On topic, I would just like to say that I didn't vote for Tony Blair, would never have voted for Tony Blair, can't and couldn't stand the sight of him, opposed most of what he did as Prime Minster, including opposing the Iraq war at the time and thinking it was ridiculous that anyone believed the nonsense justification he provided for it. Yet, I am also absolutely horrified that six hundred thousand people in this country, apparently in all seriousness, believe he shouldn't receive a knighthood.
More mystified that they could be arsed to sign an online petition about it. Looks like virtue signalling is still in fashion, sad to say.
online petitions are always virtue signalling.
The upset among some that Tony getting a knighthood is question reminds me of the story about Education Dept.
Shortly before a certain minister arrived (he had already been appointed), a mandarin issued an order in the name of the minister who hadn't actually been in the building yet. This was in opposition to the known views of the minister and involved committing public money.
For the rest of the ministers tenure, the other mandarins kept on trying to put his name back on the honours list for the department, because he had served the x number of years to get it and it would be unfair if he didn't etc.
I'm quite surprised by this, perhaps its a bit to do with timing? is there a general: fed up, warn out, let down by all leadership feeling going on?
Maybe not, but I suspect if the timing was last summer as the would cup was going on, vaccine roll out was successful and the nation was opening up, perhaps answers would have been defend even though TB was not involved with any of that, just it felt more happy times.
Xian seems to be on everyone's lips but Delta or Omicron they were hard locking the place down ages (weeks?) ago. Because the city is hosting the Winter Olympics so "just in case" China is blitzing it to get Covid cases down because they don't want the global spotlight to show any pox there.
Can we draw any other lessons from it? Nope.
We can't draw any lessons, but we can ask questions
Why are they apparently using flamethrowers to disinfect neighborhoods and bus stops etc?
I find it hard to believe this "malfunctioning foam sprayer" argument. I'm not dismissing it, but how would that work?
Also:
1 We have never seen these malfunctions before
2 There are several videos showing this bizarre "malfunction"
3 And the men using the foam sprayers that instead squirt flame don't look at all surprised. They don't react or back away, and frankly if my foam sprayer suddenly started ejecting napalm I would be a little alarmed, and my body language would show that
Hmmmm
The thing that really gives you a clue something isn't quite right, the story keeps changings. Its a few VHF cases, its a few Delta cases, its the local officials to blame, no its senior officials etc and of course now widespread food shortages. That didn't even happen in Wuhan.
As i said previously, i reckon they have Omicron, with no natural immunity and vaccines don't work, the party are shitting it as there isn't much they can do beyond hope Viagra hard lockdown works.
Yes, that's still my supposition. Tho there is also the chance that
1. They have a coincidental outbreak of VHF or whatever
2. They have a pretty fucking horrible new variant
Something is definitely up
Incidentally, on the veracity of the videos, out of curiosity I spent an hour or two the other day looking at the first videos that came out of Wuhan (you can still find them easily on Twitter)
Some of the most famous ones - bat-eating woman - moped filming bodies in the street - turn out to be fake. The bat was eaten in Indonesia, the bodies were actually rough sleepers in Shenzen
Yet sone of the most notorious ones - corpses piled high in hospitals, body bags filling up trucks, convulsing patients dying in chaos - turn out to be real. For a start, they have been repeated many times outside China. From Ecuador to Iran to Lombardy
And many of these horrific early videos were dismissed as fakes at the time
There is a third option: they have omicron, and it is spreading. They have expended a heck of a lot of effort convincing their population that their response to Covid has been brilliant, and they don't want the story muddied - especially with the Olympics coming up. So they do what oppressive regimes do: overreact to show that they are doing things. WE ARE STRONG!
An interesting question is what the official state media (i.e. virtually all of it) is saying about the situation there.
I suspect we are discovering the answer to the question of how bad is omicron when you haven't been subjected to the previous variants and your vaccines don't protect from it.
And the only places that could answer that sort of questions are the Covid zero places such as China and New Zealand / Australia but even those latter places have vaccines in place.
Jeez. We are discovering the answer to the question of how much an authoritarian government wants to ensure that a global event attended by people from over a hundred countries and covered by the global media goes ahead with as few issues as possible which might derail this, their flagship event, in particular Covid.
I mean that is pretty brutal but that is really "all" there is to it.
If they are cracking down just to protect the Olympics, why Xian? Xian is quite a long way from the Winter olympic sites. What in Xian is causing the crack-down?
Xian seems to be on everyone's lips but Delta or Omicron they were hard locking the place down ages (weeks?) ago. Because the city is hosting the Winter Olympics so "just in case" China is blitzing it to get Covid cases down because they don't want the global spotlight to show any pox there.
Can we draw any other lessons from it? Nope.
We can't draw any lessons, but we can ask questions
Why are they apparently using flamethrowers to disinfect neighborhoods and bus stops etc?
I find it hard to believe this "malfunctioning foam sprayer" argument. I'm not dismissing it, but how would that work?
Also:
1 We have never seen these malfunctions before
2 There are several videos showing this bizarre "malfunction"
3 And the men using the foam sprayers that instead squirt flame don't look at all surprised. They don't react or back away, and frankly if my foam sprayer suddenly started ejecting napalm I would be a little alarmed, and my body language would show that
Hmmmm
The thing that really gives you a clue something isn't quite right, the story keeps changings. Its a few VHF cases, its a few Delta cases, its the local officials to blame, no its senior officials etc and of course now widespread food shortages. That didn't even happen in Wuhan.
As i said previously, i reckon they have Omicron, with no natural immunity and vaccines don't work, the party are shitting it as there isn't much they can do beyond hope Viagra hard lockdown works.
Yes, that's still my supposition. Tho there is also the chance that
1. They have a coincidental outbreak of VHF or whatever
2. They have a pretty fucking horrible new variant
Something is definitely up
Incidentally, on the veracity of the videos, out of curiosity I spent an hour or two the other day looking at the first videos that came out of Wuhan (you can still find them easily on Twitter)
Some of the most famous ones - bat-eating woman - moped filming bodies in the street - turn out to be fake. The bat was eaten in Indonesia, the bodies were actually rough sleepers in Shenzen
Yet sone of the most notorious ones - corpses piled high in hospitals, body bags filling up trucks, convulsing patients dying in chaos - turn out to be real. For a start, they have been repeated many times outside China. From Ecuador to Iran to Lombardy
And many of these horrific early videos were dismissed as fakes at the time
There is a third option: they have omicron, and it is spreading. They have expended a heck of a lot of effort convincing their population that their response to Covid has been brilliant, and they don't want the story muddied - especially with the Olympics coming up. So they do what oppressive regimes do: overreact to show that they are doing things. WE ARE STRONG!
An interesting question is what the official state media (i.e. virtually all of it) is saying about the situation there.
I suspect we are discovering the answer to the question of how bad is omicron when you haven't been subjected to the previous variants and your vaccines don't protect from it.
And the only places that could answer that sort of questions are the Covid zero places such as China and New Zealand / Australia but even those latter places have vaccines in place.
Jeez. We are discovering the answer to the question of how much an authoritarian government wants to ensure that a global event attended by people from over a hundred countries and covered by the global media goes ahead with as few issues as possible which might derail this, their flagship event, in particular Covid.
I mean that is pretty brutal but that is really "all" there is to it.
I for one am glad that "Topping" off of PB has personally solved a mystery that has much of the world puzzled, including the Chinese themselves
There's none so blind as those that will not see.
You're projecting again. Quite chronically
Whining about "projection" every time you are outfoxed on an internet chatroom says a bit more about you than about your interlocutor.
You're projecting again. "Outfoxed". lol
Pretty lame from a master wordsmith tbh.
it didn't merit anything more. "Outfoxed" is such an odd, yet telling word. Birthed from deep in your subconscious, smeared with the placenta of fear
Is Boris gonna lock us down again, in some form or other, at 5pm?
Quick vote?
My vote is No, he won't. But I'm worried
I think No. I hope No. I am not 100% convinced though. I think he might crumble.
Johnson is no doubt getting a load of pressure from medical professionals on one side and from Tory MPs on the other. Only one of those groups can remove him this week.
I vote No. He would be deposed within 48 hours I think if he announces lockdown tonight. The data just isn't there and the backbench have run out of patience with SAGE and modelling anyway.
I vote No. He would be deposed within 48 hours I think if he announces lockdown tonight. The data just isn't there and the backbench and the public have run out of patience with SAGE and modelling anyway.
FTFY.
Yes, even with the incidentals it doesn't look like we'll reach anything like 3,000 hospitalisations per day which was the best case scenario for Omicron (not including incidentals).
Care to bet on that? I'm pretty confident we will exceed 3k hospitalizations per day as per coronavirus.data.gov £25 - winnings to pb.com?
Precise terms -> according to coronavirus.data.gov.uk, the UK will exceed 3k hospitalizations per day for at least one day before end of March.
I think Max PB was talking about England Hospitalisation.
Then staying under 3,000 sounds quite possible to me.
If you where prepared to limit it to England, use 7 day average and end date of End Of Feb, then I would take that £25 bet (donation to PB)
How about just England as you suggest -> but just a single day over 3,000 hospital admissions? I feel like that's very fair given the original claim. Happy to have end Feb as the date as you suggest.
Deal?
rkrkrk,
Thanks for getting back to me, and appreciated that you have accepted 2 of my 3 caveats, so I'm very tempted, But would you stretch to 2 consecutive days over over 3,000? (I'm trying to avaode a one day spick)
Deal?
Done! If England hospitalization exceed 3k for 2 consecutive days by Feb 28th (inclusive), you can pay £25 to pb.com. If not, I will.
Agreed.
Thanks for bargaining on that.
I would put a smiley face, but possibly inappropriate considering we are talking about hospitalisations.
All this Blair stuff is not good for Starmer I thihk, as I was saying earlier. He's been steadily and implicitly building a rehabilitation of Blair-type politics, and then along comes this to reunite Lefties and Tories against the idea of Blair again.
However, I don't think it will be much more than temporary - the government's problems and failings are now just much too familiar in the public's imagination.
Am I wrong in thinking that it was his Iraq policy that made Blair so toxic, and that otherwise he was generally regarded as sort of ok?
And I am wrong in thinking that the Conservative Party supported that policy wholeheartedly?
And the LD's opposed it (and that did them no bloody good whatsoever)?
Xian seems to be on everyone's lips but Delta or Omicron they were hard locking the place down ages (weeks?) ago. Because the city is hosting the Winter Olympics so "just in case" China is blitzing it to get Covid cases down because they don't want the global spotlight to show any pox there.
Can we draw any other lessons from it? Nope.
We can't draw any lessons, but we can ask questions
Why are they apparently using flamethrowers to disinfect neighborhoods and bus stops etc?
I find it hard to believe this "malfunctioning foam sprayer" argument. I'm not dismissing it, but how would that work?
Also:
1 We have never seen these malfunctions before
2 There are several videos showing this bizarre "malfunction"
3 And the men using the foam sprayers that instead squirt flame don't look at all surprised. They don't react or back away, and frankly if my foam sprayer suddenly started ejecting napalm I would be a little alarmed, and my body language would show that
Hmmmm
The thing that really gives you a clue something isn't quite right, the story keeps changings. Its a few VHF cases, its a few Delta cases, its the local officials to blame, no its senior officials etc and of course now widespread food shortages. That didn't even happen in Wuhan.
As i said previously, i reckon they have Omicron, with no natural immunity and vaccines don't work, the party are shitting it as there isn't much they can do beyond hope Viagra hard lockdown works.
Yes, that's still my supposition. Tho there is also the chance that
1. They have a coincidental outbreak of VHF or whatever
2. They have a pretty fucking horrible new variant
Something is definitely up
Incidentally, on the veracity of the videos, out of curiosity I spent an hour or two the other day looking at the first videos that came out of Wuhan (you can still find them easily on Twitter)
Some of the most famous ones - bat-eating woman - moped filming bodies in the street - turn out to be fake. The bat was eaten in Indonesia, the bodies were actually rough sleepers in Shenzen
Yet sone of the most notorious ones - corpses piled high in hospitals, body bags filling up trucks, convulsing patients dying in chaos - turn out to be real. For a start, they have been repeated many times outside China. From Ecuador to Iran to Lombardy
And many of these horrific early videos were dismissed as fakes at the time
Quit the silly scare stories it is very irresponsible. You as bad as the anti-vaxxers.
Ironically those most supportive of knighting Blair are LDs, who were probably most opposed to him by 2005, though a plurality of LDs also oppose his knighthood
As former PM Blair is essentially entitled to a KG/KT whether people like it or not.
Instead of the baiting of "eugh everyone hates Blair" for me the better debate is why the actual we still have KG/KT gongs to award?
'We can’t vaccinate the planet every six months', says JCVI chief Fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence, the head of Britain's vaccine body has said - as he warned that giving boosters to people every six months was “not sustainable”.
6 monthly jabs may or may not be the right thing, but his remit is not "THE PLANET". It's the UK. Once again heading outside their remit.
Unless we vaccinate the planet - collectively - then we aren't immune from the next mutation.
That's another covid myth apparently: Myth #1,765 in a regular series...
We should share Covid vaccines with the world, because it is the right thing to do, but not because it will limit of emergence of 'variants' - vaccines don't generate variants but they don't preclude their emergence either - it's all a bit unclear and complicated.
Not just people either, Covid is a general mammalian phenomenon
Nevertheless a world with Covid raging is more likely to throw up things which come and fuck us up than a world with Covid under control. And the quicker we vaccinate the world the quicker we get from that first situation to the second. It's as much a practical imperative as a moral one.
No it isn't necessarily a practical or moral one and probably not a scientific one either. All governments have their first responsibility to their own population. IMHO, the first priority of Western governments is to figure out how to defeat or contain the virus. The strategies that they use will then inform them how they support other governments to do the same.
The virus respects no borders. It's a global pandemic and the best response to it is global. The more inefficient and illogical is the vaccine rollout - eg 5 or 6 jabs in one country and zero in another - the longer the pandemic will last, and the longer it lasts the more the damage will be and the more likely it is that we will be impacted.
The question then is this - to what extent should the normal rules of national centric politics - which you outline - be flexed in order to facilitate the optimum globally efficient solution?
I say the answer to this is "to a very great extent" and I think this is the correct answer. After all, this is a once-a-century emergency with an awful lot at stake. If we can't get our (global) act together for this, at least better than we are atm, when will we ever be able to?
So I am going to ask a question. I don't claim it is a fair question or perhaps even valid but it is the question that any politician has to be able to answer if they wish to accept your view.
How many people should we allow to die in this country, who could otherwise be saved, so that we can save lives of people in Africa, India, Russia or Poland?
As I say I am not saying it is a fair question but it is the question that cannot be dodged by politicians choosing to follow the route of putting global well being ahead of national well being.
And I know the obvious answer to you and probably to me is that in the long term we might actually save more lives here. But that is not certain and you are asking people to accept deaths now for fewer deaths tomorrow. That is a hard, if not impossible, sell for any politician.
I'll avoid the obvious answer and instead acknowledge what you say - that it's hard for any national government not to be driven entirely by high viz short term national interest, eg (for here) what booster strategy gets us out of all restrictions asap this year, end of story.
So, in practice, I guess the best we can hope for is that the global case is pushed by the likes of the WHO and various leading scientists and that it gets at least some traction with decision makers. Ie I feel the dead opposite to those who see that case being made by such people and respond "They should shut up. Not in their brief". I think the more noise is made about this the better.
Imagine we reach end of 2023 and Covid is conquered (for now) in the developed world but still raging most everywhere else. That, given the early brilliance in developing vaccines and treatments, would be such a shame - and furthermore a depressing sign that for all our tech and intelligence and progress we can't meet the big challenges.
The issue is -
- The supply of vaccines is no longer the issue. We are looking at 24 billion doses manufactured by the middle of this year. There are about 8 Billion people on the planet. - So Harry Hair Shirting about not "hoarding" vaccinations doesn't actually make sense. Not doing boosters or vaccinating children in the UK will not materially effect vaccine availability world wide.
There's loads of issues. Affordable Supply + Logistics & Distribution + Population Demand = Vaccination Outcome. There are problems to fix with all the inputs there.
But my strong sense is that the assertion "the domestic vaccine strategy of rich countries and their interaction with the pharmaceutical giants has no impact on the vaccination outcome in the rest of the world" is a self-comforting falsehood.
Sorry but it isn't. What you appear to be advocating is that we reduce our booster campaign even though that will not make any further supply available elsewhere. That is like saying: "there are children starving in the world. Until we can feed them we should starve ours too!"
I'm actually not arguing that we shouldn't complete this booster round. We should. Also continue to make inroads into our vaccine refusers. I was talking about the priorities from now on. Let's not be myopic with those.
If the supply is not an issue, why not do another booster round, if it is required?
Is Boris gonna lock us down again, in some form or other, at 5pm?
Quick vote?
My vote is No, he won't. But I'm worried
I think No. I hope No. I am not 100% convinced though. I think he might crumble.
Johnson is no doubt getting a load of pressure from medical professionals on one side and from Tory MPs on the other. Only one of those groups can remove him this week.
I vote No. He would be deposed within 48 hours I think if he announces lockdown tonight. The data just isn't there and the backbench have run out of patience with SAGE and modelling anyway.
I vote No. He would be deposed within 48 hours I think if he announces lockdown tonight. The data just isn't there and the backbench and the public have run out of patience with SAGE and modelling anyway.
FTFY.
Yes, even with the incidentals it doesn't look like we'll reach anything like 3,000 hospitalisations per day which was the best case scenario for Omicron (not including incidentals).
Care to bet on that? I'm pretty confident we will exceed 3k hospitalizations per day as per coronavirus.data.gov £25 - winnings to pb.com?
Precise terms -> according to coronavirus.data.gov.uk, the UK will exceed 3k hospitalizations per day for at least one day before end of March.
I think Max PB was talking about England Hospitalisation.
Then staying under 3,000 sounds quite possible to me.
If you where prepared to limit it to England, use 7 day average and end date of End Of Feb, then I would take that £25 bet (donation to PB)
How about just England as you suggest -> but just a single day over 3,000 hospital admissions? I feel like that's very fair given the original claim. Happy to have end Feb as the date as you suggest.
Deal?
rkrkrk,
Thanks for getting back to me, and appreciated that you have accepted 2 of my 3 caveats, so I'm very tempted, But would you stretch to 2 consecutive days over over 3,000? (I'm trying to avaode a one day spick)
Deal?
Done! If England hospitalization exceed 3k for 2 consecutive days by Feb 28th (inclusive), you can pay £25 to pb.com. If not, I will.
Xian seems to be on everyone's lips but Delta or Omicron they were hard locking the place down ages (weeks?) ago. Because the city is hosting the Winter Olympics so "just in case" China is blitzing it to get Covid cases down because they don't want the global spotlight to show any pox there.
Can we draw any other lessons from it? Nope.
We can't draw any lessons, but we can ask questions
Why are they apparently using flamethrowers to disinfect neighborhoods and bus stops etc?
I find it hard to believe this "malfunctioning foam sprayer" argument. I'm not dismissing it, but how would that work?
Also:
1 We have never seen these malfunctions before
2 There are several videos showing this bizarre "malfunction"
3 And the men using the foam sprayers that instead squirt flame don't look at all surprised. They don't react or back away, and frankly if my foam sprayer suddenly started ejecting napalm I would be a little alarmed, and my body language would show that
Hmmmm
The thing that really gives you a clue something isn't quite right, the story keeps changings. Its a few VHF cases, its a few Delta cases, its the local officials to blame, no its senior officials etc and of course now widespread food shortages. That didn't even happen in Wuhan.
As i said previously, i reckon they have Omicron, with no natural immunity and vaccines don't work, the party are shitting it as there isn't much they can do beyond hope Viagra hard lockdown works.
Yes, that's still my supposition. Tho there is also the chance that
1. They have a coincidental outbreak of VHF or whatever
2. They have a pretty fucking horrible new variant
Something is definitely up
Incidentally, on the veracity of the videos, out of curiosity I spent an hour or two the other day looking at the first videos that came out of Wuhan (you can still find them easily on Twitter)
Some of the most famous ones - bat-eating woman - moped filming bodies in the street - turn out to be fake. The bat was eaten in Indonesia, the bodies were actually rough sleepers in Shenzen
Yet sone of the most notorious ones - corpses piled high in hospitals, body bags filling up trucks, convulsing patients dying in chaos - turn out to be real. For a start, they have been repeated many times outside China. From Ecuador to Iran to Lombardy
And many of these horrific early videos were dismissed as fakes at the time
There is a third option: they have omicron, and it is spreading. They have expended a heck of a lot of effort convincing their population that their response to Covid has been brilliant, and they don't want the story muddied - especially with the Olympics coming up. So they do what oppressive regimes do: overreact to show that they are doing things. WE ARE STRONG!
An interesting question is what the official state media (i.e. virtually all of it) is saying about the situation there.
I suspect we are discovering the answer to the question of how bad is omicron when you haven't been subjected to the previous variants and your vaccines don't protect from it.
And the only places that could answer that sort of questions are the Covid zero places such as China and New Zealand / Australia but even those latter places have vaccines in place.
Jeez. We are discovering the answer to the question of how much an authoritarian government wants to ensure that a global event attended by people from over a hundred countries and covered by the global media goes ahead with as few issues as possible which might derail this, their flagship event, in particular Covid.
I mean that is pretty brutal but that is really "all" there is to it.
If they are cracking down just to protect the Olympics, why Xian? Xian is quite a long way from the Winter olympic sites. What in Xian is causing the crack-down?
It's 1100 km away - so it makes little sense once you've blocked transport in and out (as China does automatically in these cases).
Unvaccinated represent 61% of critical care patients, but only 10% of the population.
