I think I joined PB sometime around 2006 or 2007. Had a huge amount of fun and learnt a lot on here over the years. Still feel a bit of a fraud as I don't bet that often although I have had a few side bets with various posters over the years and come out about even over all. But still think it is by far the best place to both get the news and get exposed to proper debate and opinions I would otherwise not have really heard (or maybe more accurately listened to). Also delighted to have had a few of my thoughts published by Mike and the team so very grateful for that.
I do intend trying to get up to London for the 2nd (I still love the old rail terminology learnt from my Grandfather that London is always 'up'). Just trying to decide whether to come up just for the evening or book a hotel for overnight.
Really? If I was taking a train from Aberdeen I'd say I was going down to London and then back up to Scotland. It sounds totally wrong to me the other way around.
It's largely a south east thing - where all rail lines lead to London. I'd say 'down to London' and 'up to Scotland' and 'over to Sheffield'.
Really, it makes no more sense to say 'up to Edinburgh (from Manchester) as it does to say 'up to London'. Having north at the top of the map is an arbitrary convention. The places one travels 'up' to ought to be higher - so 'up' to Buxton, 'down' to Liverpool. This does require a more detailed topographical map of the country than most people hold in their heads, however.
I heard a plausible theory on the Adrian Chiles radio program yesterday. There is absolutley no problem in getting to 54 but those opposed to Boris do not want to trigger a contest until they think that they can win it and they are still far from confident about that so they are holding back and waiting for him to weaken. They are concerned about giving him another full year.
I think, for all the abuse they get, we are dealing with a pretty sophisticated electorate here, well used to gaming the system.
Johnson could throw those he saw as ringleaders out of the party and still have a Parliamentary majority, of course.
CF Gauke, Hammond et al.
He can’t, he hasn’t got the authority (cue Jackie Weaver).
However, I am subscriber to the theory @DavidL puts forwards, namely BJ is there because certain sections do not want the oft mentioned alternatives, namely Sunak and Truss, but are struggling to find their own alternative. If there is one reason to be short both is the lack of Tory MPs briefing for them in the press. They don’t look to have a strong base of support.
The problem the Tory party have is that Boris was the only person able to talk to all the different groups that the Tory party support is currently built on.
The problem is that everyone else in a position of leadership comes from the historic “don’t spend” world while the new MPs know that without sweeties they aren’t going to be re-elected.
So while Bozo is seriously damaged goods there isn’t any sane alternative but Bozo is now so damaged it is getting to the point where his faults are no longer ignorable.
Yep the Tory party is a sophisticated electorate but the problem it currently faces is there is no logical leader that keeps Bozo’s coalition in place and Bozo is braking so rapidly that a replacement is going to be needed far earlier than they want.
Yes, that’s exactly the problem. In some ways, the Conservatives are becoming a mirror image of Labour’s unstable coalition of urbanites, WWC (declining) and generally conservative ethnic minorities.
Leaderwise, I think it’s clear Sunak and Truss don’t have the confidence of the Red Wall / ERG factions. Sunak’s energy payments look to be a way to prove he can benefit RW voters but I think (rightly) many of those MPs don’t trust him. Truss has other problems.
The ideal situation (for them) is for the ERG / RW faction to find one of their own. That’s going to be hard to find someone who then appeals to Blue Wall Tories.
The £200 Loan is going to be a disaster for the Tories. Why am I now paying back a “loan” I never wanted in the first place and why will my children be paying a loan they never benefited from the first place.
He didn’t want to take off VAT because, once you’ve taken something off, it’s hard to put back on, hence a “temporary” loan. Agree though it is stupid
One of the issues that no one talks about much outside the Treasury is that as the car industry moves rapidly to electric the fuel tax take is going to crater. That's a lot of money.
There was an MP from a select committee talking about this the on Radio 4 - either yesterday or the day before.
The problem is that no-one trusts governments with another tax. So road pricing is electoral poison. Attempts to mandate some kind of electricity-for-vehicles tax are impossible to implement. Hydrogen has lost the domestic vehicle race....
There are very few politically possible options - maybe even none.
I asked @NASA Administrator @SenBillNelson what he sees as his agency’s role in investigating UFOs/UAPs: “It’s a natural conclusion for me as a thinking human being … 1/
“ … in a universe that is so large that I can’t even conceive how large, that there is not some form of life that maybe has evolved into intelligent beings?” 2/
Could they explain some of the recent sightings by military pilots? “I’m not limiting anything,” he responded. 3/
“I hope it’s not one of our terrestrial enemies that has that kind of technology, because that would mean that somebody is very, very advanced.” 4/
What is it? “I don’t know.” Who’s job is it? “One of NASA’s missions is to search for life,” he said, citing the James Webb Space Telescope. “We’re not out there to say that there’s a UAP here or there.” 5/5
That’s the current head of NASA saying “Yeah, basically aliens”
You are reading too much into that.
You for a start can not assume that because there is intelligent life here that there will be elsewhere. There almost certainly is. You only have to consider the Boltzmann brain theory that it is likely, let alone through the more obvious random events that lead to evolution.
But on the other side people do fall for the fallacy 'if it has happened here it must have happened somewhere else with the size of the Universe'. Remember the probability of it happening here is 1, as it has already happened. We can only consider it because it is after the event. Prior to that the probability may have been infinitesimally small. Consider the lottery jackpot winner. The winner doesn't say 'well I have won this week so there must be lots of other jackpot winners this week' does he. There aren't.
And of course if they are there it doesn't mean they are here and if they are here why do they mainly pick on on nutters to buzz. The only logical conclusion to that is they are teenage aliens having a laugh.
And people arguing whether it is even worth thinking about. My view is that it gives us an interesting set of parameters to quantify. And in the last few years we have started to get good numbers on eco-planets, for example.
Not a fan. Although parents might realise their child is not quite the angel they suppose if they watch.
But there are possibilities. How about instead we introduce live cameras at the DfE to see how drunk they're getting at the latest party?
It's a seriously bad idea. But I fear it will be quite popular in some places.
I really really wouldn't have wanted to see my children at school. They were learning, inter alia, to live their own lives. They might have to ask me to consider intervening at some point but generally speaking I wanted them to get on with it. And I was a pharmacist not a teacher. Not for me to comment on the way they were taught. I wanted them to do the best they could, obviously, and Mrs C and I went to parents evenings.
A photograph of Boris Johnson drinking a beer at a birthday event held for him in No 10 is among the 300 images handed to the Metropolitan Police, it has been reported. The prime minister was pictured standing next to Rishi Suank and raising a can of Estrella towards the camera in a photo allegedly taken by the official Downing Street photographer during the first national coronavirus lockdown. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-latest-sunak-savile-rebellion-b2008274.html
The importance of this photo has been missed I think.
If attendance at this event at No 10 results in a FPN for the PM why wouldn't it also result in a FPN for other attendees such as, er, Rishi Sunak?
I heard a plausible theory on the Adrian Chiles radio program yesterday. There is absolutley no problem in getting to 54 but those opposed to Boris do not want to trigger a contest until they think that they can win it and they are still far from confident about that so they are holding back and waiting for him to weaken. They are concerned about giving him another full year.
I think, for all the abuse they get, we are dealing with a pretty sophisticated electorate here, well used to gaming the system.
Johnson could throw those he saw as ringleaders out of the party and still have a Parliamentary majority, of course.
CF Gauke, Hammond et al.
He can’t, he hasn’t got the authority (cue Jackie Weaver).
However, I am subscriber to the theory @DavidL puts forwards, namely BJ is there because certain sections do not want the oft mentioned alternatives, namely Sunak and Truss, but are struggling to find their own alternative. If there is one reason to be short both is the lack of Tory MPs briefing for them in the press. They don’t look to have a strong base of support.
The problem the Tory party have is that Boris was the only person able to talk to all the different groups that the Tory party support is currently built on.
The problem is that everyone else in a position of leadership comes from the historic “don’t spend” world while the new MPs know that without sweeties they aren’t going to be re-elected.
So while Bozo is seriously damaged goods there isn’t any sane alternative but Bozo is now so damaged it is getting to the point where his faults are no longer ignorable.
Yep the Tory party is a sophisticated electorate but the problem it currently faces is there is no logical leader that keeps Bozo’s coalition in place and Bozo is braking so rapidly that a replacement is going to be needed far earlier than they want.
Yes, that’s exactly the problem. In some ways, the Conservatives are becoming a mirror image of Labour’s unstable coalition of urbanites, WWC (declining) and generally conservative ethnic minorities.
Leaderwise, I think it’s clear Sunak and Truss don’t have the confidence of the Red Wall / ERG factions. Sunak’s energy payments look to be a way to prove he can benefit RW voters but I think (rightly) many of those MPs don’t trust him. Truss has other problems.
The ideal situation (for them) is for the ERG / RW faction to find one of their own. That’s going to be hard to find someone who then appeals to Blue Wall Tories.
The £200 Loan is going to be a disaster for the Tories. Why am I now paying back a “loan” I never wanted in the first place and why will my children be paying a loan they never benefited from the first place.
He didn’t want to take off VAT because, once you’ve taken something off, it’s hard to put back on, hence a “temporary” loan. Agree though it is stupid
One of the issues that no one talks about much outside the Treasury is that as the car industry moves rapidly to electric the fuel tax take is going to crater. That's a lot of money.
There was an MP from a select committee talking about this the on Radio 4 - either yesterday or the day before.
The problem is that no-one trusts governments with another tax. So road pricing is electoral poison. Attempts to mandate some kind of electricity-for-vehicles tax are impossible to implement. Hydrogen has lost the domestic vehicle race....
There are very few politically possible options - maybe even none.
VEL, although very visible which HMRC hates
But the issue is the money that currently is hidden within diesel and petrol prices. that money disappears with electric cars and just isn't easily replaceable.
Especially given the current electricity which have me going hmm may not be going electric for a while at 28p per kWh.
Not a fan. Although parents might realise their child is not quite the angel they suppose if they watch.
But there are possibilities. How about instead we introduce live cameras at the DfE to see how drunk they're getting at the latest party?
It's a seriously bad idea. But I fear it will be quite popular in some places.
I really really wouldn't have wanted to see my children at school. They were learning, inter alia, to live their own lives. They might have to ask me to consider intervening at some point but generally speaking I wanted them to get on with it. And I was a pharmacist not a teacher. Not for me to comment on the way they were taught. I wanted them to do the best they could, obviously, and Mrs C and I went to parents evenings.
Afternoon, OKC. On the other hand, that wasn't in the social media era. I almost wonder if there isn't something to be said for teaching children that they live in a digital panopticon nowadays, in a way that is at least somewhat controllable as well as an early lesson.
A photograph of Boris Johnson drinking a beer at a birthday event held for him in No 10 is among the 300 images handed to the Metropolitan Police, it has been reported. The prime minister was pictured standing next to Rishi Suank and raising a can of Estrella towards the camera in a photo allegedly taken by the official Downing Street photographer during the first national coronavirus lockdown. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-latest-sunak-savile-rebellion-b2008274.html
The importance of this photo has been missed I think.
If attendance at this event at No 10 results in a FPN for the PM why wouldn't it also result in a FPN for other attendees such as, er, Rishi Sunak?
And if it does will we ever know?
Well, at least Sunak can afford it it. Won't have to run to Lord Brownlow for a sub.
Not a fan. Although parents might realise their child is not quite the angel they suppose if they watch.
But there are possibilities. How about instead we introduce live cameras at the DfE to see how drunk they're getting at the latest party?
