It's a tease and he sets himself up for it. No need for toys out of the pram on this one.
Speaking of which, I found Sean's next wife...
Anastasia Lenna, Miss Grand Ukraine 2015, now taking up arms to defend her country from madman Putin's invaders. In 100 years - 1000 years - the world will talk of the courage of the Ukrainian people in these days.https://twitter.com/TonyParsonsUK/status/1497962160361721860/photo/1
Just read the speech Johnson gave at the Ukrainian church. He can be a strong orator, with substantial brainpower. Shame he's a lazy philandering tosspot 95% of the time, and that will never change.
If Putin has come to the end of the road he might try to take the rest of us with him.
Russian state TV: “Our submarines alone can launch more than 500 nuclear warheads, which guarantees the destruction of the US and NATO for good measure. The principle is: why do we need the world if Russia won’t be in it?” https://twitter.com/ilya_shepelin/status/1498022807627829250
Cripes.
Hell's bells
Is that genuine. The tweeters profile mentions they spread fake news
If Putin has come to the end of the road he might try to take the rest of us with him.
Russian state TV: “Our submarines alone can launch more than 500 nuclear warheads, which guarantees the destruction of the US and NATO for good measure. The principle is: why do we need the world if Russia won’t be in it?” https://twitter.com/ilya_shepelin/status/1498022807627829250
Except it doesn't. The USSR had 45,000+ nukes in 1985 that guaranteed saturation of all possible economic, military and civilian targets, and there were with much bigger warheads.
Today's nukes have smaller warheads and are better targeted but that's only about 20 nukes per NATO member and given the reliability and serviceability of his conventional forces I doubt all they'd all fire or detonate properly still less all reach their targets.
He couldn't even be sure of taking out most US military targets with that.
Tsar Nicholas II was not overthrown because the war was going badly, although it could have been going somewhat better.
He wasn't overthrown because he was a rich man and all the Russians were poor, although this was probably suboptimal.
He wasn't overthrown because of his wife's emotional reliance on a sex crazed drunken starets, although that didn't help.
No, the actual reason was that the points had frozen on the main railway line into Petrograd, leaving both its people and the military garrison short of flour and therefore bread. Once those two groups began rioting, he was finished.
I wonder if this might be the start of something similar.
Fortunately for the world, Nicolai Alexeivitch didn't have nuclear weapons. Unlike Putin...
Inronically the Tsar was probably a better Russian leader than most of those who succeeded him, with the exception of maybe Gorbachev and Yeltsin, certainly from a western perspective
All discussion eventually metamorphose into one involving geology.
What is the geology equivalent of Godwin's Law?
Charles Lyell: The past is the key to the present.
Or Lyell again: “I may conclude this chapter by quoting a saying of Professor Agassiz, that whenever a new and startling fact is brought to light in science, people first say, 'it is not true,' then that 'it is contrary to religion,' and lastly, 'that everybody knew it before.”
James Hutton: The result, therefore, of our present enquiry is, that we find no vestige of a beginning, - no prospect of an end.
The amount of NATO nations transporters doing the rounds to where it matters is unmistakeable. As well as the RAF and the USAF you have Greek, Turkish, Spanish aircraft shipping gear in the last two days.
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution to call for an emergency session of the General Assembly which will convene in the next 24 hours. It is the first time such a session has been called in decades, said U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, because “This is not ordinary moment. We need to take extraordinary action to meet this threat to our international system and to do everything we can to help Ukraine and its people.”
NY Times
The General Assembly vote has no binding effect, but will give an indication of how isolated Russia has become. Though, frankly, you wonder whether, should Nutjob discover that he has almost the whole world against him, he might try to kill absolutely everyone in revenge. It's extremely scary.
China, the UAE and India all abstained rather than vote to condemn Russia on the Security Council.
Those are some pretty big or wealthy nations not lining up against him whatever the Assembly decides
If Putin has come to the end of the road he might try to take the rest of us with him.
Russian state TV: “Our submarines alone can launch more than 500 nuclear warheads, which guarantees the destruction of the US and NATO for good measure. The principle is: why do we need the world if Russia won’t be in it?” https://twitter.com/ilya_shepelin/status/1498022807627829250
Hell's bells.
Someone needs to stop this madman. And fast.
Moscow has had far more crazed nutcases than Putin over the decades and none of them launched nuclear weapons. They know full well Russia would be leveled if it happened. And they know that Russia will indeed "be in the world" if they don't. This is all an attempt to get others to back down. I.e. a bluff.
If Putin has come to the end of the road he might try to take the rest of us with him.
Russian state TV: “Our submarines alone can launch more than 500 nuclear warheads, which guarantees the destruction of the US and NATO for good measure. The principle is: why do we need the world if Russia won’t be in it?” https://twitter.com/ilya_shepelin/status/1498022807627829250
Hell's bells.
Someone needs to stop this madman. And fast.
I know this is probably wish fulfilment and probably not likely, but it bears asking.
What if a still similarly rational person has spent a long time planning a performance of world-destroying madness, without actually being so ? He or his advisers might even add some of the apocalyptic iconography of James Bond films to some of his videoed meetings, knowing the cultural significance of this to western audiences.
I know it's unlikely and several indications point to a genuinely changed person, but it bears a moment's thought.
Apologies if this unnerves people but we're dealing with a madman and anything is possible, especially with the escalations.
The safest places to live in the event of a nuclear attack are obviously the most rural areas and coastal areas far from military bases eg Isles of Scilly, the Highlands of Scotland, the Yorkshire Moors, Snowdonia and Mid Wales, East Kent etc.
Though obviously if Putin did launch nukes on the UK we would also be send Trident nuclear missiles to attack Moscow and St Petersburg from UK submarines within a few hours
Yes, but who the fuck wants to survive a nuclear war?
If I was living in, say, Thailand then I would. I've craved getting back to nature and to the wild. Just not quite via this route.
I was watching Octopussy with my son earlier. Making our way through James Bond films.
I'd always considered the plot a bit far-fetched until today: you know, a deranged ex KGB officer who wants to set off a nuclear bomb in the west ...
There's probably a number of places in the world where one could continue post-apocalypse without it necessarily being post-apocalypse. Certainly though Britain isn't going to be one of those.
Been through Birmingham lately? Not sure how many would notice the difference.
(Seriously, it's a great city, and will be greater still when they finish building it.)
Glasgow, OTOH, is more dystopian than post-apocalyptic. It is Marvel's go-to as a replica for Gotham City.
More seriously (BBC journalist). Russian troops are in Berdyansk. They're getting closer to Mariupol. Also not clear about the northern direction - Volnovakha I heard was totally cut off by Russian troops. They're encircling Mariupol from all sides. https://twitter.com/abdujalil/status/1497998348992798730
It certainly looks as if the southern front is the one that the Russians are winning. Hard to know whether by accident or design.
The amphibious landing force has probably helped them there. In general, I think that we're all celebrating the failure of the invason a bit prematurely - it's only been going for a few days and Kyiv is apparently surrounded. Not clear what the Russians plan next there, though - fighting for it street by street must sound unappealing to the most gung-ho general.
Yes you are correct Nick what you WANT to happen is not the same as what will happen
Are you still here? I hope you end up in the Hague with Putin and Lukeshenko. William Joyce of course got his comeuppance at Nuremberg.
More seriously (BBC journalist). Russian troops are in Berdyansk. They're getting closer to Mariupol. Also not clear about the northern direction - Volnovakha I heard was totally cut off by Russian troops. They're encircling Mariupol from all sides. https://twitter.com/abdujalil/status/1497998348992798730
It certainly looks as if the southern front is the one that the Russians are winning. Hard to know whether by accident or design.
I think peak ukrainian resistance is over
Are you still here?
I look forward to seeing you in the Hague alongside Putin and Lukashenko.
It didn't end well for William Joyce did it?
Joyce was actually tried at the Old Bailey, not at Nuremberg. Only senior members of the Nazi party were tried at Nuremberg.
Was he not technically British either, so really was wrongfully convicted?
American by birth, I had thought him Irish. I learned that when I went to correct my error that Vanilla re-saved after deletion and posted anyway.
Clearly I wasn’t there at the time, but I’ve always felt he was a bit hard done to. He took German citizenship and then broadcast for his (now) country. Executing him for treason feels wrong. No doubt passions were running high.