And it now looks like the Omicron wave is going to be so steep and pass so quickly that most of them who are going to get it this Winter can no longer be helped by vaccination, even if they change their minds and decide that they want to be.
This does, at least, mean that we no longer have to have arguments over whether or not attempts to compel people to have the vaccines are a good idea - there's no longer much point in worrying about the problem. Looks like the refusers are going to get to herd immunity via the natural infection route.
If I was an exec at the Spectator I would be thinking of asking a few pointed questions about any suddenly increasing social media numbers they are doing.
'We can’t vaccinate the planet every six months', says JCVI chief Fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence, the head of Britain's vaccine body has said - as he warned that giving boosters to people every six months was “not sustainable”.
6 monthly jabs may or may not be the right thing, but his remit is not "THE PLANET". It's the UK. Once again heading outside their remit.
Unless we vaccinate the planet - collectively - then we aren't immune from the next mutation.
That's another covid myth apparently: Myth #1,765 in a regular series...
We should share Covid vaccines with the world, because it is the right thing to do, but not because it will limit of emergence of 'variants' - vaccines don't generate variants but they don't preclude their emergence either - it's all a bit unclear and complicated.
Not just people either, Covid is a general mammalian phenomenon
Nevertheless a world with Covid raging is more likely to throw up things which come and fuck us up than a world with Covid under control. And the quicker we vaccinate the world the quicker we get from that first situation to the second. It's as much a practical imperative as a moral one.
No it isn't necessarily a practical or moral one and probably not a scientific one either. All governments have their first responsibility to their own population. IMHO, the first priority of Western governments is to figure out how to defeat or contain the virus. The strategies that they use will then inform them how they support other governments to do the same.
The virus respects no borders. It's a global pandemic and the best response to it is global. The more inefficient and illogical is the vaccine rollout - eg 5 or 6 jabs in one country and zero in another - the longer the pandemic will last, and the longer it lasts the more the damage will be and the more likely it is that we will be impacted.
The question then is this - to what extent should the normal rules of national centric politics - which you outline - be flexed in order to facilitate the optimum globally efficient solution?
I say the answer to this is "to a very great extent" and I think this is the correct answer. After all, this is a once-a-century emergency with an awful lot at stake. If we can't get our (global) act together for this, at least better than we are atm, when will we ever be able to?
So I am going to ask a question. I don't claim it is a fair question or perhaps even valid but it is the question that any politician has to be able to answer if they wish to accept your view.
How many people should we allow to die in this country, who could otherwise be saved, so that we can save lives of people in Africa, India, Russia or Poland?
As I say I am not saying it is a fair question but it is the question that cannot be dodged by politicians choosing to follow the route of putting global well being ahead of national well being.
And I know the obvious answer to you and probably to me is that in the long term we might actually save more lives here. But that is not certain and you are asking people to accept deaths now for fewer deaths tomorrow. That is a hard, if not impossible, sell for any politician.
I'll avoid the obvious answer and instead acknowledge what you say - that it's hard for any national government not to be driven entirely by high viz short term national interest, eg (for here) what booster strategy gets us out of all restrictions asap this year, end of story.
So, in practice, I guess the best we can hope for is that the global case is pushed by the likes of the WHO and various leading scientists and that it gets at least some traction with decision makers. Ie I feel the dead opposite to those who see that case being made by such people and respond "They should shut up. Not in their brief". I think the more noise is made about this the better.
Imagine we reach end of 2023 and Covid is conquered (for now) in the developed world but still raging most everywhere else. That, given the early brilliance in developing vaccines and treatments, would be such a shame - and furthermore a depressing sign that for all our tech and intelligence and progress we can't meet the big challenges.
The issue is -
- The supply of vaccines is no longer the issue. We are looking at 24 billion doses manufactured by the middle of this year. There are about 8 Billion people on the planet. - So Harry Hair Shirting about not "hoarding" vaccinations doesn't actually make sense. Not doing boosters or vaccinating children in the UK will not materially effect vaccine availability world wide.
There's loads of issues. Affordable Supply + Logistics & Distribution + Population Demand = Vaccination Outcome. There are problems to fix with all the inputs there.
But my strong sense is that the assertion "the domestic vaccine strategy of rich countries and their interaction with the pharmaceutical giants has no impact on the vaccination outcome in the rest of the world" is a self-comforting falsehood.
Sorry but it isn't. What you appear to be advocating is that we reduce our booster campaign even though that will not make any further supply available elsewhere. That is like saying: "there are children starving in the world. Until we can feed them we should starve ours too!"
I'm actually not arguing that we shouldn't complete this booster round. We should. Also continue to make inroads into our vaccine refusers. I was talking about the priorities from now on. Let's not be myopic with those.
If the supply is not an issue, why not do another booster round, if it is required?
My key takeaway from the presser is that 3 jabs provide 88% protection against hospitalisation. So we need to change focus away from let the bodies pile high to how we keep essential services going for the next month or so.
Sky reporting from the US saying things are not looking good for Andrew
Camilla Long in the Sunday Times was asking why all the other famous men have (apparently) gotten away with things whilst Prince Andrew is caught in the spotlights.
To me, it seems fairly obvious. Because Andrew is a very useful dead cat to throw on the table. There is enough there to occupy people ("He's the Queen's son!") but not so significant that his trial and conviction would lead to a serious undermining of powerful interests (yes, the Royal Family would get hit but it wouldn't cause its collapse).
Indeed, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Trump etc all met Epstein and Maxwell as did plenty of other wealthy and famous people. Some also went to his island but apparently only Prince Andrew ie a non American foreigner, is to face an action from the US legal system
Andrew faces a civil lawsuit from a particular woman who alleges that he slept with her when she was a minor. I would assume that were she to have similar allegations to make against anyone else where she thought there was a chance of meeting the required standard of proof, she would do so. It doesn't strike me as anything akin to an organised conspiracy against a non-American. What does strike me as odd is that in a case about allegations of powerful men abusing their positions of power, the only person in jail so far is a woman.
Does anyone know why this case is being examined in America when the alleged offence took place in the UK and the Plaintiff is now Australian?
Ironically those most supportive of knighting Blair are LDs, who were probably most opposed to him by 2005, though a plurality of LDs also oppose his knighthood
As former PM Blair is essentially entitled to a KG/KT whether people like it or not.
Instead of the baiting of "eugh everyone hates Blair" for me the better debate is why the actual we still have KG/KT gongs to award?
Its 2022.
Because it embodies the divine right of royalt, (c) the Stuarts and their mystique (sic). One needs to have someone to cringe to, and so on ad infinitum. The Right and Natural way of British Life according to the Tories.
To quote Augustus de Morgan:
Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum. And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on; While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on
Xian seems to be on everyone's lips but Delta or Omicron they were hard locking the place down ages (weeks?) ago. Because the city is hosting the Winter Olympics so "just in case" China is blitzing it to get Covid cases down because they don't want the global spotlight to show any pox there.
Can we draw any other lessons from it? Nope.
We can't draw any lessons, but we can ask questions
Why are they apparently using flamethrowers to disinfect neighborhoods and bus stops etc?
I find it hard to believe this "malfunctioning foam sprayer" argument. I'm not dismissing it, but how would that work?
Also:
1 We have never seen these malfunctions before
2 There are several videos showing this bizarre "malfunction"
3 And the men using the foam sprayers that instead squirt flame don't look at all surprised. They don't react or back away, and frankly if my foam sprayer suddenly started ejecting napalm I would be a little alarmed, and my body language would show that
Hmmmm
The thing that really gives you a clue something isn't quite right, the story keeps changings. Its a few VHF cases, its a few Delta cases, its the local officials to blame, no its senior officials etc and of course now widespread food shortages. That didn't even happen in Wuhan.
As i said previously, i reckon they have Omicron, with no natural immunity and vaccines don't work, the party are shitting it as there isn't much they can do beyond hope Viagra hard lockdown works.
Yes, that's still my supposition. Tho there is also the chance that
1. They have a coincidental outbreak of VHF or whatever
2. They have a pretty fucking horrible new variant
Something is definitely up
Incidentally, on the veracity of the videos, out of curiosity I spent an hour or two the other day looking at the first videos that came out of Wuhan (you can still find them easily on Twitter)
Some of the most famous ones - bat-eating woman - moped filming bodies in the street - turn out to be fake. The bat was eaten in Indonesia, the bodies were actually rough sleepers in Shenzen
Yet sone of the most notorious ones - corpses piled high in hospitals, body bags filling up trucks, convulsing patients dying in chaos - turn out to be real. For a start, they have been repeated many times outside China. From Ecuador to Iran to Lombardy
And many of these horrific early videos were dismissed as fakes at the time
There is a third option: they have omicron, and it is spreading. They have expended a heck of a lot of effort convincing their population that their response to Covid has been brilliant, and they don't want the story muddied - especially with the Olympics coming up. So they do what oppressive regimes do: overreact to show that they are doing things. WE ARE STRONG!
An interesting question is what the official state media (i.e. virtually all of it) is saying about the situation there.
I suspect we are discovering the answer to the question of how bad is omicron when you haven't been subjected to the previous variants and your vaccines don't protect from it.
And the only places that could answer that sort of questions are the Covid zero places such as China and New Zealand / Australia but even those latter places have vaccines in place.
Jeez. We are discovering the answer to the question of how much an authoritarian government wants to ensure that a global event attended by people from over a hundred countries and covered by the global media goes ahead with as few issues as possible which might derail this, their flagship event, in particular Covid.
I mean that is pretty brutal but that is really "all" there is to it.
If they are cracking down just to protect the Olympics, why Xian? Xian is quite a long way from the Winter olympic sites. What in Xian is causing the crack-down?
There is an outbreak of Covid there and they don't want it to get anywhere near the WO sites. Which we know that eg. Omicron could do.
So it is pretty bad that the CCP is hammering Xian for this reason but as I said earlier, that's "all" it is. They are locking it down because they can; not because it is anything other than a run of the mill Omicron outbreak.
Xian seems to be on everyone's lips but Delta or Omicron they were hard locking the place down ages (weeks?) ago. Because the city is hosting the Winter Olympics so "just in case" China is blitzing it to get Covid cases down because they don't want the global spotlight to show any pox there.
Can we draw any other lessons from it? Nope.
We can't draw any lessons, but we can ask questions
Why are they apparently using flamethrowers to disinfect neighborhoods and bus stops etc?
I find it hard to believe this "malfunctioning foam sprayer" argument. I'm not dismissing it, but how would that work?
Also:
1 We have never seen these malfunctions before
2 There are several videos showing this bizarre "malfunction"
3 And the men using the foam sprayers that instead squirt flame don't look at all surprised. They don't react or back away, and frankly if my foam sprayer suddenly started ejecting napalm I would be a little alarmed, and my body language would show that
Hmmmm
The thing that really gives you a clue something isn't quite right, the story keeps changings. Its a few VHF cases, its a few Delta cases, its the local officials to blame, no its senior officials etc and of course now widespread food shortages. That didn't even happen in Wuhan.
As i said previously, i reckon they have Omicron, with no natural immunity and vaccines don't work, the party are shitting it as there isn't much they can do beyond hope Viagra hard lockdown works.
Yes, that's still my supposition. Tho there is also the chance that
1. They have a coincidental outbreak of VHF or whatever
2. They have a pretty fucking horrible new variant
Something is definitely up
Incidentally, on the veracity of the videos, out of curiosity I spent an hour or two the other day looking at the first videos that came out of Wuhan (you can still find them easily on Twitter)
Some of the most famous ones - bat-eating woman - moped filming bodies in the street - turn out to be fake. The bat was eaten in Indonesia, the bodies were actually rough sleepers in Shenzen
Yet sone of the most notorious ones - corpses piled high in hospitals, body bags filling up trucks, convulsing patients dying in chaos - turn out to be real. For a start, they have been repeated many times outside China. From Ecuador to Iran to Lombardy
And many of these horrific early videos were dismissed as fakes at the time
There is a third option: they have omicron, and it is spreading. They have expended a heck of a lot of effort convincing their population that their response to Covid has been brilliant, and they don't want the story muddied - especially with the Olympics coming up. So they do what oppressive regimes do: overreact to show that they are doing things. WE ARE STRONG!
An interesting question is what the official state media (i.e. virtually all of it) is saying about the situation there.
I suspect we are discovering the answer to the question of how bad is omicron when you haven't been subjected to the previous variants and your vaccines don't protect from it.
And the only places that could answer that sort of questions are the Covid zero places such as China and New Zealand / Australia but even those latter places have vaccines in place.
Jeez. We are discovering the answer to the question of how much an authoritarian government wants to ensure that a global event attended by people from over a hundred countries and covered by the global media goes ahead with as few issues as possible which might derail this, their flagship event, in particular Covid.
I mean that is pretty brutal but that is really "all" there is to it.
If they are cracking down just to protect the Olympics, why Xian? Xian is quite a long way from the Winter olympic sites. What in Xian is causing the crack-down?
Because if there's a viral apocalypse going on in a major Chinese city during the Games then the former stands to overshadow the latter. They've also made hay out of having the pandemic under control and the wonderful vaccines that they've been flogging/donating to the world.
If it all goes to Hell in a handcart (and takes down their showpiece propaganda event along with it) then the loss of face for the regime will be enormous.
Xian seems to be on everyone's lips but Delta or Omicron they were hard locking the place down ages (weeks?) ago. Because the city is hosting the Winter Olympics so "just in case" China is blitzing it to get Covid cases down because they don't want the global spotlight to show any pox there.
Can we draw any other lessons from it? Nope.
We can't draw any lessons, but we can ask questions
Why are they apparently using flamethrowers to disinfect neighborhoods and bus stops etc?
I find it hard to believe this "malfunctioning foam sprayer" argument. I'm not dismissing it, but how would that work?
Also:
1 We have never seen these malfunctions before
2 There are several videos showing this bizarre "malfunction"
3 And the men using the foam sprayers that instead squirt flame don't look at all surprised. They don't react or back away, and frankly if my foam sprayer suddenly started ejecting napalm I would be a little alarmed, and my body language would show that
Hmmmm
The thing that really gives you a clue something isn't quite right, the story keeps changings. Its a few VHF cases, its a few Delta cases, its the local officials to blame, no its senior officials etc and of course now widespread food shortages. That didn't even happen in Wuhan.
As i said previously, i reckon they have Omicron, with no natural immunity and vaccines don't work, the party are shitting it as there isn't much they can do beyond hope Viagra hard lockdown works.
Yes, that's still my supposition. Tho there is also the chance that
1. They have a coincidental outbreak of VHF or whatever
2. They have a pretty fucking horrible new variant
Something is definitely up
Incidentally, on the veracity of the videos, out of curiosity I spent an hour or two the other day looking at the first videos that came out of Wuhan (you can still find them easily on Twitter)
Some of the most famous ones - bat-eating woman - moped filming bodies in the street - turn out to be fake. The bat was eaten in Indonesia, the bodies were actually rough sleepers in Shenzen
Yet sone of the most notorious ones - corpses piled high in hospitals, body bags filling up trucks, convulsing patients dying in chaos - turn out to be real. For a start, they have been repeated many times outside China. From Ecuador to Iran to Lombardy
And many of these horrific early videos were dismissed as fakes at the time
There is a third option: they have omicron, and it is spreading. They have expended a heck of a lot of effort convincing their population that their response to Covid has been brilliant, and they don't want the story muddied - especially with the Olympics coming up. So they do what oppressive regimes do: overreact to show that they are doing things. WE ARE STRONG!
An interesting question is what the official state media (i.e. virtually all of it) is saying about the situation there.
I suspect we are discovering the answer to the question of how bad is omicron when you haven't been subjected to the previous variants and your vaccines don't protect from it.
And the only places that could answer that sort of questions are the Covid zero places such as China and New Zealand / Australia but even those latter places have vaccines in place.
Jeez. We are discovering the answer to the question of how much an authoritarian government wants to ensure that a global event attended by people from over a hundred countries and covered by the global media goes ahead with as few issues as possible which might derail this, their flagship event, in particular Covid.
I mean that is pretty brutal but that is really "all" there is to it.
If they are cracking down just to protect the Olympics, why Xian? Xian is quite a long way from the Winter olympic sites. What in Xian is causing the crack-down?
Not just Xi'an, several other cities as well, now. Like Yuzhou
"Henan province yuzhou city( population more than 1 million) 2 covid cases found last afternoon. Authority blocked all roads last night. Every intersection has checkpoint now. You need to scan your qr code green pass to get through. People are storing food up and doing covid test"
Sky reporting from the US saying things are not looking good for Andrew
Camilla Long in the Sunday Times was asking why all the other famous men have (apparently) gotten away with things whilst Prince Andrew is caught in the spotlights.
To me, it seems fairly obvious. Because Andrew is a very useful dead cat to throw on the table. There is enough there to occupy people ("He's the Queen's son!") but not so significant that his trial and conviction would lead to a serious undermining of powerful interests (yes, the Royal Family would get hit but it wouldn't cause its collapse).
Indeed, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Trump etc all met Epstein and Maxwell as did plenty of other wealthy and famous people. Some also went to his island but apparently only Prince Andrew ie a non American foreigner, is to face an action from the US legal system
Andrew faces a civil lawsuit from a particular woman who alleges that he slept with her when she was a minor. I would assume that were she to have similar allegations to make against anyone else where she thought there was a chance of meeting the required standard of proof, she would do so. It doesn't strike me as anything akin to an organised conspiracy against a non-American. What does strike me as odd is that in a case about allegations of powerful men abusing their positions of power, the only person in jail so far is a woman.
Does anyone know why this case is being examined in America when the alleged offence took place in the UK and the Plaintiff is now Australian?
Because she can and because New York seems to accept there are reasons for jurisdiction of the case to plausible be in New York?
For my two pennth, the best meal I have ever had was at a restaurant that doesn't even have a michelin star. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly isn't the most expensive meal I have had.
Most of my best meals have been at non-Michelin places
Random top ten (I could choose eighty more)
Eating at Marco Pierre White's very first place, in south London (forget where) - before he had a star, wow
A crab and asparagus dish in a restaurant made from a garage outside Chiang Mai, Thailand
A beef massaman curry on a beach in Ko Tao, also Thailand
Eating at the first Barrafina off the Strand
Osyters and foie gras and gingerbread in some brilliant old school brasserie in Nantes, France
Dinner by Heston (that has a star or two)
A steak at G W Bush's favourite steak restaurant in Austin Texas
Another steak at Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires
Tiny gnocchi in a private restaurant on a private vineyard on the island of Pantelleria, Italy
Some sardines, recently, in a scruffy cafe above a fish market in Sagres, Portugal
How much of this is about company, location, mood, weather, post-coital bliss - rather than food? At least half of it
I am not sure where to even begin with best food, overall.
For steak, I do. The Tasting Room in Frederick MD does a filet mignon that is the best I have had anywhere, including the best that Buenos Aires or Texas has to offer.
For Indian food, sorry to say that my best experience has been neither in India nor in the UK, but in downtown Washington DC. Rasika (chef was in London prior to moving to the US). Their palak chaat is the most delicious single Indian dish I have ever eaten. For Northern Indian, Bukhara in New York used to be the place.
For the most inventive, surprising and incredible meal I've ever eaten, Contra in lower Manhattan wins: https://contra.nyc It has one star.
For the single ingredient of a dish, Brian Voltaggio at Volt (now sadly gone) outdid everything else I have ever experienced. He does molecular cuisine, which is not my favorite style. But he made 'caviar' out of virgin olive oil. It was the most intensely pleasurable tasting experience of my life to date.
I realize this is a very US-centric list. I have had many spectacular meals in France, Italy, the UK, and Switzerland. But none of them truly stand out from the rest.
I must be incredibly unlucky because 98% of my eating experiences in America are mediocre or worse. And I have been there a LOT, and all over, and in all kinds of joints, from top NYC starred places to innovative California pop-ups to famous BBQ shacks in the Deep South
The one exception is Louisiana especially New Orleans. The food there is consistently great, and they don't do the off-puttingly enormous servings you commonly get in the USA. How can such a rich country still believe "great food = tons of food"?
I think we forget how much better food in the UK has got. Because not many pubs can survive as shitty boozers and huge competition in the restaurant sector, "bog standard" offers across the board have got a hell of a lot better in the past 20-30 years. Sure we still have cheap and crap, but that £10 for a main range has got infinity better in lots of places, and many more people are willing to pay for really good stuff (I presume tv chefs lot has helped this).
Its not that long ago that the Olympic Breakfast at a Little Chef was what people did...now they queue for the overpriced but still better offering from the likes of the Breakfast Club.
The US its seems to be cheap and shit, middle price range, eat your weight in meat...then the small niche high end.
WE DEMAND JUBILEE PANCAKES.
(Which used to be 99p)
Used to be the one of the highlight of my family holidays to Cornwall as a kid....stopping off at a Little Chef for jubilee pancakes.
Now I imagine the kids of today in Cornwall are having organic fresh hand crafted crepes with matcha ice cream...
I'm not sure things have changed that much. When we go to Cornwall we usually have a few meals at the cafe on the cliff top above Treganhawke that does all day breakfasts. Plus a few cream teas, fish and chips and ice creams. The fanciest food is usually consumed at the Eden Project.
I go to Cornwall all the time and all my extended family live there. You're really not trying very hard. There is fine food in every major town. You can get excellent Indian and Thai everywhere, for a start
This wasn't intended as a criticism. I live in London so don't go to Cornwall for interesting world cuisine, but things like cream teas and fish and chips on the beach are things we can't get at home and are handy on walks or days on the beach which is what we tend to be doing. We usually go self catering and cook dinner at the chalet anyway, it's more relaxing than eating out with kids. And we don't really visit the major towns either - we always stay in the SE corner so the only close town is across the Tamar in Plymouth which is not especially nice (it is the city of many of my forebears, so I am well disposed to it but it is not an attractive place).