It's a seriously bad idea. But I fear it will be quite popular in some places.
I really really wouldn't have wanted to see my children at school. They were learning, inter alia, to live their own lives. They might have to ask me to consider intervening at some point but generally speaking I wanted them to get on with it. And I was a pharmacist not a teacher. Not for me to comment on the way they were taught. I wanted them to do the best they could, obviously, and Mrs C and I went to parents evenings.
Problem with parents' evenings is generally the parents who turn up are not the ones you need to speak to about the way their child is behaving.
I mean, it's very pleasant to be able to tell lots of children how well they're doing and how much I enjoy teaching them in front of their glowing parents, but it does have limits to its usefulness.
Not a fan. Although parents might realise their child is not quite the angel they suppose if they watch.
But there are possibilities. How about instead we introduce live cameras at the DfE to see how drunk they're getting at the latest party?
It's a seriously bad idea. But I fear it will be quite popular in some places.
I really really wouldn't have wanted to see my children at school. They were learning, inter alia, to live their own lives. They might have to ask me to consider intervening at some point but generally speaking I wanted them to get on with it. And I was a pharmacist not a teacher. Not for me to comment on the way they were taught. I wanted them to do the best they could, obviously, and Mrs C and I went to parents evenings.
You are eminently sensible. Many aren't, and they will be over represented in those watching. It will, of course, also have an effect on how teachers teach. Performing for the camera is unlikely to improve how they do so.
Shocking to think I've been posting on PB for 14 years!
Unfortunately if this event is early March I won't be able to attend as I'll be in LA or San Francisco.
I think my best PB prediction was actually the 2019 election result, I'll see if I can dig it up but I got the majority almost exactly right and Labour seats bang on. GE 2019 is now my most profitable betting event, it overtook Trump's 2016 victory by a fair distance too. That or GE 2015 were the best election nights on PB for me. 2015 has incredible energy because all of us PB Tories who had been out campaigning for weeks kept being told how close it was and that we were heading for opposition because the polls were not looking good yet my own anecdata from canvassing and those of other party members I know we're pointing to ~320 seats. Another profitable betting event for those of us on PB who were willing to listen.
Not a fan. Although parents might realise their child is not quite the angel they suppose if they watch.
But there are possibilities. How about instead we introduce live cameras at the DfE to see how drunk they're getting at the latest party?
It's a seriously bad idea. But I fear it will be quite popular in some places.
I really really wouldn't have wanted to see my children at school. They were learning, inter alia, to live their own lives. They might have to ask me to consider intervening at some point but generally speaking I wanted them to get on with it. And I was a pharmacist not a teacher. Not for me to comment on the way they were taught. I wanted them to do the best they could, obviously, and Mrs C and I went to parents evenings.
Afternoon, OKC. On the other hand, that wasn't in the social media era. I almost wonder if there isn't something to be said for teaching children that they live in a digital panopticon nowadays, in a way that is at least somewhat controllable as well as an early lesson.
A good point and one I may well discuss with my teacher grandchildren over half-term.
Not a fan. Although parents might realise their child is not quite the angel they suppose if they watch.
But there are possibilities. How about instead we introduce live cameras at the DfE to see how drunk they're getting at the latest party?
It's a seriously bad idea. But I fear it will be quite popular in some places.
I really really wouldn't have wanted to see my children at school. They were learning, inter alia, to live their own lives. They might have to ask me to consider intervening at some point but generally speaking I wanted them to get on with it. And I was a pharmacist not a teacher. Not for me to comment on the way they were taught. I wanted them to do the best they could, obviously, and Mrs C and I went to parents evenings.
You are eminently sensible. Many aren't, and they will be over represented in those watching. It will, of course, also have an effect on how teachers teach. Performing for the camera is unlikely to improve how they do so.
I think the main effect is that there will be far fewer teachers.
My first boss described teaching as like doing stand up five times a day, with extra marking. But I don't think he meant it quite that literally.
Not a fan. Although parents might realise their child is not quite the angel they suppose if they watch.
But there are possibilities. How about instead we introduce live cameras at the DfE to see how drunk they're getting at the latest party?
It's a seriously bad idea. But I fear it will be quite popular in some places.
I really really wouldn't have wanted to see my children at school. They were learning, inter alia, to live their own lives. They might have to ask me to consider intervening at some point but generally speaking I wanted them to get on with it. And I was a pharmacist not a teacher. Not for me to comment on the way they were taught. I wanted them to do the best they could, obviously, and Mrs C and I went to parents evenings.
Problem with parents' evenings is generally the parents who turn up are not the ones you need to speak to about the way their child is behaving.
I mean, it's very pleasant to be able to tell lots of children how well they're doing and how much I enjoy teaching them in front of their glowing parents, but it does have limits to its usefulness.
My children didn't always fit into that category!
However, the one about whom we had most concerns is now the most conscientious at attending parents evenings himself.
Not a fan. Although parents might realise their child is not quite the angel they suppose if they watch.
But there are possibilities. How about instead we introduce live cameras at the DfE to see how drunk they're getting at the latest party?
It's a seriously bad idea. But I fear it will be quite popular in some places.
I really really wouldn't have wanted to see my children at school. They were learning, inter alia, to live their own lives. They might have to ask me to consider intervening at some point but generally speaking I wanted them to get on with it. And I was a pharmacist not a teacher. Not for me to comment on the way they were taught. I wanted them to do the best they could, obviously, and Mrs C and I went to parents evenings.
You are eminently sensible. Many aren't, and they will be over represented in those watching. It will, of course, also have an effect on how teachers teach. Performing for the camera is unlikely to improve how they do so.
Thank you. I am reminded of a friend who, when his child got into trouble for something went straight to the school to complain about the lad being disciplined. It wasn't that that ended our friendship but I made no attempt to keep it going.
I think I joined PB sometime around 2006 or 2007. Had a huge amount of fun and learnt a lot on here over the years. Still feel a bit of a fraud as I don't bet that often although I have had a few side bets with various posters over the years and come out about even over all. But still think it is by far the best place to both get the news and get exposed to proper debate and opinions I would otherwise not have really heard (or maybe more accurately listened to). Also delighted to have had a few of my thoughts published by Mike and the team so very grateful for that.
I do intend trying to get up to London for the 2nd (I still love the old rail terminology learnt from my Grandfather that London is always 'up'). Just trying to decide whether to come up just for the evening or book a hotel for overnight.
Really? If I was taking a train from Aberdeen I'd say I was going down to London and then back up to Scotland. It sounds totally wrong to me the other way around.
I agree but my Grandfather who worked the railways for newspaper distribution told me that the line carrying trains towards London was always the 'Up' line. Maybe it wasn't true but that is what I always knew it as.
I think in them olden days it was always going 'up' to London wherever you were, mainly posho types I believe, but it may have transferred to us lower orders as well.
Maybe levelling up means no longer feeling one has to go up to London to reach the pinnacle of human existence in the British isles. I'm sure almost everyone would agree though that going to Wick is going up.
No it had nothing to do with class or status. It was a practical usage for the railways that got picked up by those who regularly travelled.
A photograph of Boris Johnson drinking a beer at a birthday event held for him in No 10 is among the 300 images handed to the Metropolitan Police, it has been reported. The prime minister was pictured standing next to Rishi Suank and raising a can of Estrella towards the camera in a photo allegedly taken by the official Downing Street photographer during the first national coronavirus lockdown. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-latest-sunak-savile-rebellion-b2008274.html
The importance of this photo has been missed I think.
If attendance at this event at No 10 results in a FPN for the PM why wouldn't it also result in a FPN for other attendees such as, er, Rishi Sunak?
And if it does will we ever know?
Possibly this can be held against Rishi but in the short term, it is Boris who will have misled the House, and thus facing calls for his resignation.
A photograph of Boris Johnson drinking a beer at a birthday event held for him in No 10 is among the 300 images handed to the Metropolitan Police, it has been reported. The prime minister was pictured standing next to Rishi Suank and raising a can of Estrella towards the camera in a photo allegedly taken by the official Downing Street photographer during the first national coronavirus lockdown. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-latest-sunak-savile-rebellion-b2008274.html
The importance of this photo has been missed I think.
If attendance at this event at No 10 results in a FPN for the PM why wouldn't it also result in a FPN for other attendees such as, er, Rishi Sunak?
And if it does will we ever know?
Previous fines for such events appear to have targeted the organisers. At least, so far as I can judge from what we know.
In this case, that does rather beg the question of who organised it.
Not a fan. Although parents might realise their child is not quite the angel they suppose if they watch.
But there are possibilities. How about instead we introduce live cameras at the DfE to see how drunk they're getting at the latest party?
It's a seriously bad idea. But I fear it will be quite popular in some places.
I really really wouldn't have wanted to see my children at school. They were learning, inter alia, to live their own lives. They might have to ask me to consider intervening at some point but generally speaking I wanted them to get on with it. And I was a pharmacist not a teacher. Not for me to comment on the way they were taught. I wanted them to do the best they could, obviously, and Mrs C and I went to parents evenings.
Afternoon, OKC. On the other hand, that wasn't in the social media era. I almost wonder if there isn't something to be said for teaching children that they live in a digital panopticon nowadays, in a way that is at least somewhat controllable as well as an early lesson.
A good point and one I may well discuss with my teacher grandchildren over half-term.
On the other hand, the original proposal in Iowa is from the Republicans whose motivation is - fairly obviously - to keep a chokehold what is being taught. RE, evolution, current affairs, Eng Lit ... ? Might be attracting a different kind of parental attention.
Arizona’s Right Wing Sought Power to Overturn Votes. Rusty Bowers Said No.
The speaker of the Republican-controlled Arizona House — who supported Donald J. Trump in 2020 — just torpedoed a bill that would have let lawmakers reject the results of an election.
Not a fan. Although parents might realise their child is not quite the angel they suppose if they watch.
But there are possibilities. How about instead we introduce live cameras at the DfE to see how drunk they're getting at the latest party?
It's a seriously bad idea. But I fear it will be quite popular in some places.
I really really wouldn't have wanted to see my children at school. They were learning, inter alia, to live their own lives. They might have to ask me to consider intervening at some point but generally speaking I wanted them to get on with it. And I was a pharmacist not a teacher. Not for me to comment on the way they were taught. I wanted them to do the best they could, obviously, and Mrs C and I went to parents evenings.
Afternoon, OKC. On the other hand, that wasn't in the social media era. I almost wonder if there isn't something to be said for teaching children that they live in a digital panopticon nowadays, in a way that is at least somewhat controllable as well as an early lesson.
Or in short Big Brother is always watching you now, as opposed to mostly always watching you before. Cheery.
Is there a poll tonight? What number would trigger another raft of letters?
While I'd be delighted with a humungous Labour lead, I'm not expecting one - my perception of the last week has been a bit meh, same stories recirculating, and that will make the lead drift down, to 6 or 7, I think - which is probably the real gap at present, major new developments excepted.
That said, I also don't buy the idea that the local by-elections this week show anything disastrous for Labour - all of them (including the Labour gain in Lewes, mysteriously ignored by Nerys and BigG) had local factors with turnout in the teens and 20s. The reality is that most people feel the Government's in a mess and Labour seems credible but unexciting. So if there's a GE tomorrow, let's have Labour, but if it's a local by-election, why bother.
If you're a Tory MP, the question is whether you think that this is all normal mid-term stuff and they'll pull back 6% easily enough, or worth rolling the dice with X replacing Johnson. If you don't actually care about the ethics aspect and merely want to get reelected, it's as simple as that - and probably you decide to wait and see till May.
