Abramovich sanctions: We will go bust, Chelsea warn government
Chelsea will hold talks with the government this afternoon, warning that the club could soon face financial ruin because of the sanctions imposed on their owner Roman Abramovich.
The club will request that a number of amendments are made to the licence that has been issued by government officials, which allows Chelsea to continue “football-related activities” but has frozen Abramovich’s asset. It means the club has been forced to cease many of its commercial activities, including future ticket sales.
Chelsea, however, will argue that they need the revenue. “If we aren’t allowed to continue operating normally we will very quickly run into the red,” a senior Stamford Bridge source told The Times.
They have a point. It is no one's interest for a major business (and part of the EPL) to go bust, that doesn't benefit Putin it just harms the UK and London economies.
There must be a way of allowing Chelsea to function as a business while denying income to Abramovich, until the mess can be sorted
Yes, I loathe Chelsea with a passion for footballing reasons, but governments pushing football clubs to the wall is just bloody stupid. No-one should want clubs to go bust. As you suggest, finding a bridging option until a sale can be made would seem wise. A points deduction is possibly valid under some circumstances, but deliberately rendering them insolvent is negligent.
Sits uneasy with me too. It seems like it’s being done for positive publicity, but are we sure there are no loopholes such as the art market that saves all Roman’s real asset portfolio for him, whilst the devoted football fan and top English international product actually suffers?
To what extent have Arsenal beniffiteed from Putin Crony money? Their crony was much closer to Putin than Abramovich.
Why are Labour, Starmer and Corbyn so silent on Arsenal crony money 😠
Abramovich sanctions: We will go bust, Chelsea warn government
Chelsea will hold talks with the government this afternoon, warning that the club could soon face financial ruin because of the sanctions imposed on their owner Roman Abramovich.
The club will request that a number of amendments are made to the licence that has been issued by government officials, which allows Chelsea to continue “football-related activities” but has frozen Abramovich’s asset. It means the club has been forced to cease many of its commercial activities, including future ticket sales.
Chelsea, however, will argue that they need the revenue. “If we aren’t allowed to continue operating normally we will very quickly run into the red,” a senior Stamford Bridge source told The Times.
They have a point. It is no one's interest for a major business (and part of the EPL) to go bust, that doesn't benefit Putin it just harms the UK and London economies.
There must be a way of allowing Chelsea to function as a business while denying income to Abramovich, until the mess can be sorted
Yes, I loathe Chelsea with a passion for footballing reasons, but governments pushing football clubs to the wall is just bloody stupid. No-one should want clubs to go bust. As you suggest, finding a bridging option until a sale can be made would seem wise. A points deduction is possibly valid under some circumstances, but deliberately rendering them insolvent is negligent.
Is anyone pushing them to the wall, though? They've been able to spend whatever the heck they liked for 20 years. Now they can't. They are perfectly capable of surviving on TV money. They'll just have to cut their cloth. They'd have had hundreds of points deducted under FFP. The European Super League Maintenance Regulations.
While we're on good vs evil in football, remember that Chelsea do have some credit in the bank for their position against the European Super League, or whatever it was called. Anyway. Matthew Lynn wrote an article in the speccy this morning in which he made the claim which people who think in money often do that English football is better now than it was thirty years ago. It just isn't. There may be higher levels of technical skill, there may be more big foreign names. It may be making more money. But the end product is much less satisfying. Who among us wouldn't turn the footballing clock back to before the Premier League, given the chance? Granted there is less hooliganism now. Though I'm not convinced a much more pleasant atmosphere.
Well, I have no memory of domestic league football from before the Premiership. So how could I say?
One of the obvious differences is that the best English players always used to leave to play abroad for the big money in Spain or Italy. Now plenty of the world's best players earn big money in the English league. That's a plus isn't it?
Not for me. I'd rather see the top flight staffed by players I know something about and can identify with. In the 1980s, I could name a good handful of first team players of pretty much every top flight team. Because they were much the same as last year. Familiarity was part of the story. Now, they come in from Lille, and go off a year later to Milan. Much harder to keep track of, and frankly, there is less incentive to do so. And very difficult to like players who are in such different worlds. You used to see Gary Pallister in the lane next to you at the bowling alley, Paul Ince pushing the baby in the park. Now they're all off in a gated community somewhere. It's the lament of old men the world over that things were better in their day. But that's honestly the way I see it. I don't mind the odd sprinkling of foreigners, but it's very hard to care who wins a match between two arbitrary teams of professionals drawn from all over the world.
