bought himself a Tesla Y.
Talking of which, I’ve just started doing some research for our next car purchase. I just cannot decide on a safe strategy. Is it really wise to have 2 electric cars (not hybrids, but 100% electric)? My wife has just ordered a small electric car for delivery in March, but the big car needs replaced in the summer, and I just can’t make up my mind between all-electric for that one too, or a conventional internal combustion engine. (I’ve pretty much decided against hybrid.)
Any thoughts?
Mrs Foxy and I have two cars, an electric Kia e-niro, and a 13 year old petrol Fiat 500. I am quite enthusiastic about the Kia, and the Fiat will probably need replacing soon. We use the Kia mostly for long trips, and I commute in the Fiat. It can park anywhere. I like a small car for parking at the staff car park as the spaces are not big.
My problem is that small electric cars don't have much range, except perhaps newer versions of the Renalt Zoe. When the Fiat finally expires, I expect that there will be a better range.
This appeals though, apart from a large turning circle, which may be fixed before production. I quite fancy being an Eco-hippie in my retirement:
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
Nice. Out of interest what motivated the buying back part? Did the crash just seem like it had gone further than it should, or did your take on the underlying situation change between February and April?
The first wave was visibly receding so I thought it safe to go back in, a bit tentatively at first.
A pal of mine, who built a small fortune on a lucrative patent, did much the same as you. He just bought himself a Tesla Y.
Talking of which, I’ve just started doing some research for our next car purchase. I just cannot decide on a safe strategy. Is it really wise to have 2 electric cars (not hybrids, but 100% electric)? My wife has just ordered a small electric car for delivery in March, but the big car needs replaced in the summer, and I just can’t make up my mind between all-electric for that one too, or a conventional internal combustion engine. (I’ve pretty much decided against hybrid.)
Any thoughts?
You can't answer that question objectively. The decision has to be based on your personal needs.
However I cannot understand why you would reject hybrid in favour of a conventional ICE. Ceratinly the toyota/lexus technology has advanced to the point where you can get 70 mpg even on motorway trips, it is ultra reliable and the cars are excellent value particularly in terms of residuals particularly if bought it nearly new.
My hunch is that if you are going to back the tories in North Shropshire the odds will improve as the week goes on; as punters abandon their over optimistic positions in favour of a blue win.
I wouldn't be suprised if, by election day, they are down to something like 4/1. And that will be the time to back the tories; not now.
The Tories are certainly the value as things stand and if I were starting with a blank sheet I would back them now. If they drifted to 4/1 on the day I would back them again.
This rather assumes however no more 'events' and the facts stay the same. Quincel's earlier suggestion to back the Tories at 2/5 made perfect sense at the time and only looks a mistake because of the subsequent clusterfuck. That's not bad punting; it's bad luck and he is right to ignore it and look afresh at the new situation and new odds.
I would however hold back on this market now precisely because more 'events' can be expected before Thursday. I hear rumours of more pictures even in my isolated dugout near Heathrow. It is easy to imagine any one of these submerging Shropshire and/or the PM.
I'd keep my powder dry.
Yes, it seems likely that the odds will shift further, though like @Quincel think current odds on the Tories are good. This is donkey with a blue rosette territory, and quite a resilient Labour vote even in the 2019 Landslide.
FPT it’s a very slippery slope when you start judging people for needing the NHS. When does it end?
@Leon guzzles booze like nobody’s business. That’s a positive act that is likely to be an NHS resource drain in the future. Driving a car at 120mph is also a positive act. Refusing a vaccine is an omission.
It feels profoundly wrong to force people to put something into their own body.
I say this as someone who has had an operation cancelled 3 times already due to NHS pressures. 4th attempt is currently scheduled for Monday.
Except you're talking about compulsion in a situation of dire national emergency as if it were a totally novel and unprecedented moral outrage. It isn't.
Not so very long ago, millions of our forebears were conscripted to fight in wars. When society was faced with an existential threat, it demanded, amongst other things, that young people fight in battles and get blown up, shot through the head or drown in icy cold seas. And if you were called up then, unless you had a very good excuse (e.g. a reserved occupation or being medically unfit) then you bloody well went. The small minority of hardcore pacifists who refused to do service of any kind were complete social pariahs who ended up imprisoned.
Fast forward a few decades and now it's considered unforgivable to ask people to have a scratch on the arm every three or six months so as to try and avoid the entire bloody country ending up under house arrest for months on end, with the education of the nation's children wrecked, otherwise viable businesses driven to the wall en masse, and the state hurtling every closer to the cliff edge of bankruptcy into the bargain.
And if the cost of your repeated cancelled operations was that you ended up dead, I doubt your surviving relatives would feel so sanguine about this problem.
Yes, exactly
I confess my patience has ENTIRELY snapped with vax refuseniks like Dura, however entertaining he might be, on occasion. It especially snaps when he starts opining on bloody politics. To continue your analogy, it is like some conscientious objector in 1944 complaining about the awful tactics during D Day and demanding resignations. Jeez no. Do one. Fuck. Right. Off. Never speak again
But my anger - which is genuine - is running away with me, and I will rein it in, for the sake of the site. And the mods. FWIW I have the same anger to refuseniks in my personal life, I now find it very hard not to slap them. This is not "personal"
Goodnight
Good night Gilderoy.
Sean a Slytherin?
Makes sense.
Yes, I spotted that! Looks fantastic.
Range is tremendously important for our big car, as we frequently drive up to 6 hours to get into the mountains (usually for skiing, but cycling has exploded in popularity here). So we are looking at the more premium brands. I just do not like Teslas, the design is awful, and the chassis a piece of junk. Polestar have too many faults. BMW have not launched any “normal” all-electric cars yet, Hyundai too plasticky (although it is perhaps my fav at the moment), Kia and VW overpriced,
I hate to be boring, but I’m probably going for another ICE Volvo at this rate. It’ll be third in a row. They call the new ones “light hybrids”, but I don’t swallow much marketing guff.
My problem is that small electric cars don't have much range, except perhaps newer versions of the Renalt Zoe.
One of only 3 cars to ever receive an ZERO encap safety rating...
Yes, one of several reasons it doesn't appeal.
The Electric Kia is great quality and nice to drive, with a real range of 250 miles even in winter with heating and lights on. The EV6 looks better still, but there will be an avalanche of new cars coming soon.
In the meantime my old Fiat just keeps going. Modern cars don't rust and the engine stays good.
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
Nice. Out of interest what motivated the buying back part? Did the crash just seem like it had gone further than it should, or did your take on the underlying situation change between February and April?
The first wave was visibly receding so I thought it safe to go back in, a bit tentatively at first.
A pal of mine, who built a small fortune on a lucrative patent, did much the same as you. He just bought himself a Tesla Y.
Talking of which, I’ve just started doing some research for our next car purchase. I just cannot decide on a safe strategy. Is it really wise to have 2 electric cars (not hybrids, but 100% electric)? My wife has just ordered a small electric car for delivery in March, but the big car needs replaced in the summer, and I just can’t make up my mind between all-electric for that one too, or a conventional internal combustion engine. (I’ve pretty much decided against hybrid.)
Any thoughts?