Fair enough
I know I am in a TINY minority here, but I love Plymouth. It is an extraordinary city. Extraordinarily hideous in places, but extraordinarily beautiful and historic in others. An amazing topography. Also some good places to eat!
I have a Plymouth Fine Dining story. On a business trip, having dinner in Spoons. Pissed up blokes a few tables away obviously on a session. Another guy comes in and comes over to tell his friends about his crabbing adventures!
Yep, you guessed it. Pulls an Asda bag onto the table and removes from it a large crab which proceeds to protest with claws towards crabbing gentleman. At which point bar maiden demands that he leave and take his crab with him.
Barmaid says: “get out of my pub and take your crabs with you”.
Thing that stood out for me in that story was that you were ‘dining’ in Wetherspoons.
Xian seems to be on everyone's lips but Delta or Omicron they were hard locking the place down ages (weeks?) ago. Because the city is hosting the Winter Olympics so "just in case" China is blitzing it to get Covid cases down because they don't want the global spotlight to show any pox there.
Can we draw any other lessons from it? Nope.
We can't draw any lessons, but we can ask questions
Why are they apparently using flamethrowers to disinfect neighborhoods and bus stops etc?
I find it hard to believe this "malfunctioning foam sprayer" argument. I'm not dismissing it, but how would that work?
Also:
1 We have never seen these malfunctions before
2 There are several videos showing this bizarre "malfunction"
3 And the men using the foam sprayers that instead squirt flame don't look at all surprised. They don't react or back away, and frankly if my foam sprayer suddenly started ejecting napalm I would be a little alarmed, and my body language would show that
Hmmmm
The thing that really gives you a clue something isn't quite right, the story keeps changings. Its a few VHF cases, its a few Delta cases, its the local officials to blame, no its senior officials etc and of course now widespread food shortages. That didn't even happen in Wuhan.
As i said previously, i reckon they have Omicron, with no natural immunity and vaccines don't work, the party are shitting it as there isn't much they can do beyond hope Viagra hard lockdown works.
Yes, that's still my supposition. Tho there is also the chance that
1. They have a coincidental outbreak of VHF or whatever
2. They have a pretty fucking horrible new variant
Something is definitely up
Incidentally, on the veracity of the videos, out of curiosity I spent an hour or two the other day looking at the first videos that came out of Wuhan (you can still find them easily on Twitter)
Some of the most famous ones - bat-eating woman - moped filming bodies in the street - turn out to be fake. The bat was eaten in Indonesia, the bodies were actually rough sleepers in Shenzen
Yet sone of the most notorious ones - corpses piled high in hospitals, body bags filling up trucks, convulsing patients dying in chaos - turn out to be real. For a start, they have been repeated many times outside China. From Ecuador to Iran to Lombardy
And many of these horrific early videos were dismissed as fakes at the time
There is a third option: they have omicron, and it is spreading. They have expended a heck of a lot of effort convincing their population that their response to Covid has been brilliant, and they don't want the story muddied - especially with the Olympics coming up. So they do what oppressive regimes do: overreact to show that they are doing things. WE ARE STRONG!
An interesting question is what the official state media (i.e. virtually all of it) is saying about the situation there.
I suspect we are discovering the answer to the question of how bad is omicron when you haven't been subjected to the previous variants and your vaccines don't protect from it.
And the only places that could answer that sort of questions are the Covid zero places such as China and New Zealand / Australia but even those latter places have vaccines in place.
Jeez. We are discovering the answer to the question of how much an authoritarian government wants to ensure that a global event attended by people from over a hundred countries and covered by the global media goes ahead with as few issues as possible which might derail this, their flagship event, in particular Covid.
I mean that is pretty brutal but that is really "all" there is to it.
I for one am glad that "Topping" off of PB has personally solved a mystery that has much of the world puzzled, including the Chinese themselves
There's none so blind as those that will not see.
You're projecting again. Quite chronically
Whining about "projection" every time you are outfoxed on an internet chatroom says a bit more about you than about your interlocutor.
You're projecting again. "Outfoxed". lol
Pretty lame from a master wordsmith tbh.
it didn't merit anything more. "Outfoxed" is such an odd, yet telling word. Birthed from deep in your subconscious, smeared with the placenta of fear
Much better. While "smeared with the placenta of fear", upon deconstruction, is nonsensical and meaningless nevertheless it does have literary gusto and reads well.
Most shocking to me is that Prince Andrew's attorney wanted the judge to say NY's law giving child sexual abuse victims more time to sue is unconstitutional. This would have blocked access to justice for so many victims. Does the Queen know what her son is attempting to do? https://twitter.com/LisaBloom/status/1478400205179408384
A reminder, Brenda is paying for The Duke of York's legal bills.
Yes, but who wouldn't take their sons side in a court case?
The ones to be embarrassed are Andrew himself, and the protection squad that kept mum.
On Topic I see 3% strongly support Blair getting a Knighthood
SKS, The Spectator and John Rentoul!!!
BigJohnOwls please explain ! ;.)
Actually I think PB has a lot of Blair support. I'm personally quite an agnostic as regards His Blairiness.
Never got the Blair love-in thing. Always thought the demon-eyes poster was spot on.....
The demon-eyes thing was a shameful debasement of politics. No politicians are demons, and that poster was a desperate and pathetic lashing out by a moribund government.
A decision by the Republic of Ireland's government to introduce minimum unit pricing on alcohol has come into effect.
The new law will affect alcohol sold in off licences, shops and supermarkets.
Seem to be quite pokey minimum prices: Under the new measures, a standard bottle of wine cannot be sold for less than €7.40 (£6.40) and a can of beer for less than €1.70 (£1.40)
Spirits with 40% alcohol content cannot be sold for less than €20.70 (£17.30) and a 700 ml bottle of whiskey for less than €22. (£18.40)
Most shocking to me is that Prince Andrew's attorney wanted the judge to say NY's law giving child sexual abuse victims more time to sue is unconstitutional. This would have blocked access to justice for so many victims. Does the Queen know what her son is attempting to do? https://twitter.com/LisaBloom/status/1478400205179408384
A reminder, Brenda is paying for The Duke of York's legal bills.
Yes, but who wouldn't take their sons side in a court case?
The ones to be embarrassed are Andrew himself, and the protection squad that kept mum.
Indeed and better the Queen pays them than taxpayers
They will have to get over to Getttttrrrrr (or whatever it is called). How do we know really is them and not some copycat trying to get following by aping that they are them?
For my two pennth, the best meal I have ever had was at a restaurant that doesn't even have a michelin star. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly isn't the most expensive meal I have had.
Most of my best meals have been at non-Michelin places
Random top ten (I could choose eighty more)
Eating at Marco Pierre White's very first place, in south London (forget where) - before he had a star, wow
A crab and asparagus dish in a restaurant made from a garage outside Chiang Mai, Thailand
A beef massaman curry on a beach in Ko Tao, also Thailand
Eating at the first Barrafina off the Strand
Osyters and foie gras and gingerbread in some brilliant old school brasserie in Nantes, France
Dinner by Heston (that has a star or two)
A steak at G W Bush's favourite steak restaurant in Austin Texas
Another steak at Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires
Tiny gnocchi in a private restaurant on a private vineyard on the island of Pantelleria, Italy
Some sardines, recently, in a scruffy cafe above a fish market in Sagres, Portugal
How much of this is about company, location, mood, weather, post-coital bliss - rather than food? At least half of it
I am not sure where to even begin with best food, overall.
For steak, I do. The Tasting Room in Frederick MD does a filet mignon that is the best I have had anywhere, including the best that Buenos Aires or Texas has to offer.
For Indian food, sorry to say that my best experience has been neither in India nor in the UK, but in downtown Washington DC. Rasika (chef was in London prior to moving to the US). Their palak chaat is the most delicious single Indian dish I have ever eaten. For Northern Indian, Bukhara in New York used to be the place.
For the most inventive, surprising and incredible meal I've ever eaten, Contra in lower Manhattan wins: https://contra.nyc It has one star.
For the single ingredient of a dish, Brian Voltaggio at Volt (now sadly gone) outdid everything else I have ever experienced. He does molecular cuisine, which is not my favorite style. But he made 'caviar' out of virgin olive oil. It was the most intensely pleasurable tasting experience of my life to date.
I realize this is a very US-centric list. I have had many spectacular meals in France, Italy, the UK, and Switzerland. But none of them truly stand out from the rest.
I must be incredibly unlucky because 98% of my eating experiences in America are mediocre or worse. And I have been there a LOT, and all over, and in all kinds of joints, from top NYC starred places to innovative California pop-ups to famous BBQ shacks in the Deep South
The one exception is Louisiana especially New Orleans. The food there is consistently great, and they don't do the off-puttingly enormous servings you commonly get in the USA. How can such a rich country still believe "great food = tons of food"?
I think we forget how much better food in the UK has got. Because not many pubs can survive as shitty boozers and huge competition in the restaurant sector, "bog standard" offers across the board have got a hell of a lot better in the past 20-30 years. Sure we still have cheap and crap, but that £10 for a main range has got infinity better in lots of places, and many more people are willing to pay for really good stuff (I presume tv chefs lot has helped this).
Its not that long ago that the Olympic Breakfast at a Little Chef was what people did...now they queue for the overpriced but still better offering from the likes of the Breakfast Club.
The US its seems to be cheap and shit, middle price range, eat your weight in meat...then the small niche high end.
WE DEMAND JUBILEE PANCAKES.
(Which used to be 99p)
Used to be the one of the highlight of my family holidays to Cornwall as a kid....stopping off at a Little Chef for jubilee pancakes.
Now I imagine the kids of today in Cornwall are having organic fresh hand crafted crepes with matcha ice cream...
I'm not sure things have changed that much. When we go to Cornwall we usually have a few meals at the cafe on the cliff top above Treganhawke that does all day breakfasts. Plus a few cream teas, fish and chips and ice creams. The fanciest food is usually consumed at the Eden Project.
I go to Cornwall all the time and all my extended family live there. You're really not trying very hard. There is fine food in every major town. You can get excellent Indian and Thai everywhere, for a start
This wasn't intended as a criticism. I live in London so don't go to Cornwall for interesting world cuisine, but things like cream teas and fish and chips on the beach are things we can't get at home and are handy on walks or days on the beach which is what we tend to be doing. We usually go self catering and cook dinner at the chalet anyway, it's more relaxing than eating out with kids. And we don't really visit the major towns either - we always stay in the SE corner so the only close town is across the Tamar in Plymouth which is not especially nice (it is the city of many of my forebears, so I am well disposed to it but it is not an attractive place).
Fair enough
I know I am in a TINY minority here, but I love Plymouth. It is an extraordinary city. Extraordinarily hideous in places, but extraordinarily beautiful and historic in others. An amazing topography. Also some good places to eat!
I have a Plymouth Fine Dining story. On a business trip, having dinner in Spoons. Pissed up blokes a few tables away obviously on a session. Another guy comes in and comes over to tell his friends about his crabbing adventures!
Yep, you guessed it. Pulls an Asda bag onto the table and removes from it a large crab which proceeds to protest with claws towards crabbing gentleman. At which point bar maiden demands that he leave and take his crab with him.
Barmaid says: “get out of my pub and take your crabs with you”.
Thing that stood out for me in that story was that you were ‘dining’ in Wetherspoons.
Er, why on Earth would you do that?
It would be one of the more up-market joints in the vicinity.
Most shocking to me is that Prince Andrew's attorney wanted the judge to say NY's law giving child sexual abuse victims more time to sue is unconstitutional. This would have blocked access to justice for so many victims. Does the Queen know what her son is attempting to do? https://twitter.com/LisaBloom/status/1478400205179408384
A reminder, Brenda is paying for The Duke of York's legal bills.
Yes, but who wouldn't take their sons side in a court case?
The ones to be embarrassed are Andrew himself, and the protection squad that kept mum.
Indeed and better the Queen pays them than taxpayers
Whetre do you think her money came from, ultimately?
'We can’t vaccinate the planet every six months', says JCVI chief Fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence, the head of Britain's vaccine body has said - as he warned that giving boosters to people every six months was “not sustainable”.
6 monthly jabs may or may not be the right thing, but his remit is not "THE PLANET". It's the UK. Once again heading outside their remit.
Unless we vaccinate the planet - collectively - then we aren't immune from the next mutation.
That's another covid myth apparently: Myth #1,765 in a regular series...
We should share Covid vaccines with the world, because it is the right thing to do, but not because it will limit of emergence of 'variants' - vaccines don't generate variants but they don't preclude their emergence either - it's all a bit unclear and complicated.
Not just people either, Covid is a general mammalian phenomenon
Nevertheless a world with Covid raging is more likely to throw up things which come and fuck us up than a world with Covid under control. And the quicker we vaccinate the world the quicker we get from that first situation to the second. It's as much a practical imperative as a moral one.
No it isn't necessarily a practical or moral one and probably not a scientific one either. All governments have their first responsibility to their own population. IMHO, the first priority of Western governments is to figure out how to defeat or contain the virus. The strategies that they use will then inform them how they support other governments to do the same.
The virus respects no borders. It's a global pandemic and the best response to it is global. The more inefficient and illogical is the vaccine rollout - eg 5 or 6 jabs in one country and zero in another - the longer the pandemic will last, and the longer it lasts the more the damage will be and the more likely it is that we will be impacted.
The question then is this - to what extent should the normal rules of national centric politics - which you outline - be flexed in order to facilitate the optimum globally efficient solution?
I say the answer to this is "to a very great extent" and I think this is the correct answer. After all, this is a once-a-century emergency with an awful lot at stake. If we can't get our (global) act together for this, at least better than we are atm, when will we ever be able to?
So I am going to ask a question. I don't claim it is a fair question or perhaps even valid but it is the question that any politician has to be able to answer if they wish to accept your view.
How many people should we allow to die in this country, who could otherwise be saved, so that we can save lives of people in Africa, India, Russia or Poland?
As I say I am not saying it is a fair question but it is the question that cannot be dodged by politicians choosing to follow the route of putting global well being ahead of national well being.
And I know the obvious answer to you and probably to me is that in the long term we might actually save more lives here. But that is not certain and you are asking people to accept deaths now for fewer deaths tomorrow. That is a hard, if not impossible, sell for any politician.
I'll avoid the obvious answer and instead acknowledge what you say - that it's hard for any national government not to be driven entirely by high viz short term national interest, eg (for here) what booster strategy gets us out of all restrictions asap this year, end of story.
So, in practice, I guess the best we can hope for is that the global case is pushed by the likes of the WHO and various leading scientists and that it gets at least some traction with decision makers. Ie I feel the dead opposite to those who see that case being made by such people and respond "They should shut up. Not in their brief". I think the more noise is made about this the better.
Imagine we reach end of 2023 and Covid is conquered (for now) in the developed world but still raging most everywhere else. That, given the early brilliance in developing vaccines and treatments, would be such a shame - and furthermore a depressing sign that for all our tech and intelligence and progress we can't meet the big challenges.
The issue is -
- The supply of vaccines is no longer the issue. We are looking at 24 billion doses manufactured by the middle of this year. There are about 8 Billion people on the planet. - So Harry Hair Shirting about not "hoarding" vaccinations doesn't actually make sense. Not doing boosters or vaccinating children in the UK will not materially effect vaccine availability world wide.
There's loads of issues. Affordable Supply + Logistics & Distribution + Population Demand = Vaccination Outcome. There are problems to fix with all the inputs there.
But my strong sense is that the assertion "the domestic vaccine strategy of rich countries and their interaction with the pharmaceutical giants has no impact on the vaccination outcome in the rest of the world" is a self-comforting falsehood.
Sorry but it isn't. What you appear to be advocating is that we reduce our booster campaign even though that will not make any further supply available elsewhere. That is like saying: "there are children starving in the world. Until we can feed them we should starve ours too!"
I'm actually not arguing that we shouldn't complete this booster round. We should. Also continue to make inroads into our vaccine refusers. I was talking about the priorities from now on. Let's not be myopic with those.
But what specifically would us doing no 4th jabs do to help someone is Lesotho get a vaccine dose? Their government are already able to buy them at cost, they've already received millions via COVAX for free yet they've had little to no take up.
You want to blame western countries and companies but the problem is far, far more complicated than your reflex action.
What specific actions would you take to help vaccine take up in the developing world, assume vaccine availability is unlimited and free.
I'm not simplifying or casting blame, I'm pushing a strand of thought which is underrepresented. As for how to encourage take-up assuming all else in place, I don't have any bright ideas other than what we do - strong messaging from trusted people. And the PM.
Most shocking to me is that Prince Andrew's attorney wanted the judge to say NY's law giving child sexual abuse victims more time to sue is unconstitutional. This would have blocked access to justice for so many victims. Does the Queen know what her son is attempting to do? https://twitter.com/LisaBloom/status/1478400205179408384
A reminder, Brenda is paying for The Duke of York's legal bills.
Yes, but who wouldn't take their sons side in a court case?
The ones to be embarrassed are Andrew himself, and the protection squad that kept mum.
Indeed and better the Queen pays them than taxpayers
Whetre do you think her money came from, ultimately?
Xian seems to be on everyone's lips but Delta or Omicron they were hard locking the place down ages (weeks?) ago. Because the city is hosting the Winter Olympics so "just in case" China is blitzing it to get Covid cases down because they don't want the global spotlight to show any pox there.
Can we draw any other lessons from it? Nope.
We can't draw any lessons, but we can ask questions
Why are they apparently using flamethrowers to disinfect neighborhoods and bus stops etc?
I find it hard to believe this "malfunctioning foam sprayer" argument. I'm not dismissing it, but how would that work?
Also:
1 We have never seen these malfunctions before
2 There are several videos showing this bizarre "malfunction"
3 And the men using the foam sprayers that instead squirt flame don't look at all surprised. They don't react or back away, and frankly if my foam sprayer suddenly started ejecting napalm I would be a little alarmed, and my body language would show that
Hmmmm
The thing that really gives you a clue something isn't quite right, the story keeps changings. Its a few VHF cases, its a few Delta cases, its the local officials to blame, no its senior officials etc and of course now widespread food shortages. That didn't even happen in Wuhan.
As i said previously, i reckon they have Omicron, with no natural immunity and vaccines don't work, the party are shitting it as there isn't much they can do beyond hope Viagra hard lockdown works.
Yes, that's still my supposition. Tho there is also the chance that
1. They have a coincidental outbreak of VHF or whatever
2. They have a pretty fucking horrible new variant
Something is definitely up
Incidentally, on the veracity of the videos, out of curiosity I spent an hour or two the other day looking at the first videos that came out of Wuhan (you can still find them easily on Twitter)
Some of the most famous ones - bat-eating woman - moped filming bodies in the street - turn out to be fake. The bat was eaten in Indonesia, the bodies were actually rough sleepers in Shenzen
Yet sone of the most notorious ones - corpses piled high in hospitals, body bags filling up trucks, convulsing patients dying in chaos - turn out to be real. For a start, they have been repeated many times outside China. From Ecuador to Iran to Lombardy
And many of these horrific early videos were dismissed as fakes at the time
There is a third option: they have omicron, and it is spreading. They have expended a heck of a lot of effort convincing their population that their response to Covid has been brilliant, and they don't want the story muddied - especially with the Olympics coming up. So they do what oppressive regimes do: overreact to show that they are doing things. WE ARE STRONG!
An interesting question is what the official state media (i.e. virtually all of it) is saying about the situation there.
I suspect we are discovering the answer to the question of how bad is omicron when you haven't been subjected to the previous variants and your vaccines don't protect from it.
And the only places that could answer that sort of questions are the Covid zero places such as China and New Zealand / Australia but even those latter places have vaccines in place.
Jeez. We are discovering the answer to the question of how much an authoritarian government wants to ensure that a global event attended by people from over a hundred countries and covered by the global media goes ahead with as few issues as possible which might derail this, their flagship event, in particular Covid.
I mean that is pretty brutal but that is really "all" there is to it.
If they are cracking down just to protect the Olympics, why Xian? Xian is quite a long way from the Winter olympic sites. What in Xian is causing the crack-down?
Because if there's a viral apocalypse going on in a major Chinese city during the Games then the former stands to overshadow the latter. They've also made hay out of having the pandemic under control and the wonderful vaccines that they've been flogging/donating to the world.
If it all goes to Hell in a handcart (and takes down their showpiece propaganda event along with it) then the loss of face for the regime will be enormous.
Exactly. I mean you don't have to be a sinologist to get it. But you do need a handful of functioning brain cells which I appreciate is a big ask for some on PB.
For my two pennth, the best meal I have ever had was at a restaurant that doesn't even have a michelin star. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly isn't the most expensive meal I have had.
Most of my best meals have been at non-Michelin places
Random top ten (I could choose eighty more)
Eating at Marco Pierre White's very first place, in south London (forget where) - before he had a star, wow
A crab and asparagus dish in a restaurant made from a garage outside Chiang Mai, Thailand
A beef massaman curry on a beach in Ko Tao, also Thailand
Eating at the first Barrafina off the Strand
Osyters and foie gras and gingerbread in some brilliant old school brasserie in Nantes, France
Dinner by Heston (that has a star or two)
A steak at G W Bush's favourite steak restaurant in Austin Texas
Another steak at Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires
Tiny gnocchi in a private restaurant on a private vineyard on the island of Pantelleria, Italy
Some sardines, recently, in a scruffy cafe above a fish market in Sagres, Portugal
How much of this is about company, location, mood, weather, post-coital bliss - rather than food? At least half of it
I am not sure where to even begin with best food, overall.
