Rather suggests that he is not actually interested in anything other than pushing his particular line.
Firstly, the idea that testing rates per 100k are comparable between those countries is utterly ridiculous.
Secondly, shall we look at excess death rates for the bottom ten and the top ten?
The evidence posted is rot - but is it totally ridiculous that at some point if not now Omicron could have a higher rate of infection on the vaccinated vs the unvaccinated? Logically it is I think possible - for instance if unvaccinated people are more likely to be isolated from others, loners and hermits maybe? Or perhaps just being more cautious because they are unvaccinated. I'm not suggesting this is happening or will happen, but it is logically possible.
Watched Don't Look Up last night. It is properly entertaining, and a clever premise - comet as allegory for climate change. And there are some brilliant moments, especially at the start, when the astronomers encounter outrageous NORMALCY BIAS
But then it becomes uneven in tone, sometimes low farce, sometimes witty comedy, sometimes sentimental drama, and they jar, and the parochial Americanism is tedious, especially the laboured, lazy assaults on Trumpism and silly white people. Yes yes yes we know they are awful but it's such a crappy obvious target, and it is annoying and boring.
It's a film that wants to be Doctor Strangelove for global warming but lacks the Southern/Kubrick Strangelove script - and it lacks Peter Sellers - one star to bring together a stellar cast. Something of a missed opportunity. Coulda been a masterpiece
For all the talk among the "right on" lefty comedians that one should only punch up and speak truth to power, it does seem thick (British / American) white working class (Brexit / Trump voter) have become the go to punch line of lazy joke in the way the "thick" Irish were at one point for right wing comedians.
Yes, exactly. Laughing at Maga hat wearers is like laughing at Mother in Law Jokes in the 70s. Pathetically feeble comedy
If you have to do it find a new and stealthy way, at least. The racist old school pilot was cringeworthy
I made the mistake of watching Russell Howard's Netflix special and it was literally this....insert "right on" big talking point, e.g. trans rights...oh look thicky (puts on accent) says they ain't proppa women....rinse and repeat in between talking the piss out of his thick (white working class Bristolian) brother and mother and odd pop at Boris.
We have gone through four years plus where punchlines could be "Trump, am I right?" and people would merrily applaud.
Better than what far too many other people did - spend those 4 years making excuses for him, having a chuckle at how he trolled the libs, downplaying the horror of his presidency, offering fatuous 'man of the world' context instead of plain & simple condemnation of his racism and misogyny and pig ignorance and utter lack of ethics, seeking to find redeeming features where there were none, drawing false equivalences with the left, pretending there was some strategic intelligence in his politics, that he'd "identified some real problems" as opposed to simply being the biggest of them, in denial at the threat to democracy and civic life he posed and staying in denial about it long past the point where anybody in their right mind could see it.
Course people deny now that they did all or most or some of the above but I am here to inform otherwise. It was knee deep and it used to drive me potty sometimes.
My god, you're a humourless fuckwit
Yea, but at least he isn't a swivel-eyed c*nt!
Boasting about yourself again
Could have been referring to you perhaps? Can't be many unswerving fanbois for the fat little creep that was described by his own QC as a bully and a sex pest can there? How are the anger management classes going Malc? I bet those nationalistic hate filled eyes are going into swivelling overdrive as you read this eh? You silly little man.
Change the record sad git. Crawl back under your rock with the other spineless creatures. You are like gollum a creature of teh dark who has to be pitied.
Wow, that took your braincell a while to come up with that! A little more psychological projection from you Malc? Gollum? Is that how you see yourself? Yep, all that pent up rage, it's so sad.
Is "My precious" your latest love-name for the fat little toad who used to have a reputation?
Rather suggests that he is not actually interested in anything other than pushing his particular line.
Firstly, the idea that testing rates per 100k are comparable between those countries is utterly ridiculous.
Secondly, shall we look at excess death rates for the bottom ten and the top ten?
i have conceded the points on deaths....and the chart you have shown is irrrelevant to the point he was making about higher infection rates in vaccinated for omicron ......look he could be wrong but if someone more intelligent than me could fully analyze the data that would be helpful
If you can provide the data, someone more intelligent than you will, I am sure, analyse it for you.
Rather suggests that he is not actually interested in anything other than pushing his particular line.
Firstly, the idea that testing rates per 100k are comparable between those countries is utterly ridiculous.
Secondly, shall we look at excess death rates for the bottom ten and the top ten?
Anyone using reported case rates between countries to prove anything has self aware a Pesto*
*The Professor Peston FRS DIpSHit Award. This comes in
Pesto Cross 2nd Class Pesto Cross 1st Class Knight's Cross of the Pesto Cross Knight's Cross of the Pesto Cross with Oak Leaves Knight's Cross of the Pesto Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords Knight's Cross of the Pesto Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds Knight's Cross of the Pesto Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds.
Please don't post anti-vaxxer disinformation on this site. This is selective data and is shite. The intention is to give succour to the unvaxxed. Anyone who disseminates this nonsense is helping to prolong the pandemic and put peoples lives at risk
You running the site now shit for brains, telling people what they can and cannot post. GIRUY and do us a favour by stopping posting your crap.
I see the anti-woke mob have got their pitchforks out and are absolutely on fire this afternoon.
Being a simple sort of northern bloke, to me something is funny if it's funny, regardless of the target. Though being really offensive is rarely funny, and takes a rare talent to pull off.
Being deliberately offensive is often funny surely? See Frankie Boyle.
Yes, proves my point - he's a rare talent.
For my taste, Frankie Boyle is not what he once was, and even back then he was borderline. If you're going to tell offensive jokes, they have to be very, very good to get away with it. I don't think Boyle is as offensive as he ever was but no longer as funny. For me. Jimmy Carr, on the other hand, is horribly offensive but just funny enough to pull it off. Again, for me.
I see the anti-woke mob have got their pitchforks out and are absolutely on fire this afternoon.
Being a simple sort of northern bloke, to me something is funny if it's funny, regardless of the target. Though being really offensive is rarely funny, and takes a rare talent to pull off.
Being deliberately offensive is often funny surely? See Frankie Boyle.
Yes, proves my point - he's a rare talent.
For my taste, Frankie Boyle is not what he once was, and even back then he was borderline. If you're going to tell offensive jokes, they have to be very, very good to get away with it. I don't think Boyle is as offensive as he ever was but no longer as funny. For me. Jimmy Carr, on the other hand, is horribly offensive but just funny enough to pull it off. Again, for me.
Its the very clever word play that allows Carr to get away with a lot more things than other would.
Please don't post anti-vaxxer disinformation on this site. This is selective data and is shite. The intention is to give succour to the unvaxxed. Anyone who disseminates this nonsense is helping to prolong the pandemic and put peoples lives at risk
can you explain in what way the data is "shite" please
Because, as with most "information" peddled by anti-vax loons it is selective and therefore not even indicative. If there is any veracity to this information it would be important, but the reality is that it is being selectively interpreted by someone who almost certainly is not a scientist. Of course you didn't notice that the tweet came from someone calling himself "Corona Realism"? Another c*nt that wants to get a following from the stupid and gullible.
could you please analyze the data for me and explain why it is "shite" ....i accept that severe illness is less likely in the vaccinated but surely we should examine this infection data carefully
I don't have the time to debate with anti-vaxxers, or to "analyze" (sic) raw data. If you were a scientist, or even had an understanding of any data analysis you would realise that morons like "Corona Realism" like to take data out of context and use it to "advance" their sick anti-science moronic aganda. The raw data is not necessarily shite. The attempt to take an anti-vax out of context interpretation of it is.
(((Dan Hodges))) Retweeted The Daily Record @Daily_Record · 9h The figures show fewer than 100 people with the new variant have required hospital treatment in Scotland
Prof. Christina Pagel @chrischirp · 53m Not only has Scotland reported new record numbers of cases today (over 20K) but its positive rate is sky high at almost 35%.
Does anyone know the England positivity rate?
I can’t find it on the dashboard.
The Scottish numbers sort of make the point that restrictions don’t exactly work against a virus as transmissible as Omichron?
I always find this one interesting - the weekly features are fascinating to me....
Watched Don't Look Up last night. It is properly entertaining, and a clever premise - comet as allegory for climate change. And there are some brilliant moments, especially at the start, when the astronomers encounter outrageous NORMALCY BIAS
But then it becomes uneven in tone, sometimes low farce, sometimes witty comedy, sometimes sentimental drama, and they jar, and the parochial Americanism is tedious, especially the laboured, lazy assaults on Trumpism and silly white people. Yes yes yes we know they are awful but it's such a crappy obvious target, and it is annoying and boring.
It's a film that wants to be Doctor Strangelove for global warming but lacks the Southern/Kubrick Strangelove script - and it lacks Peter Sellers - one star to bring together a stellar cast. Something of a missed opportunity. Coulda been a masterpiece
For all the talk among the "right on" lefty comedians that one should only punch up and speak truth to power, it does seem thick (British / American) white working class (Brexit / Trump voter) have become the go to punch line of lazy joke in the way the "thick" Irish were at one point for right wing comedians.
Yes, exactly. Laughing at Maga hat wearers is like laughing at Mother in Law Jokes in the 70s. Pathetically feeble comedy
If you have to do it find a new and stealthy way, at least. The racist old school pilot was cringeworthy
I made the mistake of watching Russell Howard's Netflix special and it was literally this....insert "right on" big talking point, e.g. trans rights...oh look thicky (puts on accent) says they ain't proppa women....rinse and repeat in between talking the piss out of his thick (white working class Bristolian) brother and mother and odd pop at Boris.
We have gone through four years plus where punchlines could be "Trump, am I right?" and people would merrily applaud.
Better than what far too many other people did - spend those 4 years making excuses for him, having a chuckle at how he trolled the libs, downplaying the horror of his presidency, offering fatuous 'man of the world' context instead of plain & simple condemnation of his racism and misogyny and pig ignorance and utter lack of ethics, seeking to find redeeming features where there were none, drawing false equivalences with the left, pretending there was some strategic intelligence in his politics, that he'd "identified some real problems" as opposed to simply being the biggest of them, in denial at the threat to democracy and civic life he posed and staying in denial about it long past the point where anybody in their right mind could see it.
Course people deny now that they did all or most or some of the above but I am here to inform otherwise. It was knee deep and it used to drive me potty sometimes.
mind you on the plus side he was a lot more entertaining than biden
If he'd stuck to reality tv this would be a relevant metric. Eg I can see myself choosing The Apprentice over Fishing With Joe. But unfortunately he got elected US president.
Odd story - seemingly Daniel Kawczynski has had state subsidised polish lessons. I'm trying to work out i) Is it true. ii) Why on earth they would be a state subsidised expense. iii) Can't he speak it already ?
Plenty of people can't speak (very well) the language of their minority origin.
He grew up in Poland until he was 6 and has previously described himself as fluent in the language.
He is a Tory, why would anyone expect he was not be robbing the public
If he hasn't spoken Polish daily since he was six, he may have found himself getting very rusty. Even if they spoke Polish in the family home, he wouldn't have had much opportunity since leaving home.
This might be true and very commendable to learn to speak the language of your birth fluently...but not sure how it is justifiable to charge the public purse for this. I don't see how it is essential to his ability to be an MP.
According to the Times, it is part of an obscure parliamentary scheme for language lessons so that bit's legit. There was a discussion of Kawczynski's costs on the last thread.
You would hope if this is the case, there would be an upper bound of the cost on any such scheme.
I once worked for a company that had a very generous scheme that allowed you to claim for personal development i.e. it could be any sort of random night school course from basket weaving to language courses, but there was a cap on how much you could claim every year, so you couldn't a) just get your mate to charge £100 / hr to teach you car mechanics and b) you couldn't just sign up for a different class every night of the week.