You can't answer that question objectively. The decision has to be based on your personal needs.
However I cannot understand why you would reject hybrid in favour of a conventional ICE. Ceratinly the toyota/lexus technology has advanced to the point where you can get 70 mpg even on motorway trips, it is ultra reliable and the cars are excellent value particularly in terms of residuals particularly if bought it nearly new.
All valid points.
This is the problem with this car purchase thing nowadays: it’s just so bloody complicated. I’m just as likely to say Sod The Lot of You and buy a top of the range electric bike and membership of a carpool for our trips to the ski apartment etc. For the price of a premium EV you can get a heck of a lot of taxis, even in Sweden.
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
Nice. Out of interest what motivated the buying back part? Did the crash just seem like it had gone further than it should, or did your take on the underlying situation change between February and April?
The first wave was visibly receding so I thought it safe to go back in, a bit tentatively at first.
A pal of mine, who built a small fortune on a lucrative patent, did much the same as you. He just bought himself a Tesla Y.
Talking of which, I’ve just started doing some research for our next car purchase. I just cannot decide on a safe strategy. Is it really wise to have 2 electric cars (not hybrids, but 100% electric)? My wife has just ordered a small electric car for delivery in March, but the big car needs replaced in the summer, and I just can’t make up my mind between all-electric for that one too, or a conventional internal combustion engine. (I’ve pretty much decided against hybrid.)
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
Nice. Out of interest what motivated the buying back part? Did the crash just seem like it had gone further than it should, or did your take on the underlying situation change between February and April?
The first wave was visibly receding so I thought it safe to go back in, a bit tentatively at first.
A pal of mine, who built a small fortune on a lucrative patent, did much the same as you. He just bought himself a Tesla Y.
Talking of which, I’ve just started doing some research for our next car purchase. I just cannot decide on a safe strategy. Is it really wise to have 2 electric cars (not hybrids, but 100% electric)? My wife has just ordered a small electric car for delivery in March, but the big car needs replaced in the summer, and I just can’t make up my mind between all-electric for that one too, or a conventional internal combustion engine. (I’ve pretty much decided against hybrid.)
Any thoughts?
You can't answer that question objectively. The decision has to be based on your personal needs.
However I cannot understand why you would reject hybrid in favour of a conventional ICE. Ceratinly the toyota/lexus technology has advanced to the point where you can get 70 mpg even on motorway trips, it is ultra reliable and the cars are excellent value particularly in terms of residuals particularly if bought it nearly new.
All valid points.
This is the problem with this car purchase thing nowadays: it’s just so bloody complicated. I’m just as likely to say Sod The Lot of You and buy a top of the range electric bike and membership of a carpool for our trips to the ski apartment etc. For the price of a premium EV you can get a heck of a lot of taxis, even in Sweden.
Downhill, Nordic or Cross Country skiing?
I don't think my bones and joints are up to downhill any more, but I did wonder about taking up the latter, and also fewer crowds. I quite like the quiet wilderness.
@MoonRabbit Moonrabbit , I will not be about today , busy again at my daughter's, but have spent 5 minutes looking at Cheltenham. My Trixie below. Lalor 5/1 13:50 Cheltenham Gelino Bello 7/4 14:25 Cheltenham Song For Someone 9/4 15:00 Cheltenham
My problem is that small electric cars don't have much range, except perhaps newer versions of the Renalt Zoe.
One of only 3 cars to ever receive an ZERO encap safety rating...
Yes, one of several reasons it doesn't appeal.
The Electric Kia is great quality and nice to drive, with a real range of 250 miles even in winter with heating and lights on. The EV6 looks better still, but there will be an avalanche of new cars coming soon.
In the meantime my old Fiat just keeps going. Modern cars don't rust and the engine stays good.
Incidentally, on equities what do you think of Nibe B? I bought earlier in the year, as heat pumps are the coming thing, so seemed a good prospect.
Mini Cooper SE
With Union flag taillights. She loves to troll me.
We replaced our IVT heat pump, which I hated, with a Nibe, which I hate even more. So I’m not the best person to ask!
Yes, heat pumps are wonderful: the house is cosy and they are very efficient. But jeepers, they are an immense pain in the bahoochie. Long list of tedious routine maintenance jobs you have to do at least 4 times a year, and the working spaces under/behind the pumps are non-existent. You need the hands of a four year old combined with a Masters in electrical engineering and the patience of a Zen master.
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
Nice. Out of interest what motivated the buying back part? Did the crash just seem like it had gone further than it should, or did your take on the underlying situation change between February and April?
The first wave was visibly receding so I thought it safe to go back in, a bit tentatively at first.
A pal of mine, who built a small fortune on a lucrative patent, did much the same as you. He just bought himself a Tesla Y.
Talking of which, I’ve just started doing some research for our next car purchase. I just cannot decide on a safe strategy. Is it really wise to have 2 electric cars (not hybrids, but 100% electric)? My wife has just ordered a small electric car for delivery in March, but the big car needs replaced in the summer, and I just can’t make up my mind between all-electric for that one too, or a conventional internal combustion engine. (I’ve pretty much decided against hybrid.)
Any thoughts?
"needs replacing" is a strange phrase given the lifetime of current cars.
Do what the Swedish forces do with submarines and fighters, and extend the lifetime for 2 or 3 years, then the landscape will have changed.
Am I correct that the only really Swedish car company is Koenigsegg, which would be interesting? Unless you want a Uniti blobule.
My problem is that small electric cars don't have much range, except perhaps newer versions of the Renalt Zoe.
One of only 3 cars to ever receive an ZERO encap safety rating...
Yes, one of several reasons it doesn't appeal.
The Electric Kia is great quality and nice to drive, with a real range of 250 miles even in winter with heating and lights on. The EV6 looks better still, but there will be an avalanche of new cars coming soon.
In the meantime my old Fiat just keeps going. Modern cars don't rust and the engine stays good.
Incidentally, on equities what do you think of Nibe B? I bought earlier in the year, as heat pumps are the coming thing, so seemed a good prospect.
Mini Cooper SE
With Union flag taillights. She loves to troll me.
We replaced our IVT heat pump, which I hated, with a Nibe, which I hate even more. So I’m not the best person to ask!
Yes, heat pumps are wonderful: the house is cosy and they are very efficient. But jeepers, they are an immense pain in the bahoochie. Long list of tedious routine maintenance jobs you have to do at least 4 times a year, and the working spaces under/behind the pumps are non-existent. You need the hands of a four year old combined with a Masters in electrical engineering and the patience of a Zen master.
I think heat pumps are the future, but perhaps in the way EVs were a few years back not quite there yet.
I am thinking of building an eco-house on my 4 acre paddock for retirement, and would plan to have a heat pump system as part of it, but they really don't seem to retrofit existing British houses well.
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
Nice. Out of interest what motivated the buying back part? Did the crash just seem like it had gone further than it should, or did your take on the underlying situation change between February and April?
The first wave was visibly receding so I thought it safe to go back in, a bit tentatively at first.
A pal of mine, who built a small fortune on a lucrative patent, did much the same as you. He just bought himself a Tesla Y.