For steak, I do. The Tasting Room in Frederick MD does a filet mignon that is the best I have had anywhere, including the best that Buenos Aires or Texas has to offer.
For Indian food, sorry to say that my best experience has been neither in India nor in the UK, but in downtown Washington DC. Rasika (chef was in London prior to moving to the US). Their palak chaat is the most delicious single Indian dish I have ever eaten. For Northern Indian, Bukhara in New York used to be the place.
For the most inventive, surprising and incredible meal I've ever eaten, Contra in lower Manhattan wins: https://contra.nyc It has one star.
For the single ingredient of a dish, Brian Voltaggio at Volt (now sadly gone) outdid everything else I have ever experienced. He does molecular cuisine, which is not my favorite style. But he made 'caviar' out of virgin olive oil. It was the most intensely pleasurable tasting experience of my life to date.
I realize this is a very US-centric list. I have had many spectacular meals in France, Italy, the UK, and Switzerland. But none of them truly stand out from the rest.
I must be incredibly unlucky because 98% of my eating experiences in America are mediocre or worse. And I have been there a LOT, and all over, and in all kinds of joints, from top NYC starred places to innovative California pop-ups to famous BBQ shacks in the Deep South
The one exception is Louisiana especially New Orleans. The food there is consistently great, and they don't do the off-puttingly enormous servings you commonly get in the USA. How can such a rich country still believe "great food = tons of food"?
I think we forget how much better food in the UK has got. Because not many pubs can survive as shitty boozers and huge competition in the restaurant sector, "bog standard" offers across the board have got a hell of a lot better in the past 20-30 years. Sure we still have cheap and crap, but that £10 for a main range has got infinity better in lots of places, and many more people are willing to pay for really good stuff (I presume tv chefs lot has helped this).
Its not that long ago that the Olympic Breakfast at a Little Chef was what people did...now they queue for the overpriced but still better offering from the likes of the Breakfast Club.
The US its seems to be cheap and shit, middle price range, eat your weight in meat...then the small niche high end.
WE DEMAND JUBILEE PANCAKES.
(Which used to be 99p)
Used to be the one of the highlight of my family holidays to Cornwall as a kid....stopping off at a Little Chef for jubilee pancakes.
Now I imagine the kids of today in Cornwall are having organic fresh hand crafted crepes with matcha ice cream...
I'm not sure things have changed that much. When we go to Cornwall we usually have a few meals at the cafe on the cliff top above Treganhawke that does all day breakfasts. Plus a few cream teas, fish and chips and ice creams. The fanciest food is usually consumed at the Eden Project.
I go to Cornwall all the time and all my extended family live there. You're really not trying very hard. There is fine food in every major town. You can get excellent Indian and Thai everywhere, for a start
This wasn't intended as a criticism. I live in London so don't go to Cornwall for interesting world cuisine, but things like cream teas and fish and chips on the beach are things we can't get at home and are handy on walks or days on the beach which is what we tend to be doing. We usually go self catering and cook dinner at the chalet anyway, it's more relaxing than eating out with kids. And we don't really visit the major towns either - we always stay in the SE corner so the only close town is across the Tamar in Plymouth which is not especially nice (it is the city of many of my forebears, so I am well disposed to it but it is not an attractive place).
Fair enough
I know I am in a TINY minority here, but I love Plymouth. It is an extraordinary city. Extraordinarily hideous in places, but extraordinarily beautiful and historic in others. An amazing topography. Also some good places to eat!
I have a Plymouth Fine Dining story. On a business trip, having dinner in Spoons. Pissed up blokes a few tables away obviously on a session. Another guy comes in and comes over to tell his friends about his crabbing adventures!
Yep, you guessed it. Pulls an Asda bag onto the table and removes from it a large crab which proceeds to protest with claws towards crabbing gentleman. At which point bar maiden demands that he leave and take his crab with him.
Barmaid says: “get out of my pub and take your crabs with you”.
Thing that stood out for me in that story was that you were ‘dining’ in Wetherspoons.
Er, why on Earth would you do that?
It would be one of the more up-market joints in the vicinity.
I thought we established earlier that Plymouth has a decent food scene?
Most shocking to me is that Prince Andrew's attorney wanted the judge to say NY's law giving child sexual abuse victims more time to sue is unconstitutional. This would have blocked access to justice for so many victims. Does the Queen know what her son is attempting to do? https://twitter.com/LisaBloom/status/1478400205179408384
A reminder, Brenda is paying for The Duke of York's legal bills.
Yes, but who wouldn't take their sons side in a court case?
The ones to be embarrassed are Andrew himself, and the protection squad that kept mum.
Indeed and better the Queen pays them than taxpayers
Whetre do you think her money came from, ultimately?
'We can’t vaccinate the planet every six months', says JCVI chief Fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence, the head of Britain's vaccine body has said - as he warned that giving boosters to people every six months was “not sustainable”.
6 monthly jabs may or may not be the right thing, but his remit is not "THE PLANET". It's the UK. Once again heading outside their remit.
Unless we vaccinate the planet - collectively - then we aren't immune from the next mutation.
That's another covid myth apparently: Myth #1,765 in a regular series...
We should share Covid vaccines with the world, because it is the right thing to do, but not because it will limit of emergence of 'variants' - vaccines don't generate variants but they don't preclude their emergence either - it's all a bit unclear and complicated.
Not just people either, Covid is a general mammalian phenomenon
Nevertheless a world with Covid raging is more likely to throw up things which come and fuck us up than a world with Covid under control. And the quicker we vaccinate the world the quicker we get from that first situation to the second. It's as much a practical imperative as a moral one.
No it isn't necessarily a practical or moral one and probably not a scientific one either. All governments have their first responsibility to their own population. IMHO, the first priority of Western governments is to figure out how to defeat or contain the virus. The strategies that they use will then inform them how they support other governments to do the same.
The virus respects no borders. It's a global pandemic and the best response to it is global. The more inefficient and illogical is the vaccine rollout - eg 5 or 6 jabs in one country and zero in another - the longer the pandemic will last, and the longer it lasts the more the damage will be and the more likely it is that we will be impacted.
The question then is this - to what extent should the normal rules of national centric politics - which you outline - be flexed in order to facilitate the optimum globally efficient solution?
I say the answer to this is "to a very great extent" and I think this is the correct answer. After all, this is a once-a-century emergency with an awful lot at stake. If we can't get our (global) act together for this, at least better than we are atm, when will we ever be able to?
So I am going to ask a question. I don't claim it is a fair question or perhaps even valid but it is the question that any politician has to be able to answer if they wish to accept your view.
How many people should we allow to die in this country, who could otherwise be saved, so that we can save lives of people in Africa, India, Russia or Poland?
As I say I am not saying it is a fair question but it is the question that cannot be dodged by politicians choosing to follow the route of putting global well being ahead of national well being.
And I know the obvious answer to you and probably to me is that in the long term we might actually save more lives here. But that is not certain and you are asking people to accept deaths now for fewer deaths tomorrow. That is a hard, if not impossible, sell for any politician.
I'll avoid the obvious answer and instead acknowledge what you say - that it's hard for any national government not to be driven entirely by high viz short term national interest, eg (for here) what booster strategy gets us out of all restrictions asap this year, end of story.
So, in practice, I guess the best we can hope for is that the global case is pushed by the likes of the WHO and various leading scientists and that it gets at least some traction with decision makers. Ie I feel the dead opposite to those who see that case being made by such people and respond "They should shut up. Not in their brief". I think the more noise is made about this the better.
Imagine we reach end of 2023 and Covid is conquered (for now) in the developed world but still raging most everywhere else. That, given the early brilliance in developing vaccines and treatments, would be such a shame - and furthermore a depressing sign that for all our tech and intelligence and progress we can't meet the big challenges.
The issue is -
- The supply of vaccines is no longer the issue. We are looking at 24 billion doses manufactured by the middle of this year. There are about 8 Billion people on the planet. - So Harry Hair Shirting about not "hoarding" vaccinations doesn't actually make sense. Not doing boosters or vaccinating children in the UK will not materially effect vaccine availability world wide.
There's loads of issues. Affordable Supply + Logistics & Distribution + Population Demand = Vaccination Outcome. There are problems to fix with all the inputs there.
But my strong sense is that the assertion "the domestic vaccine strategy of rich countries and their interaction with the pharmaceutical giants has no impact on the vaccination outcome in the rest of the world" is a self-comforting falsehood.
Sorry but it isn't. What you appear to be advocating is that we reduce our booster campaign even though that will not make any further supply available elsewhere. That is like saying: "there are children starving in the world. Until we can feed them we should starve ours too!"
I'm actually not arguing that we shouldn't complete this booster round. We should. Also continue to make inroads into our vaccine refusers. I was talking about the priorities from now on. Let's not be myopic with those.
But what specifically would us doing no 4th jabs do to help someone is Lesotho get a vaccine dose? Their government are already able to buy them at cost, they've already received millions via COVAX for free yet they've had little to no take up.
You want to blame western countries and companies but the problem is far, far more complicated than your reflex action.
What specific actions would you take to help vaccine take up in the developing world, assume vaccine availability is unlimited and free.
I'm not simplifying or casting blame, I'm pushing a strand of thought which is underrepresented. As for how to encourage take-up assuming all else in place, I don't have any bright ideas other than what we do - strong messaging from trusted people. And the PM.
Ah, the "I'm not saying we actually do this, I'm just putting the idea forward" advocacy argument.
Xian seems to be on everyone's lips but Delta or Omicron they were hard locking the place down ages (weeks?) ago. Because the city is hosting the Winter Olympics so "just in case" China is blitzing it to get Covid cases down because they don't want the global spotlight to show any pox there.
Can we draw any other lessons from it? Nope.
We can't draw any lessons, but we can ask questions
Why are they apparently using flamethrowers to disinfect neighborhoods and bus stops etc?
I find it hard to believe this "malfunctioning foam sprayer" argument. I'm not dismissing it, but how would that work?
Also:
1 We have never seen these malfunctions before
2 There are several videos showing this bizarre "malfunction"
3 And the men using the foam sprayers that instead squirt flame don't look at all surprised. They don't react or back away, and frankly if my foam sprayer suddenly started ejecting napalm I would be a little alarmed, and my body language would show that
Hmmmm
The thing that really gives you a clue something isn't quite right, the story keeps changings. Its a few VHF cases, its a few Delta cases, its the local officials to blame, no its senior officials etc and of course now widespread food shortages. That didn't even happen in Wuhan.
As i said previously, i reckon they have Omicron, with no natural immunity and vaccines don't work, the party are shitting it as there isn't much they can do beyond hope Viagra hard lockdown works.
Yes, that's still my supposition. Tho there is also the chance that
1. They have a coincidental outbreak of VHF or whatever
2. They have a pretty fucking horrible new variant
Something is definitely up
Incidentally, on the veracity of the videos, out of curiosity I spent an hour or two the other day looking at the first videos that came out of Wuhan (you can still find them easily on Twitter)
Some of the most famous ones - bat-eating woman - moped filming bodies in the street - turn out to be fake. The bat was eaten in Indonesia, the bodies were actually rough sleepers in Shenzen
Yet sone of the most notorious ones - corpses piled high in hospitals, body bags filling up trucks, convulsing patients dying in chaos - turn out to be real. For a start, they have been repeated many times outside China. From Ecuador to Iran to Lombardy
And many of these horrific early videos were dismissed as fakes at the time
There is a third option: they have omicron, and it is spreading. They have expended a heck of a lot of effort convincing their population that their response to Covid has been brilliant, and they don't want the story muddied - especially with the Olympics coming up. So they do what oppressive regimes do: overreact to show that they are doing things. WE ARE STRONG!
An interesting question is what the official state media (i.e. virtually all of it) is saying about the situation there.
I suspect we are discovering the answer to the question of how bad is omicron when you haven't been subjected to the previous variants and your vaccines don't protect from it.
And the only places that could answer that sort of questions are the Covid zero places such as China and New Zealand / Australia but even those latter places have vaccines in place.
Jeez. We are discovering the answer to the question of how much an authoritarian government wants to ensure that a global event attended by people from over a hundred countries and covered by the global media goes ahead with as few issues as possible which might derail this, their flagship event, in particular Covid.
I mean that is pretty brutal but that is really "all" there is to it.
If they are cracking down just to protect the Olympics, why Xian? Xian is quite a long way from the Winter olympic sites. What in Xian is causing the crack-down?
There is an outbreak of Covid there and they don't want it to get anywhere near the WO sites. Which we know that eg. Omicron could do.
So it is pretty bad that the CCP is hammering Xian for this reason but as I said earlier, that's "all" it is. They are locking it down because they can; not because it is anything other than a run of the mill Omicron outbreak.
You have absolutely no idea if this is definitely the case. The CCP keeps changing its story. Chinese official media have themselves talked about "Delta".
@StephenMcDonell · Dec 29, 2021 Replying to @dizzylimit So far, officials in #Xian have said they are dealing with a Delta outbreak rather than #Omicron. #China #COVID19"
All this Blair stuff is not good for Starmer I thihk, as I was saying earlier. He's been steadily and implicitly building a rehabilitation of Blair-type politics, and then along comes this to reunite Lefties and Tories against the idea of Blair again.
However, I don't think it will be much more than temporary - the government's problems and failings are now just much too familiar in the public's imagination.
Am I wrong in thinking that it was his Iraq policy that made Blair so toxic, and that otherwise he was generally regarded as sort of ok?
And I am wrong in thinking that the Conservative Party supported that policy wholeheartedly?
And the LD's opposed it (and that did them no bloody good whatsoever)?
You're certainly right that the Tories' full-throated support of the Iraq debacle seems to have been almost entirely expunged from the public's memory - or at least that of the rightwing press.
You never would have guessed from the Daily Mail's hysterical coverage of the Blair honours that many, if not all, Tory backbenchers ( and frontbenchers ) were even more enthusiastic for the war than Campbell and Blair themselves.
However, it's an excellent way of chipping away at Labour, so the tabloids will apply their usual morality and history-free approach to the particular topic.
You're also right that Charles Kennedy's intelligent and brave stance has been much too much forgotten. I also personally was much more in sympathy with his LD party than more recent incarnations.
Most shocking to me is that Prince Andrew's attorney wanted the judge to say NY's law giving child sexual abuse victims more time to sue is unconstitutional. This would have blocked access to justice for so many victims. Does the Queen know what her son is attempting to do? https://twitter.com/LisaBloom/status/1478400205179408384
A reminder, Brenda is paying for The Duke of York's legal bills.
Yes, but who wouldn't take their sons side in a court case?
The ones to be embarrassed are Andrew himself, and the protection squad that kept mum.
Indeed and better the Queen pays them than taxpayers
Whetre do you think her money came from, ultimately?
(formerly) Wealthy landowners?
Quite so. And their serfs ... and town merchants ... and foreign sailing trade ... and so on.
And tax exemption (until recent times) put the burden on the other taxpayers.
Most shocking to me is that Prince Andrew's attorney wanted the judge to say NY's law giving child sexual abuse victims more time to sue is unconstitutional. This would have blocked access to justice for so many victims. Does the Queen know what her son is attempting to do? https://twitter.com/LisaBloom/status/1478400205179408384
Lisa Bloom being a lawyer professionally representing Epstein victims / complainants (not sure which word we need to be on at present).
Most shocking to me is that Prince Andrew's attorney wanted the judge to say NY's law giving child sexual abuse victims more time to sue is unconstitutional. This would have blocked access to justice for so many victims. Does the Queen know what her son is attempting to do? https://twitter.com/LisaBloom/status/1478400205179408384
A reminder, Brenda is paying for The Duke of York's legal bills.
Yes, but who wouldn't take their sons side in a court case?
The ones to be embarrassed are Andrew himself, and the protection squad that kept mum.
Indeed and better the Queen pays them than taxpayers
Whetre do you think her money came from, ultimately?
(formerly) Wealthy landowners?
Quite so. And their serfs ... and town merchants ... and foreign sailing trade ... and so on.
And tax exemption (until recent times) put the burden on the other taxpayers.
Yes, but apart from all that, at least she doesn't receive taxpayer money any more..
Liverpool Football Club can confirm an application has been submitted for the postponement of Thursday’s Carabao Cup semi-final, first-leg tie with Arsenal due to an escalating number of suspected positive COVID-19 cases and player availability.
The Reds have formally requested to the EFL that the fixture is rescheduled after further suspected positive tests were registered among players and staff, allied to other factors impacting selection, including illness and injury.
In response, the club halted preparations at the AXA Training Centre, meaning Tuesday’s first-team training session was cancelled.
Among the considerations which led to today’s application to the EFL is the need for travelling supporters to be given as much notice as possible of any potential postponement.
With no prospect of the current situation improving ahead of Thursday’s fixture and the potential for it to worsen, the club considers it both prudent and reasonable to ask for the fixture to be rescheduled.
Liverpool FC will offer a further update on the application process, as well as the resumption of training, in due course.
Most shocking to me is that Prince Andrew's attorney wanted the judge to say NY's law giving child sexual abuse victims more time to sue is unconstitutional. This would have blocked access to justice for so many victims. Does the Queen know what her son is attempting to do? https://twitter.com/LisaBloom/status/1478400205179408384
A reminder, Brenda is paying for The Duke of York's legal bills.
Yes, but who wouldn't take their sons side in a court case?
The ones to be embarrassed are Andrew himself, and the protection squad that kept mum.
Indeed and better the Queen pays them than taxpayers
All this Blair stuff is not good for Starmer I thihk, as I was saying earlier. He's been steadily and implicitly building a rehabilitation of Blair-type politics, and then along comes this to reunite Lefties and Tories against the idea of Blair again.
However, I don't think it will be much more than temporary - the government's problems and failings are now just much too familiar in the public's imagination.
Am I wrong in thinking that it was his Iraq policy that made Blair so toxic, and that otherwise he was generally regarded as sort of ok?
And I am wrong in thinking that the Conservative Party supported that policy wholeheartedly?
And the LD's opposed it (and that did them no bloody good whatsoever)?
You're certainly right that the Tories' full-throated support of the Iraq catastrophe seems to have been almost entirely expunged from the public's memory - or at least that of the rightwing press.
You never would have guessed from the Daily Mail's hysterical coverage of the Blair honours that many, if not all, Tory backbenchers ( and frontbenchers ) were even more enthusiastic for the war than Campbell and Blair themselves.
However, it's an excellent way of chipping away at Labour, so the tabloids will apply their usual morality and history-free approach to this particular topic.
You're also right that Charles Kennedy's intelligent and principled stand has been much too much forgotten. I also personally was much more in sympathy with his LD party than more recent incarnations.
Corbyn apologised for the Iraq war. Has any Conservative ever done similar?
I see we are back to hysterical conspiracy theories about Xian on here.
Jesus wept. It’s the Olympics. Move on FFS.
Look, I know that you are shitting yourself, like Topping and Ian, but I can't help the fact a genuine mystery is unfolding in Xi'an. Which is probably Omicron, but possibly not
And it's not like this isn't a major news story (whatever the cause) - if they have Omicron and they can't control it - or they need to lockdown large chunks of China to do so - that is going to have serious consequences for the global economy, as supply chains fail, again. So we can't really "move on"
All this Blair stuff is not good for Starmer I thihk, as I was saying earlier. He's been steadily and implicitly building a rehabilitation of Blair-type politics, and then along comes this to reunite Lefties and Tories against the idea of Blair again.
However, I don't think it will be much more than temporary - the government's problems and failings are now just much too familiar in the public's imagination.
Am I wrong in thinking that it was his Iraq policy that made Blair so toxic, and that otherwise he was generally regarded as sort of ok?
And I am wrong in thinking that the Conservative Party supported that policy wholeheartedly?
And the LD's opposed it (and that did them no bloody good whatsoever)?
You're certainly right that the Tories' full-throated support of the Iraq catastrophe seems to have been almost entirely expunged from the public's memory - or at least that of the rightwing press.
You never would have guessed from the Daily Mail's hysterical coverage of the Blair honours that many, if not all, Tory backbenchers ( and frontbenchers ) were even more enthusiastic for the war than Campbell and Blair themselves.
However, it's an excellent way of chipping away at Labour, so the tabloids will apply their usual morality and history-free approach to the particular topic.
You're also right that Charles Kennedy's intelligent and principled stand has been much too much forgotten. I also personally was much more in sympathy with his LD party than more recent incarnations.
I voted LD for the 1st and only time in the GE after Iraq
Xian seems to be on everyone's lips but Delta or Omicron they were hard locking the place down ages (weeks?) ago. Because the city is hosting the Winter Olympics so "just in case" China is blitzing it to get Covid cases down because they don't want the global spotlight to show any pox there.
Can we draw any other lessons from it? Nope.
We can't draw any lessons, but we can ask questions
Why are they apparently using flamethrowers to disinfect neighborhoods and bus stops etc?
I find it hard to believe this "malfunctioning foam sprayer" argument. I'm not dismissing it, but how would that work?
Also:
1 We have never seen these malfunctions before
2 There are several videos showing this bizarre "malfunction"
3 And the men using the foam sprayers that instead squirt flame don't look at all surprised. They don't react or back away, and frankly if my foam sprayer suddenly started ejecting napalm I would be a little alarmed, and my body language would show that
Hmmmm
The thing that really gives you a clue something isn't quite right, the story keeps changings. Its a few VHF cases, its a few Delta cases, its the local officials to blame, no its senior officials etc and of course now widespread food shortages. That didn't even happen in Wuhan.
As i said previously, i reckon they have Omicron, with no natural immunity and vaccines don't work, the party are shitting it as there isn't much they can do beyond hope Viagra hard lockdown works.