🚨Russian state television has broadcast calls for Vladimir Putin, the country’s president, to stop his war in Ukraine during a programme in which pundits openly likened the invasion to "Afghanistan, but even worse"
Abramovich sanctions: We will go bust, Chelsea warn government
Chelsea will hold talks with the government this afternoon, warning that the club could soon face financial ruin because of the sanctions imposed on their owner Roman Abramovich.
The club will request that a number of amendments are made to the licence that has been issued by government officials, which allows Chelsea to continue “football-related activities” but has frozen Abramovich’s asset. It means the club has been forced to cease many of its commercial activities, including future ticket sales.
Chelsea, however, will argue that they need the revenue. “If we aren’t allowed to continue operating normally we will very quickly run into the red,” a senior Stamford Bridge source told The Times.
They have a point. It is no one's interest for a major business (and part of the EPL) to go bust, that doesn't benefit Putin it just harms the UK and London economies.
There must be a way of allowing Chelsea to function as a business while denying income to Abramovich, until the mess can be sorted
Yes, I loathe Chelsea with a passion for footballing reasons, but governments pushing football clubs to the wall is just bloody stupid. No-one should want clubs to go bust. As you suggest, finding a bridging option until a sale can be made would seem wise. A points deduction is possibly valid under some circumstances, but deliberately rendering them insolvent is negligent.
Minor point of order: even the biggest of football clubs can't really be called a major business. I don't know exactly, but I would say guess Chelsea equal in size to, say, Oak Furniture Land.
Not particularly fussed about arguments about revenue though. If ticket sales are going to fund Russian tanks, then absolutely we shouldn't allow them to be selling tickets. If that's the case. Doesn't mean they can't play. Just that they can't be charging people to see it. If they can't afford to pay the wages of some mercenary professional, fine, I'm sure there's plenty of other people would like to play. I'm not deliberately misunderstanding the system here. The people who are deliberately misunderstanding the system are those who took a sport and tried to turn it into a business.
But Chelsea FC are an important part of the EPL, which is a fucking HUGE business and projects amazing soft power for the UK
It should be treated as such. Sure, carefully detach some particular oligarch, by all means, but don't destroy an historic and foundational club. That's like levelling a medieval cathedral because you hate the latest bishop
I sometimes think Brits don't understand what a massive asset the EPL is, in terms of selling the UK abroad. It is up there with the BBC, possibly bigger
It is. But Chelsea aren't a special case. They were a bankrupt basket case for a very long time. They are no more integral to the league than Sunderland, Forest or Leeds (for 20 years) were. Nor than Everton will be. There'll still be a 20 team league to sell abroad. Regardless of who is in it.
Moronic Governments of all flavours still insist exercise = weight loss. Rubbish.
The secret to losing weight is very simple, eat fewer calories. Yet we seem to gloss over this.
If you ate a Big Mac every day for a lifetime you'd never get fat, not enough calories. You would have all sorts of issues but it's not what people eat, it is the quantity.
I’m not sure about that.
Mathematically you are correct, but calories from protein seem to be less fattening than calories from carbs and sugar.
Fasting seems to speeds up overall calorie burn.
And frequent exercise is highly correlated with weight loss.
Thirty minutes of exercise a day is not going to put you into a caloric deficit on average. Not when the average person is something like 500+ calories over their caloric maintenance.
Halving one meal a day would go much further to cutting weight than exercise.
I am fully in support of exercise - but it is not a weight loss strategy on its own.
If people are on average 500+ calories above maintenance level then shouldn't they keep getting fatter and fatter until they explode?
The more weight you gain, the more calories you need to maintain it, so at some point the two line up. But people that keep eating do keep getting larger and larger and larger, so yes.
Gaining muscle mass also increases your base metabolic rate, so exercising to lose weight (fat) isn't just a question of burning calories.
Excercise also helps to regulate appetite and mood so it's beneficial in other ways.
That's absolutely true, as I said I am fully in support of exercise. I run a lot and I lift weights a lot.
My point is that exercise is not the magic bullet to weight loss as it is often sold. If overweight people cut down the caloric intake they'd see a much bigger impact. People give up and quit because they see no impact.
(YouGov/ITV Cymru Wales/Wales Governance Centre; 1,086; 25 Feb-1 Mar 2022)
Landslide win for Labour.
GE2024, Labour Government almost certainly.
Welsh poll They were +5 even in 2019
+5 becomes +15
Boris = Bozo
Wales will be a lot closer by GE24 with a hard left government enacting job destroying policies, a failing NHS, and in North Wales a tourist tax of all things
Wales is implementing a tourist tax?!