IIRC The prosecution successfully argued that though he'd obtained a UK passport fraudulently, he had taken advantage of it, and therefore owed allegiance....
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
Kay word 'parts', as I pointed out the distance from the top to the bottom of the Highlands is longer than the distance between London and the North of England.
Plus of course the whole reason at least 1 submarines with Trident nuclear missiles on board is always on patrol 24/7 is that in the event of nuclear war the UK PM from his bunker could still order a nuclear missile attack on Moscow or whereever the nuclear attack on the UK came from even if Faslane had been hit (though in reality it would almost certainly only be Moscow or Bejing being the 2 capitals of our potential enemies with nuclear weapons). 1 Trident nuclear missile is the equivalent of 8 Hiroshimas on its own
But Glasgow is on the border of the Highlands. At the Faslane part.
Wow. That's absolutely huge. Good on BP shareholders for forcing the issue.
Who are they going to sell it to?
No one. They are writing it off.
Are they exiting? They’ve written the value down to zero, resigned from the board, and won’t recognise any income from it.
But they own it as much as Abramovich owns CFC
My understanding is that they will no longer legally have any ownership. I believe they are invested in Rosneft as a JV partnership. Once they withdraw from that they have no 'ownership' to speak of.
Tsar Nicholas II was not overthrown because the war was going badly, although it could have been going somewhat better.
He wasn't overthrown because he was a rich man and all the Russians were poor, although this was probably suboptimal.
He wasn't overthrown because of his wife's emotional reliance on a sex crazed drunken starets, although that didn't help.
No, the actual reason was that the points had frozen on the main railway line into Petrograd, leaving both its people and the military garrison short of flour and therefore bread. Once those two groups began rioting, he was finished.
I wonder if this might be the start of something similar.
Fortunately for the world, Nicolai Alexeivitch didn't have nuclear weapons. Unlike Putin...
Inronically the Tsar was probably a better Russian leader than most of those who succeeded him, with the exception of maybe Gorbachev and Yeltsin, certainly from a western perspective
I'd put him behind Khrushchev. Khrushchev at least tried to make things better. He mostly failed, but unlike most of the others including Nicholas he made the effort.
But you know, saying that somebody was better than Lenin, Stalin or Brezhnev is setting the bar pretty low.
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
Kay word 'parts', as I pointed out the distance from the top to the bottom of the Highlands is longer than the distance between London and the North of England.
Plus of course the whole reason at least 1 submarines with Trident nuclear missiles on board is always on patrol 24/7 is that in the event of nuclear war the UK PM from his bunker could still order a nuclear missile attack on Moscow or whereever the nuclear attack on the UK came from even if Faslane had been hit (though in reality it would almost certainly only be Moscow or Bejing being the 2 capitals of our potential enemies with nuclear weapons). 1 Trident nuclear missile is the equivalent of 8 Hiroshimas on its own
But Glasgow is on the border of the Highlands. At the Faslane part.
I did not include Glasgow, Glasgow was already on the list of potential Russian nuclear targets so would likely be wiped out
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
Kay word 'parts', as I pointed out the distance from the top to the bottom of the Highlands is longer than the distance between London and the North of England.
Plus of course the whole reason at least 1 submarines with Trident nuclear missiles on board is always on patrol 24/7 is that in the event of nuclear war the UK PM from his bunker could still order a nuclear missile attack on Moscow or whereever the nuclear attack on the UK came from even if Faslane had been hit (though in reality it would almost certainly only be Moscow or Bejing being the 2 capitals of our potential enemies with nuclear weapons). 1 Trident nuclear missile is the equivalent of 8 Hiroshimas on its own
But Glasgow is on the border of the Highlands. At the Faslane part.
I did not include Glasgow, Glasgow was already on the list of potential Russian nuclear targets so would likely be wiped out
Why would they bother nuking the Gallowgate and Ibrox?
And, in any case, the effect is much the same if they hit Faslane.
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
Kay word 'parts', as I pointed out the distance from the top to the bottom of the Highlands is longer than the distance between London and the North of England.
Plus of course the whole reason at least 1 submarines with Trident nuclear missiles on board is always on patrol 24/7 is that in the event of nuclear war the UK PM from his bunker could still order a nuclear missile attack on Moscow or whereever the nuclear attack on the UK came from even if Faslane had been hit (though in reality it would almost certainly only be Moscow or Bejing being the 2 capitals of our potential enemies with nuclear weapons). 1 Trident nuclear missile is the equivalent of 8 Hiroshimas on its own
But Glasgow is on the border of the Highlands. At the Faslane part.
I wonder why they didn't park them up at Scapa? Was always going to be controversial having them near the central belt.
Deep water access? Too stormy up there? Easier to hit with an air strike?
Tsar Nicholas II was not overthrown because the war was going badly, although it could have been going somewhat better.
He wasn't overthrown because he was a rich man and all the Russians were poor, although this was probably suboptimal.
He wasn't overthrown because of his wife's emotional reliance on a sex crazed drunken starets, although that didn't help.
No, the actual reason was that the points had frozen on the main railway line into Petrograd, leaving both its people and the military garrison short of flour and therefore bread. Once those two groups began rioting, he was finished.
I wonder if this might be the start of something similar.
Fortunately for the world, Nicolai Alexeivitch didn't have nuclear weapons. Unlike Putin...
Inronically the Tsar was probably a better Russian leader than most of those who succeeded him, with the exception of maybe Gorbachev and Yeltsin, certainly from a western perspective
I'd put him behind Khrushchev. Khrushchev at least tried to make things better. He mostly failed, but unlike most of the others including Nicholas he made the effort.
But you know, saying that somebody was better than Lenin, Stalin or Brezhnev is setting the bar pretty low.
To an extent, the Cuban Missile Crisis happened under Kruschev.
You also now have to add Putin alongside Lenin, Stalin and Breshnev
More seriously (BBC journalist). Russian troops are in Berdyansk. They're getting closer to Mariupol. Also not clear about the northern direction - Volnovakha I heard was totally cut off by Russian troops. They're encircling Mariupol from all sides. https://twitter.com/abdujalil/status/1497998348992798730
It certainly looks as if the southern front is the one that the Russians are winning. Hard to know whether by accident or design.
I think peak ukrainian resistance is over
I think it has barely begun.
There will be bloodletting on a grand scale before this is done, and lots will be Russian.
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
Kay word 'parts', as I pointed out the distance from the top to the bottom of the Highlands is longer than the distance between London and the North of England.
Plus of course the whole reason at least 1 submarines with Trident nuclear missiles on board is always on patrol 24/7 is that in the event of nuclear war the UK PM from his bunker could still order a nuclear missile attack on Moscow or whereever the nuclear attack on the UK came from even if Faslane had been hit (though in reality it would almost certainly only be Moscow or Bejing being the 2 capitals of our potential enemies with nuclear weapons). 1 Trident nuclear missile is the equivalent of 8 Hiroshimas on its own
But Glasgow is on the border of the Highlands. At the Faslane part.
Also, from a mountaineering perspective, Glasgow is way better than Edinburgh for getting up into the hills.
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
Kay word 'parts', as I pointed out the distance from the top to the bottom of the Highlands is longer than the distance between London and the North of England.
Plus of course the whole reason at least 1 submarines with Trident nuclear missiles on board is always on patrol 24/7 is that in the event of nuclear war the UK PM from his bunker could still order a nuclear missile attack on Moscow or whereever the nuclear attack on the UK came from even if Faslane had been hit (though in reality it would almost certainly only be Moscow or Bejing being the 2 capitals of our potential enemies with nuclear weapons). 1 Trident nuclear missile is the equivalent of 8 Hiroshimas on its own
But Glasgow is on the border of the Highlands. At the Faslane part.
I did not include Glasgow, Glasgow was already on the list of potential Russian nuclear targets so would likely be wiped out
Why would they bother nuking the Gallowgate and Ibrox?
The Russian target list included all major UK cities, Glasgow is the 5th largest city in the UK
Tsar Nicholas II was not overthrown because the war was going badly, although it could have been going somewhat better.
He wasn't overthrown because he was a rich man and all the Russians were poor, although this was probably suboptimal.
He wasn't overthrown because of his wife's emotional reliance on a sex crazed drunken starets, although that didn't help.
No, the actual reason was that the points had frozen on the main railway line into Petrograd, leaving both its people and the military garrison short of flour and therefore bread. Once those two groups began rioting, he was finished.