Indeed, it used to be common for larger corporations and government departments both to budget for, and expect, continuing training for personnel. I received a fair bit of it while with the FCO - writing, speed reading, public speaking, management, Arabic (formal, and in country x 2), French, economics, EU institutions and laws, personal security, addressing alcoholism are the courses I can remember.
But GBP20k seems on the excessive side for one language.
I think this kind of problem is inevitable until we actually come up with a better definition of what MPs do and are for. Are they company directors with essentially unlimited expense account making it up as they go? Or are they professionals with actual career development?
We have a hybrid system where MP was really supposed to be a part time hobby for people rich enough to have the time to spare. And the amount of time it took to be an MP was quite small. In addition politics was the ultimate job in more ways than one - a career after politics was not expected.
We have bolted that onto an expectation of modern middle managers, as paid employees. Complete with the social status aspirations of the original.
They are a bunch of trough swillers swindling the public. Blackford had over 260K expenses and was hardly in Westminster due to covid. hate to think what the Tories will be claiming, guaranteed to make him look an amateur.
What is Salmond's lifetime total of expenses for Holyrood plus Westminster?
Rather suggests that he is not actually interested in anything other than pushing his particular line.
Firstly, the idea that testing rates per 100k are comparable between those countries is utterly ridiculous.
Secondly, shall we look at excess death rates for the bottom ten and the top ten?
Anyone using reported case rates between countries to prove anything has self aware a Pesto*
*The Professor Peston FRS DIpSHit Award. This comes in
Pesto Cross 2nd Class Pesto Cross 1st Class Knight's Cross of the Pesto Cross Knight's Cross of the Pesto Cross with Oak Leaves Knight's Cross of the Pesto Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords Knight's Cross of the Pesto Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds Knight's Cross of the Pesto Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds.
Even if the numbers were actually accurate as far as infections go (which they almost certainly aren't), then just cherry picking a single day is deeply misleading too. India was amazing - case-wise - until it wasn't.
The only metric that is genuinely useful is excess deaths.
As an aside, regarding comedy targeting left wingers rather than right wingers...
Today comedy tends to be created by the urban young (ish). It's very hard to make a life as a jobbing stand-up in small towns or the countryside, because there simply aren't that many venues available by public transport from where you are. You will therefore be urban and young yourself, and have an audience of urban and young people. Two groups that are - it is fair to say - more left wing than normal.
This contrasts to the 1950s, where the market for a jobbing comic would be touring working mens clubs. Then material would need to be targeted at an older, almost exclusively white and male audience.
Little wonder we get the young and the woke, and they got Bernard Manning.
There has been some very good comedy targeting left wing governments: The Thick of It being the best.
But while there was lots of anti-Trump comedy (stand up Saturday Night Live) there is virtually nothing targeting Biden. Part of this, though, is simply that Biden is boring and invisible. He doesn't tweet memorable things or give contraversial speeches. Absence is a hard thing to get more than a few minutes of comedy out of.
It might also be because Biden was already the target of comedic attacks a decade or more ago. See Robin Williams attacks on him from 2009. And he was not alone. It seems that, probably perfectly understandably, once you have done the jokes once around they do not seem worth repeating, at least for comedic value, a decade later.
Rather suggests that he is not actually interested in anything other than pushing his particular line.
Firstly, the idea that testing rates per 100k are comparable between those countries is utterly ridiculous.
Secondly, shall we look at excess death rates for the bottom ten and the top ten?
Anyone using reported case rates between countries to prove anything has self aware a Pesto*
*The Professor Peston FRS DIpSHit Award. This comes in
Pesto Cross 2nd Class Pesto Cross 1st Class Knight's Cross of the Pesto Cross Knight's Cross of the Pesto Cross with Oak Leaves Knight's Cross of the Pesto Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords Knight's Cross of the Pesto Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds Knight's Cross of the Pesto Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds.
Even if the numbers were actually accurate as far as infections go (which they almost certainly aren't), then just cherry picking a single day is deeply misleading too. India was amazing - case-wise - until it wasn't.
The only metric that is genuinely useful is excess deaths.
"The only metric that is genuinely useful is excess deaths"
to be fair whilst some of her views are irrational they are no more irrational than some of those on the woke left
Go on then - let's have a Woke Left view that's as irrational as the world is run by a liberal elite in the spare time they get from raping toddlers?
Babies are born with no sex
The difference is the QAnon idiocy is believed by a subset of voters with no power, the "babies have no sex" insanity is believed - and loudly espoused - by the Woke liberal elite that runs the Anglo-Saxon world
very well put leon...the woke left have all the power and control the western word....incidentally the chinese have a special derogatory name they use for western woke liberals....they are chinas biggest useful idiots
Watched Don't Look Up last night. It is properly entertaining, and a clever premise - comet as allegory for climate change. And there are some brilliant moments, especially at the start, when the astronomers encounter outrageous NORMALCY BIAS
But then it becomes uneven in tone, sometimes low farce, sometimes witty comedy, sometimes sentimental drama, and they jar, and the parochial Americanism is tedious, especially the laboured, lazy assaults on Trumpism and silly white people. Yes yes yes we know they are awful but it's such a crappy obvious target, and it is annoying and boring.
It's a film that wants to be Doctor Strangelove for global warming but lacks the Southern/Kubrick Strangelove script - and it lacks Peter Sellers - one star to bring together a stellar cast. Something of a missed opportunity. Coulda been a masterpiece
For all the talk among the "right on" lefty comedians that one should only punch up and speak truth to power, it does seem thick (British / American) white working class (Brexit / Trump voter) have become the go to punch line of lazy joke in the way the "thick" Irish were at one point for right wing comedians.
Yes, exactly. Laughing at Maga hat wearers is like laughing at Mother in Law Jokes in the 70s. Pathetically feeble comedy
If you have to do it find a new and stealthy way, at least. The racist old school pilot was cringeworthy
Satirizing dumbo enablers of the most toxic politician in the western world in 2021 is like laughing at Mother in Law jokes in 1971?
Hmm. Ok.
Of course you don't understand the point. How could you?
I get the point you're making. That both are lazy. True. But so are lots of jokes. I'd go as far as to say most. So it's a rather banal point.
I'm then making my point to this point of yours - to upgrade it slightly as it were. Which is that in one the target is a target because they're enabling a poisonous brand of politics, whereas in the other the target is a target because of an age & gender stereotype.
This difference (in the target) is imo more meaningful than the similarity (of both being lazy). Good to type all that out, actually, so thanks for making me.
The best jokes are the ones you don't know where they are going or what the punch line is, in the fact the ones where you make assumption only for the punch line to be a total flip on your expectation.
I don't think you can define any rules at all for jokes. Some are funny but shouldn't be, some aren't when they seem to have it all, context is massive, so is delivery.
But, yes, I know what you mean. If you can pull off a joke that really surprises - AND is funny - that's top drawer.
Easily the best pizzas I've made, would highly recommend and Ooni to anyone who makes pizza in a normal oven but would like to level up.
I'm not normally in favour of the police being involved in social media posts, but you put unsliced olives on a pizza and deserve to be incarcerated.
What's wriong with that? If it's the stone, those have been pipped (hole is a giveaway).
No, not the stone. Risk of uneven cooking. Just the idea of biting into a partially cooked olive is kinda gross. Plus it'll overpower other flavours in that bite. Better to halve or quarter the olives. Personally I probably wouldn't use olives at all, but if I did I'd try to spread them out so you never have a whole one in a single bite. But I'm mostly being silly and in truth they look excellent. I'm suddenly quite hungry.
Look at the photo. I think those olives have been added AFTER cooking.
Rather suggests that he is not actually interested in anything other than pushing his particular line.
Firstly, the idea that testing rates per 100k are comparable between those countries is utterly ridiculous.
Secondly, shall we look at excess death rates for the bottom ten and the top ten?
The evidence posted is rot - but is it totally ridiculous that at some point if not now Omicron could have a higher rate of infection on the vaccinated vs the unvaccinated? Logically it is I think possible - for instance if unvaccinated people are more likely to be isolated from others, loners and hermits maybe? Or perhaps just being more cautious because they are unvaccinated. I'm not suggesting this is happening or will happen, but it is logically possible.
The phenomenon of negative protection from vaccines is a real thing. I believe it has happened with some attempts at creating vaccines (CCHF comes to mind). But the evidence for this happening with the COVID vaccines (particularly those in use in N America and W Europe) is not just non-existent - it is all in the other direction showing the efficacy of vaccination.
Personally, I find it hard to imagine scenarios for COVID where behavioural issues for vaccine deniers reduce their likelihood of infection over the vaccinated.
Rather suggests that he is not actually interested in anything other than pushing his particular line.
Firstly, the idea that testing rates per 100k are comparable between those countries is utterly ridiculous.
Secondly, shall we look at excess death rates for the bottom ten and the top ten?
FWIW, here are estimates for death rates in 19 of the 20 countries and territories listed by blokey on Twitter, data for Kosovo not being available.
Excess deaths per 100,000 for the period of the Covid-19 pandemic (currently calculated for the period Jan 1 2020 to Dec 26 2021) - central estimates from The Economist model, as reproduced by ourworldindata.org
High vax rate jurisdictions:
Denmark 31.01 Gibraltar 132.83 Faeroe Islands -94.46 Ireland 73.46 Malta 82.62 Spain 249.18 Iceland -19.49 Portugal 239.18 Belgium 204.71 Finland 67.58
(NB: the UK stands at 210.65 on this measure)
Low vax rate jurisdictions:
Montenegro 536.32 Bulgaria 856.56 Belarus 601.33 Ukraine 442.62 Bosnia and Herzegovina 594.57 North Macedonia 749.23 Albania 471.66 Moldova 428.17 Romania 547.41
to be fair whilst some of her views are irrational they are no more irrational than some of those on the woke left
Go on then - let's have a Woke Left view that's as irrational as the world is run by a liberal elite in the spare time they get from raping toddlers?
Babies are born with no sex
The difference is the QAnon idiocy is believed by a subset of voters with no power, the "babies have no sex" insanity is believed - and loudly espoused - by the Woke liberal elite that runs the Anglo-Saxon world
Watched Don't Look Up last night. It is properly entertaining, and a clever premise - comet as allegory for climate change. And there are some brilliant moments, especially at the start, when the astronomers encounter outrageous NORMALCY BIAS
But then it becomes uneven in tone, sometimes low farce, sometimes witty comedy, sometimes sentimental drama, and they jar, and the parochial Americanism is tedious, especially the laboured, lazy assaults on Trumpism and silly white people. Yes yes yes we know they are awful but it's such a crappy obvious target, and it is annoying and boring.
It's a film that wants to be Doctor Strangelove for global warming but lacks the Southern/Kubrick Strangelove script - and it lacks Peter Sellers - one star to bring together a stellar cast. Something of a missed opportunity. Coulda been a masterpiece
For all the talk among the "right on" lefty comedians that one should only punch up and speak truth to power, it does seem thick (British / American) white working class (Brexit / Trump voter) have become the go to punch line of lazy joke in the way the "thick" Irish were at one point for right wing comedians.
Yes, exactly. Laughing at Maga hat wearers is like laughing at Mother in Law Jokes in the 70s. Pathetically feeble comedy
If you have to do it find a new and stealthy way, at least. The racist old school pilot was cringeworthy
Satirizing dumbo enablers of the most toxic politician in the western world in 2021 is like laughing at Mother in Law jokes in 1971?
Hmm. Ok.
Of course you don't understand the point. How could you?
I get the point you're making. That both are lazy. True. But so are lots of jokes. I'd go as far as to say most. So it's a rather banal point.