Talking of which, I’ve just started doing some research for our next car purchase. I just cannot decide on a safe strategy. Is it really wise to have 2 electric cars (not hybrids, but 100% electric)? My wife has just ordered a small electric car for delivery in March, but the big car needs replaced in the summer, and I just can’t make up my mind between all-electric for that one too, or a conventional internal combustion engine. (I’ve pretty much decided against hybrid.)
Good morning all from the train to that London. The nice thing about EVs (even PHEV ones) is that you can use the remote app to warm the car and melt the ice before you even get in. Which was helpful this morning before I drove down to Inverurie.
F1: suggestion Hamilton might take a new engine. Five place grid penalty but less risk of reliability failure. And a lap one double DNF with Verstappen.
F1: for Mr. Eagles, Ladbrokes have a double Verstappen/Hamilton DNF at 11. I'd be more inclined to back them individually, but there we are.
Edited extra bit: there's a weird one. Double DNF and Verstappen to win the title. The only way he doesn't is if he gets points deducted... possible. But a very controversial option when Hamilton got a 10s time penalty for ending Verstappen's British Grand Prix.
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
Nice. Out of interest what motivated the buying back part? Did the crash just seem like it had gone further than it should, or did your take on the underlying situation change between February and April?
The first wave was visibly receding so I thought it safe to go back in, a bit tentatively at first.
A pal of mine, who built a small fortune on a lucrative patent, did much the same as you. He just bought himself a Tesla Y.
Talking of which, I’ve just started doing some research for our next car purchase. I just cannot decide on a safe strategy. Is it really wise to have 2 electric cars (not hybrids, but 100% electric)? My wife has just ordered a small electric car for delivery in March, but the big car needs replaced in the summer, and I just can’t make up my mind between all-electric for that one too, or a conventional internal combustion engine. (I’ve pretty much decided against hybrid.)
Any thoughts?
You can't answer that question objectively. The decision has to be based on your personal needs.
However I cannot understand why you would reject hybrid in favour of a conventional ICE. Ceratinly the toyota/lexus technology has advanced to the point where you can get 70 mpg even on motorway trips, it is ultra reliable and the cars are excellent value particularly in terms of residuals particularly if bought it nearly new.
All valid points.
This is the problem with this car purchase thing nowadays: it’s just so bloody complicated. I’m just as likely to say Sod The Lot of You and buy a top of the range electric bike and membership of a carpool for our trips to the ski apartment etc. For the price of a premium EV you can get a heck of a lot of taxis, even in Sweden.
Downhill, Nordic or Cross Country skiing?
I don't think my bones and joints are up to downhill any more, but I did wonder about taking up the latter, and also fewer crowds. I quite like the quiet wilderness.
My wife rediscovered the delights of cross country during Covid. She loves it! She has dreadful memories of PE at school when cross country skiing was the main winter activity, but now it’s a whole different ballgame.
The rest of us are all still 100% downhill. I am easily the least competent. Hillend is great for Edinburghers, but decent adult skiers it does not make.
Like you, I’m getting too old for downhill. I’m switching to cross country this season. The wilderness is gorgeous.
Good morning all from the train to that London. The nice thing about EVs (even PHEV ones) is that you can use the remote app to warm the car and melt the ice before you even get in. Which was helpful this morning before I drove down to Inverurie.
Sounds like something out of a science fiction novel.
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
Nice. Out of interest what motivated the buying back part? Did the crash just seem like it had gone further than it should, or did your take on the underlying situation change between February and April?
The first wave was visibly receding so I thought it safe to go back in, a bit tentatively at first.
A pal of mine, who built a small fortune on a lucrative patent, did much the same as you. He just bought himself a Tesla Y.
Talking of which, I’ve just started doing some research for our next car purchase. I just cannot decide on a safe strategy. Is it really wise to have 2 electric cars (not hybrids, but 100% electric)? My wife has just ordered a small electric car for delivery in March, but the big car needs replaced in the summer, and I just can’t make up my mind between all-electric for that one too, or a conventional internal combustion engine. (I’ve pretty much decided against hybrid.)
Any thoughts?
If you can simultaneously charge both at home then having two BEVs is the obvious move.
Unless you have some requirement that a BEV can't meet like towing a 2 ton caravan 500km every weekend.
F1: for Mr. Eagles, Ladbrokes have a double Verstappen/Hamilton DNF at 11. I'd be more inclined to back them individually, but there we are.
Edited extra bit: there's a weird one. Double DNF and Verstappen to win the title. The only way he doesn't is if he gets points deducted... possible. But a very controversial option when Hamilton got a 10s time penalty for ending Verstappen's British Grand Prix.
Am I the only one who's thinking there would be an element of poetic justice if they both get disqualified so Bottas is declared champion faute de mieux?
Mr Eagles would of course actually explode, but it would still be very, very funny.
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
Nice. Out of interest what motivated the buying back part? Did the crash just seem like it had gone further than it should, or did your take on the underlying situation change between February and April?
The first wave was visibly receding so I thought it safe to go back in, a bit tentatively at first.
A pal of mine, who built a small fortune on a lucrative patent, did much the same as you. He just bought himself a Tesla Y.
Talking of which, I’ve just started doing some research for our next car purchase. I just cannot decide on a safe strategy. Is it really wise to have 2 electric cars (not hybrids, but 100% electric)? My wife has just ordered a small electric car for delivery in March, but the big car needs replaced in the summer, and I just can’t make up my mind between all-electric for that one too, or a conventional internal combustion engine. (I’ve pretty much decided against hybrid.)
Any thoughts?
You can't answer that question objectively. The decision has to be based on your personal needs.
However I cannot understand why you would reject hybrid in favour of a conventional ICE. Ceratinly the toyota/lexus technology has advanced to the point where you can get 70 mpg even on motorway trips, it is ultra reliable and the cars are excellent value particularly in terms of residuals particularly if bought it nearly new.
All valid points.
This is the problem with this car purchase thing nowadays: it’s just so bloody complicated. I’m just as likely to say Sod The Lot of You and buy a top of the range electric bike and membership of a carpool for our trips to the ski apartment etc. For the price of a premium EV you can get a heck of a lot of taxis, even in Sweden.
Downhill, Nordic or Cross Country skiing?
I don't think my bones and joints are up to downhill any more, but I did wonder about taking up the latter, and also fewer crowds. I quite like the quiet wilderness.
My wife rediscovered the delights of cross country during Covid. She loves it! She has dreadful memories of PE at school when cross country skiing was the main winter activity, but now it’s a whole different ballgame.
The rest of us are all still 100% downhill. I am easily the least competent. Hillend is great for Edinburghers, but decent adult skiers it does not make.
Like you, I’m getting too old for downhill. I’m switching to cross country this season. The wilderness is gorgeous.
Any good Cross Country venues in Scotland or Sweden to recommend? For a novice!
F1: suggestion Hamilton might take a new engine. Five place grid penalty but less risk of reliability failure. And a lap one double DNF with Verstappen.
Can’t see the risk of a new engine being on the cards. You’d expect Verstappen to have been more likely to have taken one with an older engine.