Yes, that's still my supposition. Tho there is also the chance that
1. They have a coincidental outbreak of VHF or whatever
2. They have a pretty fucking horrible new variant
Something is definitely up
Incidentally, on the veracity of the videos, out of curiosity I spent an hour or two the other day looking at the first videos that came out of Wuhan (you can still find them easily on Twitter)
Some of the most famous ones - bat-eating woman - moped filming bodies in the street - turn out to be fake. The bat was eaten in Indonesia, the bodies were actually rough sleepers in Shenzen
Yet sone of the most notorious ones - corpses piled high in hospitals, body bags filling up trucks, convulsing patients dying in chaos - turn out to be real. For a start, they have been repeated many times outside China. From Ecuador to Iran to Lombardy
And many of these horrific early videos were dismissed as fakes at the time
There is a third option: they have omicron, and it is spreading. They have expended a heck of a lot of effort convincing their population that their response to Covid has been brilliant, and they don't want the story muddied - especially with the Olympics coming up. So they do what oppressive regimes do: overreact to show that they are doing things. WE ARE STRONG!
An interesting question is what the official state media (i.e. virtually all of it) is saying about the situation there.
I suspect we are discovering the answer to the question of how bad is omicron when you haven't been subjected to the previous variants and your vaccines don't protect from it.
And the only places that could answer that sort of questions are the Covid zero places such as China and New Zealand / Australia but even those latter places have vaccines in place.
Jeez. We are discovering the answer to the question of how much an authoritarian government wants to ensure that a global event attended by people from over a hundred countries and covered by the global media goes ahead with as few issues as possible which might derail this, their flagship event, in particular Covid.
I mean that is pretty brutal but that is really "all" there is to it.
If they are cracking down just to protect the Olympics, why Xian? Xian is quite a long way from the Winter olympic sites. What in Xian is causing the crack-down?
There is an outbreak of Covid there and they don't want it to get anywhere near the WO sites. Which we know that eg. Omicron could do.
So it is pretty bad that the CCP is hammering Xian for this reason but as I said earlier, that's "all" it is. They are locking it down because they can; not because it is anything other than a run of the mill Omicron outbreak.
You have absolutely no idea if this is definitely the case. The CCP keeps changing its story. Chinese official media have themselves talked about "Delta".
@StephenMcDonell · Dec 29, 2021 Replying to @dizzylimit So far, officials in #Xian have said they are dealing with a Delta outbreak rather than #Omicron. #China #COVID19"
So what is it? Omicron is a good guess, but that's all it is. A guess. The idea that "topping" has personally and finally worked it all out is piquant
Extraordinary that anyone on here is taking at face value anything coming out of the Chinese regime.
Or that they presume to know with certainty why they are behaving as they are, when the q4 2019 aftermath of the initial sarscov2 pandemic apparently escaped the attention of all western Intelligience agencies.
No one wants to hear something even worse is brewing in the East so as usual they shoot the messenger. Well personally Leon I offer tog my thanks for drawing our attention to these possible black swans.
Sky reporting from the US saying things are not looking good for Andrew
Camilla Long in the Sunday Times was asking why all the other famous men have (apparently) gotten away with things whilst Prince Andrew is caught in the spotlights.
To me, it seems fairly obvious. Because Andrew is a very useful dead cat to throw on the table. There is enough there to occupy people ("He's the Queen's son!") but not so significant that his trial and conviction would lead to a serious undermining of powerful interests (yes, the Royal Family would get hit but it wouldn't cause its collapse).
Indeed, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Trump etc all met Epstein and Maxwell as did plenty of other wealthy and famous people. Some also went to his island but apparently only Prince Andrew ie a non American foreigner, is to face an action from the US legal system
Andrew faces a civil lawsuit from a particular woman who alleges that he slept with her when she was a minor. I would assume that were she to have similar allegations to make against anyone else where she thought there was a chance of meeting the required standard of proof, she would do so. It doesn't strike me as anything akin to an organised conspiracy against a non-American. What does strike me as odd is that in a case about allegations of powerful men abusing their positions of power, the only person in jail so far is a woman.
Does anyone know why this case is being examined in America when the alleged offence took place in the UK and the Plaintiff is now Australian?
The offence is trafficking a minor from USA for sexual purposes.
Xian seems to be on everyone's lips but Delta or Omicron they were hard locking the place down ages (weeks?) ago. Because the city is hosting the Winter Olympics so "just in case" China is blitzing it to get Covid cases down because they don't want the global spotlight to show any pox there.
Can we draw any other lessons from it? Nope.
We can't draw any lessons, but we can ask questions
Why are they apparently using flamethrowers to disinfect neighborhoods and bus stops etc?
I find it hard to believe this "malfunctioning foam sprayer" argument. I'm not dismissing it, but how would that work?
Also:
1 We have never seen these malfunctions before
2 There are several videos showing this bizarre "malfunction"
3 And the men using the foam sprayers that instead squirt flame don't look at all surprised. They don't react or back away, and frankly if my foam sprayer suddenly started ejecting napalm I would be a little alarmed, and my body language would show that
Hmmmm
The thing that really gives you a clue something isn't quite right, the story keeps changings. Its a few VHF cases, its a few Delta cases, its the local officials to blame, no its senior officials etc and of course now widespread food shortages. That didn't even happen in Wuhan.
As i said previously, i reckon they have Omicron, with no natural immunity and vaccines don't work, the party are shitting it as there isn't much they can do beyond hope Viagra hard lockdown works.
Yes, that's still my supposition. Tho there is also the chance that
1. They have a coincidental outbreak of VHF or whatever
2. They have a pretty fucking horrible new variant
Something is definitely up
Incidentally, on the veracity of the videos, out of curiosity I spent an hour or two the other day looking at the first videos that came out of Wuhan (you can still find them easily on Twitter)
Some of the most famous ones - bat-eating woman - moped filming bodies in the street - turn out to be fake. The bat was eaten in Indonesia, the bodies were actually rough sleepers in Shenzen
Yet sone of the most notorious ones - corpses piled high in hospitals, body bags filling up trucks, convulsing patients dying in chaos - turn out to be real. For a start, they have been repeated many times outside China. From Ecuador to Iran to Lombardy
And many of these horrific early videos were dismissed as fakes at the time
There is a third option: they have omicron, and it is spreading. They have expended a heck of a lot of effort convincing their population that their response to Covid has been brilliant, and they don't want the story muddied - especially with the Olympics coming up. So they do what oppressive regimes do: overreact to show that they are doing things. WE ARE STRONG!
An interesting question is what the official state media (i.e. virtually all of it) is saying about the situation there.
I suspect we are discovering the answer to the question of how bad is omicron when you haven't been subjected to the previous variants and your vaccines don't protect from it.
And the only places that could answer that sort of questions are the Covid zero places such as China and New Zealand / Australia but even those latter places have vaccines in place.
Jeez. We are discovering the answer to the question of how much an authoritarian government wants to ensure that a global event attended by people from over a hundred countries and covered by the global media goes ahead with as few issues as possible which might derail this, their flagship event, in particular Covid.
I mean that is pretty brutal but that is really "all" there is to it.
I for one am glad that "Topping" off of PB has personally solved a mystery that has much of the world puzzled, including the Chinese themselves
There's none so blind as those that will not see.
You're projecting again. Quite chronically
Whining about "projection" every time you are outfoxed on an internet chatroom says a bit more about you than about your interlocutor.
You're projecting again. "Outfoxed". lol
Pretty lame from a master wordsmith tbh.
it didn't merit anything more. "Outfoxed" is such an odd, yet telling word. Birthed from deep in your subconscious, smeared with the placenta of fear
Much better. While "smeared with the placenta of fear", upon deconstruction, is nonsensical and meaningless nevertheless it does have literary gusto and reads well.
Thanks. I decided you probably merited a few seconds, after all
Xian seems to be on everyone's lips but Delta or Omicron they were hard locking the place down ages (weeks?) ago. Because the city is hosting the Winter Olympics so "just in case" China is blitzing it to get Covid cases down because they don't want the global spotlight to show any pox there.
Can we draw any other lessons from it? Nope.
We can't draw any lessons, but we can ask questions
Why are they apparently using flamethrowers to disinfect neighborhoods and bus stops etc?
I find it hard to believe this "malfunctioning foam sprayer" argument. I'm not dismissing it, but how would that work?
Also:
1 We have never seen these malfunctions before
2 There are several videos showing this bizarre "malfunction"
3 And the men using the foam sprayers that instead squirt flame don't look at all surprised. They don't react or back away, and frankly if my foam sprayer suddenly started ejecting napalm I would be a little alarmed, and my body language would show that
Hmmmm
The thing that really gives you a clue something isn't quite right, the story keeps changings. Its a few VHF cases, its a few Delta cases, its the local officials to blame, no its senior officials etc and of course now widespread food shortages. That didn't even happen in Wuhan.
As i said previously, i reckon they have Omicron, with no natural immunity and vaccines don't work, the party are shitting it as there isn't much they can do beyond hope Viagra hard lockdown works.
Yes, that's still my supposition. Tho there is also the chance that
1. They have a coincidental outbreak of VHF or whatever
2. They have a pretty fucking horrible new variant
Something is definitely up
Incidentally, on the veracity of the videos, out of curiosity I spent an hour or two the other day looking at the first videos that came out of Wuhan (you can still find them easily on Twitter)
Some of the most famous ones - bat-eating woman - moped filming bodies in the street - turn out to be fake. The bat was eaten in Indonesia, the bodies were actually rough sleepers in Shenzen
Yet sone of the most notorious ones - corpses piled high in hospitals, body bags filling up trucks, convulsing patients dying in chaos - turn out to be real. For a start, they have been repeated many times outside China. From Ecuador to Iran to Lombardy
And many of these horrific early videos were dismissed as fakes at the time
There is a third option: they have omicron, and it is spreading. They have expended a heck of a lot of effort convincing their population that their response to Covid has been brilliant, and they don't want the story muddied - especially with the Olympics coming up. So they do what oppressive regimes do: overreact to show that they are doing things. WE ARE STRONG!
An interesting question is what the official state media (i.e. virtually all of it) is saying about the situation there.
I suspect we are discovering the answer to the question of how bad is omicron when you haven't been subjected to the previous variants and your vaccines don't protect from it.
And the only places that could answer that sort of questions are the Covid zero places such as China and New Zealand / Australia but even those latter places have vaccines in place.
Jeez. We are discovering the answer to the question of how much an authoritarian government wants to ensure that a global event attended by people from over a hundred countries and covered by the global media goes ahead with as few issues as possible which might derail this, their flagship event, in particular Covid.
I mean that is pretty brutal but that is really "all" there is to it.
I for one am glad that "Topping" off of PB has personally solved a mystery that has much of the world puzzled, including the Chinese themselves
There's none so blind as those that will not see.
You're projecting again. Quite chronically
Whining about "projection" every time you are outfoxed on an internet chatroom says a bit more about you than about your interlocutor.
You're projecting again. "Outfoxed". lol
Pretty lame from a master wordsmith tbh.
it didn't merit anything more. "Outfoxed" is such an odd, yet telling word. Birthed from deep in your subconscious, smeared with the placenta of fear
Much better. While "smeared with the placenta of fear", upon deconstruction, is nonsensical and meaningless nevertheless it does have literary gusto and reads well.
Thanks. I decided you probably merited a few seconds, after all
Those just saying well it because of the Olympics, it worth noting there have other outbreaks in other cities during the last month e.g. in several cities in the eastern province of Zhejiang near Shanghai.
But they didn't impose anywhere near the level of Viagra hard lockdown they have in Xian. They did exactly what they have done so far over the past 2 years, test everybody every few days, contact trace, isolate those in that network. And that was it.
None of this building a massive quarantine centre, or a Premier Inn in an underpass or sending 1000s of medics.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) this week doubled down on his campaign to promote the so-called "natural immunity" that occurs after one has been infected by Covid-19.
During an interview with WCPT, Johnson said that vaccine scientists are wrong to think that they "can create something better than God."
For my two pennth, the best meal I have ever had was at a restaurant that doesn't even have a michelin star. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly isn't the most expensive meal I have had.
Most of my best meals have been at non-Michelin places
Random top ten (I could choose eighty more)
Eating at Marco Pierre White's very first place, in south London (forget where) - before he had a star, wow
A crab and asparagus dish in a restaurant made from a garage outside Chiang Mai, Thailand
A beef massaman curry on a beach in Ko Tao, also Thailand
Eating at the first Barrafina off the Strand
Osyters and foie gras and gingerbread in some brilliant old school brasserie in Nantes, France
Dinner by Heston (that has a star or two)
A steak at G W Bush's favourite steak restaurant in Austin Texas
Another steak at Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires
Tiny gnocchi in a private restaurant on a private vineyard on the island of Pantelleria, Italy
Some sardines, recently, in a scruffy cafe above a fish market in Sagres, Portugal
How much of this is about company, location, mood, weather, post-coital bliss - rather than food? At least half of it
I am not sure where to even begin with best food, overall.
For steak, I do. The Tasting Room in Frederick MD does a filet mignon that is the best I have had anywhere, including the best that Buenos Aires or Texas has to offer.
For Indian food, sorry to say that my best experience has been neither in India nor in the UK, but in downtown Washington DC. Rasika (chef was in London prior to moving to the US). Their palak chaat is the most delicious single Indian dish I have ever eaten. For Northern Indian, Bukhara in New York used to be the place.
For the most inventive, surprising and incredible meal I've ever eaten, Contra in lower Manhattan wins: https://contra.nyc It has one star.
For the single ingredient of a dish, Brian Voltaggio at Volt (now sadly gone) outdid everything else I have ever experienced. He does molecular cuisine, which is not my favorite style. But he made 'caviar' out of virgin olive oil. It was the most intensely pleasurable tasting experience of my life to date.
I realize this is a very US-centric list. I have had many spectacular meals in France, Italy, the UK, and Switzerland. But none of them truly stand out from the rest.
I must be incredibly unlucky because 98% of my eating experiences in America are mediocre or worse. And I have been there a LOT, and all over, and in all kinds of joints, from top NYC starred places to innovative California pop-ups to famous BBQ shacks in the Deep South
The one exception is Louisiana especially New Orleans. The food there is consistently great, and they don't do the off-puttingly enormous servings you commonly get in the USA. How can such a rich country still believe "great food = tons of food"?
I think we forget how much better food in the UK has got. Because not many pubs can survive as shitty boozers and huge competition in the restaurant sector, "bog standard" offers across the board have got a hell of a lot better in the past 20-30 years. Sure we still have cheap and crap, but that £10 for a main range has got infinity better in lots of places, and many more people are willing to pay for really good stuff (I presume tv chefs lot has helped this).
Its not that long ago that the Olympic Breakfast at a Little Chef was what people did...now they queue for the overpriced but still better offering from the likes of the Breakfast Club.
The US its seems to be cheap and shit, middle price range, eat your weight in meat...then the small niche high end.
WE DEMAND JUBILEE PANCAKES.
(Which used to be 99p)
Used to be the one of the highlight of my family holidays to Cornwall as a kid....stopping off at a Little Chef for jubilee pancakes.
Now I imagine the kids of today in Cornwall are having organic fresh hand crafted crepes with matcha ice cream...
I'm not sure things have changed that much. When we go to Cornwall we usually have a few meals at the cafe on the cliff top above Treganhawke that does all day breakfasts. Plus a few cream teas, fish and chips and ice creams. The fanciest food is usually consumed at the Eden Project.
I go to Cornwall all the time and all my extended family live there. You're really not trying very hard. There is fine food in every major town. You can get excellent Indian and Thai everywhere, for a start
This wasn't intended as a criticism. I live in London so don't go to Cornwall for interesting world cuisine, but things like cream teas and fish and chips on the beach are things we can't get at home and are handy on walks or days on the beach which is what we tend to be doing. We usually go self catering and cook dinner at the chalet anyway, it's more relaxing than eating out with kids. And we don't really visit the major towns either - we always stay in the SE corner so the only close town is across the Tamar in Plymouth which is not especially nice (it is the city of many of my forebears, so I am well disposed to it but it is not an attractive place).
Fair enough
I know I am in a TINY minority here, but I love Plymouth. It is an extraordinary city. Extraordinarily hideous in places, but extraordinarily beautiful and historic in others. An amazing topography. Also some good places to eat!
I have a Plymouth Fine Dining story. On a business trip, having dinner in Spoons. Pissed up blokes a few tables away obviously on a session. Another guy comes in and comes over to tell his friends about his crabbing adventures!
Yep, you guessed it. Pulls an Asda bag onto the table and removes from it a large crab which proceeds to protest with claws towards crabbing gentleman. At which point bar maiden demands that he leave and take his crab with him.
Barmaid says: “get out of my pub and take your crabs with you”.
Thing that stood out for me in that story was that you were ‘dining’ in Wetherspoons.
My key takeaway from the presser is that 3 jabs provide 88% protection against hospitalisation. So we need to change focus away from let the bodies pile high to how we keep essential services going for the next month or so.
I agree. It’s as I predicted Sunday. Keep the wheels going. But without going to 5 day isolation like France and US, or anything new on indoor spread like indoor masking, what backs up the intention?
So I was wrong, I thought they would announce 5 day isolation and more indoor mask use this week.
Xian seems to be on everyone's lips but Delta or Omicron they were hard locking the place down ages (weeks?) ago. Because the city is hosting the Winter Olympics so "just in case" China is blitzing it to get Covid cases down because they don't want the global spotlight to show any pox there.
Can we draw any other lessons from it? Nope.
We can't draw any lessons, but we can ask questions
Why are they apparently using flamethrowers to disinfect neighborhoods and bus stops etc?
I find it hard to believe this "malfunctioning foam sprayer" argument. I'm not dismissing it, but how would that work?
Also:
1 We have never seen these malfunctions before
2 There are several videos showing this bizarre "malfunction"
3 And the men using the foam sprayers that instead squirt flame don't look at all surprised. They don't react or back away, and frankly if my foam sprayer suddenly started ejecting napalm I would be a little alarmed, and my body language would show that
Hmmmm
The thing that really gives you a clue something isn't quite right, the story keeps changings. Its a few VHF cases, its a few Delta cases, its the local officials to blame, no its senior officials etc and of course now widespread food shortages. That didn't even happen in Wuhan.
As i said previously, i reckon they have Omicron, with no natural immunity and vaccines don't work, the party are shitting it as there isn't much they can do beyond hope Viagra hard lockdown works.
Yes, that's still my supposition. Tho there is also the chance that
1. They have a coincidental outbreak of VHF or whatever
2. They have a pretty fucking horrible new variant
Something is definitely up
Incidentally, on the veracity of the videos, out of curiosity I spent an hour or two the other day looking at the first videos that came out of Wuhan (you can still find them easily on Twitter)
Some of the most famous ones - bat-eating woman - moped filming bodies in the street - turn out to be fake. The bat was eaten in Indonesia, the bodies were actually rough sleepers in Shenzen
Yet sone of the most notorious ones - corpses piled high in hospitals, body bags filling up trucks, convulsing patients dying in chaos - turn out to be real. For a start, they have been repeated many times outside China. From Ecuador to Iran to Lombardy
And many of these horrific early videos were dismissed as fakes at the time
There is a third option: they have omicron, and it is spreading. They have expended a heck of a lot of effort convincing their population that their response to Covid has been brilliant, and they don't want the story muddied - especially with the Olympics coming up. So they do what oppressive regimes do: overreact to show that they are doing things. WE ARE STRONG!
An interesting question is what the official state media (i.e. virtually all of it) is saying about the situation there.
I suspect we are discovering the answer to the question of how bad is omicron when you haven't been subjected to the previous variants and your vaccines don't protect from it.
And the only places that could answer that sort of questions are the Covid zero places such as China and New Zealand / Australia but even those latter places have vaccines in place.
Jeez. We are discovering the answer to the question of how much an authoritarian government wants to ensure that a global event attended by people from over a hundred countries and covered by the global media goes ahead with as few issues as possible which might derail this, their flagship event, in particular Covid.
I mean that is pretty brutal but that is really "all" there is to it.
If they are cracking down just to protect the Olympics, why Xian? Xian is quite a long way from the Winter olympic sites. What in Xian is causing the crack-down?
There is an outbreak of Covid there and they don't want it to get anywhere near the WO sites. Which we know that eg. Omicron could do.
So it is pretty bad that the CCP is hammering Xian for this reason but as I said earlier, that's "all" it is. They are locking it down because they can; not because it is anything other than a run of the mill Omicron outbreak.
You have absolutely no idea if this is definitely the case. The CCP keeps changing its story. Chinese official media have themselves talked about "Delta".
@StephenMcDonell · Dec 29, 2021 Replying to @dizzylimit So far, officials in #Xian have said they are dealing with a Delta outbreak rather than #Omicron. #China #COVID19"
So what is it? Omicron is a good guess, but that's all it is. A guess. The idea that "topping" has personally and finally worked it all out is piquant
"The CCP keeps changing its story."
LOL. NO I REFUSE TO BELIEVE IT.
The Chinese Communist Party isn't giving you, King of Twitter ("I spent an hour or two on Twitter looking at the Wuhan oubreak") a consistent story of what's happening in China?!?
I simply don't believe it.
And hemorrhagic fever, so Google tells me, is endemic in China. Why here's a quote:
"Hemorrhagic fever is a common infectious disease in northern China," the paper said. "Starting from October every year, some areas of Shaanxi [of which Xi'an is the provincial capital] enter the high incidence season of hemorrhagic fever."
But look we understand the function PB provides for you at these times of uncertainty so we are happy to be the voice of reason for your hysterical outpourings.
I see we are back to hysterical conspiracy theories about Xian on here.
Jesus wept. It’s the Olympics. Move on FFS.
