Cases down week on week, mainly due to prior week data dumps but nevertheless either at or near a peak it seems once we get a few days out and look at the speciment date data for around now.
England reported Thursday/Last Thursday is probably as good as any measure to use
146,604 -> 152,306
We seem to be near the top of the peak I think
And London at the head of the pack has Cases peaking c. 25th, hospital admissions on the 30th and now total hospital beds occupied on the 5th. Mechanical ventilation still up on pre-Omicron baseline, but only a little, and England wide it's still near the lowest it's been all winter.
Remember the weird "flamethrowers" they are apparently using in Xi'an, creating various theories? - eg they are exterminating rats and mice, or "this is Chinese theatre" - a fake stunt designed to impress the public with the severity of their counter-Covid measures
One of the first theories was that "this is merely a malfunction" - the foggers can suddenly start shooting out flames. It was greeted skeptically (as it didn't seem to match the behaviour of the users) nonetheless, it turns out, it is almost certainly true. There are several non-suspicious videos of the foggers doing exactly this, malfunctioning and shooting out flame
Twitter solved this problem. Social media is not all bad
You set 'em going, you kill 'em off.
Alternatively, I am curious, and I just want the truth. You're welcome
I think the most plausible theory is that the Winter Olympics start next month in Beijing and the Chinese aren't taking any risks.
I'm not talking about Xi'an per se, I'm referring specifically to their habit of disinfecting entire cities with foggers of all kinds (sometimes enormous tankers doing whole streets in one go)
No other country - as far as I know - has used this technique. Yet the Chinese have done it from the get-go in Wuhan, and then elsewhere
Odd
And they are - if their stats are to be believed - by a distance THE most successful country when it comes to controlling Covid. Perhaps we should all be out with our foggers
Well the Chinese created the virus, they know how to defeat it.
That is the obvious but unspoken implication. Tho you went and spake it
It was a joke.
If the Chinese had really created the virus then their vaccine wouldn't be less effective than the ones the West created.
No. It is quite plausible they bio-engineered the virus, perhaps even as a potential weapon, but it was accidentally leaked before they had an effective vaccine ready
This might sound unlikely, but there are scientific papers by Chinese military scientists - linked with the Wuhan lab - discussing exactly this scenario: the creation of a novel coronavirus to cripple rival economies. They date, IIRC, from around 2015 onwards
With China, who knows
You're saying it's "quite plausible" that those inscrutables over there in the Orient were cooking up a deadly virus to attack us with but their dastardly plan went off half-cock and now they're in a pickle of their own making?
Tempted to go "serve the buggers right" but this would be to ignore the damage wreaked on so many innocent people the whole world over.
Quick overview - Macron wins if Pécresse doesn't come second in the first round. If she does, Macron loses.
Of course. If he's in a run-off with Le Pen, or even more so Zemmour, he's home and dry. If he's up against Pécresse in the second round, it's not so obvious.
The bit that leaps out of me is how everything in Scotland is now prefixed with Scottish....
That's something that is going to be very hard to fix but continually reinforces that all services are Scottish - without revealing that they only exist because of cross subsidies from other parts of the UK*. Which means it's easy for the Scottish Government to play their rulebook of celebrate success and blame London for the failures.
* for MalcolmG and co that isn't an invitation to insult or call me wrong - it's a simple fact of life that Governments borrow money.
The interesting thing about this is how pervasive this is even outside of politics. "National" newspapers prefix "Scottish" before their name. If you talk about "the FA" or the "Premier League", you will be understood as talking about the English FA and English Premier League even if you're in Scotland. Scotland is constantly "othered", even by itself. In fact, it's ironically one of the things that unites people from England, Scotland, and beyond: England is the UK, and Scotland is an awkward add-on that sort of is and sort of isn't England.
All bodies with "Scottish" or "Scotland" that I am aware of have a specific Scotland remit. The SFA looks after football in Scotland; Scottish Water only supplies water to Scotland; NHS Scotland looks after healthcare in Scotland. UK wide bodies such as DHSS and HMRC don't have Scottish versions. Arguably the health service in England should always be referred to as NHS England, Forestry Commission as Forestry England and so on, but it's a bit haphazard.
Yes, but the Scottish FA is "The Scottish FA". Whereas the English one is just "The FA". You do see how in a very small way that makes England "normal" and Scotland "other", right?
Well the FA was the first one, so there wasn't any need to assign a territorial designation at that point.
OTOH the Scots invented golf at least in its modern form, an d we have the SGA.
Oh, come on, you must know that the equivalent to "The FA" in golfing terms is the R&A.
Doesn't count for the discussion; not a national body but a private club. I mean, the buggers don't even own anything more than several 19th holes. They don't own the golf courses at St A.
They regulate golf in every country in the world outside the US.
The bit that leaps out of me is how everything in Scotland is now prefixed with Scottish....
That's something that is going to be very hard to fix but continually reinforces that all services are Scottish - without revealing that they only exist because of cross subsidies from other parts of the UK*. Which means it's easy for the Scottish Government to play their rulebook of celebrate success and blame London for the failures.
* for MalcolmG and co that isn't an invitation to insult or call me wrong - it's a simple fact of life that Governments borrow money.
The interesting thing about this is how pervasive this is even outside of politics. "National" newspapers prefix "Scottish" before their name. If you talk about "the FA" or the "Premier League", you will be understood as talking about the English FA and English Premier League even if you're in Scotland. Scotland is constantly "othered", even by itself. In fact, it's ironically one of the things that unites people from England, Scotland, and beyond: England is the UK, and Scotland is an awkward add-on that sort of is and sort of isn't England.
The issue here is that UK borrows the money, decides what it is spent on and mainly , not on what Scotland would spend it on. They then pretend Scotland runs a deficit. Until Scotland borrows the money and decides what it is spent on we are just a colony.
Cases down week on week, mainly due to prior week data dumps but nevertheless either at or near a peak it seems once we get a few days out and look at the speciment date data for around now.
England reported Thursday/Last Thursday is probably as good as any measure to use
146,604 -> 152,306
We seem to be near the top of the peak I think
Long way to go yet I think before cases peak, although not sure how recent testing changes will affect the data.
Looking at the regional breakdown, London is starting to decline, but all other regions are growing, and some are even still accelerating. Plus schools are going back.
The bit that leaps out of me is how everything in Scotland is now prefixed with Scottish....
That's something that is going to be very hard to fix but continually reinforces that all services are Scottish - without revealing that they only exist because of cross subsidies from other parts of the UK*. Which means it's easy for the Scottish Government to play their rulebook of celebrate success and blame London for the failures.
* for MalcolmG and co that isn't an invitation to insult or call me wrong - it's a simple fact of life that Governments borrow money.
The interesting thing about this is how pervasive this is even outside of politics. "National" newspapers prefix "Scottish" before their name. If you talk about "the FA" or the "Premier League", you will be understood as talking about the English FA and English Premier League even if you're in Scotland. Scotland is constantly "othered", even by itself. In fact, it's ironically one of the things that unites people from England, Scotland, and beyond: England is the UK, and Scotland is an awkward add-on that sort of is and sort of isn't England.
All bodies with "Scottish" or "Scotland" that I am aware of have a specific Scotland remit. The SFA looks after football in Scotland; Scottish Water only supplies water to Scotland; NHS Scotland looks after healthcare in Scotland. UK wide bodies such as DHSS and HMRC don't have Scottish versions. Arguably the health service in England should always be referred to as NHS England, Forestry Commission as Forestry England and so on, but it's a bit haphazard.
Yes, but the Scottish FA is "The Scottish FA". Whereas the English one is just "The FA". You do see how in a very small way that makes England "normal" and Scotland "other", right?
Well the FA was the first one, so there wasn't any need to assign a territorial designation at that point.
OTOH the Scots invented golf at least in its modern form, an d we have the SGA.
Oh, come on, you must know that the equivalent to "The FA" in golfing terms is the R&A.
Doesn't count for the discussion; not a national body but a private club. I mean, the buggers don't even own anything more than several 19th holes. They don't own the golf courses at St A.
They regulate golf in every country in the world outside the US.
Yes, my comparison wasn't really correct. Soccer has IFAB, which admittedly still has England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as permanent members, but at least the name is international.
These idiots who don't use vaults / hardware wallets, sticking all their massively expensive jpegs in the same wallet that they just go clicking buttons that interact with smart contracts that they don't know what they authorize.
As I said earlier today - it's a lot of clever people doing not particular clever things because this all this crypto stuff is way harder than it should be.
Given that (NFT especially) is tulip bulb trading I'm keeping a very long way away from it.
I have said before, I see a lot of this as like the very early internet e-commerce boom. Some of the ideas there are interesting and have value, but the implementation of many are terrible, too costly, far too difficult.
But the Profile Picture NFT space is the worst, its is really like FIFA Ultimate Team Pack opening. People buy these stupid things that don't really have any value, hoping for a "rare" that they can flip. Then rinse and repeat. The "value" of each project is just based upon which crypto celeb owns it and how much it is being hyped up.
NFTs make little sense to me. I read this article and it just sounds like a total scam
The idea has merit. The idea of being able to prove of origin of a digital item e.g. say a concert ticket or some art work.
I have seen the band Avenged Sevenfold have gone this route and I see how it would work for them, to have the hardcore fans buy a pass to their "fan club", from which they can then control the distribution of early access tickets, fast pass, backstage entry etc.
Digital artists can claim prove of ownership and ensure royalties.
But the current scene is 99.9999999% scam and / or worthless.
Can they even do that (prove origin/ownership)? The article linked makes a reasonably compelling case that they can't.
Yes and no...Things like concert tickets, you can absolutely. The trusted source responsible generate them, make it public the contract which controls them and only token from that contract are valid. People can't really fake that. Somebody can create another set of tickets, but it needs a different smart contract, and the "reader" at the venue should only interact with the smart contract from the trusted source.
The argument about who really created say a piece of art. Well there is a whole issue about where images are actually stored i.e. not on the blockchain at the moment....but lets say they are, you can encode the details of that image with a unique identifier and it will then leave a mark on the blockchain of creation at that timestamp. It would be for others to claim they hold the original by proving creation before that. All digital artists could take advantage of this. Fakery in NFT is already going on, and people can quickly check who created it first.
It doesn't solve the problem absolutely, but I can see how the idea could work. Anybody creating digital art / assets for a living could file those works, just like patents are filed for ideas.
All of this space is messy and certainly not the future in its current form. That doesn't mean there isn't something in some of these ideas.
Thanks for the reply. How is the first bit any different from things like SSL certificate authorities?