I'm then making my point to this point of yours - to upgrade it slightly as it were. Which is that in one the target is a target because they're enabling a poisonous brand of politics, whereas in the other the target is a target because of an age & gender stereotype.
This difference (in the target) is imo more meaningful than the similarity (of both being lazy). Good to type all that out, actually, so thanks for making me.
The best jokes are the ones you don't know where they are going or what the punch line is, in the fact the ones where you make assumption only for the punch line to be a total flip on your expectation.
I don't think you can define any rules at all for jokes. Some are funny but shouldn't be, some aren't when they seem to have it all, context is massive, so is delivery.
But, yes, I know what you mean. If you can pull off a joke that really surprises - AND is funny - that's top drawer.
At its core, I think the misdirection is a core part of basically any joke setup, even those comedians whose routines are based around exaggerated funny incidents they have encountered. The funny bits are because somebody did or said something really unexpected or out of the norm e.g. the Rhod Gilbert damaged suitcase routine, its a series of events and responses that are ludicrous to the expected norms.
Watched Don't Look Up last night. It is properly entertaining, and a clever premise - comet as allegory for climate change. And there are some brilliant moments, especially at the start, when the astronomers encounter outrageous NORMALCY BIAS
But then it becomes uneven in tone, sometimes low farce, sometimes witty comedy, sometimes sentimental drama, and they jar, and the parochial Americanism is tedious, especially the laboured, lazy assaults on Trumpism and silly white people. Yes yes yes we know they are awful but it's such a crappy obvious target, and it is annoying and boring.
It's a film that wants to be Doctor Strangelove for global warming but lacks the Southern/Kubrick Strangelove script - and it lacks Peter Sellers - one star to bring together a stellar cast. Something of a missed opportunity. Coulda been a masterpiece
For all the talk among the "right on" lefty comedians that one should only punch up and speak truth to power, it does seem thick (British / American) white working class (Brexit / Trump voter) have become the go to punch line of lazy joke in the way the "thick" Irish were at one point for right wing comedians.
Yes, exactly. Laughing at Maga hat wearers is like laughing at Mother in Law Jokes in the 70s. Pathetically feeble comedy
If you have to do it find a new and stealthy way, at least. The racist old school pilot was cringeworthy
I made the mistake of watching Russell Howard's Netflix special and it was literally this....insert "right on" big talking point, e.g. trans rights...oh look thicky (puts on accent) says they ain't proppa women....rinse and repeat in between talking the piss out of his thick (white working class Bristolian) brother and mother and odd pop at Boris.
We have gone through four years plus where punchlines could be "Trump, am I right?" and people would merrily applaud.
Better than what far too many other people did - spend those 4 years making excuses for him, having a chuckle at how he trolled the libs, downplaying the horror of his presidency, offering fatuous 'man of the world' context instead of plain & simple condemnation of his racism and misogyny and pig ignorance and utter lack of ethics, seeking to find redeeming features where there were none, drawing false equivalences with the left, pretending there was some strategic intelligence in his politics, that he'd "identified some real problems" as opposed to simply being the biggest of them, in denial at the threat to democracy and civic life he posed and staying in denial about it long past the point where anybody in their right mind could see it.
Course people deny now that they did all or most or some of the above but I am here to inform otherwise. It was knee deep and it used to drive me potty sometimes.
My god, you're a humourless fuckwit
Spot on. That was not meant to be a funny post. I was taut and throbbing as I wrote it. Not very enjoyable but it has to be done sometimes.
I'll try and do a funny post soon though. You have to have a laugh, don't you, in this world, else you cry.
But you aren't funny. That's the first point. And your automatic reaction to this debate about "anti Trumpian hectoring" was to hector us: about the evils of Trump. That's the second point
There's no sin in being a humourless fuckwit, but you chose an awkward moment to prove it
Taking the piss out of the 'woke' is funny. Taking the piss out of people like you isn't.
Rather suggests that he is not actually interested in anything other than pushing his particular line.
Firstly, the idea that testing rates per 100k are comparable between those countries is utterly ridiculous.
Secondly, shall we look at excess death rates for the bottom ten and the top ten?
The evidence posted is rot - but is it totally ridiculous that at some point if not now Omicron could have a higher rate of infection on the vaccinated vs the unvaccinated? Logically it is I think possible - for instance if unvaccinated people are more likely to be isolated from others, loners and hermits maybe? Or perhaps just being more cautious because they are unvaccinated. I'm not suggesting this is happening or will happen, but it is logically possible.
It's a good question. And someone who has had one paediatric Pfizer dose is far less protected than someone who previously had Delta, but is otherwise unvaccinated. So, the reality is you would need lots of data so you can control for prior infection, and to look on an age cohort equivalent basis. You also probably need to remember that someone in a city is far likelier to have contracted Omicron (so far) than someone in the countryside. (You are also far likelier to have been tested if you live in an urban area.)
So, is it likely that a person who has been vaccinated is more likely to catch Omicron than an unvaccinated one? No, it's not likely. Is it possible? Maybe. But it's hard to see the mechanism by which having your immune system primed against the spike protein results in you being more likely to have Covid in your system.
I see the anti-woke mob have got their pitchforks out and are absolutely on fire this afternoon.
Being a simple sort of northern bloke, to me something is funny if it's funny, regardless of the target. Though being really offensive is rarely funny, and takes a rare talent to pull off.
Two ads 25 years apart. Both tongue in cheek but only one would get through the ASA today. Both harmless but mores change.
Watched Don't Look Up last night. It is properly entertaining, and a clever premise - comet as allegory for climate change. And there are some brilliant moments, especially at the start, when the astronomers encounter outrageous NORMALCY BIAS
But then it becomes uneven in tone, sometimes low farce, sometimes witty comedy, sometimes sentimental drama, and they jar, and the parochial Americanism is tedious, especially the laboured, lazy assaults on Trumpism and silly white people. Yes yes yes we know they are awful but it's such a crappy obvious target, and it is annoying and boring.
It's a film that wants to be Doctor Strangelove for global warming but lacks the Southern/Kubrick Strangelove script - and it lacks Peter Sellers - one star to bring together a stellar cast. Something of a missed opportunity. Coulda been a masterpiece
For all the talk among the "right on" lefty comedians that one should only punch up and speak truth to power, it does seem thick (British / American) white working class (Brexit / Trump voter) have become the go to punch line of lazy joke in the way the "thick" Irish were at one point for right wing comedians.
Yes, exactly. Laughing at Maga hat wearers is like laughing at Mother in Law Jokes in the 70s. Pathetically feeble comedy
If you have to do it find a new and stealthy way, at least. The racist old school pilot was cringeworthy
I made the mistake of watching Russell Howard's Netflix special and it was literally this....insert "right on" big talking point, e.g. trans rights...oh look thicky (puts on accent) says they ain't proppa women....rinse and repeat in between talking the piss out of his thick (white working class Bristolian) brother and mother and odd pop at Boris.
I absolutely cannot stand the likes of Russell Howard. The only thing that separates him from racist, misogynistic old school comics of the 1970s is that the latter were sometimes funny, despite their egregious bigotry
If you want a challenging, brilliant comedian who takes on all-comers, try Dave Chapelle? If you haven't already?
The Closer on Netflix is magnificent. Edgy, creative, unexpected, with proper regular if shocking LOLs. And his timing is immaculate
If you head to the Witham in Barnard Castle, joke 1 is always specsavers or equivalent just to get it out of the way
people still doing "barnard castle eye test" material can literally get in the sea.
They did a Barnard Castle gag at the Sunderland panto
Point proven I think :-)
Absolutely proven. If a joke is so tired it can only be warmed over and served at a pantomime, then it is utterly dead to the world
Pantos were, rather strikingly, the retirement home of mother-in-law jokes. The last place they could be heard
They are also the bedrock of provincial Britain
They really really aren't. lol. How many people go to pantos? A few hundred thousand, mostly bewildered kids and a lot of mindlessly bored parents. Plus some strange retarded adults without kids. Literally: retarded. Drooling.
I think you’re underestimating the sales of a form of media that sells out theatres up and down the land for a month every single year. There are lots & lots of people who go to the panto every year with their family - it’s part of the whole Christmas Season (with a capital S) for them.
A quick check reveals that according to The Stage, three million panto tickets were sold in 2017 & that’s just the mainstream theatres who are members of UK Theatre & won’t include all the amateur productions up & down the land:
A universal part of Christmas? No. Still a fairly big deal? Looks like it.
Fair enough. That's more people than I expected, perhaps I was warped by my loathing of panto, especially the last one I saw: a Woke panto in Hackney which was so cringe I nearly prolapsed
However my larger point is right. If 3m people go to a panto that's about 4% of the UK population. Hardly "the bedrock of provincial Britain". The claim is absurd
The Liberal Democrats only got 2.4 million votes in 2017. So a third more people go the panto in a regular year than voted for the LDs just two General Elections ago.
Rather suggests that he is not actually interested in anything other than pushing his particular line.
Firstly, the idea that testing rates per 100k are comparable between those countries is utterly ridiculous.
Secondly, shall we look at excess death rates for the bottom ten and the top ten?
The evidence posted is rot - but is it totally ridiculous that at some point if not now Omicron could have a higher rate of infection on the vaccinated vs the unvaccinated? Logically it is I think possible - for instance if unvaccinated people are more likely to be isolated from others, loners and hermits maybe? Or perhaps just being more cautious because they are unvaccinated. I'm not suggesting this is happening or will happen, but it is logically possible.
It's a good question. And someone who has had one paediatric Pfizer dose is far less protected than someone who previously had Delta, but is otherwise unvaccinated. So, the reality is you would need lots of data so you can control for prior infection, and to look on an age cohort equivalent basis. You also probably need to remember that someone in a city is far likelier to have contracted Omicron (so far) than someone in the countryside. (You are also far likelier to have been tested if you live in an urban area.)
So, is it likely that a person who has been vaccinated is more likely to catch Omicron than an unvaccinated one? No, it's not likely. Is it possible? Maybe. But it's hard to see the mechanism by which having your immune system primed against the spike protein results in you being more likely to have Covid in your system.
The mechanism would be akin to priming for an allergy - where the prime results in an overactive immune response.
Yes, I got on Pecresse at a good price but have taken savers on Le Pen and Zemmour, on the basis that whichever reaches the next round will shorten to 2-1 or better. I'd have thought the far right would sort themselves out one way or the other, probably for Le Pen, so it won't be Pecresse. Which is Macron's good fortune.
to be fair whilst some of her views are irrational they are no more irrational than some of those on the woke left
Go on then - let's have a Woke Left view that's as irrational as the world is run by a liberal elite in the spare time they get from raping toddlers?
Babies are born with no sex
The difference is the QAnon idiocy is believed by a subset of voters with no power, the "babies have no sex" insanity is believed - and loudly espoused - by the Woke liberal elite that runs the Anglo-Saxon world
What woke liberal elite?
Johnson? Morrison?
Trudeau, Biden-Harris and Ardern I presume. Coming to the UK soon too if current polls are correct and Starmer becomes PM
Watched Don't Look Up last night. It is properly entertaining, and a clever premise - comet as allegory for climate change. And there are some brilliant moments, especially at the start, when the astronomers encounter outrageous NORMALCY BIAS
But then it becomes uneven in tone, sometimes low farce, sometimes witty comedy, sometimes sentimental drama, and they jar, and the parochial Americanism is tedious, especially the laboured, lazy assaults on Trumpism and silly white people. Yes yes yes we know they are awful but it's such a crappy obvious target, and it is annoying and boring.