Look, I know that you are shitting yourself, like Topping and Ian, but I can't help the fact a genuine mystery is unfolding in Xi'an. Which is probably Omicron, but possibly not
And it's not like this isn't a major news story (whatever the cause) - if they have Omicron and they can't control it - or they need to lockdown large chunks of China to do so - that is going to have serious consequences for the global economy, as supply chains fail, again. So we can't really "move on"
Yes if/when they have omicron will have consequences, I completely agree. But stop worrying, get out more.
I see we are back to hysterical conspiracy theories about Xian on here.
Jesus wept. It’s the Olympics. Move on FFS.
Look, I know that you are shitting yourself, like Topping and Ian, but I can't help the fact a genuine mystery is unfolding in Xi'an. Which is probably Omicron, but possibly not
And it's not like this isn't a major news story (whatever the cause) - if they have Omicron and they can't control it - or they need to lockdown large chunks of China to do so - that is going to have serious consequences for the global economy, as supply chains fail, again. So we can't really "move on"
It would be nice however to see a post on it from a reliable source, rather than just from someone who routinely jumps on every passing crackpot theory without thinking about it at all? We villagers are tired of hearing your voice running around shouting about all these wild animals coming our way…
All this Blair stuff is not good for Starmer I thihk, as I was saying earlier. He's been steadily and implicitly building a rehabilitation of Blair-type politics, and then along comes this to reunite Lefties and Tories against the idea of Blair again.
However, I don't think it will be much more than temporary - the government's problems and failings are now just much too familiar in the public's imagination.
Am I wrong in thinking that it was his Iraq policy that made Blair so toxic, and that otherwise he was generally regarded as sort of ok?
And I am wrong in thinking that the Conservative Party supported that policy wholeheartedly?
And the LD's opposed it (and that did them no bloody good whatsoever)?
You're certainly right that the Tories' full-throated support of the Iraq catastrophe seems to have been almost entirely expunged from the public's memory - or at least that of the rightwing press.
You never would have guessed from the Daily Mail's hysterical coverage of the Blair honours that many, if not all, Tory backbenchers ( and frontbenchers ) were even more enthusiastic for the war than Campbell and Blair themselves.
However, it's an excellent way of chipping away at Labour, so the tabloids will apply their usual morality and history-free approach to the particular topic.
You're also right that Charles Kennedy's intelligent and principled stand has been much too much forgotten. I also personally was much more in sympathy with his LD party than more recent incarnations.
I voted LD for the 1st and only time in the GE after Iraq
With the benefit of hindsight we are all saying that now. I can't recall the LD landslide of 20005 mind you.
Liverpool Football Club can confirm an application has been submitted for the postponement of Thursday’s Carabao Cup semi-final, first-leg tie with Arsenal due to an escalating number of suspected positive COVID-19 cases and player availability.
The Reds have formally requested to the EFL that the fixture is rescheduled after further suspected positive tests were registered among players and staff, allied to other factors impacting selection, including illness and injury.
In response, the club halted preparations at the AXA Training Centre, meaning Tuesday’s first-team training session was cancelled.
Among the considerations which led to today’s application to the EFL is the need for travelling supporters to be given as much notice as possible of any potential postponement.
With no prospect of the current situation improving ahead of Thursday’s fixture and the potential for it to worsen, the club considers it both prudent and reasonable to ask for the fixture to be rescheduled.
Liverpool FC will offer a further update on the application process, as well as the resumption of training, in due course.
I see we are back to hysterical conspiracy theories about Xian on here.
Jesus wept. It’s the Olympics. Move on FFS.
Look, I know that you are shitting yourself, like Topping and Ian, but I can't help the fact a genuine mystery is unfolding in Xi'an. Which is probably Omicron, but possibly not
And it's not like this isn't a major news story (whatever the cause) - if they have Omicron and they can't control it - or they need to lockdown large chunks of China to do so - that is going to have serious consequences for the global economy, as supply chains fail, again. So we can't really "move on"
I'm calling it as a terrifying new variant. I think the virus got bored of ill informed hebephrenic dweebery about how these things always evolve to a milder version, be a mild cold by Christmas, etc. and thought: Right, let's show 'em.
All this Blair stuff is not good for Starmer I thihk, as I was saying earlier. He's been steadily and implicitly building a rehabilitation of Blair-type politics, and then along comes this to reunite Lefties and Tories against the idea of Blair again.
However, I don't think it will be much more than temporary - the government's problems and failings are now just much too familiar in the public's imagination.
Am I wrong in thinking that it was his Iraq policy that made Blair so toxic, and that otherwise he was generally regarded as sort of ok?
And I am wrong in thinking that the Conservative Party supported that policy wholeheartedly?
And the LD's opposed it (and that did them no bloody good whatsoever)?
You're certainly right that the Tories' full-throated support of the Iraq debacle seems to have been almost entirely expunged from the public's memory - or at least that of the rightwing press.
You never would have guessed from the Daily Mail's hysterical coverage of the Blair honours that many, if not all, Tory backbenchers ( and frontbenchers ) were even more enthusiastic for the war than Campbell and Blair themselves.
However, it's an excellent way of chipping away at Labour, so the tabloids will apply their usual morality and history-free approach to the particular topic.
You're also right that Charles Kennedy's intelligent and brave stance has been much too much forgotten. I also personally was much more in sympathy with his LD party than more recent incarnations.
The Tories were more in favour than Labour were. Even after the shenanigans over the dodgy dossier came ouut, IDS still said his party were correct to back the war.
The only reason the Blair protest has gained any traction is that the remaining hard left mouthfoamers are having a "with my last breath I spit at thee" moment and the right think its funny. Which it is tbh - nothing funnier that supposed Labour supporters doing everything they can to slag off Labour in government.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) this week doubled down on his campaign to promote the so-called "natural immunity" that occurs after one has been infected by Covid-19.
During an interview with WCPT, Johnson said that vaccine scientists are wrong to think that they "can create something better than God."
God gave him a voice, why does he take to the airwaves when he could just wander into a park and shout his ignorant bile at anyone who comes near. Hypocrite.
Xian seems to be on everyone's lips but Delta or Omicron they were hard locking the place down ages (weeks?) ago. Because the city is hosting the Winter Olympics so "just in case" China is blitzing it to get Covid cases down because they don't want the global spotlight to show any pox there.
Can we draw any other lessons from it? Nope.
We can't draw any lessons, but we can ask questions
Why are they apparently using flamethrowers to disinfect neighborhoods and bus stops etc?
I find it hard to believe this "malfunctioning foam sprayer" argument. I'm not dismissing it, but how would that work?
Also:
1 We have never seen these malfunctions before
2 There are several videos showing this bizarre "malfunction"
3 And the men using the foam sprayers that instead squirt flame don't look at all surprised. They don't react or back away, and frankly if my foam sprayer suddenly started ejecting napalm I would be a little alarmed, and my body language would show that
Hmmmm
The thing that really gives you a clue something isn't quite right, the story keeps changings. Its a few VHF cases, its a few Delta cases, its the local officials to blame, no its senior officials etc and of course now widespread food shortages. That didn't even happen in Wuhan.
As i said previously, i reckon they have Omicron, with no natural immunity and vaccines don't work, the party are shitting it as there isn't much they can do beyond hope Viagra hard lockdown works.
Yes, that's still my supposition. Tho there is also the chance that
1. They have a coincidental outbreak of VHF or whatever
2. They have a pretty fucking horrible new variant
Something is definitely up
Incidentally, on the veracity of the videos, out of curiosity I spent an hour or two the other day looking at the first videos that came out of Wuhan (you can still find them easily on Twitter)
Some of the most famous ones - bat-eating woman - moped filming bodies in the street - turn out to be fake. The bat was eaten in Indonesia, the bodies were actually rough sleepers in Shenzen
Yet sone of the most notorious ones - corpses piled high in hospitals, body bags filling up trucks, convulsing patients dying in chaos - turn out to be real. For a start, they have been repeated many times outside China. From Ecuador to Iran to Lombardy
And many of these horrific early videos were dismissed as fakes at the time
There is a third option: they have omicron, and it is spreading. They have expended a heck of a lot of effort convincing their population that their response to Covid has been brilliant, and they don't want the story muddied - especially with the Olympics coming up. So they do what oppressive regimes do: overreact to show that they are doing things. WE ARE STRONG!
An interesting question is what the official state media (i.e. virtually all of it) is saying about the situation there.
I suspect we are discovering the answer to the question of how bad is omicron when you haven't been subjected to the previous variants and your vaccines don't protect from it.
And the only places that could answer that sort of questions are the Covid zero places such as China and New Zealand / Australia but even those latter places have vaccines in place.
Jeez. We are discovering the answer to the question of how much an authoritarian government wants to ensure that a global event attended by people from over a hundred countries and covered by the global media goes ahead with as few issues as possible which might derail this, their flagship event, in particular Covid.
I mean that is pretty brutal but that is really "all" there is to it.
If they are cracking down just to protect the Olympics, why Xian? Xian is quite a long way from the Winter olympic sites. What in Xian is causing the crack-down?
There is an outbreak of Covid there and they don't want it to get anywhere near the WO sites. Which we know that eg. Omicron could do.
So it is pretty bad that the CCP is hammering Xian for this reason but as I said earlier, that's "all" it is. They are locking it down because they can; not because it is anything other than a run of the mill Omicron outbreak.
You have absolutely no idea if this is definitely the case. The CCP keeps changing its story. Chinese official media have themselves talked about "Delta".
@StephenMcDonell · Dec 29, 2021 Replying to @dizzylimit So far, officials in #Xian have said they are dealing with a Delta outbreak rather than #Omicron. #China #COVID19"
So what is it? Omicron is a good guess, but that's all it is. A guess. The idea that "topping" has personally and finally worked it all out is piquant
Extraordinary that anyone on here is taking at face value anything coming out of the Chinese regime.
Or that they presume to know with certainty why they are behaving as they are, when the q4 2019 aftermath of the initial sarscov2 pandemic apparently escaped the attention of all western Intelligience agencies.
No one wants to hear something even worse is brewing in the East so as usual they shoot the messenger. Well personally Leon I offer tog my thanks for drawing our attention to these possible black swans.
Thanks. I live to serve.
FWIW I am still fairly confident that it is Omicron, but even if it is "just" Omicron, the fact the Chinese have to resort to such stringent lockdowns to get a grip is going to have consequences for us all, economically, for at least the short term
And I wonder if the Global Times has fired the poor sub-editor who came up with that headline:
"Look, we have this story about a new Covid variant that makes people bleed out of their bottoms, how shall we handle it?"
"Put NO NEED TO PANIC on the front page, that should do it?"
The Nations brilliant Gen Z pebblologist with 100% political betting record posts here. 😝
This isn’t a short term mid term wobble thing, something has fundamentally changed in the minds of voters in that the Conservative party leader no longer speaks for them.
The Paterson thing may have changed MP minds or Conservatives members rethinking Boris, but with the electorate it was more subtle, the parties scandal in how it related to covid rules Boris made that police enforced and that didn’t apply to Boris and friends, and for business people Boris has nothing to say to them, nothing to help them.
You sense Brexit people like Lord Frost and many in his party who supported Boris for leader have given up on Boris making Brexit a success and exploiting freedom how they want, nor has Boris built bridges to remain voters like his pitch in 2019 promised.
The government are heading into credit crunch year without clear economic and business direction to build policies on, and with a leader no longer listened to by either side of Brexit divide.
All the opposition parties are biggest losers when Boris is gone.
So why people still posting here expecting Boris remaining in post? How come no one else here or on political betting exchanges anticipate the big political drama about to break out thst I’m expecting? Are the leadership changes always overlooked like this 🤔
I see we are back to hysterical conspiracy theories about Xian on here.
Jesus wept. It’s the Olympics. Move on FFS.
Look, I know that you are shitting yourself, like Topping and Ian, but I can't help the fact a genuine mystery is unfolding in Xi'an. Which is probably Omicron, but possibly not
And it's not like this isn't a major news story (whatever the cause) - if they have Omicron and they can't control it - or they need to lockdown large chunks of China to do so - that is going to have serious consequences for the global economy, as supply chains fail, again. So we can't really "move on"
Two possible scenarios:
1) The several people trying to reply rationally and calmly to one person's hysterical outpourings are shitting themselves; or 2) The one person responsible for said hysterical outpouring is shitting himself.
All this Blair stuff is not good for Starmer I thihk, as I was saying earlier. He's been steadily and implicitly building a rehabilitation of Blair-type politics, and then along comes this to reunite Lefties and Tories against the idea of Blair again.
However, I don't think it will be much more than temporary - the government's problems and failings are now just much too familiar in the public's imagination.
Am I wrong in thinking that it was his Iraq policy that made Blair so toxic, and that otherwise he was generally regarded as sort of ok?
And I am wrong in thinking that the Conservative Party supported that policy wholeheartedly?
And the LD's opposed it (and that did them no bloody good whatsoever)?
I hate to defend the Tories over this ... but they can reasonably say that they were assured by Blair & Campbell & Co that the security evidence was overwhelming.
It probably did not cross the Tories' collective mind -- such as it is -- that anyone would lie to take the country to war.
For my two pennth, the best meal I have ever had was at a restaurant that doesn't even have a michelin star. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly isn't the most expensive meal I have had.
Most of my best meals have been at non-Michelin places
Random top ten (I could choose eighty more)
Eating at Marco Pierre White's very first place, in south London (forget where) - before he had a star, wow
A crab and asparagus dish in a restaurant made from a garage outside Chiang Mai, Thailand
A beef massaman curry on a beach in Ko Tao, also Thailand
Eating at the first Barrafina off the Strand
Osyters and foie gras and gingerbread in some brilliant old school brasserie in Nantes, France
Dinner by Heston (that has a star or two)
A steak at G W Bush's favourite steak restaurant in Austin Texas
Another steak at Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires
Tiny gnocchi in a private restaurant on a private vineyard on the island of Pantelleria, Italy
Some sardines, recently, in a scruffy cafe above a fish market in Sagres, Portugal
How much of this is about company, location, mood, weather, post-coital bliss - rather than food? At least half of it
I am not sure where to even begin with best food, overall.
For steak, I do. The Tasting Room in Frederick MD does a filet mignon that is the best I have had anywhere, including the best that Buenos Aires or Texas has to offer.
For Indian food, sorry to say that my best experience has been neither in India nor in the UK, but in downtown Washington DC. Rasika (chef was in London prior to moving to the US). Their palak chaat is the most delicious single Indian dish I have ever eaten. For Northern Indian, Bukhara in New York used to be the place.
For the most inventive, surprising and incredible meal I've ever eaten, Contra in lower Manhattan wins: https://contra.nyc It has one star.
For the single ingredient of a dish, Brian Voltaggio at Volt (now sadly gone) outdid everything else I have ever experienced. He does molecular cuisine, which is not my favorite style. But he made 'caviar' out of virgin olive oil. It was the most intensely pleasurable tasting experience of my life to date.
I realize this is a very US-centric list. I have had many spectacular meals in France, Italy, the UK, and Switzerland. But none of them truly stand out from the rest.
I must be incredibly unlucky because 98% of my eating experiences in America are mediocre or worse. And I have been there a LOT, and all over, and in all kinds of joints, from top NYC starred places to innovative California pop-ups to famous BBQ shacks in the Deep South
The one exception is Louisiana especially New Orleans. The food there is consistently great, and they don't do the off-puttingly enormous servings you commonly get in the USA. How can such a rich country still believe "great food = tons of food"?
I think we forget how much better food in the UK has got. Because not many pubs can survive as shitty boozers and huge competition in the restaurant sector, "bog standard" offers across the board have got a hell of a lot better in the past 20-30 years. Sure we still have cheap and crap, but that £10 for a main range has got infinity better in lots of places, and many more people are willing to pay for really good stuff (I presume tv chefs lot has helped this).
Its not that long ago that the Olympic Breakfast at a Little Chef was what people did...now they queue for the overpriced but still better offering from the likes of the Breakfast Club.
The US its seems to be cheap and shit, middle price range, eat your weight in meat...then the small niche high end.
WE DEMAND JUBILEE PANCAKES.
(Which used to be 99p)
Used to be the one of the highlight of my family holidays to Cornwall as a kid....stopping off at a Little Chef for jubilee pancakes.
Now I imagine the kids of today in Cornwall are having organic fresh hand crafted crepes with matcha ice cream...
I'm not sure things have changed that much. When we go to Cornwall we usually have a few meals at the cafe on the cliff top above Treganhawke that does all day breakfasts. Plus a few cream teas, fish and chips and ice creams. The fanciest food is usually consumed at the Eden Project.
I go to Cornwall all the time and all my extended family live there. You're really not trying very hard. There is fine food in every major town. You can get excellent Indian and Thai everywhere, for a start
This wasn't intended as a criticism. I live in London so don't go to Cornwall for interesting world cuisine, but things like cream teas and fish and chips on the beach are things we can't get at home and are handy on walks or days on the beach which is what we tend to be doing. We usually go self catering and cook dinner at the chalet anyway, it's more relaxing than eating out with kids. And we don't really visit the major towns either - we always stay in the SE corner so the only close town is across the Tamar in Plymouth which is not especially nice (it is the city of many of my forebears, so I am well disposed to it but it is not an attractive place).
Fair enough
I know I am in a TINY minority here, but I love Plymouth. It is an extraordinary city. Extraordinarily hideous in places, but extraordinarily beautiful and historic in others. An amazing topography. Also some good places to eat!
I have a Plymouth Fine Dining story. On a business trip, having dinner in Spoons. Pissed up blokes a few tables away obviously on a session. Another guy comes in and comes over to tell his friends about his crabbing adventures!
Yep, you guessed it. Pulls an Asda bag onto the table and removes from it a large crab which proceeds to protest with claws towards crabbing gentleman. At which point bar maiden demands that he leave and take his crab with him.
Barmaid says: “get out of my pub and take your crabs with you”.
Thing that stood out for me in that story was that you were ‘dining’ in Wetherspoons.
I see we are back to hysterical conspiracy theories about Xian on here.
Jesus wept. It’s the Olympics. Move on FFS.
Look, I know that you are shitting yourself, like Topping and Ian, but I can't help the fact a genuine mystery is unfolding in Xi'an. Which is probably Omicron, but possibly not
And it's not like this isn't a major news story (whatever the cause) - if they have Omicron and they can't control it - or they need to lockdown large chunks of China to do so - that is going to have serious consequences for the global economy, as supply chains fail, again. So we can't really "move on"
It's absolutely Omicron coming up against Xi's personal investment in zero COVID.
Xian seems to be on everyone's lips but Delta or Omicron they were hard locking the place down ages (weeks?) ago. Because the city is hosting the Winter Olympics so "just in case" China is blitzing it to get Covid cases down because they don't want the global spotlight to show any pox there.
Can we draw any other lessons from it? Nope.
We can't draw any lessons, but we can ask questions
Why are they apparently using flamethrowers to disinfect neighborhoods and bus stops etc?
I find it hard to believe this "malfunctioning foam sprayer" argument. I'm not dismissing it, but how would that work?
Also:
1 We have never seen these malfunctions before
2 There are several videos showing this bizarre "malfunction"
3 And the men using the foam sprayers that instead squirt flame don't look at all surprised. They don't react or back away, and frankly if my foam sprayer suddenly started ejecting napalm I would be a little alarmed, and my body language would show that
Hmmmm
The thing that really gives you a clue something isn't quite right, the story keeps changings. Its a few VHF cases, its a few Delta cases, its the local officials to blame, no its senior officials etc and of course now widespread food shortages. That didn't even happen in Wuhan.
As i said previously, i reckon they have Omicron, with no natural immunity and vaccines don't work, the party are shitting it as there isn't much they can do beyond hope Viagra hard lockdown works.
Yes, that's still my supposition. Tho there is also the chance that
1. They have a coincidental outbreak of VHF or whatever
2. They have a pretty fucking horrible new variant
Something is definitely up
Incidentally, on the veracity of the videos, out of curiosity I spent an hour or two the other day looking at the first videos that came out of Wuhan (you can still find them easily on Twitter)
Some of the most famous ones - bat-eating woman - moped filming bodies in the street - turn out to be fake. The bat was eaten in Indonesia, the bodies were actually rough sleepers in Shenzen
Yet sone of the most notorious ones - corpses piled high in hospitals, body bags filling up trucks, convulsing patients dying in chaos - turn out to be real. For a start, they have been repeated many times outside China. From Ecuador to Iran to Lombardy
And many of these horrific early videos were dismissed as fakes at the time
There is a third option: they have omicron, and it is spreading. They have expended a heck of a lot of effort convincing their population that their response to Covid has been brilliant, and they don't want the story muddied - especially with the Olympics coming up. So they do what oppressive regimes do: overreact to show that they are doing things. WE ARE STRONG!
An interesting question is what the official state media (i.e. virtually all of it) is saying about the situation there.
I suspect we are discovering the answer to the question of how bad is omicron when you haven't been subjected to the previous variants and your vaccines don't protect from it.
And the only places that could answer that sort of questions are the Covid zero places such as China and New Zealand / Australia but even those latter places have vaccines in place.
Jeez. We are discovering the answer to the question of how much an authoritarian government wants to ensure that a global event attended by people from over a hundred countries and covered by the global media goes ahead with as few issues as possible which might derail this, their flagship event, in particular Covid.
I mean that is pretty brutal but that is really "all" there is to it.
If they are cracking down just to protect the Olympics, why Xian? Xian is quite a long way from the Winter olympic sites. What in Xian is causing the crack-down?
There is an outbreak of Covid there and they don't want it to get anywhere near the WO sites. Which we know that eg. Omicron could do.
So it is pretty bad that the CCP is hammering Xian for this reason but as I said earlier, that's "all" it is. They are locking it down because they can; not because it is anything other than a run of the mill Omicron outbreak.