The bit that leaps out of me is how everything in Scotland is now prefixed with Scottish....
That's something that is going to be very hard to fix but continually reinforces that all services are Scottish - without revealing that they only exist because of cross subsidies from other parts of the UK*. Which means it's easy for the Scottish Government to play their rulebook of celebrate success and blame London for the failures.
* for MalcolmG and co that isn't an invitation to insult or call me wrong - it's a simple fact of life that Governments borrow money.
The interesting thing about this is how pervasive this is even outside of politics. "National" newspapers prefix "Scottish" before their name. If you talk about "the FA" or the "Premier League", you will be understood as talking about the English FA and English Premier League even if you're in Scotland. Scotland is constantly "othered", even by itself. In fact, it's ironically one of the things that unites people from England, Scotland, and beyond: England is the UK, and Scotland is an awkward add-on that sort of is and sort of isn't England.
All bodies with "Scottish" or "Scotland" that I am aware of have a specific Scotland remit. The SFA looks after football in Scotland; Scottish Water only supplies water to Scotland; NHS Scotland looks after healthcare in Scotland. UK wide bodies such as DHSS and HMRC don't have Scottish versions. Arguably the health service in England should always be referred to as NHS England, Forestry Commission as Forestry England and so on, but it's a bit haphazard.
Yes, but the Scottish FA is "The Scottish FA". Whereas the English one is just "The FA". You do see how in a very small way that makes England "normal" and Scotland "other", right?
It's a bit weird now you mention it. What about bread & butter things like say the "Cup Final"? Down here, that's the Wembley one and the one at Hampden is the Scottish Cup Final. Do people in Scotland not do the opposite? ie call the Wembley match the English Cup Final and the Hampden match just the Cup Final? If they don't I'd find that really odd.
These idiots who don't use vaults / hardware wallets, sticking all their massively expensive jpegs in the same wallet that they just go clicking buttons that interact with smart contracts that they don't know what they authorize.
As I said earlier today - it's a lot of clever people doing not particular clever things because this all this crypto stuff is way harder than it should be.
Given that (NFT especially) is tulip bulb trading I'm keeping a very long way away from it.
I have said before, I see a lot of this as like the very early internet e-commerce boom. Some of the ideas there are interesting and have value, but the implementation of many are terrible, too costly, far too difficult.
But the Profile Picture NFT space is the worst, its is really like FIFA Ultimate Team Pack opening. People buy these stupid things that don't really have any value, hoping for a "rare" that they can flip. Then rinse and repeat. The "value" of each project is just based upon which crypto celeb owns it and how much it is being hyped up.
NFTs make little sense to me. I read this article and it just sounds like a total scam
The idea has merit. The idea of being able to prove of origin of a digital item e.g. say a concert ticket or some art work.
I have seen the band Avenged Sevenfold have gone this route and I see how it would work for them, to have the hardcore fans buy a pass to their "fan club", from which they can then control the distribution of early access tickets, fast pass, backstage entry etc.
Digital artists can claim prove of ownership and ensure royalties.
But the current scene is 99.9999999% scam and / or worthless.
Can they even do that (prove origin/ownership)? The article linked makes a reasonably compelling case that they can't.
Yes and no...Things like concert tickets, you can absolutely. The trusted source responsible generate them, make it public the contract which controls them and only token from that contract are valid. People can't really fake that. Somebody can create another set of tickets, but it needs a different smart contract, and the "reader" at the venue should only interact with the smart contract from the trusted source.
The argument about who really created say a piece of art. Well there is a whole issue about where images are actually stored i.e. not on the blockchain at the moment....but lets say they are, you can encode the details of that image with a unique identifier and it will then leave a mark on the blockchain of creation at that timestamp. It would be for others to claim they hold the original by proving creation before that. All digital artists could take advantage of this. Fakery in NFT is already going on, and people can quickly check who created it first.
It doesn't solve the problem absolutely, but I can see how the idea could work. Anybody creating digital art / assets for a living could file those works, just like patents are filed for ideas.
All of this space is messy and certainly not the future in its current form. That doesn't mean there isn't something in some of these ideas.
Thanks for the reply. How is the first bit any different from things like SSL certificate authorities?
I am not really a security expert but "running a CA within the auditable requirements is a complex task. A CA’s infrastructure consists of considerable operational elements, hardware, software, policy frameworks and practice statements, auditing, security infrastructure and personnel".
Where as the idea with these NFTs (eventually) is it trivial for the issuer to spin it up, distribute the tickets to the right people, let them be freely traded, and ultimately check them, without having to have a centralised authority.
Its a good job he had a snafu with his change of phone....
This paragraph at the very bottom of Geidt's letter to the PM seems very important. He says that if he'd seen the WhatsApp exchange he likely would have found that the PM didn't follow the rules on declaring his interests.
Is Johnson claiming that because he had a new device he couldn't access his old WhatApp messages? For that to be the case he'd surely have had to change the phone number and advise all his WhatsApp contacts of that fact. Seems very odd - why does anyone get a new number with an new device these days?
No I think he is trying to claim they didn't all transfer over......
"why does anyone get a new number with an new device these days"
Actually, there is a really annoying loophole to PAC / moving number system that providers exploit. There are deals which aren't available to existing customers, especially getting the latest phones. If you want to keep your number and get a new phone, they will offer you a worse tariff to "Upgrade".
The only other way get it is to cancel your contract and sign up. But in doing so, they won't let you do it in the time period that PAC works.
Buy the phone direct from the manufacturer and go SIM only.
The reason I know is I had this situation a couple of years ago, but the deal I was trying to "exploit" was just too good when combined with an offer via one of these money back sites.
I think it was basically as brand new Samsung S10, which cost a £1000 from the manufacturer. You paid £250 upfront and contract is £25 a month, but you got the free wireless earbuds (£150) for pre-ordering via the operator and the money back site was offering the ability to stack offers to get I think £300 back.
So free phone, free earbuds, tariff £25 a month, while the equivalent sim only deal was more than £25 a month. But I ended up having to change my phone number.
Sim only deal >£25 pm? You couldn't have looked very hard.
Mine is over that, though it includes 83 country roaming, Spotify and unlimited 5G data with unlimited tethering included. I think it's good value, though other people might not.
Who is that with?
Vodafone, they don't do it with Spotify and 83 country roaming any more, they make you choose.
It's rare I agree with the Prime Minister but his comments on the anti-vaccine brigade are to be welcomed. They have individually and collectively done a great deal of harm.
While I respect their right not to be vaccinated if they choose and equally I respect their right to be treated just like everyone else if they get sick, the fact remains vaccinations are and will be the only path back to the new normal - going back to pre-Covid isn't going to happen however much some may desire it.
Yes, infection and cure is another route but that's not an option for some and given the report today over one million people have "long Covid", it seems some will be suffering from this virus for a while yet regrettably.
Quick overview - Macron wins if Pécresse doesn't come second in the first round. If she does, Macron loses.
Of course. If he's in a run-off with Le Pen, or even more so Zemmour, he's home and dry. If he's up against Pécresse in the second round, it's not so obvious.
Do we have any insight on whether Mme Pécresse is more or less pro-UK than Macron?
Obviously it would be nice to have someone in the Elysee who likes us!
This in hospital one is a bit misleading because 06/01 is missing Wales & Northern Ireland. Actually numbers in hospital have gone up in the two nations which have reported figures for that day.
For anyone interested in a gentle introduction to the Ukraine famine, I can recommend the film Mr Jones, directed by Agnieszka Holland. It's a pretty decent effort without the usual flaws historical films make. Nicely shot too.
Watched it over Christmas (had had it on Sky+ for months). Didn't learn much as I have already read extensively, but it was well done, and would be interesting for someone with no knowledge as a starter.
The novelty of this particular famine, what made it so diabolical, is that it was not the result of some catastrophe like a drought or an epidemic. It was the deliberate creation of a bureaucratic mind which demanded the collectivization of agriculture, immediately, as a purely theoretical proposition, without any consideration whatever of the consequences in human suffering.
There is a strong argument that every famine of the last 100 years has been man made.
A jolly silly argument, especially when used as an apology for Stalin.
It's not a defence of Stalin. It is an observation that the world is abundent in food and that since the early 20th century to actually have a famine humans have to actively intervene to block food getting to an area.
It actually shows the monsterousness of Stalin. The USSR would have had the capability of feeding the Ukrainians but actively chose to starve them instead. Ukraine wasn't short of food, it was stolen from them. This is a pattern repeated throughout famines of the 20th century.
Including Bengal during WWII?
Yes. There was food available, it was not distributed.
The assertion that England is actually England & Wales at cricket always troubles me.
That is indeed officially the case. But we are not called England & Wales and nobody outside of hushed southern British cricket circles thinks of us as such.
Wouldn't it be better for Wales just to have their own team? It would be competitive –probably better than Scotland's.
Meanwhile, I maintain that it remains bonkers that TeamGB exists purely for the Olympics, when Scotland and Wales are our (sometimes bitter) rivals at every major team sport.
The bit that leaps out of me is how everything in Scotland is now prefixed with Scottish....
That's something that is going to be very hard to fix but continually reinforces that all services are Scottish - without revealing that they only exist because of cross subsidies from other parts of the UK*. Which means it's easy for the Scottish Government to play their rulebook of celebrate success and blame London for the failures.
* for MalcolmG and co that isn't an invitation to insult or call me wrong - it's a simple fact of life that Governments borrow money.
The interesting thing about this is how pervasive this is even outside of politics. "National" newspapers prefix "Scottish" before their name. If you talk about "the FA" or the "Premier League", you will be understood as talking about the English FA and English Premier League even if you're in Scotland. Scotland is constantly "othered", even by itself. In fact, it's ironically one of the things that unites people from England, Scotland, and beyond: England is the UK, and Scotland is an awkward add-on that sort of is and sort of isn't England.
The issue here is that UK borrows the money, decides what it is spent on and mainly , not on what Scotland would spend it on. They then pretend Scotland runs a deficit. Until Scotland borrows the money and decides what it is spent on we are just a colony.
What would Scotland not spend money on that would generate enough savings to reflect the reduced tax income?
Beyond Defence (where Scotland could easily freeload off whats left of the UK) it's hard to identify many actual things that would be that different.
Guardian front page has 'Tory peer investigated for racist messages' at the top.
Strangely we didn't get the same prominance for Labour Lord convicted of child rape yesterday.
We did but you didn't look hard enough or often enough.
Wayback machine confirms it was never given the same prominance, despite being much more of a story (conviction vs investigation, single racist message vs multiple child rape).