I wonder if this might be the start of something similar.
Fortunately for the world, Nicolai Alexeivitch didn't have nuclear weapons. Unlike Putin...
Inronically the Tsar was probably a better Russian leader than most of those who succeeded him, with the exception of maybe Gorbachev and Yeltsin, certainly from a western perspective
He was personally not a sociopath, just a bit of a dim bulb. Can't help feeling that a small gardening job somewhere would have been a fitting end to him.
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
Kay word 'parts', as I pointed out the distance from the top to the bottom of the Highlands is longer than the distance between London and the North of England.
Plus of course the whole reason at least 1 submarines with Trident nuclear missiles on board is always on patrol 24/7 is that in the event of nuclear war the UK PM from his bunker could still order a nuclear missile attack on Moscow or whereever the nuclear attack on the UK came from even if Faslane had been hit (though in reality it would almost certainly only be Moscow or Bejing being the 2 capitals of our potential enemies with nuclear weapons). 1 Trident nuclear missile is the equivalent of 8 Hiroshimas on its own
But Glasgow is on the border of the Highlands. At the Faslane part.
I wonder why they didn't park them up at Scapa? Was always going to be controversial having them near the central belt.
Deep water access? Too stormy up there? Easier to hit with an air strike?
I don't know, specifically, but logistics wise it would have been tricky.
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
Kay word 'parts', as I pointed out the distance from the top to the bottom of the Highlands is longer than the distance between London and the North of England.
Plus of course the whole reason at least 1 submarines with Trident nuclear missiles on board is always on patrol 24/7 is that in the event of nuclear war the UK PM from his bunker could still order a nuclear missile attack on Moscow or whereever the nuclear attack on the UK came from even if Faslane had been hit (though in reality it would almost certainly only be Moscow or Bejing being the 2 capitals of our potential enemies with nuclear weapons). 1 Trident nuclear missile is the equivalent of 8 Hiroshimas on its own
But Glasgow is on the border of the Highlands. At the Faslane part.
I haven't been following the discussion, but I don't think of Faslane as being 'Highlands'. It's too near Glasgow for it to be 'Highlands', demographically, geographically, or culturally. It's close, though.
And since, perhaps uniquely on PB, I've walked around the lot (excepting the islands), I'll put myself as an authority.
If Putin has come to the end of the road he might try to take the rest of us with him.
Russian state TV: “Our submarines alone can launch more than 500 nuclear warheads, which guarantees the destruction of the US and NATO for good measure. The principle is: why do we need the world if Russia won’t be in it?” https://twitter.com/ilya_shepelin/status/1498022807627829250
Hell's bells.
Someone needs to stop this madman. And fast.
Moscow has had far more crazed nutcases than Putin over the decades and none of them launched nuclear weapons. They know full well Russia would be leveled if it happened. And they know that Russia will indeed "be in the world" if they don't. This is all an attempt to get others to back down. I.e. a bluff.
His behaviour at the moment is eerily reminiscent of that of Brezhnev in his last years. Crazy foreign ventures. Threats of nuclear annihilation. Trying to sustain over-ambitious military spending at the expense of his country. Rampaging fraud and corruption in the government. The FSB extremely powerful.
Brezhnev, of course, had dementia, complicated by cardiovascular problems and alcoholism.
There may be more to these rumours about Putin's health.
You millennial leftists who never lived one day under nuclear threat can now reflect upon your woke sky. You made quite a non-binary fuss to save the world from intercontinental ballistic tweets
Apologies if this unnerves people but we're dealing with a madman and anything is possible, especially with the escalations.
The safest places to live in the event of a nuclear attack are obviously the most rural areas and coastal areas far from military bases eg Isles of Scilly, the Highlands of Scotland, the Yorkshire Moors, Snowdonia and Mid Wales, East Kent etc.
Though obviously if Putin did launch nukes on the UK we would also be send Trident nuclear missiles to attack Moscow and St Petersburg from UK submarines within a few hours
Highlands of Scotland?!?
I ought not be surprised after your pig-ignorance regarding Trident this morning.
Faslane is near the coast not the central Highlands.
Wow not your best post HYUFD. I was at Faslane in October. I can assure you it is indeed near the Highlands although I notice you have very, very, naughtily added the word 'central'!!!!
Faslane is at the top of Garelochhead and the start of the Trosachs.
Geologically Faslane is actually in the Highlands because the dividing line of the central belt runs along the Clyde, just south of Helensburgh.
Anyway, the point is that Faslane is very close to the Highlands, as I said. Geologically it's actually in them.
There are 265 miles from Faslane to John O'Groaths, all covered by the Highlands.
That is more than the distance from London to Manchester
So what?
The Highlands are a big place.
You are completely wrong about this HY and if I were you I'd just back out now. Or take a look at the map of the Highlands which has Faslane in them.
The geological fault, which is so interesting, runs right down the Clyde, well to the south of Faslane.
I do know what I'm talking about. And if you don't believe me then a geologist will explain it to you in this Michael Portillo programme. The geologist Dr Ian Neill, Geologist and Lecturer at the University of Glasgow. Your re-education begins at the 3 minute mark:
EU announces it has agreed unanimously amongst all member countries to take in Ukrainian refugees fir up to 3 years without asking them to first apply for asylum. Just been announced following a meeting of EU Interior ministers https://twitter.com/BBCkatyaadler/status/1498017173792514051
Great news . What a wonderful gesture of solidarity . God bless the EU .
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
The warheads are actually in underground magazines on the other side of the loch. The subs have to go round the headland into Loch Long to get loaded up.
There are all sorts of mysterious rail lines and big fences around Arrochar too. And some weird stuff north of the Skye Bridge on Raasay and Applecross. And at Torridon.
Loch Ewe certainly has a big base of some kind - I think it is a NATO fuel store?
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
Kay word 'parts', as I pointed out the distance from the top to the bottom of the Highlands is longer than the distance between London and the North of England.
Plus of course the whole reason at least 1 submarines with Trident nuclear missiles on board is always on patrol 24/7 is that in the event of nuclear war the UK PM from his bunker could still order a nuclear missile attack on Moscow or whereever the nuclear attack on the UK came from even if Faslane had been hit (though in reality it would almost certainly only be Moscow or Bejing being the 2 capitals of our potential enemies with nuclear weapons). 1 Trident nuclear missile is the equivalent of 8 Hiroshimas on its own
But Glasgow is on the border of the Highlands. At the Faslane part.
I wonder why they didn't park them up at Scapa? Was always going to be controversial having them near the central belt.
Deep water access? Too stormy up there? Easier to hit with an air strike?
I don't know, specifically, but logistics wise it would have been tricky.
Citation required, but I read it was partly something about exit routes. Faslane has fewer of them, but they're easy to guard from shore. The Russians would find it hard to tail a sub without being detected. If the base went straight into open water, it would be easier.
It's a tease and he sets himself up for it. No need for toys out of the pram on this one.
Speaking of which, I found Sean's next wife...
Anastasia Lenna, Miss Grand Ukraine 2015, now taking up arms to defend her country from madman Putin's invaders. In 100 years - 1000 years - the world will talk of the courage of the Ukrainian people in these days.https://twitter.com/TonyParsonsUK/status/1497962160361721860/photo/1
She looks a bit like Jennifer Lawrence. Shame she's not got a bow and arrow.
More seriously (BBC journalist). Russian troops are in Berdyansk. They're getting closer to Mariupol. Also not clear about the northern direction - Volnovakha I heard was totally cut off by Russian troops. They're encircling Mariupol from all sides. https://twitter.com/abdujalil/status/1497998348992798730
It certainly looks as if the southern front is the one that the Russians are winning. Hard to know whether by accident or design.
The amphibious landing force has probably helped them there. In general, I think that we're all celebrating the failure of the invason a bit prematurely - it's only been going for a few days and Kyiv is apparently surrounded. Not clear what the Russians plan next there, though - fighting for it street by street must sound unappealing to the most gung-ho general.
Yes you are correct Nick what you WANT to happen is not the same as what will happen
Are you still here? I hope you end up in the Hague with Putin and Lukeshenko. William Joyce of course got his comeuppance at Nuremberg.