It's a film that wants to be Doctor Strangelove for global warming but lacks the Southern/Kubrick Strangelove script - and it lacks Peter Sellers - one star to bring together a stellar cast. Something of a missed opportunity. Coulda been a masterpiece
For all the talk among the "right on" lefty comedians that one should only punch up and speak truth to power, it does seem thick (British / American) white working class (Brexit / Trump voter) have become the go to punch line of lazy joke in the way the "thick" Irish were at one point for right wing comedians.
Yes, exactly. Laughing at Maga hat wearers is like laughing at Mother in Law Jokes in the 70s. Pathetically feeble comedy
If you have to do it find a new and stealthy way, at least. The racist old school pilot was cringeworthy
Satirizing dumbo enablers of the most toxic politician in the western world in 2021 is like laughing at Mother in Law jokes in 1971?
Hmm. Ok.
Of course you don't understand the point. How could you?
I get the point you're making. That both are lazy. True. But so are lots of jokes. I'd go as far as to say most. So it's a rather banal point.
I'm then making my point to this point of yours - to upgrade it slightly as it were. Which is that in one the target is a target because they're enabling a poisonous brand of politics, whereas in the other the target is a target because of an age & gender stereotype.
This difference (in the target) is imo more meaningful than the similarity (of both being lazy). Good to type all that out, actually, so thanks for making me.
The best jokes are the ones you don't know where they are going or what the punch line is, in the fact the ones where you make assumption only for the punch line to be a total flip on your expectation.
I don't think you can define any rules at all for jokes. Some are funny but shouldn't be, some aren't when they seem to have it all, context is massive, so is delivery.
But, yes, I know what you mean. If you can pull off a joke that really surprises - AND is funny - that's top drawer.
At its core, I think the misdirection is a core part of basically any joke setup, even those comedians whose routines are based around exaggerated funny incidents they have encountered. The funny bits are because somebody did or said something really unexpected or out of the norm e.g. the Rhod Gilbert damaged suitcase routine, its a series of events and responses that are ludicrous to the expected norms.
Rhod Gilbert’s suitcase is an absolute classic of utter absurdity!
to be fair whilst some of her views are irrational they are no more irrational than some of those on the woke left
Go on then - let's have a Woke Left view that's as irrational as the world is run by a liberal elite in the spare time they get from raping toddlers?
Babies are born with no sex
The difference is the QAnon idiocy is believed by a subset of voters with no power, the "babies have no sex" insanity is believed - and loudly espoused - by the Woke liberal elite that runs the Anglo-Saxon world
What woke liberal elite?
Johnson? Morrison?
the woke left control the major institutions....even Johnson has to bow and scrape before them at times
Watched Don't Look Up last night. It is properly entertaining, and a clever premise - comet as allegory for climate change. And there are some brilliant moments, especially at the start, when the astronomers encounter outrageous NORMALCY BIAS
But then it becomes uneven in tone, sometimes low farce, sometimes witty comedy, sometimes sentimental drama, and they jar, and the parochial Americanism is tedious, especially the laboured, lazy assaults on Trumpism and silly white people. Yes yes yes we know they are awful but it's such a crappy obvious target, and it is annoying and boring.
It's a film that wants to be Doctor Strangelove for global warming but lacks the Southern/Kubrick Strangelove script - and it lacks Peter Sellers - one star to bring together a stellar cast. Something of a missed opportunity. Coulda been a masterpiece
For all the talk among the "right on" lefty comedians that one should only punch up and speak truth to power, it does seem thick (British / American) white working class (Brexit / Trump voter) have become the go to punch line of lazy joke in the way the "thick" Irish were at one point for right wing comedians.
Yes, exactly. Laughing at Maga hat wearers is like laughing at Mother in Law Jokes in the 70s. Pathetically feeble comedy
If you have to do it find a new and stealthy way, at least. The racist old school pilot was cringeworthy
I made the mistake of watching Russell Howard's Netflix special and it was literally this....insert "right on" big talking point, e.g. trans rights...oh look thicky (puts on accent) says they ain't proppa women....rinse and repeat in between talking the piss out of his thick (white working class Bristolian) brother and mother and odd pop at Boris.
We have gone through four years plus where punchlines could be "Trump, am I right?" and people would merrily applaud.
Better than what far too many other people did - spend those 4 years making excuses for him, having a chuckle at how he trolled the libs, downplaying the horror of his presidency, offering fatuous 'man of the world' context instead of plain & simple condemnation of his racism and misogyny and pig ignorance and utter lack of ethics, seeking to find redeeming features where there were none, drawing false equivalences with the left, pretending there was some strategic intelligence in his politics, that he'd "identified some real problems" as opposed to simply being the biggest of them, in denial at the threat to democracy and civic life he posed and staying in denial about it long past the point where anybody in their right mind could see it.
Course people deny now that they did all or most or some of the above but I am here to inform otherwise. It was knee deep and it used to drive me potty sometimes.
My god, you're a humourless fuckwit
Spot on. That was not meant to be a funny post. I was taut and throbbing as I wrote it. Not very enjoyable but it has to be done sometimes.
I'll try and do a funny post soon though. You have to have a laugh, don't you, in this world, else you cry.
Taut and throbbing was quite funny. Funnier than anything Russell Howard has ever said.
You usually get my shtick, Stocky, I know that, even though you're a 'muscular liberal'.
Don't know why Leon is being so touchy today. Alls I did was a little counterweight to what was becoming a rather lazy deluge of "so lazy to keep laughing at dumbo Trumpers".
As it happens, btw, I've seen some of this relentless American tv 'comedy' satirizing all things Trump and let's just say I use the inverteds there for a reason.
to be fair whilst some of her views are irrational they are no more irrational than some of those on the woke left
Go on then - let's have a Woke Left view that's as irrational as the world is run by a liberal elite in the spare time they get from raping toddlers?
Babies are born with no sex
The difference is the QAnon idiocy is believed by a subset of voters with no power, the "babies have no sex" insanity is believed - and loudly espoused - by the Woke liberal elite that runs the Anglo-Saxon world
What woke liberal elite?
Johnson? Morrison?
Trudeau, Biden-Harris and Ardern I presume. Coming to the UK soon too if current polls are correct and Starmer becomes PM
Johnson and Morrison also run Anglo-Saxon countries I presume.
Watched Don't Look Up last night. It is properly entertaining, and a clever premise - comet as allegory for climate change. And there are some brilliant moments, especially at the start, when the astronomers encounter outrageous NORMALCY BIAS
But then it becomes uneven in tone, sometimes low farce, sometimes witty comedy, sometimes sentimental drama, and they jar, and the parochial Americanism is tedious, especially the laboured, lazy assaults on Trumpism and silly white people. Yes yes yes we know they are awful but it's such a crappy obvious target, and it is annoying and boring.
It's a film that wants to be Doctor Strangelove for global warming but lacks the Southern/Kubrick Strangelove script - and it lacks Peter Sellers - one star to bring together a stellar cast. Something of a missed opportunity. Coulda been a masterpiece
For all the talk among the "right on" lefty comedians that one should only punch up and speak truth to power, it does seem thick (British / American) white working class (Brexit / Trump voter) have become the go to punch line of lazy joke in the way the "thick" Irish were at one point for right wing comedians.
Yes, exactly. Laughing at Maga hat wearers is like laughing at Mother in Law Jokes in the 70s. Pathetically feeble comedy
If you have to do it find a new and stealthy way, at least. The racist old school pilot was cringeworthy
Satirizing dumbo enablers of the most toxic politician in the western world in 2021 is like laughing at Mother in Law jokes in 1971?
Hmm. Ok.
Of course you don't understand the point. How could you?
I get the point you're making. That both are lazy. True. But so are lots of jokes. I'd go as far as to say most. So it's a rather banal point.
I'm then making my point to this point of yours - to upgrade it slightly as it were. Which is that in one the target is a target because they're enabling a poisonous brand of politics, whereas in the other the target is a target because of an age & gender stereotype.
This difference (in the target) is imo more meaningful than the similarity (of both being lazy). Good to type all that out, actually, so thanks for making me.
The best jokes are the ones you don't know where they are going or what the punch line is, in the fact the ones where you make assumption only for the punch line to be a total flip on your expectation.
I don't think you can define any rules at all for jokes. Some are funny but shouldn't be, some aren't when they seem to have it all, context is massive, so is delivery.
But, yes, I know what you mean. If you can pull off a joke that really surprises - AND is funny - that's top drawer.
Some are funny but shouldn't be vs shouldn't be which is why they are funny.
The far left famously lack sense of humour of course.
Here is a joke:
A woman gets on a bus with her small child. The bus driver says "Tickets please - gosh your child is ugly". The woman goes down the bus and says to the man sat next to her "I'm so angry, that driver is so rude, I'm furious". The man says "Quite right - go back and have it out with him." "I'll hold your monkey for you".
Now that joke is very funny, relying on the shock of the last line. In fact I read somewhere that it topped a poll of the nation's favourite joke.
This is how it would be received by your far leftist:
"Oh the joke has ended. Superficially funny but should I laugh? Safer to pause and consider. What can I find to be offended about even though I'm not? Ah - yes - wait - monkeys are brown aren't they? OMG the woman and her lovely child are proud members of our African-American community. Bet the two men were WWC, etc etc etc.
Yes, I got on Pecresse at a good price but have taken savers on Le Pen and Zemmour, on the basis that whichever reaches the next round will shorten to 2-1 or better. I'd have thought the far right would sort themselves out one way or the other, probably for Le Pen, so it won't be Pecresse. Which is Macron's good fortune.
Pecresse needs to shore up her support on the right to ensure she is not beaten by Le Pen or Zemmour for the run off place v Macron. She is unlikely to get any of the 26% voting for Macron to switch to her now.
In the runoff polls currently a plurality of Le Pen voters say they would stay home in a Pecresse v Macron runoff, though she wins most Zemmour voters in the runoff she would need most Le Pen voters to vote for her too to beat Macron. Macron more comfortably beats Le Pen and trounces Zemmour though as most Pecresse voters would vote for Macron over them
Watched Don't Look Up last night. It is properly entertaining, and a clever premise - comet as allegory for climate change. And there are some brilliant moments, especially at the start, when the astronomers encounter outrageous NORMALCY BIAS
But then it becomes uneven in tone, sometimes low farce, sometimes witty comedy, sometimes sentimental drama, and they jar, and the parochial Americanism is tedious, especially the laboured, lazy assaults on Trumpism and silly white people. Yes yes yes we know they are awful but it's such a crappy obvious target, and it is annoying and boring.
It's a film that wants to be Doctor Strangelove for global warming but lacks the Southern/Kubrick Strangelove script - and it lacks Peter Sellers - one star to bring together a stellar cast. Something of a missed opportunity. Coulda been a masterpiece
For all the talk among the "right on" lefty comedians that one should only punch up and speak truth to power, it does seem thick (British / American) white working class (Brexit / Trump voter) have become the go to punch line of lazy joke in the way the "thick" Irish were at one point for right wing comedians.
Yes, exactly. Laughing at Maga hat wearers is like laughing at Mother in Law Jokes in the 70s. Pathetically feeble comedy
If you have to do it find a new and stealthy way, at least. The racist old school pilot was cringeworthy
I made the mistake of watching Russell Howard's Netflix special and it was literally this....insert "right on" big talking point, e.g. trans rights...oh look thicky (puts on accent) says they ain't proppa women....rinse and repeat in between talking the piss out of his thick (white working class Bristolian) brother and mother and odd pop at Boris.
We have gone through four years plus where punchlines could be "Trump, am I right?" and people would merrily applaud.
Better than what far too many other people did - spend those 4 years making excuses for him, having a chuckle at how he trolled the libs, downplaying the horror of his presidency, offering fatuous 'man of the world' context instead of plain & simple condemnation of his racism and misogyny and pig ignorance and utter lack of ethics, seeking to find redeeming features where there were none, drawing false equivalences with the left, pretending there was some strategic intelligence in his politics, that he'd "identified some real problems" as opposed to simply being the biggest of them, in denial at the threat to democracy and civic life he posed and staying in denial about it long past the point where anybody in their right mind could see it.