This isn't a difficult one.
It was on the app.
I'm sure it was. I'm not saying they ignored it completely.
I'm saying they've got a much lesser story about a Tory at the very top of their website, when something far worse about an equivalent Labour figure was pushed down the page....
"Equivalent Labour figure" ?
...Appointed a life peer by Tony Blair, Ahmed resigned from the Labour party in 2013...
I guess the better way to ask this is if Ahmed was a Tory peer who resigned in 2013 would the headline have read as it did or "former Tory peer Lord Ahmed..."?
Being the Guardian, my guess is on the latter.
You are entitled to your prejudices as much as they are to theirs, I suppose. It doesn't do much to support @maaarsh 's complaint, though.
FPT because it's too frightening to be allowed to remain there:
Yes yes I know it's (republished in) the New European, but if anyone fancies being terrified like when they first watched Threads, have a read of this.
The bit that leaps out of me is how everything in Scotland is now prefixed with Scottish....
That's something that is going to be very hard to fix but continually reinforces that all services are Scottish - without revealing that they only exist because of cross subsidies from other parts of the UK*. Which means it's easy for the Scottish Government to play their rulebook of celebrate success and blame London for the failures.
* for MalcolmG and co that isn't an invitation to insult or call me wrong - it's a simple fact of life that Governments borrow money.
The interesting thing about this is how pervasive this is even outside of politics. "National" newspapers prefix "Scottish" before their name. If you talk about "the FA" or the "Premier League", you will be understood as talking about the English FA and English Premier League even if you're in Scotland. Scotland is constantly "othered", even by itself. In fact, it's ironically one of the things that unites people from England, Scotland, and beyond: England is the UK, and Scotland is an awkward add-on that sort of is and sort of isn't England.
All bodies with "Scottish" or "Scotland" that I am aware of have a specific Scotland remit. The SFA looks after football in Scotland; Scottish Water only supplies water to Scotland; NHS Scotland looks after healthcare in Scotland. UK wide bodies such as DHSS and HMRC don't have Scottish versions. Arguably the health service in England should always be referred to as NHS England, Forestry Commission as Forestry England and so on, but it's a bit haphazard.
Yes, but the Scottish FA is "The Scottish FA". Whereas the English one is just "The FA". You do see how in a very small way that makes England "normal" and Scotland "other", right?
It's a bit weird now you mention it. What about bread & butter things like say the "Cup Final"? Down here, that's the Wembley one and the one at Hampden is the Scottish Cup Final. Do people in Scotland not do the opposite? ie call the Wembley match the English Cup Final and the Hampden match just the Cup Final? If they don't I'd find that really odd.
What's also been interesting about the discussion is how some peopel assume that a process that began in 1885 is some sort of SNP conspiracy. But I hadn't realised that as has also been said it can seem very odd to see Scottish this and Scottish that to the degree that almost the only UJs in Edinburgh can seem the ones on the Castle, Holyrood, and some of the supermaket packets - and the huge one on the HMG office block near Waverley.
(The one at the Northern Lighthouse Board isn't a UJ, BTW).
It's not a defence of Stalin. It is an observation that the world is abundent in food and that since the early 20th century to actually have a famine humans have to actively intervene to block food getting to an area.
It actually shows the monsterousness of Stalin. The USSR would have had the capability of feeding the Ukrainians but actively chose to starve them instead. Ukraine wasn't short of food, it was stolen from them. This is a pattern repeated throughout famines of the 20th century.
Eh? Ukraine wasn't short of food? You seriously typed that out? And no, it wasn't because it had been stolen (although much of the small amount they did have was), it was because the loony ideology of Stalin had destroyed the production of what had always been a rich agricultural region.
And as for your first paragraph, it's also completely silly. Famines are caused, usually, by natural events, although the Ukraine one wasn't. You're confusing the cause of the famine with whether someone else should or could have organised relief operations. The world may have had adequate or even abundant food, but not necessarily in places and in a form where it could be distributed easily. And then you're making a further silly error of blaming people, in all cases, for 'blocking' those operations. Sure, you can find some cases where that was true, or at least partially true, but what on earth is the point of trying to reduce the realities of all famines to cartoon-villain nonsense?
Litetally the second paragraph of your link points out that the harvest had been fine and there was plenty of food before it was stolen. Do you even read your sources?
The bit that leaps out of me is how everything in Scotland is now prefixed with Scottish....
That's something that is going to be very hard to fix but continually reinforces that all services are Scottish - without revealing that they only exist because of cross subsidies from other parts of the UK*. Which means it's easy for the Scottish Government to play their rulebook of celebrate success and blame London for the failures.
* for MalcolmG and co that isn't an invitation to insult or call me wrong - it's a simple fact of life that Governments borrow money.
The interesting thing about this is how pervasive this is even outside of politics. "National" newspapers prefix "Scottish" before their name. If you talk about "the FA" or the "Premier League", you will be understood as talking about the English FA and English Premier League even if you're in Scotland. Scotland is constantly "othered", even by itself. In fact, it's ironically one of the things that unites people from England, Scotland, and beyond: England is the UK, and Scotland is an awkward add-on that sort of is and sort of isn't England.
All bodies with "Scottish" or "Scotland" that I am aware of have a specific Scotland remit. The SFA looks after football in Scotland; Scottish Water only supplies water to Scotland; NHS Scotland looks after healthcare in Scotland. UK wide bodies such as DHSS and HMRC don't have Scottish versions. Arguably the health service in England should always be referred to as NHS England, Forestry Commission as Forestry England and so on, but it's a bit haphazard.
Yes, but the Scottish FA is "The Scottish FA". Whereas the English one is just "The FA". You do see how in a very small way that makes England "normal" and Scotland "other", right?
It's a bit weird now you mention it. What about bread & butter things like say the "Cup Final"? Down here, that's the Wembley one and the one at Hampden is the Scottish Cup Final. Do people in Scotland not do the opposite? ie call the Wembley match the English Cup Final and the Hampden match just the Cup Final? If they don't I'd find that really odd.
No we don't, if anyone is interested they would say FA cup final, up here it would be Scottish Cup Final.
The bit that leaps out of me is how everything in Scotland is now prefixed with Scottish....
That's something that is going to be very hard to fix but continually reinforces that all services are Scottish - without revealing that they only exist because of cross subsidies from other parts of the UK*. Which means it's easy for the Scottish Government to play their rulebook of celebrate success and blame London for the failures.
* for MalcolmG and co that isn't an invitation to insult or call me wrong - it's a simple fact of life that Governments borrow money.
The interesting thing about this is how pervasive this is even outside of politics. "National" newspapers prefix "Scottish" before their name. If you talk about "the FA" or the "Premier League", you will be understood as talking about the English FA and English Premier League even if you're in Scotland. Scotland is constantly "othered", even by itself. In fact, it's ironically one of the things that unites people from England, Scotland, and beyond: England is the UK, and Scotland is an awkward add-on that sort of is and sort of isn't England.
All bodies with "Scottish" or "Scotland" that I am aware of have a specific Scotland remit. The SFA looks after football in Scotland; Scottish Water only supplies water to Scotland; NHS Scotland looks after healthcare in Scotland. UK wide bodies such as DHSS and HMRC don't have Scottish versions. Arguably the health service in England should always be referred to as NHS England, Forestry Commission as Forestry England and so on, but it's a bit haphazard.
Yes, but the Scottish FA is "The Scottish FA". Whereas the English one is just "The FA". You do see how in a very small way that makes England "normal" and Scotland "other", right?
It's a bit weird now you mention it. What about bread & butter things like say the "Cup Final"? Down here, that's the Wembley one and the one at Hampden is the Scottish Cup Final. Do people in Scotland not do the opposite? ie call the Wembley match the English Cup Final and the Hampden match just the Cup Final? If they don't I'd find that really odd.
Speaking personally, I think I'd be slightly confused if someone called it the English cup final. I could easily imaging it being a different story in other parts of Scotland. Try a Glaswegian out and see what they say though.
Default option would have been Old Firm Cup Final.
It's rare I agree with the Prime Minister but his comments on the anti-vaccine brigade are to be welcomed. They have individually and collectively done a great deal of harm.
While I respect their right not to be vaccinated if they choose and equally I respect their right to be treated just like everyone else if they get sick, the fact remains vaccinations are and will be the only path back to the new normal - going back to pre-Covid isn't going to happen however much some may desire it.
Yes, infection and cure is another route but that's not an option for some and given the report today over one million people have "long Covid", it seems some will be suffering from this virus for a while yet regrettably.
On long covid - a colleagues wife had this for around 6-8 weeks. Very slow progression for a normally super active person, and then suddenly an improvement (oddly around the time of her booster jab). Now almost back to normal. I understand why people are worried about long covid, and it certainly encompasses a wide range of conditions. Some I am sure will be functional neuronal disorders similar to chronic fatigue syndrome, others will have physical damage to organs. For most, I suspect, with time they will recover.
It's rare I agree with the Prime Minister but his comments on the anti-vaccine brigade are to be welcomed. They have individually and collectively done a great deal of harm.
While I respect their right not to be vaccinated if they choose and equally I respect their right to be treated just like everyone else if they get sick, the fact remains vaccinations are and will be the only path back to the new normal - going back to pre-Covid isn't going to happen however much some may desire it.
How so? Do you expect us to be shuffling around in masks forever?
Remember the weird "flamethrowers" they are apparently using in Xi'an, creating various theories? - eg they are exterminating rats and mice, or "this is Chinese theatre" - a fake stunt designed to impress the public with the severity of their counter-Covid measures
One of the first theories was that "this is merely a malfunction" - the foggers can suddenly start shooting out flames. It was greeted skeptically (as it didn't seem to match the behaviour of the users) nonetheless, it turns out, it is almost certainly true. There are several non-suspicious videos of the foggers doing exactly this, malfunctioning and shooting out flame
Twitter solved this problem. Social media is not all bad
You set 'em going, you kill 'em off.
Alternatively, I am curious, and I just want the truth. You're welcome
I think the most plausible theory is that the Winter Olympics start next month in Beijing and the Chinese aren't taking any risks.
I'm not talking about Xi'an per se, I'm referring specifically to their habit of disinfecting entire cities with foggers of all kinds (sometimes enormous tankers doing whole streets in one go)
No other country - as far as I know - has used this technique. Yet the Chinese have done it from the get-go in Wuhan, and then elsewhere
Odd
And they are - if their stats are to be believed - by a distance THE most successful country when it comes to controlling Covid. Perhaps we should all be out with our foggers
Well the Chinese created the virus, they know how to defeat it.