More seriously (BBC journalist). Russian troops are in Berdyansk. They're getting closer to Mariupol. Also not clear about the northern direction - Volnovakha I heard was totally cut off by Russian troops. They're encircling Mariupol from all sides. https://twitter.com/abdujalil/status/1497998348992798730
It certainly looks as if the southern front is the one that the Russians are winning. Hard to know whether by accident or design.
I think peak ukrainian resistance is over
Are you still here?
I look forward to seeing you in the Hague alongside Putin and Lukashenko.
It didn't end well for William Joyce did it?
Joyce was actually tried at the Old Bailey, not at Nuremberg. Only senior members of the Nazi party were tried at Nuremberg.
Was he not technically British either, so really was wrongfully convicted?
American by birth, I had thought him Irish. I learned that when I went to correct my error that Vanilla re-saved after deletion and posted anyway.
Clearly I wasn’t there at the time, but I’ve always felt he was a bit hard done to. He took German citizenship and then broadcast for his (now) country. Executing him for treason feels wrong. No doubt passions were running high.
IIRC The prosecution successfully argued that though he'd obtained a UK passport fraudulently, he had taken advantage of it, and therefore owed allegiance....
Yes, I diverted to Wikipedia. I still still think he was hard done by, but you take your chance on siding with another country in wartime...
Tsar Nicholas II was not overthrown because the war was going badly, although it could have been going somewhat better.
He wasn't overthrown because he was a rich man and all the Russians were poor, although this was probably suboptimal.
He wasn't overthrown because of his wife's emotional reliance on a sex crazed drunken starets, although that didn't help.
No, the actual reason was that the points had frozen on the main railway line into Petrograd, leaving both its people and the military garrison short of flour and therefore bread. Once those two groups began rioting, he was finished.
I wonder if this might be the start of something similar.
Fortunately for the world, Nicolai Alexeivitch didn't have nuclear weapons. Unlike Putin...
Inronically the Tsar was probably a better Russian leader than most of those who succeeded him, with the exception of maybe Gorbachev and Yeltsin, certainly from a western perspective
I'd put him behind Khrushchev. Khrushchev at least tried to make things better. He mostly failed, but unlike most of the others including Nicholas he made the effort.
But you know, saying that somebody was better than Lenin, Stalin or Brezhnev is setting the bar pretty low.
To an extent, the Cuban Missile Crisis happened under Kruschev.
You also now have to add Putin alongside Lenin, Stalin and Breshnev
As did Hungary. As did the Novocherkassk massacre. And the Sino-Soviet split. And the anti-church campaign.
But so did the Virgin Lands, men in space, a doubling of the size of Soviet housing stock and the first visit by a Russian leader to the west while in office.
He had lots of faults. But he had his good points too.
It's therefore rather bitterly ironic that he's chiefly remembered in Russia and the other republics via the word Khrushchevka - meaning a slum. Because those houses he built in the cheap in a hurry to give them a place to live are still there and still cheap and nasty.
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
The warheads are actually in underground magazines on the other side of the loch. The subs have to go round the headland into Loch Long to get loaded up.
There are all sorts of mysterious rail lines and big fences around Arrochar too. And some weird stuff north of the Skye Bridge on Raasay and Applecross. And at Torridon.
Loch Ewe certainly has a big store of some kind.
Probably Loch Ewe POL (Petrol, Oil, Lubricants) base.
More seriously (BBC journalist). Russian troops are in Berdyansk. They're getting closer to Mariupol. Also not clear about the northern direction - Volnovakha I heard was totally cut off by Russian troops. They're encircling Mariupol from all sides. https://twitter.com/abdujalil/status/1497998348992798730
It certainly looks as if the southern front is the one that the Russians are winning. Hard to know whether by accident or design.
The amphibious landing force has probably helped them there. In general, I think that we're all celebrating the failure of the invason a bit prematurely - it's only been going for a few days and Kyiv is apparently surrounded. Not clear what the Russians plan next there, though - fighting for it street by street must sound unappealing to the most gung-ho general.
Yes you are correct Nick what you WANT to happen is not the same as what will happen
I think we can allow ourselves a cheer, though, that the invasion has gone much less well than we feared. Every day it goes on costs Vlad another $20bn. Every tank taken out of operation by the Ukrainians sets the Russians back. Five days ago, the fear was that the Ukraine would be the first domino, which would be followed by The Baltics, Georgia, Poland, Scandinavia... The heroism of the Ukrainians has made the second step that much more difficult for Vlad.
I debunked that number. Just about credible in Roubles.
$20bn a day is the entire Russian GDP in 11 weeks.
Assuming your figure is correct, it'll be the entire Russian GDP in around 20 weeks when markets open tomorrow and the Ruble tanks.
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
Kay word 'parts', as I pointed out the distance from the top to the bottom of the Highlands is longer than the distance between London and the North of England.
Plus of course the whole reason at least 1 submarines with Trident nuclear missiles on board is always on patrol 24/7 is that in the event of nuclear war the UK PM from his bunker could still order a nuclear missile attack on Moscow or whereever the nuclear attack on the UK came from even if Faslane had been hit (though in reality it would almost certainly only be Moscow or Bejing being the 2 capitals of our potential enemies with nuclear weapons). 1 Trident nuclear missile is the equivalent of 8 Hiroshimas on its own
But Glasgow is on the border of the Highlands. At the Faslane part.
I haven't been following the discussion, but I don't think of Faslane as being 'Highlands'. It's too near Glasgow for it to be 'Highlands', demographically, geographically, or culturally. It's close, though.
And since, perhaps uniquely on PB, I've walked around the lot (excepting the islands), I'll put myself as an authority.
It's most certainly in the Highlands. It's NW of the Highlands Boundary Fault, in the bits which go up and down and are covered with heather, rocks and sheep, grouse and deer shite:
It's a tease and he sets himself up for it. No need for toys out of the pram on this one.
Speaking of which, I found Sean's next wife...
Anastasia Lenna, Miss Grand Ukraine 2015, now taking up arms to defend her country from madman Putin's invaders. In 100 years - 1000 years - the world will talk of the courage of the Ukrainian people in these days.https://twitter.com/TonyParsonsUK/status/1497962160361721860/photo/1
She looks a bit like Jennifer Lawrence. Shame she's not got a bow and arrow.
Good trigger discipline. Very clean weapon. Nice touch on the shooting glasses.
Tsar Nicholas II was not overthrown because the war was going badly, although it could have been going somewhat better.
He wasn't overthrown because he was a rich man and all the Russians were poor, although this was probably suboptimal.
He wasn't overthrown because of his wife's emotional reliance on a sex crazed drunken starets, although that didn't help.
No, the actual reason was that the points had frozen on the main railway line into Petrograd, leaving both its people and the military garrison short of flour and therefore bread. Once those two groups began rioting, he was finished.
I wonder if this might be the start of something similar.
Fortunately for the world, Nicolai Alexeivitch didn't have nuclear weapons. Unlike Putin...
Inronically the Tsar was probably a better Russian leader than most of those who succeeded him, with the exception of maybe Gorbachev and Yeltsin, certainly from a western perspective
I'd put him behind Khrushchev. Khrushchev at least tried to make things better. He mostly failed, but unlike most of the others including Nicholas he made the effort.
But you know, saying that somebody was better than Lenin, Stalin or Brezhnev is setting the bar pretty low.
To an extent, the Cuban Missile Crisis happened under Kruschev.
You also now have to add Putin alongside Lenin, Stalin and Breshnev
Khrushchev and his shoe. A never to be forgotten sight.
What a pitiful sight to see Boris Johnson floundering like a fish our of water when questioned by one of our own MPs. As a Conservative party member I would challenge others to admit that we made a dreadful mistake putting this charlatan as leader and hence PM. As soon as this Ukraine crisis is past, if Putin has not vaporised us all, please can we replace him?
"Klitschko's spokesperson denies that Kyiv is 'encircled.' In an interview with AP, Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that ‘Kyiv was encircled’ but ready to fight. His spokesperson said that he misspoke, and that such information is “a lie and a manipulation."
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
The warheads are actually in underground magazines on the other side of the loch. The subs have to go round the headland into Loch Long to get loaded up.
There are all sorts of mysterious rail lines and big fences around Arrochar too. And some weird stuff north of the Skye Bridge on Raasay and Applecross. And at Torridon.
Loch Ewe certainly has a big base of some kind - I think it is a NATO fuel store?