Yes
I like the conceit that Wales is SO seductive it can afford to tax the odd person who ends up there through no fault of their own
Gonnae be 10x higher in Penarth I hear.
I had a sad little private bet with myself that you would be the first to make this remark; I won
It's becoming a thing in Edinburgh with a tourist tax and controls on Airbnbs.
Given the council trashes Princes Street gardens every year and generally takes the piss (see the tram works in Leith right now - delayed, again), they aren't doing it for the benefit of people who actually live here.
Sure. But Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and Scotland has the Highlands and Islands. The weather ain't great, but if you go you are guaranteed spectacle and majesty, and lots of fabulous history
Wales, which I am very fond of, does not really have these things. A tourist tax seems ambitious
There's potential. As a mountain kind of guy, Snowdonia is good, but doesn't get a proper winter season like we enjoy up north. And the whole of Manchester is there.
Fishguard and the Llyn peninsula were both great.
Actually I'd say the most beautiful part of Wales is the most ignored: the Marches. The bit where it meets England. In Herefordshire and Shropshire (and their equivalents in Wales - Powys? Brecknockshire?!) it produces some of the most quietly beautiful countryside on the planet. And mostly unspoiled, and speckled with Norman castles and medieval churches, and really good gastropubs
Yes, I agree. Absolutely lovely. The best bike ride I ever did was in that neck of the woods - Lyonshall to Painscastle, over the Begwns via the Roundabout, Glasbury, Hay, Eardisley, Almely, Lyonshall. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Have you ever heard of the Begwns? I hadn't, before I went there. The view from there over Hay to the Black Mountains is one of the loveliest in Britain. An absolutely magical spot, especially at dawn or dusk. But if you're visiting the Marches, do you stay in Radnor, or do you stay in Kington, where everything is suddenly £3 per person more competitive than over the border?
Lyonshall (plus various numbers and symbols!) is one of my go-to passwords
I was lucky enough to grow up in Herefordshire, I didn't really appreciate its beauty until almost too late - age 17, when I got my first motorbike, and was truly mobile. But then I went for it. Zipping around the lanes and hills of the Marches, up to Hergest Ridge, down to Hay Bluff, over to Craswall, the Olchon, down to Tintern, over to Rhayader, Symond's Yat, Kilpeck. Eardisley, Grosmont, Garway, it is sublime sublime sublime
Back then, tho, the food was rubbish. Now it is gorgeous. Great chefs using the amazing local Anglo-Welsh produce
All it lacks is the sea, but then, that is probably why it is still unspoiled and relatively untouristed. It is still oddly remote and hard to reach. No motorways
Abramovich sanctions: We will go bust, Chelsea warn government
Chelsea will hold talks with the government this afternoon, warning that the club could soon face financial ruin because of the sanctions imposed on their owner Roman Abramovich.
The club will request that a number of amendments are made to the licence that has been issued by government officials, which allows Chelsea to continue “football-related activities” but has frozen Abramovich’s asset. It means the club has been forced to cease many of its commercial activities, including future ticket sales.
Chelsea, however, will argue that they need the revenue. “If we aren’t allowed to continue operating normally we will very quickly run into the red,” a senior Stamford Bridge source told The Times.
They have a point. It is no one's interest for a major business (and part of the EPL) to go bust, that doesn't benefit Putin it just harms the UK and London economies.
There must be a way of allowing Chelsea to function as a business while denying income to Abramovich, until the mess can be sorted
Yes, I loathe Chelsea with a passion for footballing reasons, but governments pushing football clubs to the wall is just bloody stupid. No-one should want clubs to go bust. As you suggest, finding a bridging option until a sale can be made would seem wise. A points deduction is possibly valid under some circumstances, but deliberately rendering them insolvent is negligent.
Is anyone pushing them to the wall, though? They've been able to spend whatever the heck they liked for 20 years. Now they can't. They are perfectly capable of surviving on TV money. They'll just have to cut their cloth. They'd have had hundreds of points deducted under FFP. The European Super League Maintenance Regulations.
While we're on good vs evil in football, remember that Chelsea do have some credit in the bank for their position against the European Super League, or whatever it was called. Anyway. Matthew Lynn wrote an article in the speccy this morning in which he made the claim which people who think in money often do that English football is better now than it was thirty years ago. It just isn't. There may be higher levels of technical skill, there may be more big foreign names. It may be making more money. But the end product is much less satisfying. Who among us wouldn't turn the footballing clock back to before the Premier League, given the chance? Granted there is less hooliganism now. Though I'm not convinced a much more pleasant atmosphere.
Well, I have no memory of domestic league football from before the Premiership. So how could I say?