I think the Lewes by election was a town council by election which doesn't really count IMO. Although I agree the by elections were a mixed bag. I think it could have been worse for Labour considering the strangeness of local politics in east Leicester. The Tamworth by election was also relatively poor for the Tories even though the independent rather than Labour benefitted.
I doubt we'll see more than a 5-10% Labour lead going forward but Labour would do well to maintain that for a year especially if the Tories change leader.
I asked @NASA Administrator @SenBillNelson what he sees as his agency’s role in investigating UFOs/UAPs: “It’s a natural conclusion for me as a thinking human being … 1/
“ … in a universe that is so large that I can’t even conceive how large, that there is not some form of life that maybe has evolved into intelligent beings?” 2/
Could they explain some of the recent sightings by military pilots? “I’m not limiting anything,” he responded. 3/
“I hope it’s not one of our terrestrial enemies that has that kind of technology, because that would mean that somebody is very, very advanced.” 4/
What is it? “I don’t know.” Who’s job is it? “One of NASA’s missions is to search for life,” he said, citing the James Webb Space Telescope. “We’re not out there to say that there’s a UAP here or there.” 5/5
That’s the current head of NASA saying “Yeah, basically aliens”
You are reading too much into that.
You for a start can not assume that because there is intelligent life here that there will be elsewhere. There almost certainly is. You only have to consider the Boltzmann brain theory that it is likely, let alone through the more obvious random events that lead to evolution.
But on the other side people do fall for the fallacy 'if it has happened here it must have happened somewhere else with the size of the Universe'. Remember the probability of it happening here is 1, as it has already happened. We can only consider it because it is after the event. Prior to that the probability may have been infinitesimally small. Consider the lottery jackpot winner. The winner doesn't say 'well I have won this week so there must be lots of other jackpot winners this week' does he. There aren't.
And of course if they are there it doesn't mean they are here and if they are here why do they mainly pick on on nutters to buzz. The only logical conclusion to that is they are teenage aliens having a laugh.
And people arguing whether it is even worth thinking about. My view is that it gives us an interesting set of parameters to quantify. And in the last few years we have started to get good numbers on eco-planets, for example.
I love the Drake equation, as it is a neat way of encapsulating so many other questions - which I think is what you are saying. And the more you probe those questions, further questions unveil themselves.
It's also a good example of the way small changes in chained probabilities (*) can lead to radically different outcomes. Hence you can make the Drake equation show scores of intelligent species in our galaxy alone, and with only a few small changes, none.
But I'm old enough to remember when people were arguing (seriously) that there were no extrasolar planets. Barely thirty years ago. Now we know of a vast range of types of extrasolar planets. The implication of these on life, and the types of life they may contain, are massive. And old strictures such as the 'habitable zone' are also disintegrating as we find life can be very different.
I'm also old enough to remember Titius-Bode's Law...
(*) Unsure what the correct term is; never studied stats...
Had brunch with my cousins this morning (how we got a booking for so many people is still something I'm wondering about). More than a few doctors so inevitably the conversation moved on to how they see the next year or so playing out.
The most surprising bit was that all of them agreed that the biggest and most visible NHS reform is going to happen this year, almost without anyone noticing. GPs are set to be nationalised and become paid employees rather than private service provisioning companies. They all agreed that patients would notice the difference as there will be a lot less variability in service and as NHS employees GPs would be less able to say no to face to face appointments as well as home visits.
Not a fan. Although parents might realise their child is not quite the angel they suppose if they watch.
But there are possibilities. How about instead we introduce live cameras at the DfE to see how drunk they're getting at the latest party?
It's a seriously bad idea. But I fear it will be quite popular in some places.
I really really wouldn't have wanted to see my children at school. They were learning, inter alia, to live their own lives. They might have to ask me to consider intervening at some point but generally speaking I wanted them to get on with it. And I was a pharmacist not a teacher. Not for me to comment on the way they were taught. I wanted them to do the best they could, obviously, and Mrs C and I went to parents evenings.
Afternoon, OKC. On the other hand, that wasn't in the social media era. I almost wonder if there isn't something to be said for teaching children that they live in a digital panopticon nowadays, in a way that is at least somewhat controllable as well as an early lesson.
A good point and one I may well discuss with my teacher grandchildren over half-term.
On the other hand, the original proposal in Iowa is from the Republicans whose motivation is - fairly obviously - to keep a chokehold what is being taught. RE, evolution, current affairs, Eng Lit ... ? Might be attracting a different kind of parental attention.
Indeed; a notoriously illiberal group of people. When are we going to have another Scopes trial I wonder!
Not a fan. Although parents might realise their child is not quite the angel they suppose if they watch.
But there are possibilities. How about instead we introduce live cameras at the DfE to see how drunk they're getting at the latest party?
It's a seriously bad idea. But I fear it will be quite popular in some places.
I really really wouldn't have wanted to see my children at school. They were learning, inter alia, to live their own lives. They might have to ask me to consider intervening at some point but generally speaking I wanted them to get on with it. And I was a pharmacist not a teacher. Not for me to comment on the way they were taught. I wanted them to do the best they could, obviously, and Mrs C and I went to parents evenings.
Afternoon, OKC. On the other hand, that wasn't in the social media era. I almost wonder if there isn't something to be said for teaching children that they live in a digital panopticon nowadays, in a way that is at least somewhat controllable as well as an early lesson.
Or in short Big Brother is always watching you now, as opposed to mostly always watching you before. Cheery.
Had brunch with my cousins this morning (how we got a booking for so many people is still something I'm wondering about). More than a few doctors so inevitably the conversation moved on to how they see the next year or so playing out.
The most surprising bit was that all of them agreed that the biggest and most visible NHS reform is going to happen this year, almost without anyone noticing. GPs are set to be nationalised and become paid employees rather than private service provisioning companies. They all agreed that patients would notice the difference as there will be a lot less variability in service and as NHS employees GPs would be less able to say no to face to face appointments as well as home visits.
Bevan had to leave them that power to get the NHS through at all in 1946. He said he was 'stuffing their mouths with gold.'
I'm not a huge fan of Bevan, but he was quite right that this was a very bad idea. To be honest, I'm amazed it's taken 75 years and a major pandemic to correct.
Not a fan. Although parents might realise their child is not quite the angel they suppose if they watch.
But there are possibilities. How about instead we introduce live cameras at the DfE to see how drunk they're getting at the latest party?
It's a seriously bad idea. But I fear it will be quite popular in some places.
I really really wouldn't have wanted to see my children at school. They were learning, inter alia, to live their own lives. They might have to ask me to consider intervening at some point but generally speaking I wanted them to get on with it. And I was a pharmacist not a teacher. Not for me to comment on the way they were taught. I wanted them to do the best they could, obviously, and Mrs C and I went to parents evenings.
Problem with parents' evenings is generally the parents who turn up are not the ones you need to speak to about the way their child is behaving.
I mean, it's very pleasant to be able to tell lots of children how well they're doing and how much I enjoy teaching them in front of their glowing parents, but it does have limits to its usefulness.
My children didn't always fit into that category!
However, the one about whom we had most concerns is now the most conscientious at attending parents evenings himself.
When my son was in the sixth form I turned up eagerly at a parents meeting anxious to learn how he was doing because he never told us himself. His teachers had no idea though, because '...we haven't seen him all term.'
The rest of the evening was....er....'interesting'.
And that is it: game, set, and match. The Prime Minister and his officials failed to meet the standards reasonably expected of them. There were, as Gray observes 'failures of leadership and judgement' and these shortcomings, so obvious to so many for so long, go right to the top. Nothing more need be said.
PMs shouldn't be expected to quit over every single minor failing of leadership. But this wasn't that, petty though incidents are in isolation, and it was right under his hose, not some abstract cock up in some no name department.
Not a fan. Although parents might realise their child is not quite the angel they suppose if they watch.
But there are possibilities. How about instead we introduce live cameras at the DfE to see how drunk they're getting at the latest party?
It's a seriously bad idea. But I fear it will be quite popular in some places.
I really really wouldn't have wanted to see my children at school. They were learning, inter alia, to live their own lives. They might have to ask me to consider intervening at some point but generally speaking I wanted them to get on with it. And I was a pharmacist not a teacher. Not for me to comment on the way they were taught. I wanted them to do the best they could, obviously, and Mrs C and I went to parents evenings.
Problem with parents' evenings is generally the parents who turn up are not the ones you need to speak to about the way their child is behaving.
I mean, it's very pleasant to be able to tell lots of children how well they're doing and how much I enjoy teaching them in front of their glowing parents, but it does have limits to its usefulness.
My children didn't always fit into that category!
However, the one about whom we had most concerns is now the most conscientious at attending parents evenings himself.
When my son was in the sixth form I turned up eagerly at a parents meeting anxious to learn how he was doing because he never told us himself. His teachers had no idea though, because '...we haven't seen him all term.'
The rest of the evening was....er....'interesting'.
My Head of Sixth Form was famous for his dry wit in writing reports. He once wrote, 'I presume this student is bad at geography, as he seems to be unable to find the classroom.'
I heard a plausible theory on the Adrian Chiles radio program yesterday. There is absolutley no problem in getting to 54 but those opposed to Boris do not want to trigger a contest until they think that they can win it and they are still far from confident about that so they are holding back and waiting for him to weaken. They are concerned about giving him another full year.
I think, for all the abuse they get, we are dealing with a pretty sophisticated electorate here, well used to gaming the system.
Johnson could throw those he saw as ringleaders out of the party and still have a Parliamentary majority, of course.
CF Gauke, Hammond et al.
He can’t, he hasn’t got the authority (cue Jackie Weaver).
However, I am subscriber to the theory @DavidL puts forwards, namely BJ is there because certain sections do not want the oft mentioned alternatives, namely Sunak and Truss, but are struggling to find their own alternative. If there is one reason to be short both is the lack of Tory MPs briefing for them in the press. They don’t look to have a strong base of support.
The problem the Tory party have is that Boris was the only person able to talk to all the different groups that the Tory party support is currently built on.
The problem is that everyone else in a position of leadership comes from the historic “don’t spend” world while the new MPs know that without sweeties they aren’t going to be re-elected.
So while Bozo is seriously damaged goods there isn’t any sane alternative but Bozo is now so damaged it is getting to the point where his faults are no longer ignorable.
Yep the Tory party is a sophisticated electorate but the problem it currently faces is there is no logical leader that keeps Bozo’s coalition in place and Bozo is braking so rapidly that a replacement is going to be needed far earlier than they want.
Yes, that’s exactly the problem. In some ways, the Conservatives are becoming a mirror image of Labour’s unstable coalition of urbanites, WWC (declining) and generally conservative ethnic minorities.
Leaderwise, I think it’s clear Sunak and Truss don’t have the confidence of the Red Wall / ERG factions. Sunak’s energy payments look to be a way to prove he can benefit RW voters but I think (rightly) many of those MPs don’t trust him. Truss has other problems.
The ideal situation (for them) is for the ERG / RW faction to find one of their own. That’s going to be hard to find someone who then appeals to Blue Wall Tories.
The £200 Loan is going to be a disaster for the Tories. Why am I now paying back a “loan” I never wanted in the first place and why will my children be paying a loan they never benefited from the first place.
He didn’t want to take off VAT because, once you’ve taken something off, it’s hard to put back on, hence a “temporary” loan. Agree though it is stupid
One of the issues that no one talks about much outside the Treasury is that as the car industry moves rapidly to electric the fuel tax take is going to crater. That's a lot of money.