Oh yes there are! Remember all the big tanks up there.
Sad. Saw that land here in the Flatlands a while back.
It has a couple of slightly smaller cousins that visit more often - not sure how they are doing.
My brother (or his part of the company) chartered one once to bring a gas turbine in. Although they are not that big, they are a heavy point load, and a 747F could not manage it.
The funny thing is the power station is near East Midlands Airport. But the plane had to land at Prestwick, and the massive load travel south from there by road.
(Why they needed a turbine so urgently is another story, one to do with backup systems failing. And then backups of backups.)
As an aside, how do schools do safeguarding in situations like this? Surely there are some schools with both Russian and Ukrainian students?
Are there guidelines on how to deal with it? Talk to them first?
I haven't received any yet.
But so far all the Russians living here seem even more disgusted with Putin than the Ukrainians are, so I don't think they will cause trouble.
Whether the Ukrainians will lash out without thinking of that I don't know, but again my impression is that they're not blaming the Russians.
My son reporting what he deems a strategic success for Putin.
One of his best friends is a Bosnian with strong links and regular trips back to his family's home village.
Half of the males in the village have decamped to Ukraine to fight, where they have agreed to being organised in a unit with many of their co-linguists, namely Croats and Serbs. As they do all regard themselves as Slavs, whatever the ins and outs of that, it would seem that Putin is succeeding in uniting the Slavs.
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
The warheads are actually in underground magazines on the other side of the loch. The subs have to go round the headland into Loch Long to get loaded up.
There are all sorts of mysterious rail lines and big fences around Arrochar too. And some weird stuff north of the Skye Bridge on Raasay and Applecross. And at Torridon.
Loch Ewe certainly has a big store of some kind.
Probably Loch Ewe POL (Petrol, Oil, Lubricants) base.
Wow. Hopefully the US gives them some drones as well.
That's pointless for immediate use, given crew (pilot and ground) training times. Unless Germany and others still have some serviceable MIG-29s?
I think Poland has Mig 29 - and I think Germany sold all their Mig-29s to Poland....
Gatow museum still has a Mig 29 as part of its large GDR collection. A very nice young attendant called Christian told me that there was a bit of a stushie with present day Poland because they thought they’d bought the whole lot at a nominal sum and now fancied this one for their air museum.
As an aside, how do schools do safeguarding in situations like this? Surely there are some schools with both Russian and Ukrainian students?
Are there guidelines on how to deal with it? Talk to them first?
I haven't received any yet.
But so far all the Russians living here seem even more disgusted with Putin than the Ukrainians are, so I don't think they will cause trouble.
Whether the Ukrainians will lash out without thinking of that I don't know, but again my impression is that they're not blaming the Russians.
My son reporting a strategic success for Putin.
One of his best friend's is a Bosnian with strong links and regular trips back to his family's home village.
Half of the males in the village have decamped to Ukraine to fight, where they have agreed to being organised in a unit with many of their co-linguists, namely Croats and Serbs. As they do all regard themselves as Slavs, whatever the history of that, it would seem that Putin is succeeding in uniting the Slavs.
More seriously (BBC journalist). Russian troops are in Berdyansk. They're getting closer to Mariupol. Also not clear about the northern direction - Volnovakha I heard was totally cut off by Russian troops. They're encircling Mariupol from all sides. https://twitter.com/abdujalil/status/1497998348992798730
It certainly looks as if the southern front is the one that the Russians are winning. Hard to know whether by accident or design.
I think peak ukrainian resistance is over
I think it has barely begun.
There will be bloodletting on a grand scale before this is done, and lots will be Russian.
It seems fairly clear that the Russians are fighting towards three main objectives at the moment. 1. Take Kyiv and topple the government. 2. Isolate the Donbas from the rest of Ukraine, thereby encircling the best Ukrainian army units which are on the line of control in Donetsk and Luhansk. 3. Create a landbridge to Crimea.
They're struggling on 1 and 2. They're not far from achieving 3, which is the easiest of the three.
There's no sign of Ukrainian resistance crumbling.
Just a note on nuclear war: a strike on London would kill all the Russian oligarchs and kleptokrats and their families based here, not to mention all their wealth stored in London property and banks forever, and they'll be well connected enough with the Kremlin for him to be well aware of that. They're not insane even if he is.
So, I'd treat threats like this with a pinch of salt.
I doubt that right now Putin gives a flying fig about them. If he's mad enough to be threatening nuclear warfare he's not about to say, 'no wait, some of my former colleagues might get hit.'
And only Essex is downwind…
Actually on the Star map parts of Essex, eg Clacton, would be safer in the aftermath of Russan nuclear attacks than 80% of England, south Wales and Glasgow and Edinburgh
And to be fair, many places like Milton Keynes would be radically improved.
Why the hatred of MK? I have a friend who lives there, and it's not *that* bad. In fact, Gulliver's Kingdom/Land is rather good for a seven year old.
Have you actually been to MK? I mean, it's not a countryside pastiche with thatched cottages and ancient churches (except for the absorbed villages), but it's okay.
Zelensky’s starting point is going to be a Russian withdrawal to the pre-2014 borders, giving up Donbass and Crimea.
Zelensky can’t negotiate away the international sanctions, that are about to tank the markets and cause bank runs in Moscow tomorrow morning.
Oh, and by the way, he has another few thousand NATO-spec anti-tank weapons, and a few hundred NATO-spec anti-aircraft weapons, ready for the next few thousand tanks and few hundred aircraft that try and get to Kiev.
Negotiations difficult now both sides all in...Ukraine will have to put their egos aside a bit and listen to russias concerns...and vice versa
The only concern in this is when will Putin be deposed and put on trial for war crimes
We cannot base policy on wild hopes
Who is 'We'?
Most posters on PB know each other, in many cases personally but otherwise through reputation and thousands of posts. On the evidence of a handful of posts I should say you are a troll, and your views - if indeed they are yours - have attracted well-merited contempt.
You don't speak for anybody except yourself and whoever might be marking your card.
I speak from a deep knowledge of history and human nature...my concern is humanity as a whole...many posters on here are superficial
You noticed?
We like Sean. He’s like our own little pet tarantula. Vile, poisonous and icky. But strangely mesmerising.
Spiders are venomous, not poisonous, and no tarantula is venomous to mankind. They are mesmerising I agree. Indian ornamentals especially.
Ok. Fine. Sean is vile, venomous and icky. Happy now?
And our red under the Reading bed called us “superficial”? Pffff.
If a trans man or woman asked you to refer to them as “they” rather than by their birth gender I have no doubt you would do so out of politeness even if you disagree with their actions.
So when @Leon has requested you stop calling him “Sean” why do you insist on doing so?
It's a tease and he sets himself up for it. No need for toys out of the pram on this one.
It may be a tease but I find it quite fucking annoying, and also boring, it's not good for the site - misidentifying people who wish to remain anonymous is A BAD INTERNET HABIT - and it also prevents me from ever attending things like the PB meets
So, STOP , thanks very much
By all means abuse me roundly for anything else. I don't mind that at all
Tsar Nicholas II was not overthrown because the war was going badly, although it could have been going somewhat better.
He wasn't overthrown because he was a rich man and all the Russians were poor, although this was probably suboptimal.
He wasn't overthrown because of his wife's emotional reliance on a sex crazed drunken starets, although that didn't help.
No, the actual reason was that the points had frozen on the main railway line into Petrograd, leaving both its people and the military garrison short of flour and therefore bread. Once those two groups began rioting, he was finished.
I wonder if this might be the start of something similar.
Fortunately for the world, Nicolai Alexeivitch didn't have nuclear weapons. Unlike Putin...
Inronically the Tsar was probably a better Russian leader than most of those who succeeded him, with the exception of maybe Gorbachev and Yeltsin, certainly from a western perspective
He was personally not a sociopath, just a bit of a dim bulb. Can't help feeling that a small gardening job somewhere would have been a fitting end to him.
Sue Townsend did a story about another branch of the family living normal lives.
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
Kay word 'parts', as I pointed out the distance from the top to the bottom of the Highlands is longer than the distance between London and the North of England.