That is the obvious but unspoken implication. Tho you went and spake it
It was a joke.
If the Chinese had really created the virus then their vaccine wouldn't be less effective than the ones the West created.
No. It is quite plausible they bio-engineered the virus, perhaps even as a potential weapon, but it was accidentally leaked before they had an effective vaccine ready
This might sound unlikely, but there are scientific papers by Chinese military scientists - linked with the Wuhan lab - discussing exactly this scenario: the creation of a novel coronavirus to cripple rival economies. They date, IIRC, from around 2015 onwards
With China, who knows
You're saying it's "quite plausible" that those inscrutables over there in the Orient were cooking up a deadly virus to attack us with but their dastardly plan went off half-cock and now they're in a pickle of their own making?
Tempted to go "serve the buggers right" but this would be to ignore the damage wreaked on so many innocent people the whole world over.
I am pretty certain it came from the lab, via an accidental leak. I am less certain - but still think it probable - that the virus was engineered to be nastier. Gain of Function. Because that is exactly what they were doing in the Wuhan lab, they openly boasted about it - see the many pre-pandemic references by Daszak (the co-head of Wuhan). And it was funded in part by the NIH in the USA:
"Two subordinates of Dr. Anthony Fauci raised concerns in May 2016 that taxpayer dollars may be funding gain-of-function experiments on bat coronaviruses at a Wuhan lab, but dropped the issue after nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance downplayed the concerns, documents show.
"The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases staffers reversed course after requesting EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak submitted a “determination” to the agency that downplayed the risks of his proposed experiments, the records show.
"“The NIH, incredibly, accepted EcoHealth’s belief that this work would not be considered gain of function, and accepted EcoHealth’s rationale for this belief,” Rutgers University professor Richard Ebright told the DCNF."
Was it a bio-weapon in the making? Who the F knows. There is a legitimate reason for this research (if you consider the risk is worth it): create new vaccines for potential future pandemics. The US government does not consider this research worth the risk, which is why it forbids GOF research, even as it was covertly funding the same research abroad.
We do know the Chinese military has speculated about the potential "uses" of a weaponised coronavirus
Guardian front page has 'Tory peer investigated for racist messages' at the top.
Strangely we didn't get the same prominance for Labour Lord convicted of child rape yesterday.
We did but you didn't look hard enough or often enough.
Wayback machine confirms it was never given the same prominance, despite being much more of a story (conviction vs investigation, single racist message vs multiple child rape).
This isn't a difficult one.
It was on the app.
I'm sure it was. I'm not saying they ignored it completely.
I'm saying they've got a much lesser story about a Tory at the very top of their website, when something far worse about an equivalent Labour figure was pushed down the page....
"Equivalent Labour figure" ?
...Appointed a life peer by Tony Blair, Ahmed resigned from the Labour party in 2013...
I guess the better way to ask this is if Ahmed was a Tory peer who resigned in 2013 would the headline have read as it did or "former Tory peer Lord Ahmed..."?
Being the Guardian, my guess is on the latter.
You are entitled to your prejudices as much as they are to theirs, I suppose. It doesn't do much to support @maaarsh 's complaint, though.
No one denies they're entitled to have bias. They're also entitled to call themselves unbiased journalists whilst having bias. But I'm entitled to point it out.
Evem if the child rapist had nothing to do with Labout at all, there's no way to spin the more prominent reporting of a single alleged incident of a racist comment from a Tory above multiple counts of child rape as not indicative of their bias.
Quick overview - Macron wins if Pécresse doesn't come second in the first round. If she does, Macron loses.
Of course. If he's in a run-off with Le Pen, or even more so Zemmour, he's home and dry. If he's up against Pécresse in the second round, it's not so obvious.
Do we have any insight on whether Mme Pécresse is more or less pro-UK than Macron?
Obviously it would be nice to have someone in the Elysee who likes us!
I think she is conventionally French and Gaullist in this respect, but without the same undue obsession with dissing perfide Albion that Macron seems to have developed. Being female would hopefully also mean less of the macho willy waving that characterises our transmanche sibling rivalry.
The bit that leaps out of me is how everything in Scotland is now prefixed with Scottish....
That's something that is going to be very hard to fix but continually reinforces that all services are Scottish - without revealing that they only exist because of cross subsidies from other parts of the UK*. Which means it's easy for the Scottish Government to play their rulebook of celebrate success and blame London for the failures.
* for MalcolmG and co that isn't an invitation to insult or call me wrong - it's a simple fact of life that Governments borrow money.
The interesting thing about this is how pervasive this is even outside of politics. "National" newspapers prefix "Scottish" before their name. If you talk about "the FA" or the "Premier League", you will be understood as talking about the English FA and English Premier League even if you're in Scotland. Scotland is constantly "othered", even by itself. In fact, it's ironically one of the things that unites people from England, Scotland, and beyond: England is the UK, and Scotland is an awkward add-on that sort of is and sort of isn't England.
The issue here is that UK borrows the money, decides what it is spent on and mainly , not on what Scotland would spend it on. They then pretend Scotland runs a deficit. Until Scotland borrows the money and decides what it is spent on we are just a colony.
What would Scotland not spend money on that would generate enough savings to reflect the reduced tax income?
Beyond Defence (where Scotland could easily freeload off whats left of the UK) it's hard to identify many actual things that would be that different.
That would be for a Scottish government to decide, no option at present and little clarity on what is real and what is fiction so not worth speculating. I would say that if you think the current system is good, I will be happy to take your salary and decide what your money is spent on for you and even allow you some pocket money for some devolution. PS: Would not trust any money with current Scottish lot as they are as bad as the current Westminster lot. PPS: Current system allows them to hide and pass the buck on the many economic shambles and waste they are responsible for.
[The BBC] justified its position by citing the “uncontroversial principle of English law that a defendant is entitled to know the identity of the party or parties that are making a claim against them”.
Hmm. Pretty sure whilst anonynous complaints are not typically allowed in most situations, there are situations where it is permissable that might apply here.
Remember the weird "flamethrowers" they are apparently using in Xi'an, creating various theories? - eg they are exterminating rats and mice, or "this is Chinese theatre" - a fake stunt designed to impress the public with the severity of their counter-Covid measures
One of the first theories was that "this is merely a malfunction" - the foggers can suddenly start shooting out flames. It was greeted skeptically (as it didn't seem to match the behaviour of the users) nonetheless, it turns out, it is almost certainly true. There are several non-suspicious videos of the foggers doing exactly this, malfunctioning and shooting out flame
Twitter solved this problem. Social media is not all bad
You set 'em going, you kill 'em off.
Alternatively, I am curious, and I just want the truth. You're welcome
I think the most plausible theory is that the Winter Olympics start next month in Beijing and the Chinese aren't taking any risks.
I'm not talking about Xi'an per se, I'm referring specifically to their habit of disinfecting entire cities with foggers of all kinds (sometimes enormous tankers doing whole streets in one go)
No other country - as far as I know - has used this technique. Yet the Chinese have done it from the get-go in Wuhan, and then elsewhere
Odd
And they are - if their stats are to be believed - by a distance THE most successful country when it comes to controlling Covid. Perhaps we should all be out with our foggers
Well the Chinese created the virus, they know how to defeat it.
Wow. This place really has turned into Loony Central, hasn't it?
Where do you think the virus originated?
Probably from another species like a bat. The question is whether it passed to humans naturally, or was leaked out of a lab. Something of an astonishing coincidence that the outbreak started right next to a lab where they studied coronaviruses.
Coincidences are very common though. And this one isn't really at the astonishing end.
The bit that leaps out of me is how everything in Scotland is now prefixed with Scottish....
That's something that is going to be very hard to fix but continually reinforces that all services are Scottish - without revealing that they only exist because of cross subsidies from other parts of the UK*. Which means it's easy for the Scottish Government to play their rulebook of celebrate success and blame London for the failures.
* for MalcolmG and co that isn't an invitation to insult or call me wrong - it's a simple fact of life that Governments borrow money.
The interesting thing about this is how pervasive this is even outside of politics. "National" newspapers prefix "Scottish" before their name. If you talk about "the FA" or the "Premier League", you will be understood as talking about the English FA and English Premier League even if you're in Scotland. Scotland is constantly "othered", even by itself. In fact, it's ironically one of the things that unites people from England, Scotland, and beyond: England is the UK, and Scotland is an awkward add-on that sort of is and sort of isn't England.
All bodies with "Scottish" or "Scotland" that I am aware of have a specific Scotland remit. The SFA looks after football in Scotland; Scottish Water only supplies water to Scotland; NHS Scotland looks after healthcare in Scotland. UK wide bodies such as DHSS and HMRC don't have Scottish versions. Arguably the health service in England should always be referred to as NHS England, Forestry Commission as Forestry England and so on, but it's a bit haphazard.
Yes, but the Scottish FA is "The Scottish FA". Whereas the English one is just "The FA". You do see how in a very small way that makes England "normal" and Scotland "other", right?
It's a bit weird now you mention it. What about bread & butter things like say the "Cup Final"? Down here, that's the Wembley one and the one at Hampden is the Scottish Cup Final. Do people in Scotland not do the opposite? ie call the Wembley match the English Cup Final and the Hampden match just the Cup Final? If they don't I'd find that really odd.
What's also been interesting about the discussion is how some peopel assume that a process that began in 1885 is some sort of SNP conspiracy. But I hadn't realised that as has also been said it can seem very odd to see Scottish this and Scottish that to the degree that almost the only UJs in Edinburgh can seem the ones on the Castle, Holyrood, and some of the supermaket packets - and the huge one on the HMG office block near Waverley.
(The one at the Northern Lighthouse Board isn't a UJ, BTW).
Cases down week on week, mainly due to prior week data dumps but nevertheless either at or near a peak it seems once we get a few days out and look at the speciment date data for around now.
England reported Thursday/Last Thursday is probably as good as any measure to use
146,604 -> 152,306
We seem to be near the top of the peak I think
Long way to go yet I think before cases peak, although not sure how recent testing changes will affect the data.
Looking at the regional breakdown, London is starting to decline, but all other regions are growing, and some are even still accelerating. Plus schools are going back.
If a large proportion of official Covid admissions in the last fortnight were incidental or nosocomial (and it looks like around 30% or more were) then the decline in new hospitalisations and beds in London is going to look artificially steep in the same way the rise did, before levelling off.
[The BBC] justified its position by citing the “uncontroversial principle of English law that a defendant is entitled to know the identity of the party or parties that are making a claim against them”.