You have absolutely no idea if this is definitely the case. The CCP keeps changing its story. Chinese official media have themselves talked about "Delta".
@StephenMcDonell · Dec 29, 2021 Replying to @dizzylimit So far, officials in #Xian have said they are dealing with a Delta outbreak rather than #Omicron. #China #COVID19"
So what is it? Omicron is a good guess, but that's all it is. A guess. The idea that "topping" has personally and finally worked it all out is piquant
"The CCP keeps changing its story."
LOL. NO I REFUSE TO BELIEVE IT.
The Chinese Communist Party isn't giving you, King of Twitter ("I spent an hour or two on Twitter looking at the Wuhan oubreak") a consistent story of what's happening in China?!?
I simply don't believe it.
And hemorrhagic fever, so Google tells me, is endemic in China. Why here's a quote:
"Hemorrhagic fever is a common infectious disease in northern China," the paper said. "Starting from October every year, some areas of Shaanxi [of which Xi'an is the provincial capital] enter the high incidence season of hemorrhagic fever."
But look we understand the function PB provides for you at these times of uncertainty so we are happy to be the voice of reason for your hysterical outpourings.
I consider myself PB's comforting tartan blanket as you writhe in spasms of fear
For my two pennth, the best meal I have ever had was at a restaurant that doesn't even have a michelin star. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly isn't the most expensive meal I have had.
Most of my best meals have been at non-Michelin places
Random top ten (I could choose eighty more)
Eating at Marco Pierre White's very first place, in south London (forget where) - before he had a star, wow
A crab and asparagus dish in a restaurant made from a garage outside Chiang Mai, Thailand
A beef massaman curry on a beach in Ko Tao, also Thailand
Eating at the first Barrafina off the Strand
Osyters and foie gras and gingerbread in some brilliant old school brasserie in Nantes, France
Dinner by Heston (that has a star or two)
A steak at G W Bush's favourite steak restaurant in Austin Texas
Another steak at Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires
Tiny gnocchi in a private restaurant on a private vineyard on the island of Pantelleria, Italy
Some sardines, recently, in a scruffy cafe above a fish market in Sagres, Portugal
How much of this is about company, location, mood, weather, post-coital bliss - rather than food? At least half of it
I am not sure where to even begin with best food, overall.
For steak, I do. The Tasting Room in Frederick MD does a filet mignon that is the best I have had anywhere, including the best that Buenos Aires or Texas has to offer.
For Indian food, sorry to say that my best experience has been neither in India nor in the UK, but in downtown Washington DC. Rasika (chef was in London prior to moving to the US). Their palak chaat is the most delicious single Indian dish I have ever eaten. For Northern Indian, Bukhara in New York used to be the place.
For the most inventive, surprising and incredible meal I've ever eaten, Contra in lower Manhattan wins: https://contra.nyc It has one star.
For the single ingredient of a dish, Brian Voltaggio at Volt (now sadly gone) outdid everything else I have ever experienced. He does molecular cuisine, which is not my favorite style. But he made 'caviar' out of virgin olive oil. It was the most intensely pleasurable tasting experience of my life to date.
I realize this is a very US-centric list. I have had many spectacular meals in France, Italy, the UK, and Switzerland. But none of them truly stand out from the rest.
I must be incredibly unlucky because 98% of my eating experiences in America are mediocre or worse. And I have been there a LOT, and all over, and in all kinds of joints, from top NYC starred places to innovative California pop-ups to famous BBQ shacks in the Deep South
The one exception is Louisiana especially New Orleans. The food there is consistently great, and they don't do the off-puttingly enormous servings you commonly get in the USA. How can such a rich country still believe "great food = tons of food"?
I think we forget how much better food in the UK has got. Because not many pubs can survive as shitty boozers and huge competition in the restaurant sector, "bog standard" offers across the board have got a hell of a lot better in the past 20-30 years. Sure we still have cheap and crap, but that £10 for a main range has got infinity better in lots of places, and many more people are willing to pay for really good stuff (I presume tv chefs lot has helped this).
Its not that long ago that the Olympic Breakfast at a Little Chef was what people did...now they queue for the overpriced but still better offering from the likes of the Breakfast Club.
The US its seems to be cheap and shit, middle price range, eat your weight in meat...then the small niche high end.
WE DEMAND JUBILEE PANCAKES.
(Which used to be 99p)
Used to be the one of the highlight of my family holidays to Cornwall as a kid....stopping off at a Little Chef for jubilee pancakes.
Now I imagine the kids of today in Cornwall are having organic fresh hand crafted crepes with matcha ice cream...
I'm not sure things have changed that much. When we go to Cornwall we usually have a few meals at the cafe on the cliff top above Treganhawke that does all day breakfasts. Plus a few cream teas, fish and chips and ice creams. The fanciest food is usually consumed at the Eden Project.
I go to Cornwall all the time and all my extended family live there. You're really not trying very hard. There is fine food in every major town. You can get excellent Indian and Thai everywhere, for a start
This wasn't intended as a criticism. I live in London so don't go to Cornwall for interesting world cuisine, but things like cream teas and fish and chips on the beach are things we can't get at home and are handy on walks or days on the beach which is what we tend to be doing. We usually go self catering and cook dinner at the chalet anyway, it's more relaxing than eating out with kids. And we don't really visit the major towns either - we always stay in the SE corner so the only close town is across the Tamar in Plymouth which is not especially nice (it is the city of many of my forebears, so I am well disposed to it but it is not an attractive place).
Fair enough
I know I am in a TINY minority here, but I love Plymouth. It is an extraordinary city. Extraordinarily hideous in places, but extraordinarily beautiful and historic in others. An amazing topography. Also some good places to eat!
I have a Plymouth Fine Dining story. On a business trip, having dinner in Spoons. Pissed up blokes a few tables away obviously on a session. Another guy comes in and comes over to tell his friends about his crabbing adventures!
Yep, you guessed it. Pulls an Asda bag onto the table and removes from it a large crab which proceeds to protest with claws towards crabbing gentleman. At which point bar maiden demands that he leave and take his crab with him.
Was that the Spoons in the Plymouth Barbican? if so I know it well and can imagine it.
I see we are back to hysterical conspiracy theories about Xian on here.
Jesus wept. It’s the Olympics. Move on FFS.
Look, I know that you are shitting yourself, like Topping and Ian, but I can't help the fact a genuine mystery is unfolding in Xi'an. Which is probably Omicron, but possibly not
And it's not like this isn't a major news story (whatever the cause) - if they have Omicron and they can't control it - or they need to lockdown large chunks of China to do so - that is going to have serious consequences for the global economy, as supply chains fail, again. So we can't really "move on"
It's absolutely Omicron coming up against Xi's personal investment in zero COVID.
You don't have to be a crazy conspiracy theory to see this is the most likely explanation. The reaction versus other outbreaks, including during this same time period, gives you a clue, that they are clearly having a much harder time sticking to the zero COVID strategy in Xian.
The def-facto Chinese approach is actually incredibly well organised. They mass test, they find those infected, they contact trace and isolate. A week later, back to normal.
Xian the restrictions have got harsher as time has passed, and now more strict than Wuhan. They have people starving from lack of food. That didn't happen in Wuhan. Lots of reports the reason is lots of essential workers are off sick etc.
The Nations brilliant Gen Z pebblologist with 100% political betting record posts here. 😝
This isn’t a short term mid term wobble thing, something has fundamentally changed in the minds of voters in that the Conservative party leader no longer speaks for them.
The Paterson thing may have changed MP minds or Conservatives members rethinking Boris, but with the electorate it was more subtle, the parties scandal in how it related to covid rules Boris made that police enforced and that didn’t apply to Boris and friends, and for business people Boris has nothing to say to them, nothing to help them.
You sense Brexit people like Lord Frost and many in his party who supported Boris for leader have given up on Boris making Brexit a success and exploiting freedom how they want, nor has Boris built bridges to remain voters like his pitch in 2019 promised.
The government are heading into credit crunch year without clear economic and business direction to build policies on, and with a leader no longer listened to by either side of Brexit divide.
All the opposition parties are biggest losers when Boris is gone.
So why people still posting here expecting Boris remaining in post? How come no one else here or on political betting exchanges anticipate the big political drama about to break out thst I’m expecting? Are the leadership changes always overlooked like this 🤔
You can add the Scottish Tory MPs pretending that they have nothing to do with Mr Johnson, no siree. Like chaps in business suits in a Grassmarket bar when a smelly jakie wanders in and starts being extremely friendly to them.
On Topic I see 3% strongly support Blair getting a Knighthood
SKS, The Spectator and John Rentoul!!!
BigJohnOwls please explain ! ;.)
Actually I think PB has a lot of Blair support. I'm personally quite an agnostic as regards His Blairiness.
Never got the Blair love-in thing. Always thought the demon-eyes poster was spot on.....
The demon-eyes thing was a shameful debasement of politics. No politicians are demons, and that poster was a desperate and pathetic lashing out by a moribund government.
Particularly by one which was simultaneously whinging that he was so evil, he was er, stealing all the Tory policies.
My key takeaway from the presser is that 3 jabs provide 88% protection against hospitalisation. So we need to change focus away from let the bodies pile high to how we keep essential services going for the next month or so.
I agree. It’s as I predicted Sunday. Keep the wheels going. But without going to 5 day isolation like France and US, or anything new on indoor spread like indoor masking, what backs up the intention?
So I was wrong, I thought they would announce 5 day isolation and more indoor mask use this week.
I don't think they know. Lets assume a lazy 40% figure for the number who contract Covid with no symptoms. Even if we force them to work, thats still 130k more people every day getting ill. So when you run a factory or a hospital or trains you need to know who is coming in. The last thing you will do when people are dropping like flies is expose more people to the thing thats making them drop.
Triple jabs means no death mountain - great news. But still the tidal wave of sickness which puts enough people in enough hospitals to swamp them and enough people off work to seriously affect business and services. The only positive is that at the rate of infection we have it will start burning itself out...
'We can’t vaccinate the planet every six months', says JCVI chief Fourth Covid jabs should not be offered until there is more evidence, the head of Britain's vaccine body has said - as he warned that giving boosters to people every six months was “not sustainable”.
6 monthly jabs may or may not be the right thing, but his remit is not "THE PLANET". It's the UK. Once again heading outside their remit.
Unless we vaccinate the planet - collectively - then we aren't immune from the next mutation.
That's another covid myth apparently: Myth #1,765 in a regular series...
We should share Covid vaccines with the world, because it is the right thing to do, but not because it will limit of emergence of 'variants' - vaccines don't generate variants but they don't preclude their emergence either - it's all a bit unclear and complicated.
Not just people either, Covid is a general mammalian phenomenon
Nevertheless a world with Covid raging is more likely to throw up things which come and fuck us up than a world with Covid under control. And the quicker we vaccinate the world the quicker we get from that first situation to the second. It's as much a practical imperative as a moral one.
No it isn't necessarily a practical or moral one and probably not a scientific one either. All governments have their first responsibility to their own population. IMHO, the first priority of Western governments is to figure out how to defeat or contain the virus. The strategies that they use will then inform them how they support other governments to do the same.
The virus respects no borders. It's a global pandemic and the best response to it is global. The more inefficient and illogical is the vaccine rollout - eg 5 or 6 jabs in one country and zero in another - the longer the pandemic will last, and the longer it lasts the more the damage will be and the more likely it is that we will be impacted.
The question then is this - to what extent should the normal rules of national centric politics - which you outline - be flexed in order to facilitate the optimum globally efficient solution?
I say the answer to this is "to a very great extent" and I think this is the correct answer. After all, this is a once-a-century emergency with an awful lot at stake. If we can't get our (global) act together for this, at least better than we are atm, when will we ever be able to?
So I am going to ask a question. I don't claim it is a fair question or perhaps even valid but it is the question that any politician has to be able to answer if they wish to accept your view.
How many people should we allow to die in this country, who could otherwise be saved, so that we can save lives of people in Africa, India, Russia or Poland?
As I say I am not saying it is a fair question but it is the question that cannot be dodged by politicians choosing to follow the route of putting global well being ahead of national well being.
And I know the obvious answer to you and probably to me is that in the long term we might actually save more lives here. But that is not certain and you are asking people to accept deaths now for fewer deaths tomorrow. That is a hard, if not impossible, sell for any politician.
I'll avoid the obvious answer and instead acknowledge what you say - that it's hard for any national government not to be driven entirely by high viz short term national interest, eg (for here) what booster strategy gets us out of all restrictions asap this year, end of story.
So, in practice, I guess the best we can hope for is that the global case is pushed by the likes of the WHO and various leading scientists and that it gets at least some traction with decision makers. Ie I feel the dead opposite to those who see that case being made by such people and respond "They should shut up. Not in their brief". I think the more noise is made about this the better.
Imagine we reach end of 2023 and Covid is conquered (for now) in the developed world but still raging most everywhere else. That, given the early brilliance in developing vaccines and treatments, would be such a shame - and furthermore a depressing sign that for all our tech and intelligence and progress we can't meet the big challenges.
The issue is -
- The supply of vaccines is no longer the issue. We are looking at 24 billion doses manufactured by the middle of this year. There are about 8 Billion people on the planet. - So Harry Hair Shirting about not "hoarding" vaccinations doesn't actually make sense. Not doing boosters or vaccinating children in the UK will not materially effect vaccine availability world wide.
There's loads of issues. Affordable Supply + Logistics & Distribution + Population Demand = Vaccination Outcome. There are problems to fix with all the inputs there.
But my strong sense is that the assertion "the domestic vaccine strategy of rich countries and their interaction with the pharmaceutical giants has no impact on the vaccination outcome in the rest of the world" is a self-comforting falsehood.
Is that like a Spidey Sense?
The fact remains that vaccines are now being made faster than the take-up - to the point where makers are questioning what their strategy in the second half of 2022 will be.
I suppose we could build a nice, comforting mountain of out-of-date vaccine doses. That should make someone feel nice.
Well by "strong sense" I meant "certain knowledge" but I'm feeling a bit shy today.
As for your last sentence I'm afraid that's Reactionary Reductive speak - I'll file along with things like "if you worry about the global poor so much why don't you go and be a missionary in Africa?" Or of course the iconic "if you're so keen on a wealth tax what's stopping you sending a cheque to hmrc?"
It's a bulging file but there's room.
Sigh.
The point is that not doing boosters and child vaccinations in the UK will not, of itself, effect the actual number of people getting vaccinated in poor countries.
The supply bit of the equation is not the problem. The other bits are. So do the other bits.
Don't go sighing at me or saying I'm ignoring important bits. By Supply I mean affordable available supply plus distribution logistics. Obviously. You are being utterly disingenuous and reductive and treating me like a strawman. It's like you and many on here are reading a wholly different Covid book to the one I have on the go. Quite bizarre.
All this Blair stuff is not good for Starmer I thihk, as I was saying earlier. He's been steadily and implicitly building a rehabilitation of Blair-type politics, and then along comes this to reunite Lefties and Tories against the idea of Blair again.
However, I don't think it will be much more than temporary - the government's problems and failings are now just much too familiar in the public's imagination.
Am I wrong in thinking that it was his Iraq policy that made Blair so toxic, and that otherwise he was generally regarded as sort of ok?
And I am wrong in thinking that the Conservative Party supported that policy wholeheartedly?
And the LD's opposed it (and that did them no bloody good whatsoever)?
You're certainly right that the Tories' full-throated support of the Iraq debacle seems to have been almost entirely expunged from the public's memory - or at least that of the rightwing press.
You never would have guessed from the Daily Mail's hysterical coverage of the Blair honours that many, if not all, Tory backbenchers ( and frontbenchers ) were even more enthusiastic for the war than Campbell and Blair themselves.
However, it's an excellent way of chipping away at Labour, so the tabloids will apply their usual morality and history-free approach to the particular topic.
You're also right that Charles Kennedy's intelligent and brave stance has been much too much forgotten. I also personally was much more in sympathy with his LD party than more recent incarnations.
The Tories were more in favour than Labour were. Even after the shenanigans over the dodgy dossier came ouut, IDS still said his party were correct to back the war.
The only reason the Blair protest has gained any traction is that the remaining hard left mouthfoamers are having a "with my last breath I spit at thee" moment and the right think its funny. Which it is tbh - nothing funnier that supposed Labour supporters doing everything they can to slag off Labour in government.
Issue with Blair for me is more the 2005-07 period and his behaviour since leaving office. If he'd stood down in 2005 I think he'd have a better legacy despite Iraq.
For my two pennth, the best meal I have ever had was at a restaurant that doesn't even have a michelin star. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly isn't the most expensive meal I have had.
Most of my best meals have been at non-Michelin places
Random top ten (I could choose eighty more)
Eating at Marco Pierre White's very first place, in south London (forget where) - before he had a star, wow
A crab and asparagus dish in a restaurant made from a garage outside Chiang Mai, Thailand
A beef massaman curry on a beach in Ko Tao, also Thailand
Eating at the first Barrafina off the Strand
Osyters and foie gras and gingerbread in some brilliant old school brasserie in Nantes, France
Dinner by Heston (that has a star or two)
A steak at G W Bush's favourite steak restaurant in Austin Texas
Another steak at Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires
Tiny gnocchi in a private restaurant on a private vineyard on the island of Pantelleria, Italy
Some sardines, recently, in a scruffy cafe above a fish market in Sagres, Portugal
How much of this is about company, location, mood, weather, post-coital bliss - rather than food? At least half of it
I am not sure where to even begin with best food, overall.
For steak, I do. The Tasting Room in Frederick MD does a filet mignon that is the best I have had anywhere, including the best that Buenos Aires or Texas has to offer.
For Indian food, sorry to say that my best experience has been neither in India nor in the UK, but in downtown Washington DC. Rasika (chef was in London prior to moving to the US). Their palak chaat is the most delicious single Indian dish I have ever eaten. For Northern Indian, Bukhara in New York used to be the place.
For the most inventive, surprising and incredible meal I've ever eaten, Contra in lower Manhattan wins: https://contra.nyc It has one star.
For the single ingredient of a dish, Brian Voltaggio at Volt (now sadly gone) outdid everything else I have ever experienced. He does molecular cuisine, which is not my favorite style. But he made 'caviar' out of virgin olive oil. It was the most intensely pleasurable tasting experience of my life to date.
I realize this is a very US-centric list. I have had many spectacular meals in France, Italy, the UK, and Switzerland. But none of them truly stand out from the rest.
I must be incredibly unlucky because 98% of my eating experiences in America are mediocre or worse. And I have been there a LOT, and all over, and in all kinds of joints, from top NYC starred places to innovative California pop-ups to famous BBQ shacks in the Deep South
The one exception is Louisiana especially New Orleans. The food there is consistently great, and they don't do the off-puttingly enormous servings you commonly get in the USA. How can such a rich country still believe "great food = tons of food"?
I think we forget how much better food in the UK has got. Because not many pubs can survive as shitty boozers and huge competition in the restaurant sector, "bog standard" offers across the board have got a hell of a lot better in the past 20-30 years. Sure we still have cheap and crap, but that £10 for a main range has got infinity better in lots of places, and many more people are willing to pay for really good stuff (I presume tv chefs lot has helped this).
Its not that long ago that the Olympic Breakfast at a Little Chef was what people did...now they queue for the overpriced but still better offering from the likes of the Breakfast Club.
The US its seems to be cheap and shit, middle price range, eat your weight in meat...then the small niche high end.
WE DEMAND JUBILEE PANCAKES.
(Which used to be 99p)
Used to be the one of the highlight of my family holidays to Cornwall as a kid....stopping off at a Little Chef for jubilee pancakes.
Now I imagine the kids of today in Cornwall are having organic fresh hand crafted crepes with matcha ice cream...
I'm not sure things have changed that much. When we go to Cornwall we usually have a few meals at the cafe on the cliff top above Treganhawke that does all day breakfasts. Plus a few cream teas, fish and chips and ice creams. The fanciest food is usually consumed at the Eden Project.
I go to Cornwall all the time and all my extended family live there. You're really not trying very hard. There is fine food in every major town. You can get excellent Indian and Thai everywhere, for a start
This wasn't intended as a criticism. I live in London so don't go to Cornwall for interesting world cuisine, but things like cream teas and fish and chips on the beach are things we can't get at home and are handy on walks or days on the beach which is what we tend to be doing. We usually go self catering and cook dinner at the chalet anyway, it's more relaxing than eating out with kids. And we don't really visit the major towns either - we always stay in the SE corner so the only close town is across the Tamar in Plymouth which is not especially nice (it is the city of many of my forebears, so I am well disposed to it but it is not an attractive place).
Fair enough
I know I am in a TINY minority here, but I love Plymouth. It is an extraordinary city. Extraordinarily hideous in places, but extraordinarily beautiful and historic in others. An amazing topography. Also some good places to eat!
I have a Plymouth Fine Dining story. On a business trip, having dinner in Spoons. Pissed up blokes a few tables away obviously on a session. Another guy comes in and comes over to tell his friends about his crabbing adventures!
Yep, you guessed it. Pulls an Asda bag onto the table and removes from it a large crab which proceeds to protest with claws towards crabbing gentleman. At which point bar maiden demands that he leave and take his crab with him.
Barmaid says: “get out of my pub and take your crabs with you”.
Thing that stood out for me in that story was that you were ‘dining’ in Wetherspoons.
Er, why on Earth would you do that?
Whats wrong with Spoons?
Tim "Brexit" Martin tops my list
I go to the pub to get away from thinking about politics. Last time I went to go in a Wetherspoons my eye was caught by a beer mat on the outside table, some idiot rant about Brexit. Do they still do that? Cos I might go back if they've stopped but fuck me no thanks if they still do it.