Plus of course the whole reason at least 1 submarines with Trident nuclear missiles on board is always on patrol 24/7 is that in the event of nuclear war the UK PM from his bunker could still order a nuclear missile attack on Moscow or whereever the nuclear attack on the UK came from even if Faslane had been hit (though in reality it would almost certainly only be Moscow or Bejing being the 2 capitals of our potential enemies with nuclear weapons). 1 Trident nuclear missile is the equivalent of 8 Hiroshimas on its own
But Glasgow is on the border of the Highlands. At the Faslane part.
I haven't been following the discussion, but I don't think of Faslane as being 'Highlands'. It's too near Glasgow for it to be 'Highlands', demographically, geographically, or culturally. It's close, though.
And since, perhaps uniquely on PB, I've walked around the lot (excepting the islands), I'll put myself as an authority.
It's most certainly in the Highlands. It's NW of the Highlands Boundary Fault, in the bits which go up and down and are covered with heather, rocks and sheep, grouse and deer shite:
I am unconvinced, but I think we'll have to disagree. The Highlands is perhaps too large an area to be just one group, anyway - especially if you include the islands. Sutherland can be very different to Nairn or Argyll.
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
Kay word 'parts', as I pointed out the distance from the top to the bottom of the Highlands is longer than the distance between London and the North of England.
Plus of course the whole reason at least 1 submarines with Trident nuclear missiles on board is always on patrol 24/7 is that in the event of nuclear war the UK PM from his bunker could still order a nuclear missile attack on Moscow or whereever the nuclear attack on the UK came from even if Faslane had been hit (though in reality it would almost certainly only be Moscow or Bejing being the 2 capitals of our potential enemies with nuclear weapons). 1 Trident nuclear missile is the equivalent of 8 Hiroshimas on its own
But Glasgow is on the border of the Highlands. At the Faslane part.
I haven't been following the discussion, but I don't think of Faslane as being 'Highlands'. It's too near Glasgow for it to be 'Highlands', demographically, geographically, or culturally. It's close, though.
And since, perhaps uniquely on PB, I've walked around the lot (excepting the islands), I'll put myself as an authority.
It's most certainly in the Highlands. It's NW of the Highlands Boundary Fault, in the bits which go up and down and are covered with heather, rocks and sheep, grouse and deer shite:
Ah, but would you consider Aberdeenshire/Laich of Moray the Highlands?
I generally feel there is big change in the feel of the hills north of Tyndrum. South of there they don't really feel like the Highlands to me, but I'm biased.
The Cairngorms have got their own vibe, which I'm starting to really appreciate as I get older. The low level walks/runs are just superb.
I'm sure this all explained by the underlying geology.
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
The warheads are actually in underground magazines on the other side of the loch. The subs have to go round the headland into Loch Long to get loaded up.
There are all sorts of mysterious rail lines and big fences around Arrochar too. And some weird stuff north of the Skye Bridge on Raasay and Applecross. And at Torridon.
Loch Ewe certainly has a big store of some kind.
Probably Loch Ewe POL (Petrol, Oil, Lubricants) base.
As an aside, how do schools do safeguarding in situations like this? Surely there are some schools with both Russian and Ukrainian students?
Are there guidelines on how to deal with it? Talk to them first?
I haven't received any yet.
But so far all the Russians living here seem even more disgusted with Putin than the Ukrainians are, so I don't think they will cause trouble.
Whether the Ukrainians will lash out without thinking of that I don't know, but again my impression is that they're not blaming the Russians.
My son reporting a strategic success for Putin.
One of his best friend's is a Bosnian with strong links and regular trips back to his family's home village.
Half of the males in the village have decamped to Ukraine to fight, where they have agreed to being organised in a unit with many of their co-linguists, namely Croats and Serbs. As they do all regard themselves as Slavs, whatever the history of that, it would seem that Putin is succeeding in uniting the Slavs.
Which side are they fighting for?
The Ukranian side.
Yes, I imagine that question does need to be asked.
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
Kay word 'parts', as I pointed out the distance from the top to the bottom of the Highlands is longer than the distance between London and the North of England.
Plus of course the whole reason at least 1 submarines with Trident nuclear missiles on board is always on patrol 24/7 is that in the event of nuclear war the UK PM from his bunker could still order a nuclear missile attack on Moscow or whereever the nuclear attack on the UK came from even if Faslane had been hit (though in reality it would almost certainly only be Moscow or Bejing being the 2 capitals of our potential enemies with nuclear weapons). 1 Trident nuclear missile is the equivalent of 8 Hiroshimas on its own
But Glasgow is on the border of the Highlands. At the Faslane part.
I haven't been following the discussion, but I don't think of Faslane as being 'Highlands'. It's too near Glasgow for it to be 'Highlands', demographically, geographically, or culturally. It's close, though.
And since, perhaps uniquely on PB, I've walked around the lot (excepting the islands), I'll put myself as an authority.
Bloody hell. "Highlands" is not some sort of sociological or demographic construct, it's a fact of life. Look on a map.
Not quite sure what you have "walked around" the lot of but a lot of us have been there. Indeed there's actual Scots who post here who probably know almost as much about it as you do.
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
Kay word 'parts', as I pointed out the distance from the top to the bottom of the Highlands is longer than the distance between London and the North of England.
Plus of course the whole reason at least 1 submarines with Trident nuclear missiles on board is always on patrol 24/7 is that in the event of nuclear war the UK PM from his bunker could still order a nuclear missile attack on Moscow or whereever the nuclear attack on the UK came from even if Faslane had been hit (though in reality it would almost certainly only be Moscow or Bejing being the 2 capitals of our potential enemies with nuclear weapons). 1 Trident nuclear missile is the equivalent of 8 Hiroshimas on its own
But Glasgow is on the border of the Highlands. At the Faslane part.
I wonder why they didn't park them up at Scapa? Was always going to be controversial having them near the central belt.
Deep water access? Too stormy up there? Easier to hit with an air strike?
Scapa has quite a lot of undersea hazards
Mainly with German names, but one called "Royal Oak".
In the latest attempts by Russian trolls we have zerohedge @zerohedge · 3m Former White House Physician Says Biden Is Not Cognitively Fit To Deal With Russia Crisis
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
The warheads are actually in underground magazines on the other side of the loch. The subs have to go round the headland into Loch Long to get loaded up.
There are all sorts of mysterious rail lines and big fences around Arrochar too. And some weird stuff north of the Skye Bridge on Raasay and Applecross. And at Torridon.
Loch Ewe certainly has a big store of some kind.
Probably Loch Ewe POL (Petrol, Oil, Lubricants) base.
The Loch was a base for the Russian Arctic Convoys too - usually take a walk out to the point (where there is a memorial) when in the vicinity.
Back when we were on the same side...
I like the sailors' name for Loch Eribol on the north coast.
Loch 'Orrible.
My granddad did some voyages from the north coast during the war. There's a picture of him on a frozen ship, where he looks the spitting image of me at the same age. Quite uncanny, especially as he was in the middle of a war.
Massive explosions plus big rocket launches tonight, going to be a grim night for civilians.
On the plus side, the biggest army in europe is unable to prevent farmers with tractors taking their APCs on a journey while pissing themselves with laughter:
If Putin has come to the end of the road he might try to take the rest of us with him.
Russian state TV: “Our submarines alone can launch more than 500 nuclear warheads, which guarantees the destruction of the US and NATO for good measure. The principle is: why do we need the world if Russia won’t be in it?” https://twitter.com/ilya_shepelin/status/1498022807627829250
Hell's bells.
Someone needs to stop this madman. And fast.
Moscow has had far more crazed nutcases than Putin over the decades and none of them launched nuclear weapons. They know full well Russia would be leveled if it happened. And they know that Russia will indeed "be in the world" if they don't. This is all an attempt to get others to back down. I.e. a bluff.
His behaviour at the moment is eerily reminiscent of that of Brezhnev in his last years. Crazy foreign ventures. Threats of nuclear annihilation. Trying to sustain over-ambitious military spending at the expense of his country. Rampaging fraud and corruption in the government. The FSB extremely powerful.
Brezhnev, of course, had dementia, complicated by cardiovascular problems and alcoholism.
There may be more to these rumours about Putin's health.
There could be, but I still don't really understand what's going on with him. He clearly is genuinely changed in some ways and embarked on a mad project to take Kiyiv, for instance, or to refer continually to 1940's history.
Yet I wonder what other elements might be performance here, particularly now when he's terrifying the world. Could it be some very strange mixture of elaborately planned theatre, and genuine danger and illness ? It's really very strange. We have to take him to a considerable degree at his word when he's making these kinds of threats, ofcourse.