Hmm. Pretty sure whilst anonynous complaints are not typically allowed in most situations, there are situations where it is permissable that might apply here.
Well also,
Leading legal expert Lord Carlile told the JC: “It is wholly unacceptable for the BBC to try to force frightened teenagers to reveal their names, particularly as there is film of the incident anyway. It is not part of a civil action. All they are doing at this stage is seeking answers from the BBC and an apology.”
They f##ked up. They are just digging themselves deeper and deeper hole.
The assertion that England is actually England & Wales at cricket always troubles me.
That is indeed officially the case. But we are not called England & Wales and nobody outside of hushed southern British cricket circles thinks of us as such.
Wouldn't it be better for Wales just to have their own team? It would be competitive –probably better than Scotland's.
Meanwhile, I maintain that it remains bonkers that TeamGB exists purely for the Olympics, when Scotland and Wales are our (sometimes bitter) rivals at every major team sport.
'England' has had some very good Welsh cricketers playing for it over the years, and the Welsh fans seem happy enough with the current arrangement (I've always thought that the noise and intensity of the crowd psyched out the Aussies and led to the famous draw at Cardiff), so why change it?
[The BBC] justified its position by citing the “uncontroversial principle of English law that a defendant is entitled to know the identity of the party or parties that are making a claim against them”.
Hmm. Pretty sure whilst anonynous complaints are not typically allowed in most situations, there are situations where it is permissable that might apply here.
Well also,
Leading legal expert Lord Carlile told the JC: “It is wholly unacceptable for the BBC to try to force frightened teenagers to reveal their names, particularly as there is film of the incident anyway. It is not part of a civil action. All they are doing at this stage is seeking answers from the BBC and an apology.”
It might be more hassle than it's worth, but I'd be tempted to go public and sue them.
I feel really sorry for those PBers who are forced to read The Guardian with its outrageous left liberal bias that it doesn't try very hard to disguise. It must be awful.
Personally I would expect the same sympathy if I were forced to read the Telegraph, Mail, Express or Sun. Luckily for me, though, nobody forces me to read such right-wing rags.
The assertion that England is actually England & Wales at cricket always troubles me.
That is indeed officially the case. But we are not called England & Wales and nobody outside of hushed southern British cricket circles thinks of us as such.
Wouldn't it be better for Wales just to have their own team? It would be competitive –probably better than Scotland's.
Meanwhile, I maintain that it remains bonkers that TeamGB exists purely for the Olympics, when Scotland and Wales are our (sometimes bitter) rivals at every major team sport.
'England' has had some very good Welsh cricketers playing for it over the years, and the Welsh fans seem happy enough with the current arrangement (I've always thought that the noise and intensity of the crowd psyched out the Aussies and led to the famous draw at Cardiff), so why change it?
Simon Jones and Robert Croft waves.....is Tony Lewis still alive?
The assertion that England is actually England & Wales at cricket always troubles me.
That is indeed officially the case. But we are not called England & Wales and nobody outside of hushed southern British cricket circles thinks of us as such.
Wouldn't it be better for Wales just to have their own team? It would be competitive –probably better than Scotland's.
Meanwhile, I maintain that it remains bonkers that TeamGB exists purely for the Olympics, when Scotland and Wales are our (sometimes bitter) rivals at every major team sport.
'England' has had some very good Welsh cricketers playing for it over the years, and the Welsh fans seem happy enough with the current arrangement (I've always thought that the noise and intensity of the crowd psyched out the Aussies and led to the famous draw at Cardiff), so why change it?
Glamorgan plays in the County championship etc, and Wales Minor counties plays in the Minor Counties championships.
It's rare I agree with the Prime Minister but his comments on the anti-vaccine brigade are to be welcomed. They have individually and collectively done a great deal of harm.
While I respect their right not to be vaccinated if they choose and equally I respect their right to be treated just like everyone else if they get sick, the fact remains vaccinations are and will be the only path back to the new normal - going back to pre-Covid isn't going to happen however much some may desire it.
How so? Do you expect us to be shuffling around in masks forever?
I think we will be back to Freedon Day style by easter, but can easily see healthcare keeping masks for ever.
The assertion that England is actually England & Wales at cricket always troubles me.
That is indeed officially the case. But we are not called England & Wales and nobody outside of hushed southern British cricket circles thinks of us as such.
Wouldn't it be better for Wales just to have their own team? It would be competitive –probably better than Scotland's.
Meanwhile, I maintain that it remains bonkers that TeamGB exists purely for the Olympics, when Scotland and Wales are our (sometimes bitter) rivals at every major team sport.
'England' has had some very good Welsh cricketers playing for it over the years, and the Welsh fans seem happy enough with the current arrangement (I've always thought that the noise and intensity of the crowd psyched out the Aussies and led to the famous draw at Cardiff), so why change it?
The Welsh have only produced one decent test cricketer in the last fifty years, Simon Jones.
Not Sure Why Canterbury Is Listed, It's pretty pleasant, affluent and in the last year has been relatively free of tourists.
I agree, it's not without its tatty bits bit overall pretty nice, and in a pretty part of the country. Other anomalies are Chichester, which is very pretty (albeit they do seem to focus on it being "snobby" so maybe fair enough); Leeds, which is perfectly pleasant; and Liverpool. I'm with them on Aylesbury although I can think of even worse places that are further down the list.
This in hospital one is a bit misleading because 06/01 is missing Wales & Northern Ireland. Actually numbers in hospital have gone up in the two nations which have reported figures for that day.
last few days with hospital stuff is always subject to reporting delays....
The alternative is to cut the data for the others off.
You can see where the missing data is - the colour representing a nation/area going to zero is a bit of a clue :-)
[The BBC] justified its position by citing the “uncontroversial principle of English law that a defendant is entitled to know the identity of the party or parties that are making a claim against them”.
Hmm. Pretty sure whilst anonynous complaints are not typically allowed in most situations, there are situations where it is permissable that might apply here.
Well also,
Leading legal expert Lord Carlile told the JC: “It is wholly unacceptable for the BBC to try to force frightened teenagers to reveal their names, particularly as there is film of the incident anyway. It is not part of a civil action. All they are doing at this stage is seeking answers from the BBC and an apology.”
It might be more hassle than it's worth, but I'd be tempted to go public and sue them.
If they aren't careful they could end up with Covington kid situation, because that is basically what they have done. Albeit not repeated the lie for weeks across every outlet.
Quick overview - Macron wins if Pécresse doesn't come second in the first round. If she does, Macron loses.
Of course. If he's in a run-off with Le Pen, or even more so Zemmour, he's home and dry. If he's up against Pécresse in the second round, it's not so obvious.
Do we have any insight on whether Mme Pécresse is more or less pro-UK than Macron?
Obviously it would be nice to have someone in the Elysee who likes us!
I think she is conventionally French and Gaullist in this respect, but without the same undue obsession with dissing perfide Albion that Macron seems to have developed. Being female would hopefully also mean less of the macho willy waving that characterises our transmanche sibling rivalry.
Indeed, that's my hope.
And it's high time that La France, with her personification Marianne, had a présidente.
Cases down week on week, mainly due to prior week data dumps but nevertheless either at or near a peak it seems once we get a few days out and look at the speciment date data for around now.
England reported Thursday/Last Thursday is probably as good as any measure to use
146,604 -> 152,306
We seem to be near the top of the peak I think
Long way to go yet I think before cases peak, although not sure how recent testing changes will affect the data.
Looking at the regional breakdown, London is starting to decline, but all other regions are growing, and some are even still accelerating. Plus schools are going back.
Define "long way to go"...
A week?
A fortnight?
A month?
A quarter?
A year?
I didn't mean in terms of time, I meant in terms of numbers. In time, I'd guess maybe 2 weeks.
Remember the weird "flamethrowers" they are apparently using in Xi'an, creating various theories? - eg they are exterminating rats and mice, or "this is Chinese theatre" - a fake stunt designed to impress the public with the severity of their counter-Covid measures
One of the first theories was that "this is merely a malfunction" - the foggers can suddenly start shooting out flames. It was greeted skeptically (as it didn't seem to match the behaviour of the users) nonetheless, it turns out, it is almost certainly true. There are several non-suspicious videos of the foggers doing exactly this, malfunctioning and shooting out flame
Twitter solved this problem. Social media is not all bad
You set 'em going, you kill 'em off.
Alternatively, I am curious, and I just want the truth. You're welcome
I think the most plausible theory is that the Winter Olympics start next month in Beijing and the Chinese aren't taking any risks.
I'm not talking about Xi'an per se, I'm referring specifically to their habit of disinfecting entire cities with foggers of all kinds (sometimes enormous tankers doing whole streets in one go)
No other country - as far as I know - has used this technique. Yet the Chinese have done it from the get-go in Wuhan, and then elsewhere
Odd
And they are - if their stats are to be believed - by a distance THE most successful country when it comes to controlling Covid. Perhaps we should all be out with our foggers
Well the Chinese created the virus, they know how to defeat it.
That is the obvious but unspoken implication. Tho you went and spake it
It was a joke.
If the Chinese had really created the virus then their vaccine wouldn't be less effective than the ones the West created.
No. It is quite plausible they bio-engineered the virus, perhaps even as a potential weapon, but it was accidentally leaked before they had an effective vaccine ready
This might sound unlikely, but there are scientific papers by Chinese military scientists - linked with the Wuhan lab - discussing exactly this scenario: the creation of a novel coronavirus to cripple rival economies. They date, IIRC, from around 2015 onwards
With China, who knows
You're saying it's "quite plausible" that those inscrutables over there in the Orient were cooking up a deadly virus to attack us with but their dastardly plan went off half-cock and now they're in a pickle of their own making?
Tempted to go "serve the buggers right" but this would be to ignore the damage wreaked on so many innocent people the whole world over.
I am pretty certain it came from the lab, via an accidental leak. I am less certain - but still think it probable - that the virus was engineered to be nastier. Gain of Function. Because that is exactly what they were doing in the Wuhan lab, they openly boasted about it - see the many pre-pandemic references by Daszak (the co-head of Wuhan). And it was funded in part by the NIH in the USA:
"Two subordinates of Dr. Anthony Fauci raised concerns in May 2016 that taxpayer dollars may be funding gain-of-function experiments on bat coronaviruses at a Wuhan lab, but dropped the issue after nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance downplayed the concerns, documents show.
"The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases staffers reversed course after requesting EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak submitted a “determination” to the agency that downplayed the risks of his proposed experiments, the records show.