There was an MP from a select committee talking about this the on Radio 4 - either yesterday or the day before.
The problem is that no-one trusts governments with another tax. So road pricing is electoral poison. Attempts to mandate some kind of electricity-for-vehicles tax are impossible to implement. Hydrogen has lost the domestic vehicle race....
There are very few politically possible options - maybe even none.
VEL, although very visible which HMRC hates
But the issue is the money that currently is hidden within diesel and petrol prices. that money disappears with electric cars and just isn't easily replaceable.
Especially given the current electricity which have me going hmm may not be going electric for a while at 28p per kWh.
Fuel duty and VED together account for around £30bn, roughly 5% of total government income.
These numbers have been falling in recent years, as cars have got more efficient, but will drop off a cliff if we all start buying EVs. Not to mention that, most of those buying EVs at the moment, are doing so to avoid thousands in BIK income tax on company cars.
It’s a serious problem coming down the line, and is undoubtedly one of the major reasons for not dropping VAT on domestic power.
And that is it: game, set, and match. The Prime Minister and his officials failed to meet the standards reasonably expected of them. There were, as Gray observes 'failures of leadership and judgement' and these shortcomings, so obvious to so many for so long, go right to the top. Nothing more need be said.
PMs shouldn't be expected to quit over every single minor failing of leadership. But this wasn't that, petty though incidents are in isolation, and it was right under his hose, not some abstract cock up in some no name department.
Given Mr Massie makes much of his living by advocating Scottish inclusion in the UK under one of the, in Scotland, most unpopular PMs since Edward Longshanks, it ill behoves him all of a sudden to start slicing sackfuls of onions in a catering processor. But I mustn't be grumpy on PB's birthday!
Not a fan. Although parents might realise their child is not quite the angel they suppose if they watch.
But there are possibilities. How about instead we introduce live cameras at the DfE to see how drunk they're getting at the latest party?
It's a seriously bad idea. But I fear it will be quite popular in some places.
I really really wouldn't have wanted to see my children at school. They were learning, inter alia, to live their own lives. They might have to ask me to consider intervening at some point but generally speaking I wanted them to get on with it. And I was a pharmacist not a teacher. Not for me to comment on the way they were taught. I wanted them to do the best they could, obviously, and Mrs C and I went to parents evenings.
Problem with parents' evenings is generally the parents who turn up are not the ones you need to speak to about the way their child is behaving.
I mean, it's very pleasant to be able to tell lots of children how well they're doing and how much I enjoy teaching them in front of their glowing parents, but it does have limits to its usefulness.
My children didn't always fit into that category!
However, the one about whom we had most concerns is now the most conscientious at attending parents evenings himself.
When my son was in the sixth form I turned up eagerly at a parents meeting anxious to learn how he was doing because he never told us himself. His teachers had no idea though, because '...we haven't seen him all term.'
The rest of the evening was....er....'interesting'.
Oner of ours fitted that bill. He's the one who is now most assiduous in keeping in touch with his children progress.
I've made a few ok predictions re. Scotpol over the years, and one embarrassingly bad one which I will not dwell upon. However my one stone cold, 100% consistent success is pointing and laughing at the predictors of the SNP shuddering to a honeymoon-ending halt, 2007-2022. It's shooting fish in a barrel, but there have been hundreds of the buggers.
Its not like somebody just found a tweet from 10 years ago on a secondary account before they became famous.
Is it really any surprise, that a famously risqué comic’s show, called His Dark Material might end up offending someone or other?
Sadly these days, too many people are out looking for reasons to be offended. Watching comedy specials kept me and millions of others sane during the pandemic.
Had brunch with my cousins this morning (how we got a booking for so many people is still something I'm wondering about). More than a few doctors so inevitably the conversation moved on to how they see the next year or so playing out.
The most surprising bit was that all of them agreed that the biggest and most visible NHS reform is going to happen this year, almost without anyone noticing. GPs are set to be nationalised and become paid employees rather than private service provisioning companies. They all agreed that patients would notice the difference as there will be a lot less variability in service and as NHS employees GPs would be less able to say no to face to face appointments as well as home visits.
Bevan had to leave them that power to get the NHS through at all in 1946. He said he was 'stuffing their mouths with gold.'
I'm not a huge fan of Bevan, but he was quite right that this was a very bad idea. To be honest, I'm amazed it's taken 75 years and a major pandemic to correct.
I suspect this is the first time it's been possible to do it - over the past 15 years GPs have gone from being the most visible front line of the NHS to a problem that needs to be fixed because they are now seen by many as the barrier to access.
Arizona’s Right Wing Sought Power to Overturn Votes. Rusty Bowers Said No.
The speaker of the Republican-controlled Arizona House — who supported Donald J. Trump in 2020 — just torpedoed a bill that would have let lawmakers reject the results of an election.
Its not like somebody just found a tweet from 10 years ago on a secondary account before they became famous.
Is it really any surprise, that a famously risqué comic’s show, called His Dark Material might end up offending someone or other?
Sadly these days, too many people are out looking for reasons to be offended. Watching comedy specials kept me and millions of others sane during the pandemic.
At least with the outrage twitter bus over Chapelle, the outrage started the day after it was released, not 6 weeks after millions appeared to have watched it over Christmas and seemed unmoved.
Had brunch with my cousins this morning (how we got a booking for so many people is still something I'm wondering about). More than a few doctors so inevitably the conversation moved on to how they see the next year or so playing out.
The most surprising bit was that all of them agreed that the biggest and most visible NHS reform is going to happen this year, almost without anyone noticing. GPs are set to be nationalised and become paid employees rather than private service provisioning companies. They all agreed that patients would notice the difference as there will be a lot less variability in service and as NHS employees GPs would be less able to say no to face to face appointments as well as home visits.
Bevan had to leave them that power to get the NHS through at all in 1946. He said he was 'stuffing their mouths with gold.'
I'm not a huge fan of Bevan, but he was quite right that this was a very bad idea. To be honest, I'm amazed it's taken 75 years and a major pandemic to correct.
I have to say I strongly suspect this will end very badly.
Not a fan. Although parents might realise their child is not quite the angel they suppose if they watch.
But there are possibilities. How about instead we introduce live cameras at the DfE to see how drunk they're getting at the latest party?
It's a seriously bad idea. But I fear it will be quite popular in some places.
I really really wouldn't have wanted to see my children at school. They were learning, inter alia, to live their own lives. They might have to ask me to consider intervening at some point but generally speaking I wanted them to get on with it. And I was a pharmacist not a teacher. Not for me to comment on the way they were taught. I wanted them to do the best they could, obviously, and Mrs C and I went to parents evenings.
Problem with parents' evenings is generally the parents who turn up are not the ones you need to speak to about the way their child is behaving.
I mean, it's very pleasant to be able to tell lots of children how well they're doing and how much I enjoy teaching them in front of their glowing parents, but it does have limits to its usefulness.
My children didn't always fit into that category!
However, the one about whom we had most concerns is now the most conscientious at attending parents evenings himself.
When my son was in the sixth form I turned up eagerly at a parents meeting anxious to learn how he was doing because he never told us himself. His teachers had no idea though, because '...we haven't seen him all term.'
The rest of the evening was....er....'interesting'.
Wow. The only activity I completely avoided in school was (compulsory) rugby. I hid in the school library, which no one else ever visited.
Had brunch with my cousins this morning (how we got a booking for so many people is still something I'm wondering about). More than a few doctors so inevitably the conversation moved on to how they see the next year or so playing out.
The most surprising bit was that all of them agreed that the biggest and most visible NHS reform is going to happen this year, almost without anyone noticing. GPs are set to be nationalised and become paid employees rather than private service provisioning companies. They all agreed that patients would notice the difference as there will be a lot less variability in service and as NHS employees GPs would be less able to say no to face to face appointments as well as home visits.
Bevan had to leave them that power to get the NHS through at all in 1946. He said he was 'stuffing their mouths with gold.'
I'm not a huge fan of Bevan, but he was quite right that this was a very bad idea. To be honest, I'm amazed it's taken 75 years and a major pandemic to correct.
I have to say I strongly suspect this will end very badly.
Huge unnecessary distraction at best.
I am not sure I agree. The GP system is fundamentally broken and there are ample reasons to think many alternative models could work much better.
And that is it: game, set, and match. The Prime Minister and his officials failed to meet the standards reasonably expected of them. There were, as Gray observes 'failures of leadership and judgement' and these shortcomings, so obvious to so many for so long, go right to the top. Nothing more need be said.
PMs shouldn't be expected to quit over every single minor failing of leadership. But this wasn't that, petty though incidents are in isolation, and it was right under his hose, not some abstract cock up in some no name department.
Given Mr Massie makes much of his living by advocating Scottish inclusion in the UK under one of the, in Scotland, most unpopular PMs since Edward Longshanks, it ill behoves him all of a sudden to start slicing sackfuls of onions in a catering processor. But I mustn't be grumpy on PB's birthday!
I'm old enough to remember Massie Jr being 'on the fence' about indy in the lead up to 2014 and getting a number of media gigs on that basis. No one could describe Alan's wee boy as glaikit..
Its not like somebody just found a tweet from 10 years ago on a secondary account before they became famous.
Is it really any surprise, that a famously risqué comic’s show, called His Dark Material might end up offending someone or other?
Sadly these days, too many people are out looking for reasons to be offended. Watching comedy specials kept me and millions of others sane during the pandemic.
At least with the outrage twitter bus over Chapelle, the outrage started the day after it was released, not 6 weeks after millions appeared to have watched it over Christmas and seemed unmoved.
The funny thing with the Chapelle outrage, was the total lack of quotes from the special in question. Usually people complaining about comics write down the ‘offensive’ joke with no context, which can make it sound a lot worse - but with Chapelle, nothing. Those offended clearly hadn’t even watched it, but simply disliked the subject matter.
Its not like somebody just found a tweet from 10 years ago on a secondary account before they became famous.
Is it really any surprise, that a famously risqué comic’s show, called His Dark Material might end up offending someone or other?
Sadly these days, too many people are out looking for reasons to be offended. Watching comedy specials kept me and millions of others sane during the pandemic.
At least with the outrage twitter bus over Chapelle, the outrage started the day after it was released, not 6 weeks after millions appeared to have watched it over Christmas and seemed unmoved.
Perhaps the people who find Carr's gypsy gag ball achingly unfunny and unpleasant don't tend to watch Carr or specifically that show, and it's only come to their attention now. Me for example.
Had brunch with my cousins this morning (how we got a booking for so many people is still something I'm wondering about). More than a few doctors so inevitably the conversation moved on to how they see the next year or so playing out.
The most surprising bit was that all of them agreed that the biggest and most visible NHS reform is going to happen this year, almost without anyone noticing. GPs are set to be nationalised and become paid employees rather than private service provisioning companies. They all agreed that patients would notice the difference as there will be a lot less variability in service and as NHS employees GPs would be less able to say no to face to face appointments as well as home visits.
Bevan had to leave them that power to get the NHS through at all in 1946. He said he was 'stuffing their mouths with gold.'
I'm not a huge fan of Bevan, but he was quite right that this was a very bad idea. To be honest, I'm amazed it's taken 75 years and a major pandemic to correct.
I have to say I strongly suspect this will end very badly.
Huge unnecessary distraction at best.
I am not sure I agree. The GP system is fundamentally broken and there are ample reasons to think many alternative models could work much better.
The question is how much that is the criterion and how much profit-making and nice directorships for pols and civil servants becomes the metric. It will be interesting.