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
Kay word 'parts', as I pointed out the distance from the top to the bottom of the Highlands is longer than the distance between London and the North of England.
Plus of course the whole reason at least 1 submarines with Trident nuclear missiles on board is always on patrol 24/7 is that in the event of nuclear war the UK PM from his bunker could still order a nuclear missile attack on Moscow or whereever the nuclear attack on the UK came from even if Faslane had been hit (though in reality it would almost certainly only be Moscow or Bejing being the 2 capitals of our potential enemies with nuclear weapons). 1 Trident nuclear missile is the equivalent of 8 Hiroshimas on its own
But Glasgow is on the border of the Highlands. At the Faslane part.
I haven't been following the discussion, but I don't think of Faslane as being 'Highlands'. It's too near Glasgow for it to be 'Highlands', demographically, geographically, or culturally. It's close, though.
And since, perhaps uniquely on PB, I've walked around the lot (excepting the islands), I'll put myself as an authority.
Bloody hell. "Highlands" is not some sort of sociological or demographic construct, it's a fact of life. Look on a map.
Not quite sure what you have "walked around" the lot of but a lot of us have been there. Indeed there's actual Scots who post here who probably know almost as much about it as you do.
Zelensky’s starting point is going to be a Russian withdrawal to the pre-2014 borders, giving up Donbass and Crimea.
Zelensky can’t negotiate away the international sanctions, that are about to tank the markets and cause bank runs in Moscow tomorrow morning.
Oh, and by the way, he has another few thousand NATO-spec anti-tank weapons, and a few hundred NATO-spec anti-aircraft weapons, ready for the next few thousand tanks and few hundred aircraft that try and get to Kiev.
Negotiations difficult now both sides all in...Ukraine will have to put their egos aside a bit and listen to russias concerns...and vice versa
The only concern in this is when will Putin be deposed and put on trial for war crimes
We cannot base policy on wild hopes
Who is 'We'?
Most posters on PB know each other, in many cases personally but otherwise through reputation and thousands of posts. On the evidence of a handful of posts I should say you are a troll, and your views - if indeed they are yours - have attracted well-merited contempt.
You don't speak for anybody except yourself and whoever might be marking your card.
I speak from a deep knowledge of history and human nature...my concern is humanity as a whole...many posters on here are superficial
You noticed?
We like Sean. He’s like our own little pet tarantula. Vile, poisonous and icky. But strangely mesmerising.
Spiders are venomous, not poisonous, and no tarantula is venomous to mankind. They are mesmerising I agree. Indian ornamentals especially.
Ok. Fine. Sean is vile, venomous and icky. Happy now?
And our red under the Reading bed called us “superficial”? Pffff.
If a trans man or woman asked you to refer to them as “they” rather than by their birth gender I have no doubt you would do so out of politeness even if you disagree with their actions.
So when @Leon has requested you stop calling him “Sean” why do you insist on doing so?
It's a tease and he sets himself up for it. No need for toys out of the pram on this one.
It may be a tease but I find it quite fucking annoying, and also boring, it's not good for the site - misidentifying people who wish to remain anonymous is A BAD INTERNET HABIT - and it also prevents me from ever attending things like the PB meets
So, STOP , thanks very much
By all means abuse me roundly for anything else. I don't mind that at all
Whilst we all guess about whether our geography will be spared a nuclear strike, I'm absolutely stuffed. A lot of those NLAWS shipped to Ukraine were assembled here in town, so, you know, revenge and all that.
If Putin has come to the end of the road he might try to take the rest of us with him.
Russian state TV: “Our submarines alone can launch more than 500 nuclear warheads, which guarantees the destruction of the US and NATO for good measure. The principle is: why do we need the world if Russia won’t be in it?” https://twitter.com/ilya_shepelin/status/1498022807627829250
Hell's bells.
Someone needs to stop this madman. And fast.
Moscow has had far more crazed nutcases than Putin over the decades and none of them launched nuclear weapons. They know full well Russia would be leveled if it happened. And they know that Russia will indeed "be in the world" if they don't. This is all an attempt to get others to back down. I.e. a bluff.
His behaviour at the moment is eerily reminiscent of that of Brezhnev in his last years. Crazy foreign ventures. Threats of nuclear annihilation. Trying to sustain over-ambitious military spending at the expense of his country. Rampaging fraud and corruption in the government. The FSB extremely powerful.
Brezhnev, of course, had dementia, complicated by cardiovascular problems and alcoholism.
There may be more to these rumours about Putin's health.
There could be, but I still don't really understand what's going on with him. He clearly is genuinely changed in some ways and embarked on a mad project to take Kiyiv, for instance, or to refer continually to 1940's history.
Yet I wonder what other elements might be performance here, particularly now when he's terrifying the world. Could it be some very strange mixture of elaborately planned theatre and genuine danger and illness, I wonder. We have to take him to a considerable degree at his word when he's making these kinds of threats, ofcourse.
The rounded face could be either Botox or steroids..
Massive explosions plus big rocket launches tonight, going to be a grim night for civilians.
On the plus side, the biggest army in europe is unable to prevent farmers with tractors taking their APCs on a journey while pissing themselves with laughter:
As an aside, how do schools do safeguarding in situations like this? Surely there are some schools with both Russian and Ukrainian students?
Are there guidelines on how to deal with it? Talk to them first?
+1
I was chatting to a friend in Surrey today about this exact point. There are both Russian and Ukrainian children in the same school.
I had a class with refugees from both sides in the Iran -Iraq war in it. Two of them became firm friends. They were an odd couple. One a short, bespectacled weedy Iraqi radiologist, the other a giant Iranian heavyweight wrestler figure. They were inseparable. Turns out they'd fought in the same sector. And the Iraqi had probably X-rayed folk the Iranian had shot. They had a catchphrase like the Two Ronnies. "I break them." "And I fix it again."
By the way, this isn't mere play. If you talk to the residents around Faslane they are acutely aware that it would be the No.1 nuclear target.
So, no, some of the Highlands are certainly not the safest place to be.
(I'm assuming everyone knows it's the home of our Trident nuclear subs)
Kay word 'parts', as I pointed out the distance from the top to the bottom of the Highlands is longer than the distance between London and the North of England.
Plus of course the whole reason at least 1 submarines with Trident nuclear missiles on board is always on patrol 24/7 is that in the event of nuclear war the UK PM from his bunker could still order a nuclear missile attack on Moscow or whereever the nuclear attack on the UK came from even if Faslane had been hit (though in reality it would almost certainly only be Moscow or Bejing being the 2 capitals of our potential enemies with nuclear weapons). 1 Trident nuclear missile is the equivalent of 8 Hiroshimas on its own
But Glasgow is on the border of the Highlands. At the Faslane part.
I haven't been following the discussion, but I don't think of Faslane as being 'Highlands'. It's too near Glasgow for it to be 'Highlands', demographically, geographically, or culturally. It's close, though.
And since, perhaps uniquely on PB, I've walked around the lot (excepting the islands), I'll put myself as an authority.
Bloody hell. "Highlands" is not some sort of sociological or demographic construct, it's a fact of life. Look on a map.
Not quite sure what you have "walked around" the lot of but a lot of us have been there. Indeed there's actual Scots who post here who probably know almost as much about it as you do.
In my experience the English tend to be pretty knowledgeable about the Highlands. They go on holiday, and they fall in love.
Indeed, Skye is basically the Home Counties + plus mad Dutch drivers nowadays.
I know what JJ means. Argyll is distinct from Assynt. Perthshire from the Cuillin. Speyside from Caithness.
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god, the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!
Comments
Anastasia Lenna, Miss Grand Ukraine 2015, now taking up arms to defend her country from madman Putin's invaders. In 100 years - 1000 years - the world will talk of the courage of the Ukrainian people in these days. https://twitter.com/TonyParsonsUK/status/1497962160361721860/photo/1
But so far all the Russians living here seem even more disgusted with Putin than the Ukrainians are, so I don't think they will cause trouble.
Whether the Ukrainians will lash out without thinking of that I don't know, but again my impression is that they're not blaming the Russians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gDmMVzjIVw
Today's nukes have smaller warheads and are better targeted but that's only about 20 nukes per NATO member and given the reliability and serviceability of his conventional forces I doubt all they'd all fire or detonate properly still less all reach their targets.