Also interesting - Merc didn’t used any of their development tokens for the year. Amazing progress with no development- makes me think they’ll have a good 2022 car
“ Vast majority of Britons have NO PROTECTION against Omicron: After 100 days two AstraZeneca doses offer virtually zero defence while two Pfizer jabs provide just 37% protection against new variant - but boosters cut risk of falling ill by 75%”
This is the simplistic nonsense that will lead us into lockdown before Christmas. Because our PM and Cabinet are too thick and poorly educated to understand why this sound byte is wrong.
Indeed it’s fascinating to read US news right now. Mainly it’s inflation, a storm that killed 2, Russia-Ukraine and abortion in Texas. Covid is being reported largely through the prism of the uk.
But wait I hear you say. The US had its head up its arse in Feb-March 2020, allowing for a historic one way trading bet for anyone aware of what was happening in Italy.
So let’s refer to the South African news. Some race issues, a retiring MP, Zuma, cricket, poaching… there’s a story about “trace levels of omicron found in Cape Town waste water” and another about the difficulty of enforcing any covid restrictions on the beach.
Either our country has gone entirely fucking mad. Or the whole lot of you doomcasters should stop wasting your time betting on a bye election and use every scrap of available liquidity to buy deep out the money NYSE puts with expiry about 6-8 weeks from now.
I don't trade stonks, I just buy companies I like and sit on them forever, or sometimes I let my cat pick them from the Nikkei listing page. But last time they were quite weird: Nothing happened for a while and we were all staring at them wondering why they weren't crashing, had the markets not noticed the incoming global pandemic or what. Then they finally did an almighty crash, and everything seemed to make sense, in a world where pb readers knew what was going on ahead of time but the rest of the world was dozy... but then they bounced back and proceeded to go to record highs.
I don't think just knowing what was happening in Italy would have got you to profitable trades. Working out that the market was going to shit the bed wasn't enough, you also had to know that it was going to unshit it.
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
This time it is harder. We know that large sectors of the economy are actually pretty robust, so likely to be less affected by a massive sell off. There is also increasing pointers to stagflation both here and the USA. Investing for that prospect is quite tricky.
Yesterday's anaemic GDP figures, and the poor trade figures, with us falling further and further behind equally covid affected benchmarks also make stockpicking difficult. At the moment I am 95% equities but in ones not particularly exposed to UK Consumer spending.
The markets Santa rally seems particularly crazy at a time of Omicron, but as the saying goes, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
Yes - I did very well out of the original collapse, using sells on the indices, and predicted it here ahead of time, but you did a lot better than I did at buying back at the bottom. I'm positioned for another one now but so far there's been little sign of it coming!
Starmer repeatedly used the word “lies” about the prime minister in the clip broadcast by Radio 4’s Midnight News. I was a bit taken aback. This is highly unusual language. He must be very, very confident that the case against BJ is rock solid.
Not really, everyone in the whole World knows that the disingenuous fat philanderer is one of the biggest liars out there.
The reference that surprised me was the Dead Ringers Ted Hastings impression about "bent Prime Ministers". On the BBC.
Good morning all from the train to that London. The nice thing about EVs (even PHEV ones) is that you can use the remote app to warm the car and melt the ice before you even get in. Which was helpful this morning before I drove down to Inverurie.
Sounds like something out of a science fiction novel.
I bought a corsa-e earlier this year. Pretty good range and drives far nicer than the petrol version.
I think you quickly adapt to the range anxiety - but pretty impressed nonetheless, and amazed to see how far they’ve come on in terms of tech
Good morning all from the train to that London. The nice thing about EVs (even PHEV ones) is that you can use the remote app to warm the car and melt the ice before you even get in. Which was helpful this morning before I drove down to Inverurie.
Plenty of ICE cars have that feature now - Porsche and BMW for example. Also JLR although theirs probably doesn't work.
Good morning all from the train to that London. The nice thing about EVs (even PHEV ones) is that you can use the remote app to warm the car and melt the ice before you even get in. Which was helpful this morning before I drove down to Inverurie.
Sounds like something out of a science fiction novel.
I bought a corsa-e earlier this year. Pretty good range and drives far nicer than the petrol version.
I think you quickly adapt to the range anxiety - but pretty impressed nonetheless, and amazed to see how far they’ve come on in terms of tech
Sounds interesting. There needs to be a massive expansion of the number of charging points. Some big towns don't have any at the moment.
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
Nice. Out of interest what motivated the buying back part? Did the crash just seem like it had gone further than it should, or did your take on the underlying situation change between February and April?
The first wave was visibly receding so I thought it safe to go back in, a bit tentatively at first.
A pal of mine, who built a small fortune on a lucrative patent, did much the same as you. He just bought himself a Tesla Y.
Talking of which, I’ve just started doing some research for our next car purchase. I just cannot decide on a safe strategy. Is it really wise to have 2 electric cars (not hybrids, but 100% electric)? My wife has just ordered a small electric car for delivery in March, but the big car needs replaced in the summer, and I just can’t make up my mind between all-electric for that one too, or a conventional internal combustion engine. (I’ve pretty much decided against hybrid.)
Any thoughts?
You can't answer that question objectively. The decision has to be based on your personal needs.
However I cannot understand why you would reject hybrid in favour of a conventional ICE. Ceratinly the toyota/lexus technology has advanced to the point where you can get 70 mpg even on motorway trips, it is ultra reliable and the cars are excellent value particularly in terms of residuals particularly if bought it nearly new.
All valid points.
This is the problem with this car purchase thing nowadays: it’s just so bloody complicated. I’m just as likely to say Sod The Lot of You and buy a top of the range electric bike and membership of a carpool for our trips to the ski apartment etc. For the price of a premium EV you can get a heck of a lot of taxis, even in Sweden.
Downhill, Nordic or Cross Country skiing?
I don't think my bones and joints are up to downhill any more, but I did wonder about taking up the latter, and also fewer crowds. I quite like the quiet wilderness.
My wife rediscovered the delights of cross country during Covid. She loves it! She has dreadful memories of PE at school when cross country skiing was the main winter activity, but now it’s a whole different ballgame.
The rest of us are all still 100% downhill. I am easily the least competent. Hillend is great for Edinburghers, but decent adult skiers it does not make.
Like you, I’m getting too old for downhill. I’m switching to cross country this season. The wilderness is gorgeous.
Any good Cross Country venues in Scotland or Sweden to recommend? For a novice!
You can do it round/across Loch Morlich, up to Ryvoan bothy and into Abernethy if we get enough snow. Rare though.
After the last few torrid weeks, the trouble, according to one former cabinet minister is that the different Tory tribes, who sometimes can't stand each other, now find themselves able to agree. The problem for Mr Johnson is that the only thing they agree on is how unhappy they are.
And there's chatter that the prime minister has made a strategic decision to hold on to director of communications Jack Doyle for now, while lining him up to take the fall when the inquiry emerges.
Yet this week it feels sentiment has moved in the Tory party, with more and more of his own side imagining what life might be like under a different leader. A former minister who has analysed the party tribes even suggests "stage one" of a leadership change is complete: when the party agrees among itself privately that the PM is running out of road.
My hunch is that if you are going to back the tories in North Shropshire the odds will improve as the week goes on; as punters abandon their over optimistic positions in favour of a blue win.