Continuing the comedy issue, I think it is rather interesting that the most watched UK comedian online is a guy called Paul Smith. He is super offensive and not suitable for tv, with a core of his routine absolutely brutally rinsing the audience members.
I don't particularly like it, I don't think its often too crude and not particular sophisticated, but has 200 million views online. I am surprised he hasn't had the mob go for him.
Had brunch with my cousins this morning (how we got a booking for so many people is still something I'm wondering about). More than a few doctors so inevitably the conversation moved on to how they see the next year or so playing out.
The most surprising bit was that all of them agreed that the biggest and most visible NHS reform is going to happen this year, almost without anyone noticing. GPs are set to be nationalised and become paid employees rather than private service provisioning companies. They all agreed that patients would notice the difference as there will be a lot less variability in service and as NHS employees GPs would be less able to say no to face to face appointments as well as home visits.
Bevan had to leave them that power to get the NHS through at all in 1946. He said he was 'stuffing their mouths with gold.'
I'm not a huge fan of Bevan, but he was quite right that this was a very bad idea. To be honest, I'm amazed it's taken 75 years and a major pandemic to correct.
I have to say I strongly suspect this will end very badly.
Huge unnecessary distraction at best.
I am not sure I agree. The GP system is fundamentally broken and there are ample reasons to think many alternative models could work much better.
There aren't enough doctors being trained who want to be GPs and there are too many GPs retiring early exhausted and too many only working a couple or three days a week because otherwise it's too much.
I don't see nationalisation will do anything but make these issues worse.
Had brunch with my cousins this morning (how we got a booking for so many people is still something I'm wondering about). More than a few doctors so inevitably the conversation moved on to how they see the next year or so playing out.
The most surprising bit was that all of them agreed that the biggest and most visible NHS reform is going to happen this year, almost without anyone noticing. GPs are set to be nationalised and become paid employees rather than private service provisioning companies. They all agreed that patients would notice the difference as there will be a lot less variability in service and as NHS employees GPs would be less able to say no to face to face appointments as well as home visits.
Bevan had to leave them that power to get the NHS through at all in 1946. He said he was 'stuffing their mouths with gold.'
I'm not a huge fan of Bevan, but he was quite right that this was a very bad idea. To be honest, I'm amazed it's taken 75 years and a major pandemic to correct.
I have to say I strongly suspect this will end very badly.
Huge unnecessary distraction at best.
I am not sure I agree. The GP system is fundamentally broken and there are ample reasons to think many alternative models could work much better.
The question is how much that is the criterion and how much profit-making and nice directorships for pols and civil servants becomes the metric. It will be interesting.
I would guess the second will be more important, sadly. We saw it with academy achools.
Had brunch with my cousins this morning (how we got a booking for so many people is still something I'm wondering about). More than a few doctors so inevitably the conversation moved on to how they see the next year or so playing out.
The most surprising bit was that all of them agreed that the biggest and most visible NHS reform is going to happen this year, almost without anyone noticing. GPs are set to be nationalised and become paid employees rather than private service provisioning companies. They all agreed that patients would notice the difference as there will be a lot less variability in service and as NHS employees GPs would be less able to say no to face to face appointments as well as home visits.
It makes sense. We now have an integrated care system, several local CCGs have merged to form a big one centred on the local general hospital, they managed the vaccine rollout very well and when I had Covid some subset of that got an oximeter to me and monitored my sats daily. We now have a Mental Health Integrated Care System with coordinators based in surgeries so GPs can do a bit more than prescribe Prozac. Only from reports some GP surgeries still won't fucking talk to their patients.
Its not like somebody just found a tweet from 10 years ago on a secondary account before they became famous.
Is it really any surprise, that a famously risqué comic’s show, called His Dark Material might end up offending someone or other?
Sadly these days, too many people are out looking for reasons to be offended. Watching comedy specials kept me and millions of others sane during the pandemic.
At least with the outrage twitter bus over Chapelle, the outrage started the day after it was released, not 6 weeks after millions appeared to have watched it over Christmas and seemed unmoved.
It's an overt symbiotic relationship between the bonkers left and comedians.
The former get a few Guardian columns out of it; the latter loads of free PR.
It's like Piers Morgan and Vegan Sausage Rolls. Both had the same PR company...
Its not like somebody just found a tweet from 10 years ago on a secondary account before they became famous.
Is it really any surprise, that a famously risqué comic’s show, called His Dark Material might end up offending someone or other?
Sadly these days, too many people are out looking for reasons to be offended. Watching comedy specials kept me and millions of others sane during the pandemic.
At least with the outrage twitter bus over Chapelle, the outrage started the day after it was released, not 6 weeks after millions appeared to have watched it over Christmas and seemed unmoved.
Perhaps the people who find Carr's gypsy gag ball achingly unfunny and unpleasant don't tend to watch Carr or specifically that show, and it's only come to their attention now. Me for example.
I think its highly unlikely nobody in the media who are leading the frothing over this didn't watch it. For starters for a lot of them, its their job to be watching this.
As for the wider public, its very simple, don't watch him. I personally can take or leave him, some of the jokes are good, some I don't care for and thus on balance I don't tend to rush to watch his gigs.
Had brunch with my cousins this morning (how we got a booking for so many people is still something I'm wondering about). More than a few doctors so inevitably the conversation moved on to how they see the next year or so playing out.
The most surprising bit was that all of them agreed that the biggest and most visible NHS reform is going to happen this year, almost without anyone noticing. GPs are set to be nationalised and become paid employees rather than private service provisioning companies. They all agreed that patients would notice the difference as there will be a lot less variability in service and as NHS employees GPs would be less able to say no to face to face appointments as well as home visits.
Continuing the comedy issue, I think it is rather interesting that the most watched UK comedian online is a guy called Paul Smith. He is super offensive and not suitable for tv, with a core of his routine absolutely brutally rinsing the audience members.
I don't particularly like it, I don't think its often too crude and not particular sophisticated, but has 200 million views online. I am surprised he hasn't had the mob go for him.
Never heard of him. But it's because there is no pay off, no cathartic de-platforming. YouTube is pretty much the wild west.
Had brunch with my cousins this morning (how we got a booking for so many people is still something I'm wondering about). More than a few doctors so inevitably the conversation moved on to how they see the next year or so playing out.
The most surprising bit was that all of them agreed that the biggest and most visible NHS reform is going to happen this year, almost without anyone noticing. GPs are set to be nationalised and become paid employees rather than private service provisioning companies. They all agreed that patients would notice the difference as there will be a lot less variability in service and as NHS employees GPs would be less able to say no to face to face appointments as well as home visits.
Bevan had to leave them that power to get the NHS through at all in 1946. He said he was 'stuffing their mouths with gold.'
I'm not a huge fan of Bevan, but he was quite right that this was a very bad idea. To be honest, I'm amazed it's taken 75 years and a major pandemic to correct.
I have to say I strongly suspect this will end very badly.
Huge unnecessary distraction at best.
I am not sure I agree. The GP system is fundamentally broken and there are ample reasons to think many alternative models could work much better.
There aren't enough doctors being trained who want to be GPs and there are too many GPs retiring early exhausted and too many only working a couple or three days a week because otherwise it's too much.
I don't see nationalisation will do anything but make these issues worse.
My GF wants to move to Australia to train as a GP. I've looked at the maths and it's a no brainer.
I couldn't believe how long it takes though - to my mind, she is exceptionally well qualified and working in a top hospital. Don't get why it takes years and years to become a GP.
Continuing the comedy issue, I think it is rather interesting that the most watched UK comedian online is a guy called Paul Smith. He is super offensive and not suitable for tv, with a core of his routine absolutely brutally rinsing the audience members.
I don't particularly like it, I don't think its often too crude and not particular sophisticated, but has 200 million views online. I am surprised he hasn't had the mob go for him.
Never heard of him. But it's because there is no pay off, no cathartic de-platforming. YouTube is pretty much the wild west.
He isn't just online, he also does live arena tours and has the host of at comedy club in Liverpool.
Its not like somebody just found a tweet from 10 years ago on a secondary account before they became famous.
Is it really any surprise, that a famously risqué comic’s show, called His Dark Material might end up offending someone or other?
Sadly these days, too many people are out looking for reasons to be offended. Watching comedy specials kept me and millions of others sane during the pandemic.
At least with the outrage twitter bus over Chapelle, the outrage started the day after it was released, not 6 weeks after millions appeared to have watched it over Christmas and seemed unmoved.
Perhaps the people who find Carr's gypsy gag ball achingly unfunny and unpleasant don't tend to watch Carr or specifically that show, and it's only come to their attention now. Me for example.
I think its highly unlikely nobody in the media who are leading the frothing over this didn't watch it. For starters for a lot of them, its their job to be watching this.
As for the wider public, its very simple, don't watch him. I personally can take or leave him, some of the jokes are good, some I don't care for and thus on balance I don't tend to rush to watch his gigs.
It would be interesting to see how many lovers of free speech would remain if Carr had formulated a similar joke where Jews were the butt. Afaics the principle would be precisely the same, except the free speech upholders and Carr would have to have a deal more courage of their convictions.
Had brunch with my cousins this morning (how we got a booking for so many people is still something I'm wondering about). More than a few doctors so inevitably the conversation moved on to how they see the next year or so playing out.
The most surprising bit was that all of them agreed that the biggest and most visible NHS reform is going to happen this year, almost without anyone noticing. GPs are set to be nationalised and become paid employees rather than private service provisioning companies. They all agreed that patients would notice the difference as there will be a lot less variability in service and as NHS employees GPs would be less able to say no to face to face appointments as well as home visits.
Bevan had to leave them that power to get the NHS through at all in 1946. He said he was 'stuffing their mouths with gold.'
I'm not a huge fan of Bevan, but he was quite right that this was a very bad idea. To be honest, I'm amazed it's taken 75 years and a major pandemic to correct.
I have to say I strongly suspect this will end very badly.
Huge unnecessary distraction at best.
I am not sure I agree. The GP system is fundamentally broken and there are ample reasons to think many alternative models could work much better.
There aren't enough doctors being trained who want to be GPs and there are too many GPs retiring early exhausted and too many only working a couple or three days a week because otherwise it's too much.
I don't see nationalisation will do anything but make these issues worse.
The consensus was that making being a GP into just another well paid NHS job rather than having to run a business or some kind of medical partnership will get more people interested in doing it. I actually think that's right. Plenty of people will be happy to do a £80-100k 40h per week job with no admin or other responsibilities.
Continuing the comedy issue, I think it is rather interesting that the most watched UK comedian online is a guy called Paul Smith. He is super offensive and not suitable for tv, with a core of his routine absolutely brutally rinsing the audience members.
I don't particularly like it, I don't think its often too crude and not particular sophisticated, but has 200 million views online. I am surprised he hasn't had the mob go for him.
Maybe the London-based commentariat can’t decipher a very thick Scouse accent?
Had brunch with my cousins this morning (how we got a booking for so many people is still something I'm wondering about). More than a few doctors so inevitably the conversation moved on to how they see the next year or so playing out.
The most surprising bit was that all of them agreed that the biggest and most visible NHS reform is going to happen this year, almost without anyone noticing. GPs are set to be nationalised and become paid employees rather than private service provisioning companies. They all agreed that patients would notice the difference as there will be a lot less variability in service and as NHS employees GPs would be less able to say no to face to face appointments as well as home visits.
Bevan had to leave them that power to get the NHS through at all in 1946. He said he was 'stuffing their mouths with gold.'
I'm not a huge fan of Bevan, but he was quite right that this was a very bad idea. To be honest, I'm amazed it's taken 75 years and a major pandemic to correct.