Course people deny now that they did all or most or some of the above but I am here to inform otherwise. It was knee deep and it used to drive me potty sometimes.
My god, you're a humourless fuckwit
Spot on. That was not meant to be a funny post. I was taut and throbbing as I wrote it. Not very enjoyable but it has to be done sometimes.
I'll try and do a funny post soon though. You have to have a laugh, don't you, in this world, else you cry.
Taut and throbbing was quite funny. Funnier than anything Russell Howard has ever said.
You usually get my shtick, Stocky, I know that, even though you're a 'muscular liberal'.
Don't know why Leon is being so touchy today. Alls I did was a little counterweight to what was becoming a rather lazy deluge of "so lazy to keep laughing at dumbo Trumpers".
As it happens, btw, I've seen some of this relentless American tv 'comedy' satirizing all things Trump and let's just say I use the inverteds there for a reason.
I do get your shtick and I like it - I like Leon as well so it bothers me when you two go at it.
Watched Don't Look Up last night. It is properly entertaining, and a clever premise - comet as allegory for climate change. And there are some brilliant moments, especially at the start, when the astronomers encounter outrageous NORMALCY BIAS
But then it becomes uneven in tone, sometimes low farce, sometimes witty comedy, sometimes sentimental drama, and they jar, and the parochial Americanism is tedious, especially the laboured, lazy assaults on Trumpism and silly white people. Yes yes yes we know they are awful but it's such a crappy obvious target, and it is annoying and boring.
It's a film that wants to be Doctor Strangelove for global warming but lacks the Southern/Kubrick Strangelove script - and it lacks Peter Sellers - one star to bring together a stellar cast. Something of a missed opportunity. Coulda been a masterpiece
For all the talk among the "right on" lefty comedians that one should only punch up and speak truth to power, it does seem thick (British / American) white working class (Brexit / Trump voter) have become the go to punch line of lazy joke in the way the "thick" Irish were at one point for right wing comedians.
Yes, exactly. Laughing at Maga hat wearers is like laughing at Mother in Law Jokes in the 70s. Pathetically feeble comedy
If you have to do it find a new and stealthy way, at least. The racist old school pilot was cringeworthy
Satirizing dumbo enablers of the most toxic politician in the western world in 2021 is like laughing at Mother in Law jokes in 1971?
Hmm. Ok.
Of course you don't understand the point. How could you?
I get the point you're making. That both are lazy. True. But so are lots of jokes. I'd go as far as to say most. So it's a rather banal point.
I'm then making my point to this point of yours - to upgrade it slightly as it were. Which is that in one the target is a target because they're enabling a poisonous brand of politics, whereas in the other the target is a target because of an age & gender stereotype.
This difference (in the target) is imo more meaningful than the similarity (of both being lazy). Good to type all that out, actually, so thanks for making me.
The best jokes are the ones you don't know where they are going or what the punch line is, in the fact the ones where you make assumption only for the punch line to be a total flip on your expectation.
I don't think you can define any rules at all for jokes. Some are funny but shouldn't be, some aren't when they seem to have it all, context is massive, so is delivery.
But, yes, I know what you mean. If you can pull off a joke that really surprises - AND is funny - that's top drawer.
At its core, I think the misdirection is a core part of basically any joke setup, even those comedians whose routines are based around exaggerated funny incidents they have encountered. The funny bits are because somebody did or said something really unexpected or out of the norm e.g. the Rhod Gilbert damaged suitcase routine, its a series of events and responses that are ludicrous to the expected norms.
Rhod Gilbert’s suitcase is an absolute classic of utter absurdity!
As someone who pre-COVID travelled a lot, this is hilariously close to the bone.
Watched Don't Look Up last night. It is properly entertaining, and a clever premise - comet as allegory for climate change. And there are some brilliant moments, especially at the start, when the astronomers encounter outrageous NORMALCY BIAS
But then it becomes uneven in tone, sometimes low farce, sometimes witty comedy, sometimes sentimental drama, and they jar, and the parochial Americanism is tedious, especially the laboured, lazy assaults on Trumpism and silly white people. Yes yes yes we know they are awful but it's such a crappy obvious target, and it is annoying and boring.
It's a film that wants to be Doctor Strangelove for global warming but lacks the Southern/Kubrick Strangelove script - and it lacks Peter Sellers - one star to bring together a stellar cast. Something of a missed opportunity. Coulda been a masterpiece
For all the talk among the "right on" lefty comedians that one should only punch up and speak truth to power, it does seem thick (British / American) white working class (Brexit / Trump voter) have become the go to punch line of lazy joke in the way the "thick" Irish were at one point for right wing comedians.
Yes, exactly. Laughing at Maga hat wearers is like laughing at Mother in Law Jokes in the 70s. Pathetically feeble comedy
If you have to do it find a new and stealthy way, at least. The racist old school pilot was cringeworthy
I made the mistake of watching Russell Howard's Netflix special and it was literally this....insert "right on" big talking point, e.g. trans rights...oh look thicky (puts on accent) says they ain't proppa women....rinse and repeat in between talking the piss out of his thick (white working class Bristolian) brother and mother and odd pop at Boris.
I absolutely cannot stand the likes of Russell Howard. The only thing that separates him from racist, misogynistic old school comics of the 1970s is that the latter were sometimes funny, despite their egregious bigotry
If you want a challenging, brilliant comedian who takes on all-comers, try Dave Chapelle? If you haven't already?
The Closer on Netflix is magnificent. Edgy, creative, unexpected, with proper regular if shocking LOLs. And his timing is immaculate
If you head to the Witham in Barnard Castle, joke 1 is always specsavers or equivalent just to get it out of the way
people still doing "barnard castle eye test" material can literally get in the sea.
They did a Barnard Castle gag at the Sunderland panto
Point proven I think :-)
Absolutely proven. If a joke is so tired it can only be warmed over and served at a pantomime, then it is utterly dead to the world
Pantos were, rather strikingly, the retirement home of mother-in-law jokes. The last place they could be heard
They are also the bedrock of provincial Britain
They really really aren't. lol. How many people go to pantos? A few hundred thousand, mostly bewildered kids and a lot of mindlessly bored parents. Plus some strange retarded adults without kids. Literally: retarded. Drooling.
I think you’re underestimating the sales of a form of media that sells out theatres up and down the land for a month every single year. There are lots & lots of people who go to the panto every year with their family - it’s part of the whole Christmas Season (with a capital S) for them.
A quick check reveals that according to The Stage, three million panto tickets were sold in 2017 & that’s just the mainstream theatres who are members of UK Theatre & won’t include all the amateur productions up & down the land:
A universal part of Christmas? No. Still a fairly big deal? Looks like it.
Fair enough. That's more people than I expected, perhaps I was warped by my loathing of panto, especially the last one I saw: a Woke panto in Hackney which was so cringe I nearly prolapsed
However my larger point is right. If 3m people go to a panto that's about 4% of the UK population. Hardly "the bedrock of provincial Britain". The claim is absurd
The Liberal Democrats only got 2.4 million votes in 2017. So a third more people go the panto in a regular year than voted for the LDs just two General Elections ago.
In fairness the jokes are better than the Lib Dems offer.
i must admit i quite like the seemingly serious and reflective build up than turns into a joke/tease on the hearer type of joke along the lines of
(a MC in a crowded club ) - Ladies and Gentlemen before we get on with the show , i know we have a couple of Falklands veterans in tonight so shall we give them a round of applause (cue crowd applauding ) -
to be fair whilst some of her views are irrational they are no more irrational than some of those on the woke left
Go on then - let's have a Woke Left view that's as irrational as the world is run by a liberal elite in the spare time they get from raping toddlers?
Babies are born with no sex
The difference is the QAnon idiocy is believed by a subset of voters with no power, the "babies have no sex" insanity is believed - and loudly espoused - by the Woke liberal elite that runs the Anglo-Saxon world
What woke liberal elite?
Johnson? Morrison?
Trudeau, Biden-Harris and Ardern I presume. Coming to the UK soon too if current polls are correct and Starmer becomes PM
Johnson and Morrison also run Anglo-Saxon countries I presume.
80% of the population of the Anglo Saxon Anglosphere nations live in the USA, Canada and New Zealand
Rather suggests that he is not actually interested in anything other than pushing his particular line.
Firstly, the idea that testing rates per 100k are comparable between those countries is utterly ridiculous.
Secondly, shall we look at excess death rates for the bottom ten and the top ten?
The evidence posted is rot - but is it totally ridiculous that at some point if not now Omicron could have a higher rate of infection on the vaccinated vs the unvaccinated? Logically it is I think possible - for instance if unvaccinated people are more likely to be isolated from others, loners and hermits maybe? Or perhaps just being more cautious because they are unvaccinated. I'm not suggesting this is happening or will happen, but it is logically possible.
It's a good question. And someone who has had one paediatric Pfizer dose is far less protected than someone who previously had Delta, but is otherwise unvaccinated. So, the reality is you would need lots of data so you can control for prior infection, and to look on an age cohort equivalent basis. You also probably need to remember that someone in a city is far likelier to have contracted Omicron (so far) than someone in the countryside. (You are also far likelier to have been tested if you live in an urban area.)
So, is it likely that a person who has been vaccinated is more likely to catch Omicron than an unvaccinated one? No, it's not likely. Is it possible? Maybe. But it's hard to see the mechanism by which having your immune system primed against the spike protein results in you being more likely to have Covid in your system.
The mechanism would be akin to priming for an allergy - where the prime results in an overactive immune response.
Watched Don't Look Up last night. It is properly entertaining, and a clever premise - comet as allegory for climate change. And there are some brilliant moments, especially at the start, when the astronomers encounter outrageous NORMALCY BIAS
But then it becomes uneven in tone, sometimes low farce, sometimes witty comedy, sometimes sentimental drama, and they jar, and the parochial Americanism is tedious, especially the laboured, lazy assaults on Trumpism and silly white people. Yes yes yes we know they are awful but it's such a crappy obvious target, and it is annoying and boring.
It's a film that wants to be Doctor Strangelove for global warming but lacks the Southern/Kubrick Strangelove script - and it lacks Peter Sellers - one star to bring together a stellar cast. Something of a missed opportunity. Coulda been a masterpiece
For all the talk among the "right on" lefty comedians that one should only punch up and speak truth to power, it does seem thick (British / American) white working class (Brexit / Trump voter) have become the go to punch line of lazy joke in the way the "thick" Irish were at one point for right wing comedians.
Yes, exactly. Laughing at Maga hat wearers is like laughing at Mother in Law Jokes in the 70s. Pathetically feeble comedy
If you have to do it find a new and stealthy way, at least. The racist old school pilot was cringeworthy
Satirizing dumbo enablers of the most toxic politician in the western world in 2021 is like laughing at Mother in Law jokes in 1971?
Hmm. Ok.
The point is not to equate Mother-in-Laws to Trumpsters, but to equate the laziness of the comedians.
Yes, sure. Comedians in their comfort zone. But is there more of that now than in previous times? I'd need a lot of convincing.
maybe not. Indeed, in the past, with fewer channels through which to be exposed to comedians, we saw each comedian less frequently and fewer overall. And so their material aged less quickly, and it was harder to compare material across comedians. So you may have a point. But so what? It does not improve the quality of the material, or the validity of criticizing it.
No, I've caught some of it and I do know what you mean. Tedious. But thing is, Trump and MAGA is such a massive all-consuming thing to have happened to America that I think it's inevitable he and it dominates in this area too - of comedy material. And since you can't really laugh WITH him (unless you're a bad bad person) you're left with laughing at him, and also (since they adore him) at his supporters.