I wouldn't be suprised if, by election day, they are down to something like 4/1. And that will be the time to back the tories; not now.
The Tories are certainly the value as things stand and if I were starting with a blank sheet I would back them now. If they drifted to 4/1 on the day I would back them again.
This rather assumes however no more 'events' and the facts stay the same. Quincel's earlier suggestion to back the Tories at 2/5 made perfect sense at the time and only looks a mistake because of the subsequent clusterfuck. That's not bad punting; it's bad luck and he is right to ignore it and look afresh at the new situation and new odds.
I would however hold back on this market now precisely because more 'events' can be expected before Thursday. I hear rumours of more pictures even in my isolated dugout near Heathrow. It is easy to imagine any one of these submerging Shropshire and/or the PM.
I'd keep my powder dry.
Crerar - who broke the original party story - said she thought there was more to come, interviewed on last night's Newsnight.
Good morning all from the train to that London. The nice thing about EVs (even PHEV ones) is that you can use the remote app to warm the car and melt the ice before you even get in. Which was helpful this morning before I drove down to Inverurie.
Mrs Rata London and Kent bound from York later this morning getting into the smoke around 1. I suspect she will be somewhere South of you.
Good morning all from the train to that London. The nice thing about EVs (even PHEV ones) is that you can use the remote app to warm the car and melt the ice before you even get in. Which was helpful this morning before I drove down to Inverurie.
Sounds like something out of a science fiction novel.
I bought a corsa-e earlier this year. Pretty good range and drives far nicer than the petrol version.
I think you quickly adapt to the range anxiety - but pretty impressed nonetheless, and amazed to see how far they’ve come on in terms of tech
Not quite enough range for me, as I would want to go to the Isle of Wight occasionally, but sounds a reasonable bet.
I haven't really tried an electric car on ice and snow, does anyone have experience? This may be important for Stuart.
The Fiat 500 is surprisingly good on the ice. It is light and the weight directly over the drive wheels. The modest power helps too. I often zip past bigger cars that are stuck on foul winter days.
I sold 90% or my equities in Feb2020 and bought back in in April and MY of 2020. I timed it pretty well. Not an easy one to repeat!
Nice. Out of interest what motivated the buying back part? Did the crash just seem like it had gone further than it should, or did your take on the underlying situation change between February and April?
The first wave was visibly receding so I thought it safe to go back in, a bit tentatively at first.
A pal of mine, who built a small fortune on a lucrative patent, did much the same as you. He just bought himself a Tesla Y.
Talking of which, I’ve just started doing some research for our next car purchase. I just cannot decide on a safe strategy. Is it really wise to have 2 electric cars (not hybrids, but 100% electric)? My wife has just ordered a small electric car for delivery in March, but the big car needs replaced in the summer, and I just can’t make up my mind between all-electric for that one too, or a conventional internal combustion engine. (I’ve pretty much decided against hybrid.)
Any thoughts?
You can't answer that question objectively. The decision has to be based on your personal needs.
However I cannot understand why you would reject hybrid in favour of a conventional ICE. Ceratinly the toyota/lexus technology has advanced to the point where you can get 70 mpg even on motorway trips, it is ultra reliable and the cars are excellent value particularly in terms of residuals particularly if bought it nearly new.
I am very happy with my Corolla hybrid, but isn't delivering 70mpg. I'd say 50-55mpg which you could probably stretch to 60 (but not on the motorway) if I drove in the comatose way that's required to keep the little green bar on the display inside the "eco" band. I do have the larger engined version, but I test drove the regular model and that didn't seem much better. But it's an improvement over the 40 mpg of my old Golf.
“ Vast majority of Britons have NO PROTECTION against Omicron: After 100 days two AstraZeneca doses offer virtually zero defence while two Pfizer jabs provide just 37% protection against new variant - but boosters cut risk of falling ill by 75%”
This is the simplistic nonsense that will lead us into lockdown before Christmas. Because our PM and Cabinet are too thick and poorly educated to understand why this sound byte is wrong.
I thought they had a team of experts to advise them?
A team of experts in the background is absolutely worthless when the people making the decisions are “thick” and “poorly educated”.
cf Brexit
Problem is, in Gove and Johnson we are governed by ex hacks, backed up by second rate media and comms people. The PM’s personal sounding board at home is an art history grad that worked in Pr.
In Sunak & Javid we have backgrounds who should be capable of absorbing technical info outside their expertise and executing decisions. But they’re greasy pole climbers.
Gove isn't thick at all - I've rarely met a politician more able to absorb the details of a complex brief. He's also very committed to doing stuff, and to confronting vested interests. That leads him into far more controversy than ministers who just keep the ship steady. If he was Chancellor, for instance, I could well imagine massive tax/NI reforms with lots of winners and losers - he would attract real loathing from some, but possibly produce a more sensible outcome for the economy. I'm interested to see what he'll do to the planning system - it won't be trivial.
FPT it’s a very slippery slope when you start judging people for needing the NHS. When does it end?
@Leon guzzles booze like nobody’s business. That’s a positive act that is likely to be an NHS resource drain in the future. Driving a car at 120mph is also a positive act. Refusing a vaccine is an omission.
It feels profoundly wrong to force people to put something into their own body.
I say this as someone who has had an operation cancelled 3 times already due to NHS pressures. 4th attempt is currently scheduled for Monday.
Fundamentally it completely upends the relationship between the state and the people.
Government is chosen by the people to represent us. They have certain limited authority in the interests of an orderly society and certain rights to secure funding to meet the costs.
If an individual is unwilling to abide by the rules of society (the laws) then the government, acting on behalf of society, can exclude an individual from society. This means internal exile (prison) or external exile (loss of citizenship).
Government has no authority to enforce specific action against the individual without their consent. This is why, for example, the death penalty and mandatory medical treatment (including mandatory vaccination) is morally and philosophically wrong.
There is more of a case that an individual can be asked to pay for excess costs incurred (eg payment for treatment) if they don’t undertake certain actions (voluntary vaccination) although this should be on a retrospective basis rather than prospectively as a means to enforce behaviour change
Good morning all from the train to that London. The nice thing about EVs (even PHEV ones) is that you can use the remote app to warm the car and melt the ice before you even get in. Which was helpful this morning before I drove down to Inverurie.
Sounds like something out of a science fiction novel.
I bought a corsa-e earlier this year. Pretty good range and drives far nicer than the petrol version.
I think you quickly adapt to the range anxiety - but pretty impressed nonetheless, and amazed to see how far they’ve come on in terms of tech
Not quite enough range for me, as I would want to go to the Isle of Wight occasionally, but sounds a reasonable bet.
I haven't really tried an electric car on ice and snow, does anyone have experience? This may be important for Stuart.
The Fiat 500 is surprisingly good on the ice. It is light and the weight directly over the drive wheels. The modest power helps too. I often zip past bigger cars that are stuck on foul winter days.
I think the best approach tends to be having one car petrol and one electric (I.e. long journeys we revert to our petrol but the electric is more a runaround)
Saying that, I’ve noticed a ramping up of charging infrastructure. BP do super fast charging now which gets you a pretty decent charge in about 30 mins (though not as quick as just filling up your tank with petrol of course).