One of the obvious differences is that the best English players always used to leave to play abroad for the big money in Spain or Italy. Now plenty of the world's best players earn big money in the English league. That's a plus isn't it?
The English players leaving to play abroad was a very short period. And relatively few at their peak did. There were usually more foreign players in England than English players abroad by some distance after the overseas ban was lifted in 78-79.
The Mélenchon bet was smart albeit I'd rather be on him in the second round - I have given this up for now though. He is the only candidate who can get votes from the anti-Macron left and right. It seems all the living ex-presidents are quietly for Macron, which hurts Pécresse most and helps Macron most.
Given Melenchon is even more pro Putin than Le Pen and wants to pull France out of NATO (Le Pen has at least shredded pictures of her meeting Putin and opposed the invasion) I doubt it makes any difference at all to the likelihood of Le Pen being Macron's opponent in the runoff.
The latest poll has Macron getting a boost from the situation on 30%, Le Pen still second on 18%, Pecresse third on 12% and Melenchon and Zemmour tied 4th on 11%.
As this is a betting site, and you don’t wish to mislead us, “ Given Melenchon is even more pro Putin than Le Pen and wants to pull France out of NATO” share with us this evidence you have seen from this campaign. I looked around for this and couldn’t find it.
The problem is that Mélenchon is a Corbyn lookalike who is just as compromised as Le Pen when it comes to his stance vis a vis Putin. Hollande has just said that Mélenchon may be a “useful vote”, in that he’s the front runner amongst the fissiparous left, but he weren’t be a “useful president”! He’s plateauing in recent polls.
I’m calling you out on this, Blurp. to call the ardent Nationalist Melenchon Corbynite is to call Corbyn an ardent Nationalist. Le Pen and Melenchon sit on the opposite side of the table from Corbyn. Anti immigration. Anti EU. Close borders, look after our own with early retirement etc. you need to take a closer look and rethink your response.
Once it gets underway this French election is not as it seems - Macrons policy positions are a declaration of war on what the French Electorate want right now.
That’s a good find HY! 🙂 have you got TASS on speed dial. I didn’t actually go looking for quote from TASS, the Russian news agency, I thought maybe people would disbelieve it on here, can we be sure he did actually say that, even if it was just what we wanted to hear, can we trust TASS, I checked BBC and French press for same thing.
The next bit, "I would first and foremost like to restore our military sovereignty. France, who has nuclear deterrent forces, should be independent and should not depend on the US in terms of arms production," Melenchon added. That makes him sound very much the French Nationalist? That line might actually be popular with a lot of the French electorate? Especially post AUKUS double dealing? It doesn’t prove Melenchon is pro Putin because De Gaulle was not Pro Kremlin when he took France out NATO. France only rejoined NATO in 2009, when de gaule took them out they were out 44 years, so it’s not such a wild proposition for the French electorate out NATO as for UK? Especially with this Ukraine situation playing in this French election. “"Why do we have to protect Ukraine’s borders?" Melenchon said. As it turned out, we didn’t, as last evening on PB showed we are watching Putin place Ukraine borders where he wants, without UK and France defending them, leaving Melenchon position very little different than the UK governments now, and probably just a tad more honest and straight speaking about it ☹️
All I’m saying is, as political bettors, we shouldn’t view French election as though it was English. The fact they have been out NATO those 44 years recently shows they are different, far more independent minded and nationalist than the English. And a lot of very local factors could play a part in French election this year, I’ll give you one example, there’s a lot of clear yellow between Macron on one side and the Yellowjacket candidates Melenchon and Le Pen regarding credit crunch, pension age, unfair tax system.
🚨Russian state television has broadcast calls for Vladimir Putin, the country’s president, to stop his war in Ukraine during a programme in which pundits openly likened the invasion to "Afghanistan, but even worse"
Recorded Stanley Tucci's Searching For Italy and watched the first two episodes tonight; very entertaining and while Tucci is always teetering on the edge of extreme self satisfaction, he mostly avoids falling in.
God, I've got the horn for getting back to Rome, particularly with a couple of new places to go.
Abramovich sanctions: We will go bust, Chelsea warn government
Chelsea will hold talks with the government this afternoon, warning that the club could soon face financial ruin because of the sanctions imposed on their owner Roman Abramovich.
The club will request that a number of amendments are made to the licence that has been issued by government officials, which allows Chelsea to continue “football-related activities” but has frozen Abramovich’s asset. It means the club has been forced to cease many of its commercial activities, including future ticket sales.