He couldn't even be sure of taking out most US military targets with that.
Or Lyell again: “I may conclude this chapter by quoting a saying of Professor Agassiz, that whenever a new and startling fact is brought to light in science, people first say, 'it is not true,' then that 'it is contrary to religion,' and lastly, 'that everybody knew it before.”
James Hutton:
The result, therefore, of our present enquiry is, that we find no vestige of a beginning, - no prospect of an end.
We'll all go together when we go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frAEmhqdLFs
Those are some pretty big or wealthy nations not lining up against him whatever the Assembly decides
What if a still similarly rational person has spent a long time planning a performance of world-destroying madness, without actually being so ? He or his advisers might even add some of the apocalyptic iconography of James Bond films to some of his videoed meetings, knowing the cultural significance of this to western audiences.
I know it's unlikely and several indications point to a genuinely changed person, but it bears a moment's thought.
It is Marvel's go-to as a replica for Gotham City.
But you know, saying that somebody was better than Lenin, Stalin or Brezhnev is setting the bar pretty low.
And, in any case, the effect is much the same if they hit Faslane.
I suggestr you buy this thing called an "atlas".
Deep water access? Too stormy up there? Easier to hit with an air strike?
You also now have to add Putin alongside Lenin, Stalin and Breshnev
There will be bloodletting on a grand scale before this is done, and lots will be Russian.
It has a couple of slightly smaller cousins that visit more often - not sure how they are doing.
And since, perhaps uniquely on PB, I've walked around the lot (excepting the islands), I'll put myself as an authority.
Brezhnev, of course, had dementia, complicated by cardiovascular problems and alcoholism.
There may be more to these rumours about Putin's health.
@RepClayHiggins
You millennial leftists who never lived one day under nuclear threat can now reflect upon your woke sky.
You made quite a non-binary fuss to save the world from intercontinental ballistic tweets
Dictionary.com
@Dictionarycom
Replying to @RepClayHiggins
We’re not entirely sure what this tweet is supposed to mean, and we’re literally the dictionary.
https://twitter.com/Dictionarycom/status/1498033493561032710
But so did the Virgin Lands, men in space, a doubling of the size of Soviet housing stock and the first visit by a Russian leader to the west while in office.
He had lots of faults. But he had his good points too.
It's therefore rather bitterly ironic that he's chiefly remembered in Russia and the other republics via the word Khrushchevka - meaning a slum. Because those houses he built in the cheap in a hurry to give them a place to live are still there and still cheap and nasty.
https://www.secretscotland.org.uk/index.php/Secrets/LochEwePOLDepot
Also planes have been destroyed on the ground.
So gaps will need to be filled. Though I'm sure that training some pilots in case it drags out would be one plan.
Drones need to be Turkish (what they are used to) or easy to fly, or have mercenary pilots supplied.
http://earthwise.bgs.ac.uk/index.php/Rosneath_Peninsula_and_Loch_Long_-_an_excursion#/media/File:GSG_GLA_FIG_13_01.jpg
AFP News Agency
@AFP
#BREAKING FIFA bans Russian national anthem and flag from international games - official
https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1498014811350839300
In an interview with AP, Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that ‘Kyiv was encircled’ but ready to fight.
His spokesperson said that he misspoke, and that such information is “a lie and a manipulation."
https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1498024824991625216?s=20&t=hF2uwRqWR91oy_-dtriK9g
Some cracking Corbetts too.
The funny thing is the power station is near East Midlands Airport. But the plane had to land at Prestwick, and the massive load travel south from there by road.
(Why they needed a turbine so urgently is another story, one to do with backup systems failing. And then backups of backups.)
One of his best friends is a Bosnian with strong links and regular trips back to his family's home village.
Half of the males in the village have decamped to Ukraine to fight, where they have agreed to being organised in a unit with many of their co-linguists, namely Croats and Serbs. As they do all regard themselves as Slavs, whatever the ins and outs of that, it would seem that Putin is succeeding in uniting the Slavs.
The Loch was a base for the Russian Arctic Convoys too - usually take a walk out to the point (where there is a memorial) when in the vicinity.
Back when we were on the same side...
Don’t think it would do a battlefield turn now.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/opinion/russia-ukraine-sanctions-offshore-accounts.html
1. Take Kyiv and topple the government.
2. Isolate the Donbas from the rest of Ukraine, thereby encircling the best Ukrainian army units which are on the line of control in Donetsk and Luhansk.
3. Create a landbridge to Crimea.
They're struggling on 1 and 2. They're not far from achieving 3, which is the easiest of the three.
There's no sign of Ukrainian resistance crumbling.
So, STOP , thanks very much
By all means abuse me roundly for anything else. I don't mind that at all
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1498037904496418817
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny7nvnshhkg
I generally feel there is big change in the feel of the hills north of Tyndrum. South of there they don't really feel like the Highlands to me, but I'm biased.
The Cairngorms have got their own vibe, which I'm starting to really appreciate as I get older. The low level walks/runs are just superb.
I'm sure this all explained by the underlying geology.
Hence the "groan" grade joke at the end of the Cruel Sea.
Yes, I imagine that question does need to be asked.
Not quite sure what you have "walked around" the lot of but a lot of us have been there. Indeed there's actual Scots who post here who probably know almost as much about it as you do.
Mainly with German names, but one called "Royal Oak".
What exactly was that aimed at? (If it is current)
zerohedge
@zerohedge
·
3m
Former White House Physician Says Biden Is Not Cognitively Fit To Deal With Russia Crisis
Alarming escalation if it is.
Loch 'Orrible.
My granddad did some voyages from the north coast during the war. There's a picture of him on a frozen ship, where he looks the spitting image of me at the same age. Quite uncanny, especially as he was in the middle of a war.
My generation have been so lucky.
https://twitter.com/KyleJGlen/status/1498029093421563906
Massive explosions plus big rocket launches tonight, going to be a grim night for civilians.
On the plus side, the biggest army in europe is unable to prevent farmers with tractors taking their APCs on a journey while pissing themselves with laughter:
https://twitter.com/aCloudX/status/1498028113342644228
https://twitter.com/JohnnyMercerUK/status/1498027274683174913
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FMoaJbCXEAUd_14?format=png&name=900x900
Yet I wonder what other elements might be performance here, particularly now when he's terrifying the world. Could it be some very strange mixture of elaborately planned theatre, and genuine danger and illness ? It's really very strange. We have to take him to a considerable degree at his word when he's making these kinds of threats, ofcourse.
Have they exploded and oil/gas storage or is that one of those very big bombs, that somebody was talking about yesterday?
In fact, scratch that. You're a little feisty.
As usual.
Losing enthusiasm for the whole thing.
Either a similar bomb or the same explosion from a different angle. Ginormous
https://twitter.com/mutahmett/status/1498022991724261385?s=20&t=5VRcrjSE8-1FHaY1x0FR0Q
Putin has doubled down. He is going to Grozny Ukraine into submission. Hideous. Many thousands will die
Two of them became firm friends. They were an odd couple. One a short, bespectacled weedy Iraqi radiologist, the other a giant Iranian heavyweight wrestler figure. They were inseparable. Turns out they'd fought in the same sector. And the Iraqi had probably X-rayed folk the Iranian had shot.
They had a catchphrase like the Two Ronnies.
"I break them."
"And I fix it again."
@visegrad24
Russian ship vs Georgian maintenance ship.
- You Russian?
- Yes.
- We refuse to refuel your ship.
- Who speaks?
- Assistant captain from Georgia. “Russian ship, go fuck yourself”
- But we run on fumes.
- Ok, start rowing then you fucking invaders!
😂
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1497993998904045580
https://web.archive.org/web/20220226051154/https://ria.ru/20220226/rossiya-1775162336.html
https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1498025819054264328
Talks about 'solving the Ukrainian question' for future generations and 'uniting the Russian people'
Full English translation in the comments here: https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1498029060085075969
Just incredible stuff, points to the full annexation of Ukraine and Belarus into Russia.
It's insane and unhinged.
Indeed, Skye is basically the Home Counties + plus mad Dutch drivers nowadays.
I know what JJ means. Argyll is distinct from Assynt. Perthshire from the Cuillin. Speyside from Caithness.
If that is the case then his inner circle need to dispatch him - quickly.