"“The NIH, incredibly, accepted EcoHealth’s belief that this work would not be considered gain of function, and accepted EcoHealth’s rationale for this belief,” Rutgers University professor Richard Ebright told the DCNF."
Was it a bio-weapon in the making? Who the F knows. There is a legitimate reason for this research (if you consider the risk is worth it): create new vaccines for potential future pandemics. The US government does not consider this research worth the risk, which is why it forbids GOF research, even as it was covertly funding the same research abroad.
We do know the Chinese military has speculated about the potential "uses" of a weaponised coronavirus
Why would you create a virus that is going to attack your own population as a coronavirus will do?
It's rare I agree with the Prime Minister but his comments on the anti-vaccine brigade are to be welcomed. They have individually and collectively done a great deal of harm.
While I respect their right not to be vaccinated if they choose and equally I respect their right to be treated just like everyone else if they get sick, the fact remains vaccinations are and will be the only path back to the new normal - going back to pre-Covid isn't going to happen however much some may desire it.
How so? Do you expect us to be shuffling around in masks forever?
I think we will be back to Freedon Day style by easter, but can easily see healthcare keeping masks for ever.
I don't think so, we eventually get to a place where everyone has had the virus a few times and those older people who didn't get the vaccine have already died of it.
The bit that leaps out of me is how everything in Scotland is now prefixed with Scottish....
That's something that is going to be very hard to fix but continually reinforces that all services are Scottish - without revealing that they only exist because of cross subsidies from other parts of the UK*. Which means it's easy for the Scottish Government to play their rulebook of celebrate success and blame London for the failures.
* for MalcolmG and co that isn't an invitation to insult or call me wrong - it's a simple fact of life that Governments borrow money.
The interesting thing about this is how pervasive this is even outside of politics. "National" newspapers prefix "Scottish" before their name. If you talk about "the FA" or the "Premier League", you will be understood as talking about the English FA and English Premier League even if you're in Scotland. Scotland is constantly "othered", even by itself. In fact, it's ironically one of the things that unites people from England, Scotland, and beyond: England is the UK, and Scotland is an awkward add-on that sort of is and sort of isn't England.
The issue here is that UK borrows the money, decides what it is spent on and mainly , not on what Scotland would spend it on. They then pretend Scotland runs a deficit. Until Scotland borrows the money and decides what it is spent on we are just a colony.
Well, colony isn't really accurate. We are participants in the London parliament on a roughly equal footing per capita. That's not to say it's a satisfactory status quo, but it's better to call it what it is not what it isn't.
You are entitled to your opinion , where England has close to 90% of the vote and MP's , then I say we are a colony and we are treated as such. You only need look at the way the MP's from Scotland are treated in Westminster to see that clearly. Anyone thinking otherwise is foolish at best.
Not Sure Why Canterbury Is Listed, It's pretty pleasant, affluent and in the last year has been relatively free of tourists.
I agree, it's not without its tatty bits bit overall pretty nice, and in a pretty part of the country. Other anomalies are Chichester, which is very pretty (albeit they do seem to focus on it being "snobby" so maybe fair enough); Leeds, which is perfectly pleasant; and Liverpool. I'm with them on Aylesbury although I can think of even worse places that are further down the list.
When I was growing up in Dover even the tatty bits of Canterbury looked Good !
The assertion that England is actually England & Wales at cricket always troubles me.
That is indeed officially the case. But we are not called England & Wales and nobody outside of hushed southern British cricket circles thinks of us as such.
Wouldn't it be better for Wales just to have their own team? It would be competitive –probably better than Scotland's.
Meanwhile, I maintain that it remains bonkers that TeamGB exists purely for the Olympics, when Scotland and Wales are our (sometimes bitter) rivals at every major team sport.
'England' has had some very good Welsh cricketers playing for it over the years, and the Welsh fans seem happy enough with the current arrangement (I've always thought that the noise and intensity of the crowd psyched out the Aussies and led to the famous draw at Cardiff), so why change it?
Simon Jones and Robert Croft waves.....is Tony Lewis still alive?
Cases down week on week, mainly due to prior week data dumps but nevertheless either at or near a peak it seems once we get a few days out and look at the speciment date data for around now.
England reported Thursday/Last Thursday is probably as good as any measure to use
146,604 -> 152,306
We seem to be near the top of the peak I think
Long way to go yet I think before cases peak, although not sure how recent testing changes will affect the data.
Looking at the regional breakdown, London is starting to decline, but all other regions are growing, and some are even still accelerating. Plus schools are going back.
Define "long way to go"...
A week?
A fortnight?
A month?
A quarter?
A year?
I didn't mean in terms of time, I meant in terms of numbers. In time, I'd guess maybe 2 weeks.
It's rare I agree with the Prime Minister but his comments on the anti-vaccine brigade are to be welcomed. They have individually and collectively done a great deal of harm.
While I respect their right not to be vaccinated if they choose and equally I respect their right to be treated just like everyone else if they get sick, the fact remains vaccinations are and will be the only path back to the new normal - going back to pre-Covid isn't going to happen however much some may desire it.
How so? Do you expect us to be shuffling around in masks forever?
I think we will be back to Freedon Day style by easter, but can easily see healthcare keeping masks for ever.
I don't think so, we eventually get to a place where everyone has had the virus a few times and those older people who didn't get the vaccine have already died of it.
You really think healthcare will let go that easily?
The bit that leaps out of me is how everything in Scotland is now prefixed with Scottish....
That's something that is going to be very hard to fix but continually reinforces that all services are Scottish - without revealing that they only exist because of cross subsidies from other parts of the UK*. Which means it's easy for the Scottish Government to play their rulebook of celebrate success and blame London for the failures.
* for MalcolmG and co that isn't an invitation to insult or call me wrong - it's a simple fact of life that Governments borrow money.
The interesting thing about this is how pervasive this is even outside of politics. "National" newspapers prefix "Scottish" before their name. If you talk about "the FA" or the "Premier League", you will be understood as talking about the English FA and English Premier League even if you're in Scotland. Scotland is constantly "othered", even by itself. In fact, it's ironically one of the things that unites people from England, Scotland, and beyond: England is the UK, and Scotland is an awkward add-on that sort of is and sort of isn't England.
All bodies with "Scottish" or "Scotland" that I am aware of have a specific Scotland remit. The SFA looks after football in Scotland; Scottish Water only supplies water to Scotland; NHS Scotland looks after healthcare in Scotland. UK wide bodies such as DHSS and HMRC don't have Scottish versions. Arguably the health service in England should always be referred to as NHS England, Forestry Commission as Forestry England and so on, but it's a bit haphazard.
Yes, but the Scottish FA is "The Scottish FA". Whereas the English one is just "The FA". You do see how in a very small way that makes England "normal" and Scotland "other", right?
It's a bit weird now you mention it. What about bread & butter things like say the "Cup Final"? Down here, that's the Wembley one and the one at Hampden is the Scottish Cup Final. Do people in Scotland not do the opposite? ie call the Wembley match the English Cup Final and the Hampden match just the Cup Final? If they don't I'd find that really odd.
What's also been interesting about the discussion is how some peopel assume that a process that began in 1885 is some sort of SNP conspiracy. But I hadn't realised that as has also been said it can seem very odd to see Scottish this and Scottish that to the degree that almost the only UJs in Edinburgh can seem the ones on the Castle, Holyrood, and some of the supermaket packets - and the huge one on the HMG office block near Waverley.
(The one at the Northern Lighthouse Board isn't a UJ, BTW).
It's rare I agree with the Prime Minister but his comments on the anti-vaccine brigade are to be welcomed. They have individually and collectively done a great deal of harm.
While I respect their right not to be vaccinated if they choose and equally I respect their right to be treated just like everyone else if they get sick, the fact remains vaccinations are and will be the only path back to the new normal - going back to pre-Covid isn't going to happen however much some may desire it.
How so? Do you expect us to be shuffling around in masks forever?
I think we will be back to Freedon Day style by easter, but can easily see healthcare keeping masks for ever.
I don't think so, we eventually get to a place where everyone has had the virus a few times and those older people who didn't get the vaccine have already died of it.
You really think healthcare will let go that easily?
I think the people who work in healthcare will want to get rid of them, I mean if we're registering just 5-10 deaths per day from COVID 6 months from now what's the value in holding onto the measures?
The bit that leaps out of me is how everything in Scotland is now prefixed with Scottish....
That's something that is going to be very hard to fix but continually reinforces that all services are Scottish - without revealing that they only exist because of cross subsidies from other parts of the UK*. Which means it's easy for the Scottish Government to play their rulebook of celebrate success and blame London for the failures.
* for MalcolmG and co that isn't an invitation to insult or call me wrong - it's a simple fact of life that Governments borrow money.
The interesting thing about this is how pervasive this is even outside of politics. "National" newspapers prefix "Scottish" before their name. If you talk about "the FA" or the "Premier League", you will be understood as talking about the English FA and English Premier League even if you're in Scotland. Scotland is constantly "othered", even by itself. In fact, it's ironically one of the things that unites people from England, Scotland, and beyond: England is the UK, and Scotland is an awkward add-on that sort of is and sort of isn't England.
All bodies with "Scottish" or "Scotland" that I am aware of have a specific Scotland remit. The SFA looks after football in Scotland; Scottish Water only supplies water to Scotland; NHS Scotland looks after healthcare in Scotland. UK wide bodies such as DHSS and HMRC don't have Scottish versions. Arguably the health service in England should always be referred to as NHS England, Forestry Commission as Forestry England and so on, but it's a bit haphazard.
Yes, but the Scottish FA is "The Scottish FA". Whereas the English one is just "The FA". You do see how in a very small way that makes England "normal" and Scotland "other", right?
It's a bit weird now you mention it. What about bread & butter things like say the "Cup Final"? Down here, that's the Wembley one and the one at Hampden is the Scottish Cup Final. Do people in Scotland not do the opposite? ie call the Wembley match the English Cup Final and the Hampden match just the Cup Final? If they don't I'd find that really odd.
No we don't, if anyone is interested they would say FA cup final, up here it would be Scottish Cup Final.
I read somewhere that historically England were allowed to call their competition "The FA Cup" as a nod to it being the oldest soccer tournement in the world, (not The English FA Cup), and The governing body were allowed to call themselves "The FA".
It's also why the UK has separate representation on the IFAB, (England, Scotland, Wales, NI), as recognition of the origins of Football.
It's rare I agree with the Prime Minister but his comments on the anti-vaccine brigade are to be welcomed. They have individually and collectively done a great deal of harm.