Yes, I got on Pecresse at a good price but have taken savers on Le Pen and Zemmour, on the basis that whichever reaches the next round will shorten to 2-1 or better. I'd have thought the far right would sort themselves out one way or the other, probably for Le Pen, so it won't be Pecresse. Which is Macron's good fortune.
Le Pen looks the bet at the prices now. £40 at 12-1 on Betfair for me.
and the best englishman , irishman ,scotsman joke I have heard is
An englishman , Irishman, Scotsman and Welshman were due to be executed and all were granted a last wish
The scotsman said could be hear a 100 pipers playing Flower of Scotland one last time the Welshman said could he hear a 100 strong choir singing Land of my Fathers The Irishman said could be see 100 dancers doing Riverdance
Watched Don't Look Up last night. It is properly entertaining, and a clever premise - comet as allegory for climate change. And there are some brilliant moments, especially at the start, when the astronomers encounter outrageous NORMALCY BIAS
But then it becomes uneven in tone, sometimes low farce, sometimes witty comedy, sometimes sentimental drama, and they jar, and the parochial Americanism is tedious, especially the laboured, lazy assaults on Trumpism and silly white people. Yes yes yes we know they are awful but it's such a crappy obvious target, and it is annoying and boring.
It's a film that wants to be Doctor Strangelove for global warming but lacks the Southern/Kubrick Strangelove script - and it lacks Peter Sellers - one star to bring together a stellar cast. Something of a missed opportunity. Coulda been a masterpiece
For all the talk among the "right on" lefty comedians that one should only punch up and speak truth to power, it does seem thick (British / American) white working class (Brexit / Trump voter) have become the go to punch line of lazy joke in the way the "thick" Irish were at one point for right wing comedians.
Yes, exactly. Laughing at Maga hat wearers is like laughing at Mother in Law Jokes in the 70s. Pathetically feeble comedy
If you have to do it find a new and stealthy way, at least. The racist old school pilot was cringeworthy
Satirizing dumbo enablers of the most toxic politician in the western world in 2021 is like laughing at Mother in Law jokes in 1971?
Hmm. Ok.
The point is not to equate Mother-in-Laws to Trumpsters, but to equate the laziness of the comedians.
Yes, sure. Comedians in their comfort zone. But is there more of that now than in previous times? I'd need a lot of convincing.
maybe not. Indeed, in the past, with fewer channels through which to be exposed to comedians, we saw each comedian less frequently and fewer overall. And so their material aged less quickly, and it was harder to compare material across comedians. So you may have a point. But so what? It does not improve the quality of the material, or the validity of criticizing it.
No, I've caught some of it and I do know what you mean. Tedious. But thing is, Trump and MAGA is such a massive all-consuming thing to have happened to America that I think it's inevitable he and it dominates here too - on comedy material. And since you can't really laugh WITH him (unless you're a bad bad person) you're left with laughing at him, and also (since they adore him) at his supporters.
Yep, Trump definitely needs to be mercilessly ridiculed and he provided a near endless stream of material to do just that. I just expect professional comedians to do it with originality and humour, rather than simply state "Trump is a c8nt" and demand that people laugh.
Personally, I am less comfortable with taking the piss out of his supporters. We need to convince them to stop supporting Trumpism, and we don't do that by ridiculing them as people.
Yes, I got on Pecresse at a good price but have taken savers on Le Pen and Zemmour, on the basis that whichever reaches the next round will shorten to 2-1 or better. I'd have thought the far right would sort themselves out one way or the other, probably for Le Pen, so it won't be Pecresse. Which is Macron's good fortune.
Le Pen looks the bet at the prices now. £40 at 12-1 on Betfair for me.
Yep: she has to be close to evens (or maybe better than that) to make the second round. And probably should be no worse than 4-1 (maybe 3-1) for the second round.
i must admit i quite like the seemingly serious and reflective build up than turns into a joke/tease on the hearer type of joke along the lines of
(a MC in a crowded club ) - Ladies and Gentlemen before we get on with the show , i know we have a couple of Falklands veterans in tonight so shall we give them a round of applause (cue crowd applauding ) -
All the way from Argentina
With the following element of makes-you-think - every Falklands veteran I've encountered bore no ill will to their opponents* and supported joint memorial events etc.
*Apart from one chap who'd had to guard some Argentine officers and saw how they treated their own conscripts. He definitely didn't like the officers.
to be fair whilst some of her views are irrational they are no more irrational than some of those on the woke left
Go on then - let's have a Woke Left view that's as irrational as the world is run by a liberal elite in the spare time they get from raping toddlers?
Babies are born with no sex
The difference is the QAnon idiocy is believed by a subset of voters with no power, the "babies have no sex" insanity is believed - and loudly espoused - by the Woke liberal elite that runs the Anglo-Saxon world
Only in your imagination. You have woke on the brain.
Watched Don't Look Up last night. It is properly entertaining, and a clever premise - comet as allegory for climate change. And there are some brilliant moments, especially at the start, when the astronomers encounter outrageous NORMALCY BIAS
But then it becomes uneven in tone, sometimes low farce, sometimes witty comedy, sometimes sentimental drama, and they jar, and the parochial Americanism is tedious, especially the laboured, lazy assaults on Trumpism and silly white people. Yes yes yes we know they are awful but it's such a crappy obvious target, and it is annoying and boring.
It's a film that wants to be Doctor Strangelove for global warming but lacks the Southern/Kubrick Strangelove script - and it lacks Peter Sellers - one star to bring together a stellar cast. Something of a missed opportunity. Coulda been a masterpiece
For all the talk among the "right on" lefty comedians that one should only punch up and speak truth to power, it does seem thick (British / American) white working class (Brexit / Trump voter) have become the go to punch line of lazy joke in the way the "thick" Irish were at one point for right wing comedians.
Yes, exactly. Laughing at Maga hat wearers is like laughing at Mother in Law Jokes in the 70s. Pathetically feeble comedy
If you have to do it find a new and stealthy way, at least. The racist old school pilot was cringeworthy
Satirizing dumbo enablers of the most toxic politician in the western world in 2021 is like laughing at Mother in Law jokes in 1971?
Hmm. Ok.
Of course you don't understand the point. How could you?
I get the point you're making. That both are lazy. True. But so are lots of jokes. I'd go as far as to say most. So it's a rather banal point.
I'm then making my point to this point of yours - to upgrade it slightly as it were. Which is that in one the target is a target because they're enabling a poisonous brand of politics, whereas in the other the target is a target because of an age & gender stereotype.
This difference (in the target) is imo more meaningful than the similarity (of both being lazy). Good to type all that out, actually, so thanks for making me.
The best jokes are the ones you don't know where they are going or what the punch line is, in the fact the ones where you make assumption only for the punch line to be a total flip on your expectation.
I don't think you can define any rules at all for jokes. Some are funny but shouldn't be, some aren't when they seem to have it all, context is massive, so is delivery.
But, yes, I know what you mean. If you can pull off a joke that really surprises - AND is funny - that's top drawer.
Some are funny but shouldn't be vs shouldn't be which is why they are funny.
The far left famously lack sense of humour of course.
Here is a joke:
A woman gets on a bus with her small child. The bus driver says "Tickets please - gosh your child is ugly". The woman goes down the bus and says to the man sat next to her "I'm so angry, that driver is so rude, I'm furious". The man says "Quite right - go back and have it out with him." "I'll hold your monkey for you".
Now that joke is very funny, relying on the shock of the last line. In fact I read somewhere that it topped a poll of the nation's favourite joke.
This is how it would be received by your far leftist:
"Oh the joke has ended. Superficially funny but should I laugh? Safer to pause and consider. What can I find to be offended about even though I'm not? Ah - yes - wait - monkeys are brown aren't they? OMG the woman and her lovely child are proud members of our African-American community. Bet the two men were WWC, etc etc etc.
Big boost for Boris. On these new Redfield numbers the Tories would be back as largest party in a hung parliament on the new boundaries, 283 to 277 for Labour. However Starmer could still be PM with SNP confidence and supply
People have had a couple of weeks to forget what he's like. Normal service resumed shortly.
Sue Grey's Partygate report is due soon. Sounds like she has widen the scope. Heads will roll. Not Johnson's obviously but still it will all be back in the news.
to be fair whilst some of her views are irrational they are no more irrational than some of those on the woke left
Go on then - let's have a Woke Left view that's as irrational as the world is run by a liberal elite in the spare time they get from raping toddlers?
Babies are born with no sex
The difference is the QAnon idiocy is believed by a subset of voters with no power, the "babies have no sex" insanity is believed - and loudly espoused - by the Woke liberal elite that runs the Anglo-Saxon world
What woke liberal elite?
Johnson? Morrison?
the woke left control the major institutions....even Johnson has to bow and scrape before them at times
So true: would Priti Patel or Nadine Dorries be in the cabinet without the intervention of the woke leftist Elite pulling the puppet strings of Boris Johnson?
Time to rid ourselves of the woke liberal elite that are both running and ruining this country.
Time for a Labour government.
The Left certainly aren't running the West overallt, at least not in structural social-economic terms, and in Britain not really in cultural terms either. They haven't done so for almost forty-five years.
Rather suggests that he is not actually interested in anything other than pushing his particular line.
Firstly, the idea that testing rates per 100k are comparable between those countries is utterly ridiculous.
Secondly, shall we look at excess death rates for the bottom ten and the top ten?
The evidence posted is rot - but is it totally ridiculous that at some point if not now Omicron could have a higher rate of infection on the vaccinated vs the unvaccinated? Logically it is I think possible - for instance if unvaccinated people are more likely to be isolated from others, loners and hermits maybe? Or perhaps just being more cautious because they are unvaccinated. I'm not suggesting this is happening or will happen, but it is logically possible.
heres some more evidence showing vaccinated people more likely to be infected with omicron
The new 3% Labour lead with Redfield is no worse than even a Sunak led Tories was doing v Starmer Labour in that Opinium hypothetical poll and far better than a Truss or Gove led Tories did. If Boris gets more polls like that he will be secure and the Tories will also see fewer council seats lost in May as well
Rather suggests that he is not actually interested in anything other than pushing his particular line.
Firstly, the idea that testing rates per 100k are comparable between those countries is utterly ridiculous.
Secondly, shall we look at excess death rates for the bottom ten and the top ten?
The evidence posted is rot - but is it totally ridiculous that at some point if not now Omicron could have a higher rate of infection on the vaccinated vs the unvaccinated? Logically it is I think possible - for instance if unvaccinated people are more likely to be isolated from others, loners and hermits maybe? Or perhaps just being more cautious because they are unvaccinated. I'm not suggesting this is happening or will happen, but it is logically possible.
heres some more evidence showing vaccinated people more likely to be infected with omicron
Look, if you are going to throw anti-vax stuff here, could you give us the hard stuff please? This is like English cricket in the 80s - response to The West Indies putting the medium pace bowling in to low Earth Orbit? More medium pace bowling.....
Watched Don't Look Up last night. It is properly entertaining, and a clever premise - comet as allegory for climate change. And there are some brilliant moments, especially at the start, when the astronomers encounter outrageous NORMALCY BIAS
But then it becomes uneven in tone, sometimes low farce, sometimes witty comedy, sometimes sentimental drama, and they jar, and the parochial Americanism is tedious, especially the laboured, lazy assaults on Trumpism and silly white people. Yes yes yes we know they are awful but it's such a crappy obvious target, and it is annoying and boring.