I have to say I strongly suspect this will end very badly.
Huge unnecessary distraction at best.
I am not sure I agree. The GP system is fundamentally broken and there are ample reasons to think many alternative models could work much better.
There aren't enough doctors being trained who want to be GPs and there are too many GPs retiring early exhausted and too many only working a couple or three days a week because otherwise it's too much.
I don't see nationalisation will do anything but make these issues worse.
My GF wants to move to Australia to train as a GP. I've looked at the maths and it's a no brainer.
I couldn't believe how long it takes though - to my mind, she is exceptionally well qualified and working in a top hospital. Don't get why it takes years and years to become a GP.
They are supposed to be the equivalent to a consultant. You need to be able to identify whatever it is a patient turns up with, particularly the rare stuff.
Its not like somebody just found a tweet from 10 years ago on a secondary account before they became famous.
Is it really any surprise, that a famously risqué comic’s show, called His Dark Material might end up offending someone or other?
Sadly these days, too many people are out looking for reasons to be offended. Watching comedy specials kept me and millions of others sane during the pandemic.
At least with the outrage twitter bus over Chapelle, the outrage started the day after it was released, not 6 weeks after millions appeared to have watched it over Christmas and seemed unmoved.
Perhaps the people who find Carr's gypsy gag ball achingly unfunny and unpleasant don't tend to watch Carr or specifically that show, and it's only come to their attention now. Me for example.
I think its highly unlikely nobody in the media who are leading the frothing over this didn't watch it. For starters for a lot of them, its their job to be watching this.
As for the wider public, its very simple, don't watch him. I personally can take or leave him, some of the jokes are good, some I don't care for and thus on balance I don't tend to rush to watch his gigs.
It would be interesting to see how many lovers of free speech would remain if Carr had formulated a similar joke where Jews were the butt. Afaics the principle would be precisely the same, except the free speech upholders and Carr would have to have a deal more courage of their convictions.
I would be surprised if he hasn't done a Jewish joke at some point.
In the context of this joke, the whole point is he explains the construct for the joke (which is clipped out) and part of the reason it works (in his mind) is that most people don't know it wasn't just the Jews getting exterminated. It is the switcharoo, that doesn't work if you just say Jews getting killed was a positive.
Had brunch with my cousins this morning (how we got a booking for so many people is still something I'm wondering about). More than a few doctors so inevitably the conversation moved on to how they see the next year or so playing out.
The most surprising bit was that all of them agreed that the biggest and most visible NHS reform is going to happen this year, almost without anyone noticing. GPs are set to be nationalised and become paid employees rather than private service provisioning companies. They all agreed that patients would notice the difference as there will be a lot less variability in service and as NHS employees GPs would be less able to say no to face to face appointments as well as home visits.
Bevan had to leave them that power to get the NHS through at all in 1946. He said he was 'stuffing their mouths with gold.'
I'm not a huge fan of Bevan, but he was quite right that this was a very bad idea. To be honest, I'm amazed it's taken 75 years and a major pandemic to correct.
I have to say I strongly suspect this will end very badly.
Huge unnecessary distraction at best.
I am not sure I agree. The GP system is fundamentally broken and there are ample reasons to think many alternative models could work much better.
There aren't enough doctors being trained who want to be GPs and there are too many GPs retiring early exhausted and too many only working a couple or three days a week because otherwise it's too much.
I don't see nationalisation will do anything but make these issues worse.
The consensus was that making being a GP into just another well paid NHS job rather than having to run a business or some kind of medical partnership will get more people interested in doing it. I actually think that's right. Plenty of people will be happy to do a £80-100k 40h per week job with no admin or other responsibilities.
You can do that at the moment as a GP Locum or salaried employee but I suspect that only gets you so far and the rapidly approaching issue is that few people actually want to run a business, they just want to do the medical bit.
Its not like somebody just found a tweet from 10 years ago on a secondary account before they became famous.
Is it really any surprise, that a famously risqué comic’s show, called His Dark Material might end up offending someone or other?
Sadly these days, too many people are out looking for reasons to be offended. Watching comedy specials kept me and millions of others sane during the pandemic.
At least with the outrage twitter bus over Chapelle, the outrage started the day after it was released, not 6 weeks after millions appeared to have watched it over Christmas and seemed unmoved.
Perhaps the people who find Carr's gypsy gag ball achingly unfunny and unpleasant don't tend to watch Carr or specifically that show, and it's only come to their attention now. Me for example.
I think its highly unlikely nobody in the media who are leading the frothing over this didn't watch it. For starters for a lot of them, its their job to be watching this.
As for the wider public, its very simple, don't watch him. I personally can take or leave him, some of the jokes are good, some I don't care for and thus on balance I don't tend to rush to watch his gigs.
It would be interesting to see how many lovers of free speech would remain if Carr had formulated a similar joke where Jews were the butt. Afaics the principle would be precisely the same, except the free speech upholders and Carr would have to have a deal more courage of their convictions.
I would be surprised if he hasn't done a Jewish joke at some point.
In the context of this joke, the whole point is he explains the construct for the joke (which is clipped out) and part of the reason it works (in his mind) is that most people don't know it wasn't just the Jews getting exterminated. It is the switcharoo, that doesn't work if you just say Jews getting killed was a positive.
He's done plenty.
I was at one his shows back in the mid 2000s and he said something like
'They say there's safety in numbers. Tell that to 6 million Jews.'
I, and the rest of the audience, felt incredibly guilty for laughing at that.
Had brunch with my cousins this morning (how we got a booking for so many people is still something I'm wondering about). More than a few doctors so inevitably the conversation moved on to how they see the next year or so playing out.
The most surprising bit was that all of them agreed that the biggest and most visible NHS reform is going to happen this year, almost without anyone noticing. GPs are set to be nationalised and become paid employees rather than private service provisioning companies. They all agreed that patients would notice the difference as there will be a lot less variability in service and as NHS employees GPs would be less able to say no to face to face appointments as well as home visits.
Bevan had to leave them that power to get the NHS through at all in 1946. He said he was 'stuffing their mouths with gold.'
I'm not a huge fan of Bevan, but he was quite right that this was a very bad idea. To be honest, I'm amazed it's taken 75 years and a major pandemic to correct.
I have to say I strongly suspect this will end very badly.
Huge unnecessary distraction at best.
I am not sure I agree. The GP system is fundamentally broken and there are ample reasons to think many alternative models could work much better.
There aren't enough doctors being trained who want to be GPs and there are too many GPs retiring early exhausted and too many only working a couple or three days a week because otherwise it's too much.
I don't see nationalisation will do anything but make these issues worse.
The consensus was that making being a GP into just another well paid NHS job rather than having to run a business or some kind of medical partnership will get more people interested in doing it. I actually think that's right. Plenty of people will be happy to do a £80-100k 40h per week job with no admin or other responsibilities.
You can do that at the moment as a GP Locum or salaried employee but I suspect that only gets you so far and the rapidly approaching issue is that few people actually want to run a business, they just want to do the medical bit.
Would it be easier to have a team of say three doctors and a practice manager, all being directors of the company but with the manager doing the high-level admin work and leaving the doctors to the patients?
My first encounter with real hostility in Sri Lanka. “Slave Island”, Colombo. Where the Portuguese and then the Dutch stored their slaves, mainly because it was almost entirely surrounded by crocodile infested water
Haunting, intense, weird. An incredible little multicultural quarter of Asia. Malay, Tamil, Sinhalese, Chinese, Javanese, catholic, Indian, Muslim, Hindu, animist, Afghan, even Burgher (the lost white tribe of part Dutch descent)
I can understand the local hostility. This whole incredible neighbourhood is about to be swept away by skyscrapers. Colombo repeats the errors of every other city in history
Its not like somebody just found a tweet from 10 years ago on a secondary account before they became famous.
The joke is only a problem when it's quoted by itself completely out of context - in the context of the show itself it isn't that bad.
Not that I've watched it because Jimmy Carr's "laugh" results in me needing a new TV screen.
I have seen the wider context where he explains it, which of course has been clipped out and not mentioned in any of the coverage of the "outrage".
He calls the joke one of his "career enders"; he's trying to be as offensive as possible.
He also makes lots of horrible rape jokes. He doesn't have a rapier wit; he has the rapiest wit.
As well as a number of jokes suggesting he is a paedophile (as well as others suggesting everyone else is). Tbh, I find them a little uncomfortable but then I'm no Boris Johnson.
Had brunch with my cousins this morning (how we got a booking for so many people is still something I'm wondering about). More than a few doctors so inevitably the conversation moved on to how they see the next year or so playing out.
The most surprising bit was that all of them agreed that the biggest and most visible NHS reform is going to happen this year, almost without anyone noticing. GPs are set to be nationalised and become paid employees rather than private service provisioning companies. They all agreed that patients would notice the difference as there will be a lot less variability in service and as NHS employees GPs would be less able to say no to face to face appointments as well as home visits.
Bevan had to leave them that power to get the NHS through at all in 1946. He said he was 'stuffing their mouths with gold.'
I'm not a huge fan of Bevan, but he was quite right that this was a very bad idea. To be honest, I'm amazed it's taken 75 years and a major pandemic to correct.
I have to say I strongly suspect this will end very badly.
Huge unnecessary distraction at best.
I am not sure I agree. The GP system is fundamentally broken and there are ample reasons to think many alternative models could work much better.
There aren't enough doctors being trained who want to be GPs and there are too many GPs retiring early exhausted and too many only working a couple or three days a week because otherwise it's too much.
I don't see nationalisation will do anything but make these issues worse.
The consensus was that making being a GP into just another well paid NHS job rather than having to run a business or some kind of medical partnership will get more people interested in doing it. I actually think that's right. Plenty of people will be happy to do a £80-100k 40h per week job with no admin or other responsibilities.
You can do that at the moment as a GP Locum or salaried employee but I suspect that only gets you so far and the rapidly approaching issue is that few people actually want to run a business, they just want to do the medical bit.
Yup, and being a locum doesn't give you a nice steady lifestyle. Constantly going to different surgeries, looking out for work, dealing with the hassle of contracting etc...
Had brunch with my cousins this morning (how we got a booking for so many people is still something I'm wondering about). More than a few doctors so inevitably the conversation moved on to how they see the next year or so playing out.
The most surprising bit was that all of them agreed that the biggest and most visible NHS reform is going to happen this year, almost without anyone noticing. GPs are set to be nationalised and become paid employees rather than private service provisioning companies. They all agreed that patients would notice the difference as there will be a lot less variability in service and as NHS employees GPs would be less able to say no to face to face appointments as well as home visits.
Bevan had to leave them that power to get the NHS through at all in 1946. He said he was 'stuffing their mouths with gold.'
I'm not a huge fan of Bevan, but he was quite right that this was a very bad idea. To be honest, I'm amazed it's taken 75 years and a major pandemic to correct.
I have to say I strongly suspect this will end very badly.
Huge unnecessary distraction at best.
I am not sure I agree. The GP system is fundamentally broken and there are ample reasons to think many alternative models could work much better.
There aren't enough doctors being trained who want to be GPs and there are too many GPs retiring early exhausted and too many only working a couple or three days a week because otherwise it's too much.
I don't see nationalisation will do anything but make these issues worse.
The consensus was that making being a GP into just another well paid NHS job rather than having to run a business or some kind of medical partnership will get more people interested in doing it. I actually think that's right. Plenty of people will be happy to do a £80-100k 40h per week job with no admin or other responsibilities.