While I respect their right not to be vaccinated if they choose and equally I respect their right to be treated just like everyone else if they get sick, the fact remains vaccinations are and will be the only path back to the new normal - going back to pre-Covid isn't going to happen however much some may desire it.
How so? Do you expect us to be shuffling around in masks forever?
I think we will be back to Freedon Day style by easter, but can easily see healthcare keeping masks for ever.
I don't think so, we eventually get to a place where everyone has had the virus a few times and those older people who didn't get the vaccine have already died of it.
You really think healthcare will let go that easily?
I think the people who work in healthcare will want to get rid of them, I mean if we're registering just 5-10 deaths per day from COVID 6 months from now what's the value in holding onto the measures?
The only way we get that low on covid deaths is to stop testing everyone all the time. Maybe I'm too pessimistic, but I see healthcare in general liking masks etc. Not everyone sure, but a lot of them.
They appear to have hired Dominic Cummings as their advisor to deal with scandals.
To stop digging when in a hole is one thing. To keep digging is another.
To hire Bagger 288 - well that is something else....
That reminds me - now that I've got a little more free time, I must assemble my Lego Bagger 288 again. It's rather large ...
1-in-1 scale?
Not quite.
It rather fills up our living room. Far too much money spent on bits and pieces for it as well. I assembled it, found issues, and need to fix a few things.
It's one of the nice features of walking around the large Scottish cities the number of buildings that are named after local heroes particularly Gordon Brown in Edinburgh.
Quick overview - Macron wins if Pécresse doesn't come second in the first round. If she does, Macron loses.
Of course. If he's in a run-off with Le Pen, or even more so Zemmour, he's home and dry. If he's up against Pécresse in the second round, it's not so obvious.
Do we have any insight on whether Mme Pécresse is more or less pro-UK than Macron?
Obviously it would be nice to have someone in the Elysee who likes us!
None of them like us particularly.
Zemmour regrets D-Day and regards it as an Anglo Saxon invasion of France.
Le Pen is instinctively protectionist and anti-free trade. She doesn't dislike us, but we'd constantly be butting heads as France attempted to export goods to the UK that had been subsidised by the French state.
Macron is a cock. I don't think he actually dislikes the UK, but he sees political mileage in being seen to fight us.
Pécresse is probably little different to Macron. She's rarely missed the opportunity to be rude about us.
The bit that leaps out of me is how everything in Scotland is now prefixed with Scottish....
That's something that is going to be very hard to fix but continually reinforces that all services are Scottish - without revealing that they only exist because of cross subsidies from other parts of the UK*. Which means it's easy for the Scottish Government to play their rulebook of celebrate success and blame London for the failures.
* for MalcolmG and co that isn't an invitation to insult or call me wrong - it's a simple fact of life that Governments borrow money.
The interesting thing about this is how pervasive this is even outside of politics. "National" newspapers prefix "Scottish" before their name. If you talk about "the FA" or the "Premier League", you will be understood as talking about the English FA and English Premier League even if you're in Scotland. Scotland is constantly "othered", even by itself. In fact, it's ironically one of the things that unites people from England, Scotland, and beyond: England is the UK, and Scotland is an awkward add-on that sort of is and sort of isn't England.
The issue here is that UK borrows the money, decides what it is spent on and mainly , not on what Scotland would spend it on. They then pretend Scotland runs a deficit. Until Scotland borrows the money and decides what it is spent on we are just a colony.
Well, colony isn't really accurate. We are participants in the London parliament on a roughly equal footing per capita. That's not to say it's a satisfactory status quo, but it's better to call it what it is not what it isn't.
You are entitled to your opinion , where England has close to 90% of the vote and MP's , then I say we are a colony and we are treated as such. You only need look at the way the MP's from Scotland are treated in Westminster to see that clearly. Anyone thinking otherwise is foolish at best.
On the latest Redfield poll Starmer would become UK PM with the support of Scottish SNP MPs and Welsh Labour MPs, despite another Tory majority in England. On your logic England would then be a colony of Scotland and Wales and England does not even have its own parliament like Scotland and Wales do now
Not Sure Why Canterbury Is Listed, It's pretty pleasant, affluent and in the last year has been relatively free of tourists.
Leicester is ranked lower than Abingdon??
The latter is perfectly pleasant in my experience.
Leicester is the dullest city in the UK, a sort of inherently boring place.
Yes I was surprised to see Abingdon. I worked there for a year in the early 90s and thought it a very pleasant place. If its position is justified it must have taken one hell of a dive.
The bit that leaps out of me is how everything in Scotland is now prefixed with Scottish....
That's something that is going to be very hard to fix but continually reinforces that all services are Scottish - without revealing that they only exist because of cross subsidies from other parts of the UK*. Which means it's easy for the Scottish Government to play their rulebook of celebrate success and blame London for the failures.
* for MalcolmG and co that isn't an invitation to insult or call me wrong - it's a simple fact of life that Governments borrow money.
The interesting thing about this is how pervasive this is even outside of politics. "National" newspapers prefix "Scottish" before their name. If you talk about "the FA" or the "Premier League", you will be understood as talking about the English FA and English Premier League even if you're in Scotland. Scotland is constantly "othered", even by itself. In fact, it's ironically one of the things that unites people from England, Scotland, and beyond: England is the UK, and Scotland is an awkward add-on that sort of is and sort of isn't England.
All bodies with "Scottish" or "Scotland" that I am aware of have a specific Scotland remit. The SFA looks after football in Scotland; Scottish Water only supplies water to Scotland; NHS Scotland looks after healthcare in Scotland. UK wide bodies such as DHSS and HMRC don't have Scottish versions. Arguably the health service in England should always be referred to as NHS England, Forestry Commission as Forestry England and so on, but it's a bit haphazard.
Yes, but the Scottish FA is "The Scottish FA". Whereas the English one is just "The FA". You do see how in a very small way that makes England "normal" and Scotland "other", right?
It's a bit weird now you mention it. What about bread & butter things like say the "Cup Final"? Down here, that's the Wembley one and the one at Hampden is the Scottish Cup Final. Do people in Scotland not do the opposite? ie call the Wembley match the English Cup Final and the Hampden match just the Cup Final? If they don't I'd find that really odd.
What's also been interesting about the discussion is how some peopel assume that a process that began in 1885 is some sort of SNP conspiracy. But I hadn't realised that as has also been said it can seem very odd to see Scottish this and Scottish that to the degree that almost the only UJs in Edinburgh can seem the ones on the Castle, Holyrood, and some of the supermaket packets - and the huge one on the HMG office block near Waverley.
(The one at the Northern Lighthouse Board isn't a UJ, BTW).
You have not been to Ibrox in a long time then Carnyx.
Never been - nearest was lunch at the Mockintosh House at Bellahouston.
Oooh, House for an Art Lover? I went to a wedding there. Really nice place. I didn't twig it was so close to Ibrox.
Yep - nice meals too. Close enough that if you are going there or to the sports centre in the park on a Saturday it's advisable to tak tent of whether Sevco FC are playing at home that day, for traffic reasons etc.
It's one of the nice features of walking around the large Scottish cities the number of buildings that are named after local heroes particularly Gordon Brown in Edinburgh.
The bit that leaps out of me is how everything in Scotland is now prefixed with Scottish....
That's something that is going to be very hard to fix but continually reinforces that all services are Scottish - without revealing that they only exist because of cross subsidies from other parts of the UK*. Which means it's easy for the Scottish Government to play their rulebook of celebrate success and blame London for the failures.
* for MalcolmG and co that isn't an invitation to insult or call me wrong - it's a simple fact of life that Governments borrow money.
The interesting thing about this is how pervasive this is even outside of politics. "National" newspapers prefix "Scottish" before their name. If you talk about "the FA" or the "Premier League", you will be understood as talking about the English FA and English Premier League even if you're in Scotland. Scotland is constantly "othered", even by itself. In fact, it's ironically one of the things that unites people from England, Scotland, and beyond: England is the UK, and Scotland is an awkward add-on that sort of is and sort of isn't England.
All bodies with "Scottish" or "Scotland" that I am aware of have a specific Scotland remit. The SFA looks after football in Scotland; Scottish Water only supplies water to Scotland; NHS Scotland looks after healthcare in Scotland. UK wide bodies such as DHSS and HMRC don't have Scottish versions. Arguably the health service in England should always be referred to as NHS England, Forestry Commission as Forestry England and so on, but it's a bit haphazard.
Yes, but the Scottish FA is "The Scottish FA". Whereas the English one is just "The FA". You do see how in a very small way that makes England "normal" and Scotland "other", right?
It's a bit weird now you mention it. What about bread & butter things like say the "Cup Final"? Down here, that's the Wembley one and the one at Hampden is the Scottish Cup Final. Do people in Scotland not do the opposite? ie call the Wembley match the English Cup Final and the Hampden match just the Cup Final? If they don't I'd find that really odd.
What's also been interesting about the discussion is how some peopel assume that a process that began in 1885 is some sort of SNP conspiracy. But I hadn't realised that as has also been said it can seem very odd to see Scottish this and Scottish that to the degree that almost the only UJs in Edinburgh can seem the ones on the Castle, Holyrood, and some of the supermaket packets - and the huge one on the HMG office block near Waverley.
(The one at the Northern Lighthouse Board isn't a UJ, BTW).
Yes, I wouldn't think it's an SNP thing. Perhaps what it mainly is is a linguistic habit coming naturally when describing something that's related to a part of the UK rather than the whole. In which case would it change if the UK was no more? I don't know. Guess nobody does!
I feel really sorry for those PBers who are forced to read The Guardian with it's outrageous left liberal bias that it doesn't try very hard to disguise. It must be awful.
Personally I would expect the same sympathy if I were forced to read the Telegraph, Mail, Express or Sun. Luckily for me, though, nobody forces me to read such right-wing rags.
There are more than a few Ignatius J Reillys on PB.
Some of us choose to listen and try to understand what the other side is thinking, even if we disagree with it.
Not Sure Why Canterbury Is Listed, It's pretty pleasant, affluent and in the last year has been relatively free of tourists.
Leicester is ranked lower than Abingdon??
The latter is perfectly pleasant in my experience.
Leicester is the dullest city in the UK, a sort of inherently boring place.
Yes I was surprised to see Abingdon. I worked there for a year in the early 90s and thought it a very pleasant place. If its position is justified it must have taken one hell of a dive.
There are two theories about Abingdon. One is that the council wanted to turn it into a shithole and the other is that they did it because they are fucking useless.