It's a film that wants to be Doctor Strangelove for global warming but lacks the Southern/Kubrick Strangelove script - and it lacks Peter Sellers - one star to bring together a stellar cast. Something of a missed opportunity. Coulda been a masterpiece
For all the talk among the "right on" lefty comedians that one should only punch up and speak truth to power, it does seem thick (British / American) white working class (Brexit / Trump voter) have become the go to punch line of lazy joke in the way the "thick" Irish were at one point for right wing comedians.
Yes, exactly. Laughing at Maga hat wearers is like laughing at Mother in Law Jokes in the 70s. Pathetically feeble comedy
If you have to do it find a new and stealthy way, at least. The racist old school pilot was cringeworthy
Satirizing dumbo enablers of the most toxic politician in the western world in 2021 is like laughing at Mother in Law jokes in 1971?
Hmm. Ok.
The point is not to equate Mother-in-Laws to Trumpsters, but to equate the laziness of the comedians.
Yes, sure. Comedians in their comfort zone. But is there more of that now than in previous times? I'd need a lot of convincing.
maybe not. Indeed, in the past, with fewer channels through which to be exposed to comedians, we saw each comedian less frequently and fewer overall. And so their material aged less quickly, and it was harder to compare material across comedians. So you may have a point. But so what? It does not improve the quality of the material, or the validity of criticizing it.
No, I've caught some of it and I do know what you mean. Tedious. But thing is, Trump and MAGA is such a massive all-consuming thing to have happened to America that I think it's inevitable he and it dominates here too - on comedy material. And since you can't really laugh WITH him (unless you're a bad bad person) you're left with laughing at him, and also (since they adore him) at his supporters.
Yep, Trump definitely needs to be mercilessly ridiculed and he provided a near endless stream of material to do just that. I just expect professional comedians to do it with originality and humour, rather than simply state "Trump is a c8nt" and demand that people laugh.
Personally, I am less comfortable with taking the piss out of his supporters. We need to convince them to stop supporting Trumpism, and we don't do that by ridiculing them as people.
I'll start with the obvious disclaimer that I'm no fan of Trump. But the problem with the instinctive 'ha, ha, isn't Donald Trump awful' position is that even stupid and awful people are right sometimes. Too many people have started from the position that if Donald Trump says something it must be wrong. And we end up with daft positions like 'it's racist to suggest lab leak'. Similarly, we end up giving Joe Biden carte blanche to do what he likes (like the Afghanistan cock up) because hey, he's not Donald Trump. So let's have some nuance. Similarly, Boris has sometimes done the right thing in the face of fashionable disapproval (like not joining the European vaccine procurement scheme.) Similarly, Jeremy Corbyn was not wrong all the time. Awful people are sometimes right. Often, in fact. The problem with being constantly furious is that you end up dismissing the ideas of your political opponents because they come from your political opponents, not because they are bad.
Time to rid ourselves of the woke liberal elite that are both running and ruining this country.
Time for a Labour government.
The Left certainly aren't running the West overallt, at least not in structural social-economic terms, and in Britain not really in cultural terms either. They haven't done so for almost forty-five years.
If Starmer becomes PM the liberal left will run us in cultural terms as they already run Canada, New Zealand and much of the USA (including the White House and Congress).
They may not be pursuing full on socialism but they are also generally more social democratic than Anglosphere Conservatives and more pro lockdown and restrictions
The problem is he's given away 10-20% support for no reason at all. The governments policies are probaly to the better side of good vs bad. The governments reputation is to the dark side of the devil.
He will cling on. I was going to say that there's a small chance that he'll regain the lost ground, but really that's not going to happen.
Some years ago I could look at the Tory leadership and imagine that there were really quite a few good eggs. I'm not so sure now.
Next Tory leader for me - Truss is a bit noisy, Sunak worries me, Gove - never trust Gove, Javid - weak, the list goes on. Hunt is easily my preferred choice.
I think the Tories are gaining a slight anti-lockdown bounce, especially in England, as people compare the rules to Wales and Scotland. Labour, and the left more broadly, may be viewed as having been too pro-lockdown. I don't expect this to last, though, on previous form, and no doubt some combination of the next Cummings video and the next governmental screw-up will conspire to make it very temporary.
i must admit i quite like the seemingly serious and reflective build up than turns into a joke/tease on the hearer type of joke along the lines of
(a MC in a crowded club ) - Ladies and Gentlemen before we get on with the show , i know we have a couple of Falklands veterans in tonight so shall we give them a round of applause (cue crowd applauding ) -
Rather suggests that he is not actually interested in anything other than pushing his particular line.
Firstly, the idea that testing rates per 100k are comparable between those countries is utterly ridiculous.
Secondly, shall we look at excess death rates for the bottom ten and the top ten?
The evidence posted is rot - but is it totally ridiculous that at some point if not now Omicron could have a higher rate of infection on the vaccinated vs the unvaccinated? Logically it is I think possible - for instance if unvaccinated people are more likely to be isolated from others, loners and hermits maybe? Or perhaps just being more cautious because they are unvaccinated. I'm not suggesting this is happening or will happen, but it is logically possible.
heres some more evidence showing vaccinated people more likely to be infected with omicron
Look, if you are going to throw anti-vax stuff here, could you give us the hard stuff please? This is like English cricket in the 80s - response to The West Indies putting the medium pace bowling in to low Earth Orbit? More medium pace bowling.....
Time to rid ourselves of the woke liberal elite that are both running and ruining this country.
Time for a Labour government.
The Left certainly aren't running the West overallt, at least not in structural social-economic terms, and in Britain not really in cultural terms either. They haven't done so for almost forty-five years.
If Starmer becomes PM the liberal left will run us in cultural terms as they already run Canada, New Zealand and much of the USA (including the White House and Congress).
They may not be pursuing full on socialism but they are also generally more social democratic than Anglosphere Conservatives and more pro lockdown and restrictions
This depends if Starmer turns out to be more culturally liberal than Blair. New Labour was quite authoritarian and not really that liberal at all, on a range of issues.
Rather suggests that he is not actually interested in anything other than pushing his particular line.
Firstly, the idea that testing rates per 100k are comparable between those countries is utterly ridiculous.
Secondly, shall we look at excess death rates for the bottom ten and the top ten?
The evidence posted is rot - but is it totally ridiculous that at some point if not now Omicron could have a higher rate of infection on the vaccinated vs the unvaccinated? Logically it is I think possible - for instance if unvaccinated people are more likely to be isolated from others, loners and hermits maybe? Or perhaps just being more cautious because they are unvaccinated. I'm not suggesting this is happening or will happen, but it is logically possible.
heres some more evidence showing vaccinated people more likely to be infected with omicron
Look, if you are going to throw anti-vax stuff here, could you give us the hard stuff please? This is like English cricket in the 80s - response to The West Indies putting the medium pace bowling in to low Earth Orbit? More medium pace bowling.....
How did the West Indians move medium pacers away from the cricket field?
Rather suggests that he is not actually interested in anything other than pushing his particular line.
Firstly, the idea that testing rates per 100k are comparable between those countries is utterly ridiculous.
Secondly, shall we look at excess death rates for the bottom ten and the top ten?
The evidence posted is rot - but is it totally ridiculous that at some point if not now Omicron could have a higher rate of infection on the vaccinated vs the unvaccinated? Logically it is I think possible - for instance if unvaccinated people are more likely to be isolated from others, loners and hermits maybe? Or perhaps just being more cautious because they are unvaccinated. I'm not suggesting this is happening or will happen, but it is logically possible.
heres some more evidence showing vaccinated people more likely to be infected with omicron
That study's from Denmark though - Denmark has had vaccine passports in for a while on various venues, so it's not surprising that the vaccinated population has more chance of being infected than the unvaccinated population. That's literally what the vaccine passports are designed to do.
Rather suggests that he is not actually interested in anything other than pushing his particular line.
Firstly, the idea that testing rates per 100k are comparable between those countries is utterly ridiculous.
Secondly, shall we look at excess death rates for the bottom ten and the top ten?
The evidence posted is rot - but is it totally ridiculous that at some point if not now Omicron could have a higher rate of infection on the vaccinated vs the unvaccinated? Logically it is I think possible - for instance if unvaccinated people are more likely to be isolated from others, loners and hermits maybe? Or perhaps just being more cautious because they are unvaccinated. I'm not suggesting this is happening or will happen, but it is logically possible.
heres some more evidence showing vaccinated people more likely to be infected with omicron
"This is a faulty study, and will be either corrected or retracted once peer reviewed!
You cannot exclude "Previously SARS-CoV-2 PCR-positive individuals" and correlate VE against the same cohort you just removed a significant percentage of them!
You are skewing your test data significantly towards the unvaccinated cohort (which has much higher rate of PCR positive than the vaccinated cohort)
If negative VE was not a clue for the faulty calculations, I don't know what would be!"
Watched Don't Look Up last night. It is properly entertaining, and a clever premise - comet as allegory for climate change. And there are some brilliant moments, especially at the start, when the astronomers encounter outrageous NORMALCY BIAS
But then it becomes uneven in tone, sometimes low farce, sometimes witty comedy, sometimes sentimental drama, and they jar, and the parochial Americanism is tedious, especially the laboured, lazy assaults on Trumpism and silly white people. Yes yes yes we know they are awful but it's such a crappy obvious target, and it is annoying and boring.
It's a film that wants to be Doctor Strangelove for global warming but lacks the Southern/Kubrick Strangelove script - and it lacks Peter Sellers - one star to bring together a stellar cast. Something of a missed opportunity. Coulda been a masterpiece
For all the talk among the "right on" lefty comedians that one should only punch up and speak truth to power, it does seem thick (British / American) white working class (Brexit / Trump voter) have become the go to punch line of lazy joke in the way the "thick" Irish were at one point for right wing comedians.
Yes, exactly. Laughing at Maga hat wearers is like laughing at Mother in Law Jokes in the 70s. Pathetically feeble comedy
If you have to do it find a new and stealthy way, at least. The racist old school pilot was cringeworthy
Satirizing dumbo enablers of the most toxic politician in the western world in 2021 is like laughing at Mother in Law jokes in 1971?
Hmm. Ok.
The point is not to equate Mother-in-Laws to Trumpsters, but to equate the laziness of the comedians.
Yes, sure. Comedians in their comfort zone. But is there more of that now than in previous times? I'd need a lot of convincing.
maybe not. Indeed, in the past, with fewer channels through which to be exposed to comedians, we saw each comedian less frequently and fewer overall. And so their material aged less quickly, and it was harder to compare material across comedians. So you may have a point. But so what? It does not improve the quality of the material, or the validity of criticizing it.
No, I've caught some of it and I do know what you mean. Tedious. But thing is, Trump and MAGA is such a massive all-consuming thing to have happened to America that I think it's inevitable he and it dominates here too - on comedy material. And since you can't really laugh WITH him (unless you're a bad bad person) you're left with laughing at him, and also (since they adore him) at his supporters.
Yep, Trump definitely needs to be mercilessly ridiculed and he provided a near endless stream of material to do just that. I just expect professional comedians to do it with originality and humour, rather than simply state "Trump is a c8nt" and demand that people laugh.
Personally, I am less comfortable with taking the piss out of his supporters. We need to convince them to stop supporting Trumpism, and we don't do that by ridiculing them as people.
I'll start with the obvious disclaimer that I'm no fan of Trump. But the problem with the instinctive 'ha, ha, isn't Donald Trump awful' position is that even stupid and awful people are right sometimes. Too many people have started from the position that if Donald Trump says something it must be wrong. And we end up with daft positions like 'it's racist to suggest lab leak'. Similarly, we end up giving Joe Biden carte blanche to do what he likes (like the Afghanistan cock up) because hey, he's not Donald Trump. So let's have some nuance. Similarly, Boris has sometimes done the right thing in the face of fashionable disapproval (like not joining the European vaccine procurement scheme.) Similarly, Jeremy Corbyn was not wrong all the time. Awful people are sometimes right. Often, in fact. The problem with being constantly furious is that you end up dismissing the ideas of your political opponents because they come from your political opponents, not because they are bad.