It got me thinking about petrol stations of the future - I can imagine stations will become even more lucrative as you’d have to sit in your car waiting for a charge, whilst ordering lunch/ coffee etc.
“ Vast majority of Britons have NO PROTECTION against Omicron: After 100 days two AstraZeneca doses offer virtually zero defence while two Pfizer jabs provide just 37% protection against new variant - but boosters cut risk of falling ill by 75%”
This is the simplistic nonsense that will lead us into lockdown before Christmas. Because our PM and Cabinet are too thick and poorly educated to understand why this sound byte is wrong.
I thought they had a team of experts to advise them?
A team of experts in the background is absolutely worthless when the people making the decisions are “thick” and “poorly educated”.
cf Brexit
Problem is, in Gove and Johnson we are governed by ex hacks, backed up by second rate media and comms people. The PM’s personal sounding board at home is an art history grad that worked in Pr.
In Sunak & Javid we have backgrounds who should be capable of absorbing technical info outside their expertise and executing decisions. But they’re greasy pole climbers.
Gove isn't thick at all - I've rarely met a politician more able to absorb the details of a complex brief. He's also very committed to doing stuff, and to confronting vested interests. That leads him into far more controversy than ministers who just keep the ship steady. If he was Chancellor, for instance, I could well imagine massive tax/NI reforms with lots of winners and losers - he would attract real loathing from some, but possibly produce a more sensible outcome for the economy. I'm interested to see what he'll do to the planning system - it won't be trivial.
It’s of quite a lot of concern to me if he’s in the top bracket of parliamentary thinkers. Because it’s pretty plain he approaches everything with a preconceived view and bends everything to fit his optimism bias. I can name 10 publicly anonymous execs I’d rather have in Cabinet than him.
“ Vast majority of Britons have NO PROTECTION against Omicron: After 100 days two AstraZeneca doses offer virtually zero defence while two Pfizer jabs provide just 37% protection against new variant - but boosters cut risk of falling ill by 75%”
This is the simplistic nonsense that will lead us into lockdown before Christmas. Because our PM and Cabinet are too thick and poorly educated to understand why this sound byte is wrong.
I thought they had a team of experts to advise them?
A team of experts in the background is absolutely worthless when the people making the decisions are “thick” and “poorly educated”.
cf Brexit
Problem is, in Gove and Johnson we are governed by ex hacks, backed up by second rate media and comms people. The PM’s personal sounding board at home is an art history grad that worked in Pr.
In Sunak & Javid we have backgrounds who should be capable of absorbing technical info outside their expertise and executing decisions. But they’re greasy pole climbers.
Gove isn't thick at all - I've rarely met a politician more able to absorb the details of a complex brief. He's also very committed to doing stuff, and to confronting vested interests. That leads him into far more controversy than ministers who just keep the ship steady. If he was Chancellor, for instance, I could well imagine massive tax/NI reforms with lots of winners and losers - he would attract real loathing from some, but possibly produce a more sensible outcome for the economy. I'm interested to see what he'll do to the planning system - it won't be trivial.
That rather depends on whether he has the time to achieve anything, or if he's allowed to. If there's a new PM in a few months' time he'll probably find himself on the move again; and regardless of who's in charge are they going to want to confront the Nimbies?
Good morning all from the train to that London. The nice thing about EVs (even PHEV ones) is that you can use the remote app to warm the car and melt the ice before you even get in. Which was helpful this morning before I drove down to Inverurie.
Sounds like something out of a science fiction novel.
I bought a corsa-e earlier this year. Pretty good range and drives far nicer than the petrol version.
I think you quickly adapt to the range anxiety - but pretty impressed nonetheless, and amazed to see how far they’ve come on in terms of tech
Not quite enough range for me, as I would want to go to the Isle of Wight occasionally, but sounds a reasonable bet.
I haven't really tried an electric car on ice and snow, does anyone have experience? This may be important for Stuart.
The Fiat 500 is surprisingly good on the ice. It is light and the weight directly over the drive wheels. The modest power helps too. I often zip past bigger cars that are stuck on foul winter days.
Aeons ago that was a selling point for the first Mini's. We bought ours in Summer '62, while living halfway up the Pennines. Early the following January it snowed hard and long, and froze similarly, but I drove into Manchester every day.
And Good Morning one and all, from an OKC whose arthritis has apparently decided to go into remission over night. As it does every so often, although, of course, not for long.
Good morning all from the train to that London. The nice thing about EVs (even PHEV ones) is that you can use the remote app to warm the car and melt the ice before you even get in. Which was helpful this morning before I drove down to Inverurie.
Sounds like something out of a science fiction novel.
I bought a corsa-e earlier this year. Pretty good range and drives far nicer than the petrol version.
I think you quickly adapt to the range anxiety - but pretty impressed nonetheless, and amazed to see how far they’ve come on in terms of tech
Not quite enough range for me, as I would want to go to the Isle of Wight occasionally, but sounds a reasonable bet.
I haven't really tried an electric car on ice and snow, does anyone have experience? This may be important for Stuart.
The Fiat 500 is surprisingly good on the ice. It is light and the weight directly over the drive wheels. The modest power helps too. I often zip past bigger cars that are stuck on foul winter days.
I think the best approach tends to be having one car petrol and one electric (I.e. long journeys we revert to our petrol but the electric is more a runaround)
Saying that, I’ve noticed a ramping up of charging infrastructure. BP do super fast charging now which gets you a pretty decent charge in about 30 mins (though not as quick as just filling up your tank with petrol of course).
It got me thinking about petrol stations of the future - I can imagine stations will become even more lucrative as you’d have to sit in your car waiting for a charge, whilst ordering lunch/ coffee etc.
Yes, the BP superfast chargers are great, and no messy apps, just a contactless card swipe. I used one last week in London, and 120 miles in about 20 min. I will look out for them in the future, and yes, I think forecourts will look different, more like a coffee shop with a parking lot than a petrol station.
“ Vast majority of Britons have NO PROTECTION against Omicron: After 100 days two AstraZeneca doses offer virtually zero defence while two Pfizer jabs provide just 37% protection against new variant - but boosters cut risk of falling ill by 75%”
This is the simplistic nonsense that will lead us into lockdown before Christmas. Because our PM and Cabinet are too thick and poorly educated to understand why this sound byte is wrong.
I thought they had a team of experts to advise them?
A team of experts in the background is absolutely worthless when the people making the decisions are “thick” and “poorly educated”.
cf Brexit
Problem is, in Gove and Johnson we are governed by ex hacks, backed up by second rate media and comms people. The PM’s personal sounding board at home is an art history grad that worked in Pr.
In Sunak & Javid we have backgrounds who should be capable of absorbing technical info outside their expertise and executing decisions. But they’re greasy pole climbers.
Gove isn't thick at all - I've rarely met a politician more able to absorb the details of a complex brief. He's also very committed to doing stuff, and to confronting vested interests. That leads him into far more controversy than ministers who just keep the ship steady. If he was Chancellor, for instance, I could well imagine massive tax/NI reforms with lots of winners and losers - he would attract real loathing from some, but possibly produce a more sensible outcome for the economy. I'm interested to see what he'll do to the planning system - it won't be trivial.