That is already common (salaried GPs) and (or but) most GPs are now part-time.
Had brunch with my cousins this morning (how we got a booking for so many people is still something I'm wondering about). More than a few doctors so inevitably the conversation moved on to how they see the next year or so playing out.
The most surprising bit was that all of them agreed that the biggest and most visible NHS reform is going to happen this year, almost without anyone noticing. GPs are set to be nationalised and become paid employees rather than private service provisioning companies. They all agreed that patients would notice the difference as there will be a lot less variability in service and as NHS employees GPs would be less able to say no to face to face appointments as well as home visits.
Bevan had to leave them that power to get the NHS through at all in 1946. He said he was 'stuffing their mouths with gold.'
I'm not a huge fan of Bevan, but he was quite right that this was a very bad idea. To be honest, I'm amazed it's taken 75 years and a major pandemic to correct.
I have to say I strongly suspect this will end very badly.
Huge unnecessary distraction at best.
I am not sure I agree. The GP system is fundamentally broken and there are ample reasons to think many alternative models could work much better.
There aren't enough doctors being trained who want to be GPs and there are too many GPs retiring early exhausted and too many only working a couple or three days a week because otherwise it's too much.
I don't see nationalisation will do anything but make these issues worse.
The consensus was that making being a GP into just another well paid NHS job rather than having to run a business or some kind of medical partnership will get more people interested in doing it. I actually think that's right. Plenty of people will be happy to do a £80-100k 40h per week job with no admin or other responsibilities.
You can do that at the moment as a GP Locum or salaried employee but I suspect that only gets you so far and the rapidly approaching issue is that few people actually want to run a business, they just want to do the medical bit.
Would it be easier to have a team of say three doctors and a practice manager, all being directors of the company but with the manager doing the high-level admin work and leaving the doctors to the patients?
As partners there's always going to be some level of admin that the doctors will have to learn and do. As employees they turn up at 7am and are home at 4pm with the next doctor in at 4pm working until 8pm.
Its not like somebody just found a tweet from 10 years ago on a secondary account before they became famous.
Is it really any surprise, that a famously risqué comic’s show, called His Dark Material might end up offending someone or other?
Sadly these days, too many people are out looking for reasons to be offended. Watching comedy specials kept me and millions of others sane during the pandemic.
At least with the outrage twitter bus over Chapelle, the outrage started the day after it was released, not 6 weeks after millions appeared to have watched it over Christmas and seemed unmoved.
Perhaps the people who find Carr's gypsy gag ball achingly unfunny and unpleasant don't tend to watch Carr or specifically that show, and it's only come to their attention now. Me for example.
I think its highly unlikely nobody in the media who are leading the frothing over this didn't watch it. For starters for a lot of them, its their job to be watching this.
As for the wider public, its very simple, don't watch him. I personally can take or leave him, some of the jokes are good, some I don't care for and thus on balance I don't tend to rush to watch his gigs.
It would be interesting to see how many lovers of free speech would remain if Carr had formulated a similar joke where Jews were the butt. Afaics the principle would be precisely the same, except the free speech upholders and Carr would have to have a deal more courage of their convictions.
I would be surprised if he hasn't done a Jewish joke at some point.
In the context of this joke, the whole point is he explains the construct for the joke (which is clipped out) and part of the reason it works (in his mind) is that most people don't know it wasn't just the Jews getting exterminated. It is the switcharoo, that doesn't work if you just say Jews getting killed was a positive.
Most people don't know it wasn't just the Jews getting exterminated? It's a theory..
Looking at Carr's joke I reckon I could formulate a ball achingly unfunny and unpleasant gag around it where Jews were the butt of the joke. I don't see the point and it would also run the risk of me being branded, perhaps justifiably, as a vile antisemite.
Its not like somebody just found a tweet from 10 years ago on a secondary account before they became famous.
Is it really any surprise, that a famously risqué comic’s show, called His Dark Material might end up offending someone or other?
Sadly these days, too many people are out looking for reasons to be offended. Watching comedy specials kept me and millions of others sane during the pandemic.
At least with the outrage twitter bus over Chapelle, the outrage started the day after it was released, not 6 weeks after millions appeared to have watched it over Christmas and seemed unmoved.
Perhaps the people who find Carr's gypsy gag ball achingly unfunny and unpleasant don't tend to watch Carr or specifically that show, and it's only come to their attention now. Me for example.
I think its highly unlikely nobody in the media who are leading the frothing over this didn't watch it. For starters for a lot of them, its their job to be watching this.
As for the wider public, its very simple, don't watch him. I personally can take or leave him, some of the jokes are good, some I don't care for and thus on balance I don't tend to rush to watch his gigs.
It would be interesting to see how many lovers of free speech would remain if Carr had formulated a similar joke where Jews were the butt. Afaics the principle would be precisely the same, except the free speech upholders and Carr would have to have a deal more courage of their convictions.
I would be surprised if he hasn't done a Jewish joke at some point.
In the context of this joke, the whole point is he explains the construct for the joke (which is clipped out) and part of the reason it works (in his mind) is that most people don't know it wasn't just the Jews getting exterminated. It is the switcharoo, that doesn't work if you just say Jews getting killed was a positive.
He's done plenty.
I was at one his shows back in the mid 2000s and he said something like
'They say there's safety in numbers. Tell that to 6 million Jews.'
I, and the rest of the audience, felt incredibly guilty for laughing at that.
He did that one in his greatest hits special, alongside:
“If only Africa had more mosquito nets, then every year we would could save *millions* of mosquitos from dying needlessly of AIDS”
And, to a heckler: “If you want my comeback, you’ll have to scrape it off your Mum’s teeth”.
Its not like somebody just found a tweet from 10 years ago on a secondary account before they became famous.
Is it really any surprise, that a famously risqué comic’s show, called His Dark Material might end up offending someone or other?
Sadly these days, too many people are out looking for reasons to be offended. Watching comedy specials kept me and millions of others sane during the pandemic.
At least with the outrage twitter bus over Chapelle, the outrage started the day after it was released, not 6 weeks after millions appeared to have watched it over Christmas and seemed unmoved.
Perhaps the people who find Carr's gypsy gag ball achingly unfunny and unpleasant don't tend to watch Carr or specifically that show, and it's only come to their attention now. Me for example.
I think its highly unlikely nobody in the media who are leading the frothing over this didn't watch it. For starters for a lot of them, its their job to be watching this.
As for the wider public, its very simple, don't watch him. I personally can take or leave him, some of the jokes are good, some I don't care for and thus on balance I don't tend to rush to watch his gigs.
Yes, the fact is it has been out for awhile so lots and lots have seen it, and presumably consider one of the risks of watching his show is that some are not going to land for them personally. I'm sure that delayed outrage (despite it being popular) will mean the story will be forgotten very soon.
Its not like somebody just found a tweet from 10 years ago on a secondary account before they became famous.
Is it really any surprise, that a famously risqué comic’s show, called His Dark Material might end up offending someone or other?
Sadly these days, too many people are out looking for reasons to be offended. Watching comedy specials kept me and millions of others sane during the pandemic.
At least with the outrage twitter bus over Chapelle, the outrage started the day after it was released, not 6 weeks after millions appeared to have watched it over Christmas and seemed unmoved.
Perhaps the people who find Carr's gypsy gag ball achingly unfunny and unpleasant don't tend to watch Carr or specifically that show, and it's only come to their attention now. Me for example.
I think its highly unlikely nobody in the media who are leading the frothing over this didn't watch it. For starters for a lot of them, its their job to be watching this.
As for the wider public, its very simple, don't watch him. I personally can take or leave him, some of the jokes are good, some I don't care for and thus on balance I don't tend to rush to watch his gigs.
It would be interesting to see how many lovers of free speech would remain if Carr had formulated a similar joke where Jews were the butt. Afaics the principle would be precisely the same, except the free speech upholders and Carr would have to have a deal more courage of their convictions.
I would be surprised if he hasn't done a Jewish joke at some point.
In the context of this joke, the whole point is he explains the construct for the joke (which is clipped out) and part of the reason it works (in his mind) is that most people don't know it wasn't just the Jews getting exterminated. It is the switcharoo, that doesn't work if you just say Jews getting killed was a positive.
He's done plenty.
I was at one his shows back in the mid 2000s and he said something like
'They say there's safety in numbers. Tell that to 6 million Jews.'
I, and the rest of the audience, felt incredibly guilty for laughing at that.
He did that one in his greatest hits special, alongside:
“If only Africa had more mosquito nets, then every year we would could save *millions* of mosquitos from dying needlessly of AIDS”
And, to a heckler: “If you want my comeback, you’ll have to scrape it off your Mum’s teeth”.
Never ever heckle Jimmy Carr, it never ends well.
I've been a huge fan of Jimmy Carr since I first saw him live in 2003.
His magic for me is making me laugh at things I shouldn't laugh at and spend the rest of the evening feeling guilty for it..
Its not like somebody just found a tweet from 10 years ago on a secondary account before they became famous.
Is it really any surprise, that a famously risqué comic’s show, called His Dark Material might end up offending someone or other?
Sadly these days, too many people are out looking for reasons to be offended. Watching comedy specials kept me and millions of others sane during the pandemic.
At least with the outrage twitter bus over Chapelle, the outrage started the day after it was released, not 6 weeks after millions appeared to have watched it over Christmas and seemed unmoved.
Perhaps the people who find Carr's gypsy gag ball achingly unfunny and unpleasant don't tend to watch Carr or specifically that show, and it's only come to their attention now. Me for example.
I think its highly unlikely nobody in the media who are leading the frothing over this didn't watch it. For starters for a lot of them, its their job to be watching this.
As for the wider public, its very simple, don't watch him. I personally can take or leave him, some of the jokes are good, some I don't care for and thus on balance I don't tend to rush to watch his gigs.
It would be interesting to see how many lovers of free speech would remain if Carr had formulated a similar joke where Jews were the butt. Afaics the principle would be precisely the same, except the free speech upholders and Carr would have to have a deal more courage of their convictions.
I would be surprised if he hasn't done a Jewish joke at some point.
In the context of this joke, the whole point is he explains the construct for the joke (which is clipped out) and part of the reason it works (in his mind) is that most people don't know it wasn't just the Jews getting exterminated. It is the switcharoo, that doesn't work if you just say Jews getting killed was a positive.
He's done plenty.
I was at one his shows back in the mid 2000s and he said something like
'They say there's safety in numbers. Tell that to 6 million Jews.'
I, and the rest of the audience, felt incredibly guilty for laughing at that.
He did that one in his greatest hits special, alongside:
“If only Africa had more mosquito nets, then every year we would could save *millions* of mosquitos from dying needlessly of AIDS”
And, to a heckler: “If you want my comeback, you’ll have to scrape it off your Mum’s teeth”.
Never ever heckle Jimmy Carr, it never ends well.
I've been a huge fan of Jimmy Carr since I first saw him live in 2003.
His magic for me is making me laugh at things I shouldn't laugh at and spend the rest of the evening feeling guilty for it..
Which is the whole point of his show!
My three rules for comedy clubs: 1. Never sit in the front row 2. Never turn up late 3. No matter how drunk, don’t shout at the person on stage with the microphone, who is a professional at talking back to people who heckle.
Favourite return line to a heckler: “I’m getting paid to be here making a c*** of myself in front of a room full of people. What’s your excuse?”
Just catching up after having friends staying overnight. Congratulations to @MikeSmithson and all PBers who have been in from the start. I believe it’s success has been because even though many of us have strong opinions, we all almost always respect others views, and their right to hold them. Long may it continue!