All this Blair stuff is not good for Starmer I thihk, as I was saying earlier. He's been steadily and implicitly building a rehabilitation of Blair-type politics, and then along comes this to reunite Lefties and Tories against the idea of Blair again.
However, I don't think it will be much more than temporary - the government's problems and failings are now just much too familiar in the public's imagination.
Am I wrong in thinking that it was his Iraq policy that made Blair so toxic, and that otherwise he was generally regarded as sort of ok?
And I am wrong in thinking that the Conservative Party supported that policy wholeheartedly?
And the LD's opposed it (and that did them no bloody good whatsoever)?
You're certainly right that the Tories' full-throated support of the Iraq debacle seems to have been almost entirely expunged from the public's memory - or at least that of the rightwing press.
You never would have guessed from the Daily Mail's hysterical coverage of the Blair honours that many, if not all, Tory backbenchers ( and frontbenchers ) were even more enthusiastic for the war than Campbell and Blair themselves.
However, it's an excellent way of chipping away at Labour, so the tabloids will apply their usual morality and history-free approach to the particular topic.
You're also right that Charles Kennedy's intelligent and brave stance has been much too much forgotten. I also personally was much more in sympathy with his LD party than more recent incarnations.
Robin Cook gave the stand out performance.
As for the Tories Blair was apparently privately disgusted by IDS's unqualified support and called him "Little Sir Echo." If there was a war crime, given they were allowed a vote, the entire HoC should be in the dock.
For my two pennth, the best meal I have ever had was at a restaurant that doesn't even have a michelin star. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly isn't the most expensive meal I have had.
Most of my best meals have been at non-Michelin places
Random top ten (I could choose eighty more)
Eating at Marco Pierre White's very first place, in south London (forget where) - before he had a star, wow
A crab and asparagus dish in a restaurant made from a garage outside Chiang Mai, Thailand
A beef massaman curry on a beach in Ko Tao, also Thailand
Eating at the first Barrafina off the Strand
Osyters and foie gras and gingerbread in some brilliant old school brasserie in Nantes, France
Dinner by Heston (that has a star or two)
A steak at G W Bush's favourite steak restaurant in Austin Texas
Another steak at Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires
Tiny gnocchi in a private restaurant on a private vineyard on the island of Pantelleria, Italy
Some sardines, recently, in a scruffy cafe above a fish market in Sagres, Portugal
How much of this is about company, location, mood, weather, post-coital bliss - rather than food? At least half of it
I am not sure where to even begin with best food, overall.
For steak, I do. The Tasting Room in Frederick MD does a filet mignon that is the best I have had anywhere, including the best that Buenos Aires or Texas has to offer.
For Indian food, sorry to say that my best experience has been neither in India nor in the UK, but in downtown Washington DC. Rasika (chef was in London prior to moving to the US). Their palak chaat is the most delicious single Indian dish I have ever eaten. For Northern Indian, Bukhara in New York used to be the place.
For the most inventive, surprising and incredible meal I've ever eaten, Contra in lower Manhattan wins: https://contra.nyc It has one star.
For the single ingredient of a dish, Brian Voltaggio at Volt (now sadly gone) outdid everything else I have ever experienced. He does molecular cuisine, which is not my favorite style. But he made 'caviar' out of virgin olive oil. It was the most intensely pleasurable tasting experience of my life to date.
I realize this is a very US-centric list. I have had many spectacular meals in France, Italy, the UK, and Switzerland. But none of them truly stand out from the rest.
I must be incredibly unlucky because 98% of my eating experiences in America are mediocre or worse. And I have been there a LOT, and all over, and in all kinds of joints, from top NYC starred places to innovative California pop-ups to famous BBQ shacks in the Deep South
The one exception is Louisiana especially New Orleans. The food there is consistently great, and they don't do the off-puttingly enormous servings you commonly get in the USA. How can such a rich country still believe "great food = tons of food"?
I think we forget how much better food in the UK has got. Because not many pubs can survive as shitty boozers and huge competition in the restaurant sector, "bog standard" offers across the board have got a hell of a lot better in the past 20-30 years. Sure we still have cheap and crap, but that £10 for a main range has got infinity better in lots of places, and many more people are willing to pay for really good stuff (I presume tv chefs lot has helped this).
Its not that long ago that the Olympic Breakfast at a Little Chef was what people did...now they queue for the overpriced but still better offering from the likes of the Breakfast Club.
The US its seems to be cheap and shit, middle price range, eat your weight in meat...then the small niche high end.
WE DEMAND JUBILEE PANCAKES.
(Which used to be 99p)
Used to be the one of the highlight of my family holidays to Cornwall as a kid....stopping off at a Little Chef for jubilee pancakes.
Now I imagine the kids of today in Cornwall are having organic fresh hand crafted crepes with matcha ice cream...
I'm not sure things have changed that much. When we go to Cornwall we usually have a few meals at the cafe on the cliff top above Treganhawke that does all day breakfasts. Plus a few cream teas, fish and chips and ice creams. The fanciest food is usually consumed at the Eden Project.
I go to Cornwall all the time and all my extended family live there. You're really not trying very hard. There is fine food in every major town. You can get excellent Indian and Thai everywhere, for a start
This wasn't intended as a criticism. I live in London so don't go to Cornwall for interesting world cuisine, but things like cream teas and fish and chips on the beach are things we can't get at home and are handy on walks or days on the beach which is what we tend to be doing. We usually go self catering and cook dinner at the chalet anyway, it's more relaxing than eating out with kids. And we don't really visit the major towns either - we always stay in the SE corner so the only close town is across the Tamar in Plymouth which is not especially nice (it is the city of many of my forebears, so I am well disposed to it but it is not an attractive place).
Fair enough
I know I am in a TINY minority here, but I love Plymouth. It is an extraordinary city. Extraordinarily hideous in places, but extraordinarily beautiful and historic in others. An amazing topography. Also some good places to eat!
I have a Plymouth Fine Dining story. On a business trip, having dinner in Spoons. Pissed up blokes a few tables away obviously on a session. Another guy comes in and comes over to tell his friends about his crabbing adventures!
Yep, you guessed it. Pulls an Asda bag onto the table and removes from it a large crab which proceeds to protest with claws towards crabbing gentleman. At which point bar maiden demands that he leave and take his crab with him.
Barmaid says: “get out of my pub and take your crabs with you”.
Thing that stood out for me in that story was that you were ‘dining’ in Wetherspoons.
Er, why on Earth would you do that?
Whats wrong with Spoons?
Tim "Brexit" Martin tops my list
Honestly doesn't bother me. He's the guy who owns it not the business itself. And there are plenty of other businesses owned by corporate wankers - if we start to boycott them all there won't be much left.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) this week doubled down on his campaign to promote the so-called "natural immunity" that occurs after one has been infected by Covid-19.
During an interview with WCPT, Johnson said that vaccine scientists are wrong to think that they "can create something better than God."
For my two pennth, the best meal I have ever had was at a restaurant that doesn't even have a michelin star. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly isn't the most expensive meal I have had.
Most of my best meals have been at non-Michelin places
Random top ten (I could choose eighty more)
Eating at Marco Pierre White's very first place, in south London (forget where) - before he had a star, wow
A crab and asparagus dish in a restaurant made from a garage outside Chiang Mai, Thailand
A beef massaman curry on a beach in Ko Tao, also Thailand
Eating at the first Barrafina off the Strand
Osyters and foie gras and gingerbread in some brilliant old school brasserie in Nantes, France
Dinner by Heston (that has a star or two)
A steak at G W Bush's favourite steak restaurant in Austin Texas
Another steak at Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires
Tiny gnocchi in a private restaurant on a private vineyard on the island of Pantelleria, Italy
Some sardines, recently, in a scruffy cafe above a fish market in Sagres, Portugal
How much of this is about company, location, mood, weather, post-coital bliss - rather than food? At least half of it
I am not sure where to even begin with best food, overall.
For steak, I do. The Tasting Room in Frederick MD does a filet mignon that is the best I have had anywhere, including the best that Buenos Aires or Texas has to offer.
For Indian food, sorry to say that my best experience has been neither in India nor in the UK, but in downtown Washington DC. Rasika (chef was in London prior to moving to the US). Their palak chaat is the most delicious single Indian dish I have ever eaten. For Northern Indian, Bukhara in New York used to be the place.
For the most inventive, surprising and incredible meal I've ever eaten, Contra in lower Manhattan wins: https://contra.nyc It has one star.
For the single ingredient of a dish, Brian Voltaggio at Volt (now sadly gone) outdid everything else I have ever experienced. He does molecular cuisine, which is not my favorite style. But he made 'caviar' out of virgin olive oil. It was the most intensely pleasurable tasting experience of my life to date.
I realize this is a very US-centric list. I have had many spectacular meals in France, Italy, the UK, and Switzerland. But none of them truly stand out from the rest.
I must be incredibly unlucky because 98% of my eating experiences in America are mediocre or worse. And I have been there a LOT, and all over, and in all kinds of joints, from top NYC starred places to innovative California pop-ups to famous BBQ shacks in the Deep South
The one exception is Louisiana especially New Orleans. The food there is consistently great, and they don't do the off-puttingly enormous servings you commonly get in the USA. How can such a rich country still believe "great food = tons of food"?
I think we forget how much better food in the UK has got. Because not many pubs can survive as shitty boozers and huge competition in the restaurant sector, "bog standard" offers across the board have got a hell of a lot better in the past 20-30 years. Sure we still have cheap and crap, but that £10 for a main range has got infinity better in lots of places, and many more people are willing to pay for really good stuff (I presume tv chefs lot has helped this).
Its not that long ago that the Olympic Breakfast at a Little Chef was what people did...now they queue for the overpriced but still better offering from the likes of the Breakfast Club.
The US its seems to be cheap and shit, middle price range, eat your weight in meat...then the small niche high end.
WE DEMAND JUBILEE PANCAKES.
(Which used to be 99p)
Used to be the one of the highlight of my family holidays to Cornwall as a kid....stopping off at a Little Chef for jubilee pancakes.
Now I imagine the kids of today in Cornwall are having organic fresh hand crafted crepes with matcha ice cream...
I'm not sure things have changed that much. When we go to Cornwall we usually have a few meals at the cafe on the cliff top above Treganhawke that does all day breakfasts. Plus a few cream teas, fish and chips and ice creams. The fanciest food is usually consumed at the Eden Project.
I go to Cornwall all the time and all my extended family live there. You're really not trying very hard. There is fine food in every major town. You can get excellent Indian and Thai everywhere, for a start
This wasn't intended as a criticism. I live in London so don't go to Cornwall for interesting world cuisine, but things like cream teas and fish and chips on the beach are things we can't get at home and are handy on walks or days on the beach which is what we tend to be doing. We usually go self catering and cook dinner at the chalet anyway, it's more relaxing than eating out with kids. And we don't really visit the major towns either - we always stay in the SE corner so the only close town is across the Tamar in Plymouth which is not especially nice (it is the city of many of my forebears, so I am well disposed to it but it is not an attractive place).
Fair enough
I know I am in a TINY minority here, but I love Plymouth. It is an extraordinary city. Extraordinarily hideous in places, but extraordinarily beautiful and historic in others. An amazing topography. Also some good places to eat!
I have a Plymouth Fine Dining story. On a business trip, having dinner in Spoons. Pissed up blokes a few tables away obviously on a session. Another guy comes in and comes over to tell his friends about his crabbing adventures!
Yep, you guessed it. Pulls an Asda bag onto the table and removes from it a large crab which proceeds to protest with claws towards crabbing gentleman. At which point bar maiden demands that he leave and take his crab with him.
Barmaid says: “get out of my pub and take your crabs with you”.
Thing that stood out for me in that story was that you were ‘dining’ in Wetherspoons.
Er, why on Earth would you do that?
Whats wrong with Spoons?
Tim "Brexit" Martin tops my list
Honestly doesn't bother me. He's the guy who owns it not the business itself. And there are plenty of other businesses owned by corporate wankers - if we start to boycott them all there won't be much left.
The microwaved food is far more objectionable than the owner. I mean Bezos by all accounts is Bond villain level evil but everyone uses Amazon.
Comments
Shortly before a certain minister arrived (he had already been appointed), a mandarin issued an order in the name of the minister who hadn't actually been in the building yet. This was in opposition to the known views of the minister and involved committing public money.
For the rest of the ministers tenure, the other mandarins kept on trying to put his name back on the honours list for the department, because he had served the x number of years to get it and it would be unfair if he didn't etc.
Maybe not, but I suspect if the timing was last summer as the would cup was going on, vaccine roll out was successful and the nation was opening up, perhaps answers would have been defend even though TB was not involved with any of that, just it felt more happy times.
SKS, The Spectator and John Rentoul!!!
Thanks for bargaining on that.
I would put a smiley face, but possibly inappropriate considering we are talking about hospitalisations.
Actually I think PB has quite a lot of Blair sympathy and/or support. I'm personally quite an agnostic as regards His Blairiness.
And I am wrong in thinking that the Conservative Party supported that policy wholeheartedly?
And the LD's opposed it (and that did them no bloody good whatsoever)?
https://twitter.com/bnhwalker/status/1478435299319504903/photo/2
Instead of the baiting of "eugh everyone hates Blair" for me the better debate is why the actual we still have KG/KT gongs to award?
Its 2022.
This does, at least, mean that we no longer have to have arguments over whether or not attempts to compel people to have the vaccines are a good idea - there's no longer much point in worrying about the problem. Looks like the refusers are going to get to herd immunity via the natural infection route.
If I was an exec at the Spectator I would be thinking of asking a few pointed questions about any suddenly increasing social media numbers they are doing.
To quote Augustus de Morgan:
Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on
So it is pretty bad that the CCP is hammering Xian for this reason but as I said earlier, that's "all" it is. They are locking it down because they can; not because it is anything other than a run of the mill Omicron outbreak.
If it all goes to Hell in a handcart (and takes down their showpiece propaganda event along with it) then the loss of face for the regime will be enormous.
"Henan province yuzhou city( population more than 1 million)
2 covid cases found last afternoon.
Authority blocked all roads last night.
Every intersection has checkpoint now.
You need to scan your qr code green pass to get through.
People are storing food up and doing covid test"
https://twitter.com/songpinganq/status/1478306389583794179?s=20
Thing that stood out for me in that story was that you were ‘dining’ in Wetherspoons.
Er, why on Earth would you do that?
The ones to be embarrassed are Andrew himself, and the protection squad that kept mum.
Jesus wept. It’s the Olympics. Move on FFS.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59859138
A decision by the Republic of Ireland's government to introduce minimum unit pricing on alcohol has come into effect.
The new law will affect alcohol sold in off licences, shops and supermarkets.
Seem to be quite pokey minimum prices:
Under the new measures, a standard bottle of wine cannot be sold for less than €7.40 (£6.40) and a can of beer for less than €1.70 (£1.40)
Spirits with 40% alcohol content cannot be sold for less than €20.70 (£17.30) and a 700 ml bottle of whiskey for less than €22. (£18.40)
TBH Blair, like Corbyn, is totally irrelevant to todays Politics surely?
If asked, i suppose I would say I opposed it, but not particularly fussed either way
@StephenMcDonell
·
Dec 29, 2021
Replying to
@dizzylimit
So far, officials in #Xian have said they are dealing with a Delta outbreak rather than #Omicron. #China #COVID19"
https://twitter.com/StephenMcDonell/status/1476105207687884802?s=20
Yet Chinese state media have ALSO talked about "hemmorhagic fever":
Jan 3
Xi 'an reports hemorrhagic fever cases transmitted by rodents, but no need to panic as medical experts urge quick vaccinations - Global Times
#xian #covid19
https://twitter.com/fractalharry/status/1477945064328470529?s=20
So what is it? Omicron is a good guess, but that's all it is. A guess. The idea that "topping" has personally and finally worked it all out is piquant
You never would have guessed from the Daily Mail's hysterical coverage of the Blair honours that many, if not all, Tory backbenchers ( and frontbenchers ) were even more enthusiastic for the war than Campbell and Blair themselves.
However, it's an excellent way of chipping away at Labour, so the tabloids will apply their usual morality and history-free approach to the particular topic.
You're also right that Charles Kennedy's intelligent and brave stance has been much too much forgotten. I also personally was much more in sympathy with his LD party than more recent incarnations.
And tax exemption (until recent times) put the burden on the other taxpayers.
The Reds have formally requested to the EFL that the fixture is rescheduled after further suspected positive tests were registered among players and staff, allied to other factors impacting selection, including illness and injury.
In response, the club halted preparations at the AXA Training Centre, meaning Tuesday’s first-team training session was cancelled.
Among the considerations which led to today’s application to the EFL is the need for travelling supporters to be given as much notice as possible of any potential postponement.
With no prospect of the current situation improving ahead of Thursday’s fixture and the potential for it to worsen, the club considers it both prudent and reasonable to ask for the fixture to be rescheduled.
Liverpool FC will offer a further update on the application process, as well as the resumption of training, in due course.
https://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/liverpool-fc-submits-request-arsenal-postponement?one-tid=874b56cb-419b-c1e7-f6eb-cdaa0a8649c3
And it's not like this isn't a major news story (whatever the cause) - if they have Omicron and they can't control it - or they need to lockdown large chunks of China to do so - that is going to have serious consequences for the global economy, as supply chains fail, again. So we can't really "move on"
Or that they presume to know with certainty why they are behaving as they are, when the q4 2019 aftermath of the initial sarscov2 pandemic apparently escaped the attention of all western Intelligience agencies.
No one wants to hear something even worse is brewing in the East so as usual they shoot the messenger. Well personally Leon I offer tog my thanks for drawing our attention to these possible black swans.
But they didn't impose anywhere near the level of Viagra hard lockdown they have in Xian. They did exactly what they have done so far over the past 2 years, test everybody every few days, contact trace, isolate those in that network. And that was it.
None of this building a massive quarantine centre, or a Premier Inn in an underpass or sending 1000s of medics.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) this week doubled down on his campaign to promote the so-called "natural immunity" that occurs after one has been infected by Covid-19.
During an interview with WCPT, Johnson said that vaccine scientists are wrong to think that they "can create something better than God."
https://www.rawstory.com/ron-johnson-natural-immunity/
So I was wrong, I thought they would announce 5 day isolation and more indoor mask use this week.
LOL. NO I REFUSE TO BELIEVE IT.
The Chinese Communist Party isn't giving you, King of Twitter ("I spent an hour or two on Twitter looking at the Wuhan oubreak") a consistent story of what's happening in China?!?
I simply don't believe it.
And hemorrhagic fever, so Google tells me, is endemic in China. Why here's a quote:
"Hemorrhagic fever is a common infectious disease in northern China," the paper said. "Starting from October every year, some areas of Shaanxi [of which Xi'an is the provincial capital] enter the high incidence season of hemorrhagic fever."
But look we understand the function PB provides for you at these times of uncertainty so we are happy to be the voice of reason for your hysterical outpourings.
See you in a few days.
The only reason the Blair protest has gained any traction is that the remaining hard left mouthfoamers are having a "with my last breath I spit at thee" moment and the right think its funny. Which it is tbh - nothing funnier that supposed Labour supporters doing everything they can to slag off Labour in government.
FWIW I am still fairly confident that it is Omicron, but even if it is "just" Omicron, the fact the Chinese have to resort to such stringent lockdowns to get a grip is going to have consequences for us all, economically, for at least the short term
And I wonder if the Global Times has fired the poor sub-editor who came up with that headline:
"Look, we have this story about a new Covid variant that makes people bleed out of their bottoms, how shall we handle it?"
"Put NO NEED TO PANIC on the front page, that should do it?"
"Great!"
This isn’t a short term mid term wobble thing, something has fundamentally changed in the minds of voters in that the Conservative party leader no longer speaks for them.
The Paterson thing may have changed MP minds or Conservatives members rethinking Boris, but with the electorate it was more subtle, the parties scandal in how it related to covid rules Boris made that police enforced and that didn’t apply to Boris and friends, and for business people Boris has nothing to say to them, nothing to help them.
You sense Brexit people like Lord Frost and many in his party who supported Boris for leader have given up on Boris making Brexit a success and exploiting freedom how they want, nor has Boris built bridges to remain voters like his pitch in 2019 promised.
The government are heading into credit crunch year without clear economic and business direction to build policies on, and with a leader no longer listened to by either side of Brexit divide.
All the opposition parties are biggest losers when Boris is gone.
So why people still posting here expecting Boris remaining in post? How come no one else here or on political betting exchanges anticipate the big political drama about to break out thst I’m expecting? Are the leadership changes always overlooked like this 🤔
1) The several people trying to reply rationally and calmly to one person's hysterical outpourings are shitting themselves; or
2) The one person responsible for said hysterical outpouring is shitting himself.
Tough call. Or are we all projecting.
It probably did not cross the Tories' collective mind -- such as it is -- that anyone would lie to take the country to war.
It certainly did not cross my mind.
The def-facto Chinese approach is actually incredibly well organised. They mass test, they find those infected, they contact trace and isolate. A week later, back to normal.
Xian the restrictions have got harsher as time has passed, and now more strict than Wuhan. They have people starving from lack of food. That didn't happen in Wuhan. Lots of reports the reason is lots of essential workers are off sick etc.
Triple jabs means no death mountain - great news. But still the tidal wave of sickness which puts enough people in enough hospitals to swamp them and enough people off work to seriously affect business and services. The only positive is that at the rate of infection we have it will start burning itself out...
As for the Tories Blair was apparently privately disgusted by IDS's unqualified support and called him "Little Sir Echo." If there was a war crime, given they were allowed a vote, the entire HoC should be in the dock.
I think if "I couldn't give a flying fuck" was an option to the question on whether TB should get a knighthood, it would win hands down.
Maybe he's a Christian Scientist.