Fully agree with that.
Indeed, Trump's genius is to identify the issues that evoke the strongest emotional response in his target audience (i.e. real issues that need to be addressed) and to exploit them for personal political advantage. So, on some things, Trump was indeed right. The need to confront China, the need to get other NATO countries to pull their own weight. The need to address disaffection caused by immigration and globalization. But, while he spotted a number of key issues that weren't being discussed enough or tackled, he was rarely right on the answers, and even when he was right on solutions, his approach was usually suboptimally effective.
Just because I keep getting asked about this, No 10 says the PM has been "between Chequers and Downing Street" over the Christmas/ NY period. I've got no reason to believe that's not the case... Spider
Competition Result - @Northern_Al is crowned Booster Superforecaster 2021
With just Wales data missing for 31/12, the book has been closed and the result fixed.
Highest Boosters to date: 968,665 (22/12) Nearest estimate: @Northern_Al 963,451 Average estimate: 1,080,328
The winner will be contacted shortly to arrange despatch of the prize: Prime Ministers by Iain Dale with signed dedication to Al. Removal of the forward by Boris Johnson will be at the winner's discretion.
The full result, in order of proximity to the daily Booster maximum:
Just because I keep getting asked about this, No 10 says the PM has been "between Chequers and Downing Street" over the Christmas/ NY period. I've got no reason to believe that's not the case... Spider
Comments
Is "My precious" your latest love-name for the fat little toad who used to have a reputation?
*The Professor Peston FRS DIpSHit Award. This comes in
Pesto Cross 2nd Class
Pesto Cross 1st Class
Knight's Cross of the Pesto Cross
Knight's Cross of the Pesto Cross with Oak Leaves
Knight's Cross of the Pesto Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords
Knight's Cross of the Pesto Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds
Knight's Cross of the Pesto Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds.
Seriously, they look lovely.
If you're going to tell offensive jokes, they have to be very, very good to get away with it. I don't think Boyle is as offensive as he ever was but no longer as funny. For me.
Jimmy Carr, on the other hand, is horribly offensive but just funny enough to pull it off. Again, for me.
I always find this one interesting - the weekly features are fascinating to me....
Only joking, they look great
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1478032433257885700?s=20
https://delivita.com/
You can pick it up and take it wherever you like in your garden. (Not when it's lit obviously.)
Macron 26%
Le Pen 16%
Pecresse 16%
Zemmour 13%
Melenchon 9%
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1478017353472524291?s=20
http://www.alexsalmond.scot/press-releases/2016/11/27/new-commons-figures-show-mp-comparison-between-salmond-and-bruce
The only metric that is genuinely useful is excess deaths.
for cross country comparisons - absolutely.
But, yes, I know what you mean. If you can pull off a joke that really surprises - AND is funny - that's top drawer.
Personally, I find it hard to imagine scenarios for COVID where behavioural issues for vaccine deniers reduce their likelihood of infection over the vaccinated.
Excess deaths per 100,000 for the period of the Covid-19 pandemic (currently calculated for the period Jan 1 2020 to Dec 26 2021) - central estimates from The Economist model, as reproduced by ourworldindata.org
High vax rate jurisdictions:
Denmark 31.01
Gibraltar 132.83
Faeroe Islands -94.46
Ireland 73.46
Malta 82.62
Spain 249.18
Iceland -19.49
Portugal 239.18
Belgium 204.71
Finland 67.58
(NB: the UK stands at 210.65 on this measure)
Low vax rate jurisdictions:
Montenegro 536.32
Bulgaria 856.56
Belarus 601.33
Ukraine 442.62
Bosnia and Herzegovina 594.57
North Macedonia 749.23
Albania 471.66
Moldova 428.17
Romania 547.41
Johnson? Morrison?
Would that be fair?
Nice little cheeky smiley face there.
So, is it likely that a person who has been vaccinated is more likely to catch Omicron than an unvaccinated one? No, it's not likely. Is it possible? Maybe. But it's hard to see the mechanism by which having your immune system primed against the spike protein results in you being more likely to have Covid in your system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyeSpsZdQRc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEZ2ax2-O2A
Here is a story of one such failure: https://www.nature.com/articles/nm0109-21
PS So this is not increasing your likelihood of having COVID, but increasing the harm caused by the immune systems response to exposure.
Don't know why Leon is being so touchy today. Alls I did was a little counterweight to what was becoming a rather lazy deluge of "so lazy to keep laughing at dumbo Trumpers".
As it happens, btw, I've seen some of this relentless American tv 'comedy' satirizing all things Trump and let's just say I use the inverteds there for a reason.
The far left famously lack sense of humour of course.
Here is a joke:
A woman gets on a bus with her small child.
The bus driver says "Tickets please - gosh your child is ugly".
The woman goes down the bus and says to the man sat next to her "I'm so angry, that driver is so rude, I'm furious".
The man says "Quite right - go back and have it out with him."
"I'll hold your monkey for you".
Now that joke is very funny, relying on the shock of the last line. In fact I read somewhere that it topped a poll of the nation's favourite joke.
This is how it would be received by your far leftist:
"Oh the joke has ended. Superficially funny but should I laugh? Safer to pause and consider.
What can I find to be offended about even though I'm not? Ah - yes - wait - monkeys are brown aren't they?
OMG the woman and her lovely child are proud members of our African-American community. Bet the two men were WWC, etc etc etc.
Am I wrong?
In the runoff polls currently a plurality of Le Pen voters say they would stay home in a Pecresse v Macron runoff, though she wins most Zemmour voters in the runoff she would need most Le Pen voters to vote for her too to beat Macron. Macron more comfortably beats Le Pen and trounces Zemmour though as most Pecresse voters would vote for Macron over them
(a MC in a crowded club ) - Ladies and Gentlemen before we get on with the show , i know we have a couple of Falklands veterans in tonight so shall we give them a round of applause (cue crowd applauding ) -
All the way from Argentina
Full book:
Back (Bet For)
Marine Le Pen
13
£40.00
£480.00
Lay (Bet Against)
Valerie Pecresse
4.4
£15.88
£53.99
Eric Zemmour
6.61
£54.00
£303.20
An englishman , Irishman, Scotsman and Welshman were due to be executed and all were granted a last wish
The scotsman said could be hear a 100 pipers playing Flower of Scotland one last time
the Welshman said could he hear a 100 strong choir singing Land of my Fathers
The Irishman said could be see 100 dancers doing Riverdance
The Englishman said could he be executed first
Personally, I am less comfortable with taking the piss out of his supporters. We need to convince them to stop supporting Trumpism, and we don't do that by ridiculing them as people.
So, I'd take 12-1 on Le Pen.
https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1478048531478765568?t=ObpVSO0-jBsdt5d-EeBmdg&s=19
Idiot, idiot, fucking Boris.
Politics hey
*Apart from one chap who'd had to guard some Argentine officers and saw how they treated their own conscripts. He definitely didn't like the officers.
Time to rid ourselves of the woke liberal elite that are both running and ruining this country.
Time for a Labour government.
"Once Johnson is back on people's TV screens, they'll remember why they dislike him."
exactly
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=Y&CON=35&LAB=38&LIB=10&Reform=2&Green=3&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=20.5&SCOTLAB=19&SCOTLIB=6.5&SCOTReform=1&SCOTGreen=1.5&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=48&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2019nbbase
Latest UK 7-day case rates, confirmed by test, now updated to 29 December:
Northern Ireland: 2,027.9 per 100,000 population
Wales: 1,910.3
England: 1,508.1
Scotland: 1,313.2
https://twitter.com/ezralevant/status/1474106318206255113?s=20
But the problem with the instinctive 'ha, ha, isn't Donald Trump awful' position is that even stupid and awful people are right sometimes. Too many people have started from the position that if Donald Trump says something it must be wrong. And we end up with daft positions like 'it's racist to suggest lab leak'. Similarly, we end up giving Joe Biden carte blanche to do what he likes (like the Afghanistan cock up) because hey, he's not Donald Trump.
So let's have some nuance.
Similarly, Boris has sometimes done the right thing in the face of fashionable disapproval (like not joining the European vaccine procurement scheme.)
Similarly, Jeremy Corbyn was not wrong all the time.
Awful people are sometimes right. Often, in fact. The problem with being constantly furious is that you end up dismissing the ideas of your political opponents because they come from your political opponents, not because they are bad.
Mind you we're currently on a BH Monday so that might be mince.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLvBlVbsCY4
They may not be pursuing full on socialism but they are also generally more social democratic than Anglosphere Conservatives and more pro lockdown and restrictions
He will cling on. I was going to say that there's a small chance that he'll regain the lost ground, but really that's not going to happen.
Some years ago I could look at the Tory leadership and imagine that there were really quite a few good eggs. I'm not so sure now.
Next Tory leader for me - Truss is a bit noisy, Sunak worries me, Gove - never trust Gove, Javid - weak, the list goes on. Hunt is easily my preferred choice.
They hit so many sixes they filled de freighters with them.
"This is a faulty study, and will be either corrected or retracted once peer reviewed!
You cannot exclude "Previously SARS-CoV-2 PCR-positive individuals" and correlate VE against the same cohort you just removed a significant percentage of them!
You are skewing your test data significantly towards the unvaccinated cohort (which has much higher rate of PCR positive than the vaccinated cohort)
If negative VE was not a clue for the faulty calculations, I don't know what would be!"
https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1478054615996317697
Indeed, Trump's genius is to identify the issues that evoke the strongest emotional response in his target audience (i.e. real issues that need to be addressed) and to exploit them for personal political advantage. So, on some things, Trump was indeed right. The need to confront China, the need to get other NATO countries to pull their own weight. The need to address disaffection caused by immigration and globalization. But, while he spotted a number of key issues that weren't being discussed enough or tackled, he was rarely right on the answers, and even when he was right on solutions, his approach was usually suboptimally effective.
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1478025202609139723?s=20
Could he run for President from inside?
With just Wales data missing for 31/12, the book has been closed and the result fixed.
Highest Boosters to date: 968,665 (22/12)
Nearest estimate: @Northern_Al 963,451
Average estimate: 1,080,328
The winner will be contacted shortly to arrange despatch of the prize: Prime Ministers by Iain Dale with signed dedication to Al. Removal of the forward by Boris Johnson will be at the winner's discretion.
The full result, in order of proximity to the daily Booster maximum:
1 @Northern_Al 963,451
2 @MattW 986,000
3 @geoffw 987,654
4 @IshmaelZ 999,000
5 @Pulpstar 1,000,000
6 @Maffew 1,000,001
7 @NerysHughes 1,000,001
8 @Andy_JS 930,000
9 @SandyRentool 1,010,101
10 @Nigelb 925,001
11 @Fairliered 1,029,762
12 @Richard_Nabavi 896,322
13 @Beibheirli_C 1,048,575
14 @Benpointer 1,048,576
15 @IanB2 1,075,000
16 @carnyx 854,217
17 @MaxPB 1,097,642
18 @londonpubman 1,100,000
19 @Eabhal 825,000
20 @Ratters 1,191,428
21 @Cyclefree 723,527
22 @Cyclefree 1,234,567
23 @MightyAlex 700,000
24 @Anabobazina 1,245,609
25 @flatlander 1,248,510
26 @Richard_Tyndall 1,264,987
27 @Cookie 1,346,242
28 @pigeon 1,350,000
29 @OldKingCole 1,389,347
30 @Endillion 525,600
31 @LostPassword 1,572,864
32 @BartholomewRoberts 2,001,524