In act of supreme stupidity, they contemplated selling the old Town Hall - aside from the fact that it's the town museum, it's the symbol of Abingdon. Imagine selling Tower Bridge, in London.... or Big Ben. Or selling the Castle in Edinburgh...
Some locals came up with a cunning plan. Immediately the idea was publicly mooted, the local Freemasons said they would buy it. They didn't have the money, but several of the councillors were big into anti-Masonic stuff. So instantly the idea of selling the Old Town Hall was off the agenda. Forever....
They appear to have hired Dominic Cummings as their advisor to deal with scandals.
To stop digging when in a hole is one thing. To keep digging is another.
To hire Bagger 288 - well that is something else....
That reminds me - now that I've got a little more free time, I must assemble my Lego Bagger 288 again. It's rather large ...
1-in-1 scale?
Not quite.
It rather fills up our living room. Far too much money spent on bits and pieces for it as well. I assembled it, found issues, and need to fix a few things.
Guardian front page has 'Tory peer investigated for racist messages' at the top.
Strangely we didn't get the same prominance for Labour Lord convicted of child rape yesterday.
We did but you didn't look hard enough or often enough.
Wayback machine confirms it was never given the same prominance, despite being much more of a story (conviction vs investigation, single racist message vs multiple child rape).
This isn't a difficult one.
It was on the app.
I'm sure it was. I'm not saying they ignored it completely.
I'm saying they've got a much lesser story about a Tory at the very top of their website, when something far worse about an equivalent Labour figure was pushed down the page....
"Equivalent Labour figure" ?
...Appointed a life peer by Tony Blair, Ahmed resigned from the Labour party in 2013...
I guess the better way to ask this is if Ahmed was a Tory peer who resigned in 2013 would the headline have read as it did or "former Tory peer Lord Ahmed..."?
Being the Guardian, my guess is on the latter.
You are entitled to your prejudices as much as they are to theirs, I suppose. It doesn't do much to support @maaarsh 's complaint, though.
And indeed to your prejudices. Which you no doubt have.
Quick overview - Macron wins if Pécresse doesn't come second in the first round. If she does, Macron loses.
Of course. If he's in a run-off with Le Pen, or even more so Zemmour, he's home and dry. If he's up against Pécresse in the second round, it's not so obvious.
Do we have any insight on whether Mme Pécresse is more or less pro-UK than Macron?
Obviously it would be nice to have someone in the Elysee who likes us!
None of them like us particularly.
Zemmour regrets D-Day and regards it as an Anglo Saxon invasion of France.
Le Pen is instinctively protectionist and anti-free trade. She doesn't dislike us, but we'd constantly be butting heads as France attempted to export goods to the UK that had been subsidised by the French state.
Macron is a cock. I don't think he actually dislikes the UK, but he sees political mileage in being seen to fight us.
Pécresse is probably little different to Macron. She's rarely missed the opportunity to be rude about us.
Funnily enough, I think Le Pen might be the friendliest to us.
She is naturally anti-EU and, while she wouldn't Frexit, I think she would see us as a useful ally to stop Germany pushing France.
I also think she and BJ would be pragmatic when it came to joint issues including the Channel crisis.
Comments
All in all, looking very good.
Tempted to go "serve the buggers right" but this would be to ignore the damage wreaked on so many innocent people the whole world over.
Until Scotland borrows the money and decides what it is spent on we are just a colony.
Looking at the regional breakdown, London is starting to decline, but all other regions are growing, and some are even still accelerating. Plus schools are going back.
9.1 million left to do, 196 million over 50s
https://www.ilivehere.co.uk/top-50-worst-places-to-live-in-england-2022
https://www.globalsign.com/en/ssl-information-center/what-are-certification-authorities-trust-hierarchies
Where as the idea with these NFTs (eventually) is it trivial for the issuer to spin it up, distribute the tickets to the right people, let them be freely traded, and ultimately check them, without having to have a centralised authority.
While I respect their right not to be vaccinated if they choose and equally I respect their right to be treated just like everyone else if they get sick, the fact remains vaccinations are and will be the only path back to the new normal - going back to pre-Covid isn't going to happen however much some may desire it.
Yes, infection and cure is another route but that's not an option for some and given the report today over one million people have "long Covid", it seems some will be suffering from this virus for a while yet regrettably.
Obviously it would be nice to have someone in the Elysee who likes us!
That is indeed officially the case. But we are not called England & Wales and nobody outside of hushed southern British cricket circles thinks of us as such.
Wouldn't it be better for Wales just to have their own team? It would be competitive –probably better than Scotland's.
Meanwhile, I maintain that it remains bonkers that TeamGB exists purely for the Olympics, when Scotland and Wales are our (sometimes bitter) rivals at every major team sport.
Beyond Defence (where Scotland could easily freeload off whats left of the UK) it's hard to identify many actual things that would be that different.
It doesn't do much to support @maaarsh 's complaint, though.
(The one at the Northern Lighthouse Board isn't a UJ, BTW).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Lighthouse_Board#/media/File:NLB_HQ.JPG
- Cases rising. But R is dipping across the board, again. London seems to have levelled off....
- Admissions are down from peak. A mixed bag. But actually falling in a number of areas leading to an England picture of
- Deaths are trending up, slightly.
Outrage as BBC demands victims of Oxford Street bus attack reveal identities
https://www.thejc.com/news/news/outrage-as-bbc-demands-victims-of-oxford-street-bus-attack-reveal-identities-70ZbUzTlGqUhQzGZWsPnF0
I understand why people are worried about long covid, and it certainly encompasses a wide range of conditions. Some I am sure will be functional neuronal disorders similar to chronic fatigue syndrome, others will have physical damage to organs. For most, I suspect, with time they will recover.
And it was funded in part by the NIH in the USA:
"Two subordinates of Dr. Anthony Fauci raised concerns in May 2016 that taxpayer dollars may be funding gain-of-function experiments on bat coronaviruses at a Wuhan lab, but dropped the issue after nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance downplayed the concerns, documents show.
"The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases staffers reversed course after requesting EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak submitted a “determination” to the agency that downplayed the risks of his proposed experiments, the records show.
"“The NIH, incredibly, accepted EcoHealth’s belief that this work would not be considered gain of function, and accepted EcoHealth’s rationale for this belief,” Rutgers University professor Richard Ebright told the DCNF."
https://dailycaller.com/2021/11/03/fauci-nih-ecohealth-peter-daszak-gain-of-function-wuhan-covid-19/
This is all on record.
Was it a bio-weapon in the making? Who the F knows. There is a legitimate reason for this research (if you consider the risk is worth it): create new vaccines for potential future pandemics. The US government does not consider this research worth the risk, which is why it forbids GOF research, even as it was covertly funding the same research abroad.
We do know the Chinese military has speculated about the potential "uses" of a weaponised coronavirus
Evem if the child rapist had nothing to do with Labout at all, there's no way to spin the more prominent reporting of a single alleged incident of a racist comment from a Tory above multiple counts of child rape as not indicative of their bias.
I would say that if you think the current system is good, I will be happy to take your salary and decide what your money is spent on for you and even allow you some pocket money for some devolution.
PS: Would not trust any money with current Scottish lot as they are as bad as the current Westminster lot.
PPS: Current system allows them to hide and pass the buck on the many economic shambles and waste they are responsible for.
[The BBC] justified its position by citing the “uncontroversial principle of English law that a defendant is entitled to know the identity of the party or parties that are making a claim against them”.
Hmm. Pretty sure whilst anonynous complaints are not typically allowed in most situations, there are situations where it is permissable that might apply here.
To stop digging when in a hole is one thing. To keep digging is another.
To hire Bagger 288 - well that is something else....
A week?
A fortnight?
A month?
A quarter?
A year?
Leading legal expert Lord Carlile told the JC: “It is wholly unacceptable for the BBC to try to force frightened teenagers to reveal their names, particularly as there is film of the incident anyway. It is not part of a civil action. All they are doing at this stage is seeking answers from the BBC and an apology.”
They f##ked up. They are just digging themselves deeper and deeper hole.
Personally I would expect the same sympathy if I were forced to read the Telegraph, Mail, Express or Sun. Luckily for me, though, nobody forces me to read such right-wing rags.
How many times have we heard over the past two years about things increasing exponentially?
But when the opposite happens, it's always "flattening the curve"; why are they not increasing logarithmically?
Other anomalies are Chichester, which is very pretty (albeit they do seem to focus on it being "snobby" so maybe fair enough); Leeds, which is perfectly pleasant; and Liverpool. I'm with them on Aylesbury although I can think of even worse places that are further down the list.
The alternative is to cut the data for the others off.
You can see where the missing data is - the colour representing a nation/area going to zero is a bit of a clue :-)
And it's high time that La France, with her personification Marianne, had a présidente.
In time, I'd guess maybe 2 weeks.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-59898498
Thanks. And sure, agreed.
https://www.napier.ac.uk/about-us/news/napier400exhibition
It's also why the UK has separate representation on the IFAB, (England,
Scotland, Wales, NI), as recognition of the origins of Football.
The latter is perfectly pleasant in my experience.
Leicester is the dullest city in the UK, a sort of inherently boring place.
It rather fills up our living room. Far too much money spent on bits and pieces for it as well. I assembled it, found issues, and need to fix a few things.
Zemmour regrets D-Day and regards it as an Anglo Saxon invasion of France.
Le Pen is instinctively protectionist and anti-free trade. She doesn't dislike us, but we'd constantly be butting heads as France attempted to export goods to the UK that had been subsidised by the French state.
Macron is a cock. I don't think he actually dislikes the UK, but he sees political mileage in being seen to fight us.
Pécresse is probably little different to Macron. She's rarely missed the opportunity to be rude about us.
More Tory sleaze incoming.
Mate of Call Me Dave
As they say, know your enemies.
In act of supreme stupidity, they contemplated selling the old Town Hall - aside from the fact that it's the town museum, it's the symbol of Abingdon. Imagine selling Tower Bridge, in London.... or Big Ben. Or selling the Castle in Edinburgh...
Some locals came up with a cunning plan. Immediately the idea was publicly mooted, the local Freemasons said they would buy it. They didn't have the money, but several of the councillors were big into anti-Masonic stuff. So instantly the idea of selling the Old Town Hall was off the agenda. Forever....
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/boris-johnson-pmqs-untruths_uk_61d5fbcde4b0bcd2195abfe3
She is naturally anti-EU and, while she wouldn't Frexit, I think she would see us as a useful ally to stop Germany pushing France.
I also think she and BJ would be pragmatic when it came to joint issues including the Channel crisis.