He doesn't strike me as a great team player, though, and in government it is pretty difficult to achieve very much by working as a lone ranger?
"An MP has lodged a bid for the controversial renaming of an historic Scots pub called the ‘Black Bitch’ to be debated in Parliament.
Linlithgow MP Martyn Day tabled the early day motion after major pub chain Greene King confirmed plans to change the name of the town’s bar to more “inclusive” title the Black Hound.
The move has sparked outrage in the town, with a petition calling for the name to remain gathering more than 6,000 signatures in a matter of days and former First Minister Alex Salmond wading into the row."
Rather odd to do it in Westminster Pmt, unless there is some UK legislation involved that escapes my mind. I can think of at least one Border town with the main hotel called the Black Bull, for instance.
Local place names and traditions can fall foul of a combination of homogenisation, misunderstanding and Hyacinth Bucket - here is a real piece of Edinburgh local history being sprayed over (didn't work, as it happens):
Comments
Makes sense.
- “Despite assertions that there is no reason to pursue these abuse cases following Epstein’s death, the cases do not end just because the alleged ringleader cannot be convicted. Former US Attorney General Bill Barr said, “Any co-conspirators should not rest easy. The victims deserve justice and they will get it.” Many others, including the “powerful men, moguls, media giants” Sternheim spoke of have yet to be charged or tried for their alleged abuses in connection with this case.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ghislaine-maxwell-trial-women-sexual-abuse-b1973287.html?amp
Linlithgow MP Martyn Day tabled the early day motion after major pub chain Greene King confirmed plans to change the name of the town’s bar to more “inclusive” title the Black Hound.
The move has sparked outrage in the town, with a petition calling for the name to remain gathering more than 6,000 signatures in a matter of days and former First Minister Alex Salmond wading into the row."
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scots-black-bitch-pub-renaming-25636777
NOM 11/8
Con Maj 8/5
Lab Maj 6/1
I don't think just knowing what was happening in Italy would have got you to profitable trades. Working out that the market was going to shit the bed wasn't enough, you also had to know that it was going to unshit it.
The fundamental flaw with all these superficially wise insights into equity market trades is that you have to be right *TWICE*.
Once is skill. Twice is fluke.
This Brexit josh turned out well, didn’t it!
BJ’s obituary: he lacked control.
Even by my own standards as a connoisseur of insomnia, had an abysmal night's sleep. Glad the race isn't today.
This time it is harder. We know that large sectors of the economy are actually pretty robust, so likely to be less affected by a massive sell off. There is also increasing pointers to stagflation both here and the USA. Investing for that prospect is quite tricky.
Yesterday's anaemic GDP figures, and the poor trade figures, with us falling further and further behind equally covid affected benchmarks also make stockpicking difficult. At the moment I am 95% equities but in ones not particularly exposed to UK Consumer spending.
The markets Santa rally seems particularly crazy at a time of Omicron, but as the saying goes, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
I had a white month recently and I’ve not slept better since my childhood.
I reckon that 80% of sleep problems are directly attributable to alcohol and other intoxicants. I can heartily recommend a thorough detox. Christmas is an excellent time to start: all that faux joviality just makes the Jan/Feb dip even worse.
I wouldn't be suprised if, by election day, they are down to something like 4/1. And that will be the time to back the tories; not now.
Tory minister, 51, 'repeatedly raped and abused his wife'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10296911/Tory-minister-51-repeatedly-raped-abused-wife-nearly-decade-judge-finds.html?ito=native_share_article-masthead
Off topic: this is a bizarre story:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10297833/amp/Jen-Psaki-says-rushed-judgment-Jussie-Smollett-quotes-Trump.html
Amusing that the White House’s defence is “Trump signalled his virtue, too!”
He reckons the pay is about the same, although he will lose his quite astonishing amount of time off. But he reckons the switch is worth it, as his North Sea job was extremely demanding: exhausting, dangerous, scary and unpleasant. In other words, much like nursing, except they don’t even get the lucrative pay and generous time off.
It just felt like a watershed moment. Folk are no longer nervous about pointing at the obese, drunken, lazy, mendacious, unfaithful emperor and pointing out that he has no clothes.
IMO one to avoid. But I'm just one PBer.
Jennifer Arcuri is currently exploring the boundaries of liability in making edgy conclusions.
Deleted. I agree with @MattW about this.
Combination of standard insomnia, bug bites, and some cracked skin on my heel that delivered a delightful jab of pain if it brushed anything.
This is only the start. Tories are about to come up with thousands of reasons for arbitrary removal of citizenship for folk they don’t like.
It feels more natural than directly pointing at Boris and using 'must be mistaken', 'correct the record', 'economical with the actualite' and all that circuitous shite that just turns voters off to parliament. It is a good move.
Ah well, my 80% guesstimate still leaves a huge 20% worth of “other”. In my case I went through a tricky period at work once with a dreadful boss. Now thankfully a faded memory. But jeepers it did weird things with my body.
My darling wife gave me an impromptu foot massage the other evening, as she says all this snow and cold weather is drying out everyone’s skin. It was a highly pleasant experience. Buy yourself a luxury foot cream and some expensive new cotton socks.
(Bug bites? In December?)
But my point is being missed here. I’m not doing the same trade now. Because I don’t think we’re facing anywhere near the same kind of disaster, from looking at South African media and listening to their medical professionals. The theme that omicron is taking us back to square one (and that is clearly the Daily Mail’s messageg is a uk phenomenon and that disturbs me, because it makes me wonder who is pushing that narrative here and why.
I’m not remotely scared of the virus now, most people I know have caught covid at least once and been double or tripled vaxxed and I don’t believe omicron is going to cause serious problems for anyone in that position. It’s our media and political class that terrify me.
I’m light on cash: nowhere near 5%.
I haven’t looked in detail at this for too long, but I’d guess I’m approx:
70% equities
25% property
4% gold
1% other, incl cash
(Probably miles out! I suddenly feel a compulsion to check the facts!)
After about a decade of not noticing any there have been tons this year.
Full list:- https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/full-list-the-plan-b-tory-rebels
Talking of which, I’ve just started doing some research for our next car purchase. I just cannot decide on a safe strategy. Is it really wise to have 2 electric cars (not hybrids, but 100% electric)? My wife has just ordered a small electric car for delivery in March, but the big car needs replaced in the summer, and I just can’t make up my mind between all-electric for that one too, or a conventional internal combustion engine. (I’ve pretty much decided against hybrid.)
Any thoughts?
I am referring to my SIPP and ISA, the value of equity in my house and field is probably about the same, so 50/50 in terms of disposable assets. Also a large defined benefit pension probably worth as much as equities and property combined. So I can afford to take a riskier approach to my equities.
But this isn’t the narrative that’s developing. It’s that the most infectious virus ever seen to man is about it to sweep the country and “most people” have no immunity to it.
This place is hyperbole central.
What is your source for that astonishing claim?
If you're going to take someone out you don't wibble about it first. They should axe him, but I'll believe it when I see it.
Starmer’s had a good week.