Its not like somebody just found a tweet from 10 years ago on a secondary account before they became famous.
Is it really any surprise, that a famously risqué comic’s show, called His Dark Material might end up offending someone or other?
Sadly these days, too many people are out looking for reasons to be offended. Watching comedy specials kept me and millions of others sane during the pandemic.
At least with the outrage twitter bus over Chapelle, the outrage started the day after it was released, not 6 weeks after millions appeared to have watched it over Christmas and seemed unmoved.
Perhaps the people who find Carr's gypsy gag ball achingly unfunny and unpleasant don't tend to watch Carr or specifically that show, and it's only come to their attention now. Me for example.
I think its highly unlikely nobody in the media who are leading the frothing over this didn't watch it. For starters for a lot of them, its their job to be watching this.
As for the wider public, its very simple, don't watch him. I personally can take or leave him, some of the jokes are good, some I don't care for and thus on balance I don't tend to rush to watch his gigs.
It would be interesting to see how many lovers of free speech would remain if Carr had formulated a similar joke where Jews were the butt. Afaics the principle would be precisely the same, except the free speech upholders and Carr would have to have a deal more courage of their convictions.
I would be surprised if he hasn't done a Jewish joke at some point.
In the context of this joke, the whole point is he explains the construct for the joke (which is clipped out) and part of the reason it works (in his mind) is that most people don't know it wasn't just the Jews getting exterminated. It is the switcharoo, that doesn't work if you just say Jews getting killed was a positive.
He's done plenty.
I was at one his shows back in the mid 2000s and he said something like
'They say there's safety in numbers. Tell that to 6 million Jews.'
I, and the rest of the audience, felt incredibly guilty for laughing at that.
He did that one in his greatest hits special, alongside:
“If only Africa had more mosquito nets, then every year we would could save *millions* of mosquitos from dying needlessly of AIDS”
And, to a heckler: “If you want my comeback, you’ll have to scrape it off your Mum’s teeth”.
Never ever heckle Jimmy Carr, it never ends well.
I've been a huge fan of Jimmy Carr since I first saw him live in 2003.
His magic for me is making me laugh at things I shouldn't laugh at and spend the rest of the evening feeling guilty for it..
Our landing ourselves with a prime minister who can do the same was, I fear, overshoot.
Had brunch with my cousins this morning (how we got a booking for so many people is still something I'm wondering about). More than a few doctors so inevitably the conversation moved on to how they see the next year or so playing out.
The most surprising bit was that all of them agreed that the biggest and most visible NHS reform is going to happen this year, almost without anyone noticing. GPs are set to be nationalised and become paid employees rather than private service provisioning companies. They all agreed that patients would notice the difference as there will be a lot less variability in service and as NHS employees GPs would be less able to say no to face to face appointments as well as home visits.
Bevan had to leave them that power to get the NHS through at all in 1946. He said he was 'stuffing their mouths with gold.'
I'm not a huge fan of Bevan, but he was quite right that this was a very bad idea. To be honest, I'm amazed it's taken 75 years and a major pandemic to correct.
I have to say I strongly suspect this will end very badly.
Huge unnecessary distraction at best.
I am not sure I agree. The GP system is fundamentally broken and there are ample reasons to think many alternative models could work much better.
There aren't enough doctors being trained who want to be GPs and there are too many GPs retiring early exhausted and too many only working a couple or three days a week because otherwise it's too much.
I don't see nationalisation will do anything but make these issues worse.
The consensus was that making being a GP into just another well paid NHS job rather than having to run a business or some kind of medical partnership will get more people interested in doing it. I actually think that's right. Plenty of people will be happy to do a £80-100k 40h per week job with no admin or other responsibilities.
That is already common (salaried GPs) and (or but) most GPs are now part-time.
Who are GPs to become employees of?
And how will that affect the companies that now run numbers of GP practices each?
Comments
This does require a more detailed topographical map of the country than most people hold in their heads, however.
Apologies I won’t be able to make the party, almost any other week would have been a good excuse for the first plane ride in two years!
Congratulations @MikeSmithson @rcs1000 @TheScreamingEagles @PBModerator and everyone else who chooses to hide behind the scenes - as well as everyone posting here, even if we often disagree!
And people arguing whether it is even worth thinking about. My view is that it gives us an interesting set of parameters to quantify. And in the last few years we have started to get good numbers on eco-planets, for example.
And I was a pharmacist not a teacher. Not for me to comment on the way they were taught. I wanted them to do the best they could, obviously, and Mrs C and I went to parents evenings.
If attendance at this event at No 10 results in a FPN for the PM why wouldn't it also result in a FPN for other attendees such as, er, Rishi Sunak?
And if it does will we ever know?
Especially given the current electricity which have me going hmm may not be going electric for a while at 28p per kWh.
I mean, it's very pleasant to be able to tell lots of children how well they're doing and how much I enjoy teaching them in front of their glowing parents, but it does have limits to its usefulness.
It will, of course, also have an effect on how teachers teach. Performing for the camera is unlikely to improve how they do so.
Unfortunately if this event is early March I won't be able to attend as I'll be in LA or San Francisco.
I think my best PB prediction was actually the 2019 election result, I'll see if I can dig it up but I got the majority almost exactly right and Labour seats bang on. GE 2019 is now my most profitable betting event, it overtook Trump's 2016 victory by a fair distance too. That or GE 2015 were the best election nights on PB for me. 2015 has incredible energy because all of us PB Tories who had been out campaigning for weeks kept being told how close it was and that we were heading for opposition because the polls were not looking good yet my own anecdata from canvassing and those of other party members I know we're pointing to ~320 seats. Another profitable betting event for those of us on PB who were willing to listen.
My first boss described teaching as like doing stand up five times a day, with extra marking. But I don't think he meant it quite that literally.
However, the one about whom we had most concerns is now the most conscientious at attending parents evenings himself.
Trump was wrong to seek to overturn Biden win, says Mike Pence
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-60266121
In this case, that does rather beg the question of who organised it.
The speaker of the Republican-controlled Arizona House — who supported Donald J. Trump in 2020 — just torpedoed a bill that would have let lawmakers reject the results of an election.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/us/politics/arizona-republicans-rusty-bowers-voting-rights.html
I doubt we'll see more than a 5-10% Labour lead going forward but Labour would do well to maintain that for a year especially if the Tories change leader.
It's also a good example of the way small changes in chained probabilities (*) can lead to radically different outcomes. Hence you can make the Drake equation show scores of intelligent species in our galaxy alone, and with only a few small changes, none.
But I'm old enough to remember when people were arguing (seriously) that there were no extrasolar planets. Barely thirty years ago. Now we know of a vast range of types of extrasolar planets. The implication of these on life, and the types of life they may contain, are massive. And old strictures such as the 'habitable zone' are also disintegrating as we find life can be very different.
I'm also old enough to remember Titius-Bode's Law...
(*) Unsure what the correct term is; never studied stats...
The most surprising bit was that all of them agreed that the biggest and most visible NHS reform is going to happen this year, almost without anyone noticing. GPs are set to be nationalised and become paid employees rather than private service provisioning companies. They all agreed that patients would notice the difference as there will be a lot less variability in service and as NHS employees GPs would be less able to say no to face to face appointments as well as home visits.
I'm not a huge fan of Bevan, but he was quite right that this was a very bad idea. To be honest, I'm amazed it's taken 75 years and a major pandemic to correct.
https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/news/6694/2021-stand-up-streaming-stats/
Its not like somebody just found a tweet from 10 years ago on a secondary account before they became famous.
The rest of the evening was....er....'interesting'.
PMs shouldn't be expected to quit over every single minor failing of leadership. But this wasn't that, petty though incidents are in isolation, and it was right under his hose, not some abstract cock up in some no name department.
These numbers have been falling in recent years, as cars have got more efficient, but will drop off a cliff if we all start buying EVs. Not to mention that, most of those buying EVs at the moment, are doing so to avoid thousands in BIK income tax on company cars.
It’s a serious problem coming down the line, and is undoubtedly one of the major reasons for not dropping VAT on domestic power.
Not that I've watched it because Jimmy Carr's "laugh" results in me needing a new TV screen.
Sadly these days, too many people are out looking for reasons to be offended. Watching comedy specials kept me and millions of others sane during the pandemic.
Huge unnecessary distraction at best.
The only activity I completely avoided in school was (compulsory) rugby.
I hid in the school library, which no one else ever visited.
I don't particularly like it, I don't think its often too crude and not particular sophisticated, but has 200 million views online. I am surprised he hasn't had the mob go for him.
I don't see nationalisation will do anything but make these issues worse.
The former get a few Guardian columns out of it; the latter loads of free PR.
It's like Piers Morgan and Vegan Sausage Rolls. Both had the same PR company...
As for the wider public, its very simple, don't watch him. I personally can take or leave him, some of the jokes are good, some I don't care for and thus on balance I don't tend to rush to watch his gigs.
Anyway, I must be off.
Sri Lankan bagpipes!
I couldn't believe how long it takes though - to my mind, she is exceptionally well qualified and working in a top hospital. Don't get why it takes years and years to become a GP.
He also makes lots of horrible rape jokes. He doesn't have a rapier wit; he has the rapiest wit.
In the context of this joke, the whole point is he explains the construct for the joke (which is clipped out) and part of the reason it works (in his mind) is that most people don't know it wasn't just the Jews getting exterminated. It is the switcharoo, that doesn't work if you just say Jews getting killed was a positive.
I was at one his shows back in the mid 2000s and he said something like
'They say there's safety in numbers. Tell that to 6 million Jews.'
I, and the rest of the audience, felt incredibly guilty for laughing at that.
Haunting, intense, weird. An incredible little multicultural quarter of Asia. Malay, Tamil, Sinhalese, Chinese, Javanese, catholic, Indian, Muslim, Hindu, animist, Afghan, even Burgher (the lost white tribe of part Dutch descent)
I can understand the local hostility. This whole incredible neighbourhood is about to be swept away by skyscrapers. Colombo repeats the errors of every other city in history
The election that never was around the time I became a frequent poster.
My boys Dave and George played a blinder then.
Spare a thought for the Labour guy Mike knew who bought Lab seats on Sporting Index at 385 around that time.
Looking at Carr's joke I reckon I could formulate a ball achingly unfunny and unpleasant gag around it where Jews were the butt of the joke. I don't see the point and it would also run the risk of me being branded, perhaps justifiably, as a vile antisemite.
“If only Africa had more mosquito nets, then every year we would could save *millions* of mosquitos from dying needlessly of AIDS”
And, to a heckler: “If you want my comeback, you’ll have to scrape it off your Mum’s teeth”.
I've been a huge fan of Jimmy Carr since I first saw him live in 2003.
His magic for me is making me laugh at things I shouldn't laugh at and spend the rest of the evening feeling guilty for it..
My three rules for comedy clubs:
1. Never sit in the front row
2. Never turn up late
3. No matter how drunk, don’t shout at the person on stage with the microphone, who is a professional at talking back to people who heckle.
Favourite return line to a heckler: “I’m getting paid to be here making a c*** of myself in front of a room full of people. What’s your excuse?”
“Saying that you don’t believe in magic but do believe in God is a bit like saying you don’t have sex with dogs, except Labradors.”
and
“Remember to never answer a phone during sex, even if you hilariously answer with, ‘I can’t talk now, I’m going into a tunnel.'”
and
“Viagra has instructions: ‘Keep away from children’ – what kind of man do you think I am?”
And how will that affect the companies that now run numbers of GP practices each?