This rather assumes however no more 'events' and the facts stay the same. Quincel's earlier suggestion to back the Tories at 2/5 made perfect sense at the time and only looks a mistake because of the subsequent clusterfuck. That's not bad punting; it's bad luck and he is right to ignore it and look afresh at the new situation and new odds.
I would however hold back on this market now precisely because more 'events' can be expected before Thursday. I hear rumours of more pictures even in my isolated dugout near Heathrow. It is easy to imagine any one of these submerging Shropshire and/or the PM.
I'd keep my powder dry.
We had an unusually long and mild autumn. There must be tons of insect species active much later into the winter.
My problem is that small electric cars don't have much range, except perhaps newer versions of the Renalt Zoe. When the Fiat finally expires, I expect that there will be a better range.
This appeals though, apart from a large turning circle, which may be fixed before production. I quite fancy being an Eco-hippie in my retirement:
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/volkswagen/356851/all-electric-volkswagen-id-california-campervan-announced?amp
However I cannot understand why you would reject hybrid in favour of a conventional ICE. Ceratinly the toyota/lexus technology has advanced to the point where you can get 70 mpg even on motorway trips, it is ultra reliable and the cars are excellent value particularly in terms of residuals particularly if bought it nearly new.
I reckon in terms of vote share:
Con 40-45%
Lib 35-40%
Lab 15-20%
Others 5%
Range is tremendously important for our big car, as we frequently drive up to 6 hours to get into the mountains (usually for skiing, but cycling has exploded in popularity here). So we are looking at the more premium brands. I just do not like Teslas, the design is awful, and the chassis a piece of junk. Polestar have too many faults. BMW have not launched any “normal” all-electric cars yet, Hyundai too plasticky (although it is perhaps my fav at the moment), Kia and VW overpriced,
I hate to be boring, but I’m probably going for another ICE Volvo at this rate. It’ll be third in a row. They call the new ones “light hybrids”, but I don’t swallow much marketing guff.
The Electric Kia is great quality and nice to drive, with a real range of 250 miles even in winter with heating and lights on. The EV6 looks better still, but there will be an avalanche of new cars coming soon.
In the meantime my old Fiat just keeps going. Modern cars don't rust and the engine stays good.
@StuartDickson
What small electric car did you go for?
Incidentally, on equities what do you think of Nibe B? I bought earlier in the year, as heat pumps are the coming thing, so seemed a good prospect.
This is the problem with this car purchase thing nowadays: it’s just so bloody complicated. I’m just as likely to say Sod The Lot of You and buy a top of the range electric bike and membership of a carpool for our trips to the ski apartment etc. For the price of a premium EV you can get a heck of a lot of taxis, even in Sweden.
I don't think my bones and joints are up to downhill any more, but I did wonder about taking up the latter, and also fewer crowds. I quite like the quiet wilderness.
Moonrabbit , I will not be about today , busy again at my daughter's, but have spent 5 minutes looking at Cheltenham. My Trixie below.
Lalor 5/1 13:50 Cheltenham
Gelino Bello 7/4 14:25 Cheltenham
Song For Someone 9/4 15:00 Cheltenham
Good luck to everyone.
With Union flag taillights. She loves to troll me.
We replaced our IVT heat pump, which I hated, with a Nibe, which I hate even more. So I’m not the best person to ask!
Yes, heat pumps are wonderful: the house is cosy and they are very efficient. But jeepers, they are an immense pain in the bahoochie. Long list of tedious routine maintenance jobs you have to do at least 4 times a year, and the working spaces under/behind the pumps are non-existent. You need the hands of a four year old combined with a Masters in electrical engineering and the patience of a Zen master.
Do what the Swedish forces do with submarines and fighters, and extend the lifetime for 2 or 3 years, then the landscape will have changed.
Am I correct that the only really Swedish car company is Koenigsegg, which would be interesting? Unless you want a Uniti blobule.
I am thinking of building an eco-house on my 4 acre paddock for retirement, and would plan to have a heat pump system as part of it, but they really don't seem to retrofit existing British houses well.
Edited extra bit: there's a weird one. Double DNF and Verstappen to win the title. The only way he doesn't is if he gets points deducted... possible. But a very controversial option when Hamilton got a 10s time penalty for ending Verstappen's British Grand Prix.
The rest of us are all still 100% downhill. I am easily the least competent. Hillend is great for Edinburghers, but decent adult skiers it does not make.
Like you, I’m getting too old for downhill. I’m switching to cross country this season. The wilderness is gorgeous.
Unless you have some requirement that a BEV can't meet like towing a 2 ton caravan 500km every weekend.
Mr Eagles would of course actually explode, but it would still be very, very funny.
They say: “It wasn’t a formal party but perhaps in hindsight it wasn’t the most sensible thing to do.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/treasury-staff-had-office-drinks-party-during-lockdown-0shvd2k5j
Also interesting - Merc didn’t used any of their development tokens for the year. Amazing progress with no development- makes me think they’ll have a good 2022 car
I think you quickly adapt to the range anxiety - but pretty impressed nonetheless, and amazed to see how far they’ve come on in terms of tech
The Monadhliath too, if you're fit.
And there's chatter that the prime minister has made a strategic decision to hold on to director of communications Jack Doyle for now, while lining him up to take the fall when the inquiry emerges.
Yet this week it feels sentiment has moved in the Tory party, with more and more of his own side imagining what life might be like under a different leader. A former minister who has analysed the party tribes even suggests "stage one" of a leadership change is complete: when the party agrees among itself privately that the PM is running out of road.
I haven't really tried an electric car on ice and snow, does anyone have experience? This may be important for Stuart.
The Fiat 500 is surprisingly good on the ice. It is light and the weight directly over the drive wheels. The modest power helps too. I often zip past bigger cars that are stuck on foul winter days.
Government is chosen by the people to represent us. They have certain limited authority in the interests of an orderly society and certain rights to secure funding to meet the costs.
If an individual is unwilling to abide by the rules of society (the laws) then the government, acting on behalf of society, can exclude an individual from society. This means internal exile (prison) or external exile (loss of citizenship).
Government has no authority to enforce specific action against the individual without their consent. This is why, for example, the death penalty and mandatory medical treatment (including mandatory vaccination) is morally and philosophically wrong.
There is more of a case that an individual can be asked to pay for excess costs incurred (eg payment for treatment) if they don’t undertake certain actions (voluntary vaccination) although this should be on a retrospective basis rather than prospectively as a means to enforce behaviour change
Saying that, I’ve noticed a ramping up of charging infrastructure. BP do super fast charging now which gets you a pretty decent charge in about 30 mins (though not as quick as just filling up your tank with petrol of course).
It got me thinking about petrol stations of the future - I can imagine stations will become even more lucrative as you’d have to sit in your car waiting for a charge, whilst ordering lunch/ coffee etc.
And Good Morning one and all, from an OKC whose arthritis has apparently decided to go into remission over night. As it does every so often, although, of course, not for long.
Local place names and traditions can fall foul of a combination of homogenisation, misunderstanding and Hyacinth Bucket - here is a real piece of Edinburgh local history being sprayed over (didn't work, as it happens):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1470935.stm