Chelsea, however, will argue that they need the revenue. “If we aren’t allowed to continue operating normally we will very quickly run into the red,” a senior Stamford Bridge source told The Times.
They have a point. It is no one's interest for a major business (and part of the EPL) to go bust, that doesn't benefit Putin it just harms the UK and London economies.
There must be a way of allowing Chelsea to function as a business while denying income to Abramovich, until the mess can be sorted
Yes, I loathe Chelsea with a passion for footballing reasons, but governments pushing football clubs to the wall is just bloody stupid. No-one should want clubs to go bust. As you suggest, finding a bridging option until a sale can be made would seem wise. A points deduction is possibly valid under some circumstances, but deliberately rendering them insolvent is negligent.
Minor point of order: even the biggest of football clubs can't really be called a major business. I don't know exactly, but I would say guess Chelsea equal in size to, say, Oak Furniture Land.
Not particularly fussed about arguments about revenue though. If ticket sales are going to fund Russian tanks, then absolutely we shouldn't allow them to be selling tickets. If that's the case. Doesn't mean they can't play. Just that they can't be charging people to see it. If they can't afford to pay the wages of some mercenary professional, fine, I'm sure there's plenty of other people would like to play. I'm not deliberately misunderstanding the system here. The people who are deliberately misunderstanding the system are those who took a sport and tried to turn it into a business.
But Chelsea FC are an important part of the EPL, which is a fucking HUGE business and projects amazing soft power for the UK
It should be treated as such. Sure, carefully detach some particular oligarch, by all means, but don't destroy an historic and foundational club. That's like levelling a medieval cathedral because you hate the latest bishop
I sometimes think Brits don't understand what a massive asset the EPL is, in terms of selling the UK abroad. It is up there with the BBC, possibly bigger
It is. But Chelsea aren't a special case. They were a bankrupt basket case for a very long time. They are no more integral to the league than Sunderland, Forest or Leeds (for 20 years) were. Nor than Everton will be. There'll still be a 20 team league to sell abroad. Regardless of who is in it.
I'm certainly backing Oak Furniture Land FC's promotion push
Moronic Governments of all flavours still insist exercise = weight loss. Rubbish.
The secret to losing weight is very simple, eat fewer calories. Yet we seem to gloss over this.
If you ate a Big Mac every day for a lifetime you'd never get fat, not enough calories. You would have all sorts of issues but it's not what people eat, it is the quantity.
I’m not sure about that.
Mathematically you are correct, but calories from protein seem to be less fattening than calories from carbs and sugar.
Fasting seems to speeds up overall calorie burn.
And frequent exercise is highly correlated with weight loss.
Thirty minutes of exercise a day is not going to put you into a caloric deficit on average. Not when the average person is something like 500+ calories over their caloric maintenance.
Halving one meal a day would go much further to cutting weight than exercise.
I am fully in support of exercise - but it is not a weight loss strategy on its own.
If people are on average 500+ calories above maintenance level then shouldn't they keep getting fatter and fatter until they explode?
The more weight you gain, the more calories you need to maintain it, so at some point the two line up. But people that keep eating do keep getting larger and larger and larger, so yes.
Gaining muscle mass also increases your base metabolic rate, so exercising to lose weight (fat) isn't just a question of burning calories.
Excercise also helps to regulate appetite and mood so it's beneficial in other ways.
That's absolutely true, as I said I am fully in support of exercise. I run a lot and I lift weights a lot.
My point is that exercise is not the magic bullet to weight loss as it is often sold. If overweight people cut down the caloric intake they'd see a much bigger impact. People give up and quit because they see no impact.
Agreed. At my heaviest, having decided to cut my calorific intake (Eventually I found it easier to think in terms of weekly rather than daily deficits), I pretty quickly (after a month or two) started to feel motivated to exercise but always thought of it in terms of fitness rather than as a further weightloss strategy. While I might have motivated a particularly strenuous run with a promise of something quick and tasty to pop in the oven, any calories burned were considered incidental rather than the goal.
Recorded Stanley Tucci's Searching For Italy and watched the first two episodes tonight; very entertaining and while Tucci is always teetering on the edge of extreme self satisfaction, he mostly avoids falling in.
God, I've got the horn for getting back to Rome, particularly with a couple of new places to go.
A minor poker ethical conundrum (if that's not a contradiction in terms) - Pokerstars has suspended all Russian players, but is not refunding their balances; they are going to sit on them "until the situation changes". There's a vigorous dispute running on Twitter - "keep war criminals out" vs "victimising ordinary players".
What are the rights and wrongs of that? I think they're entitled to decide who they want as customers, in the same way as a pub landlord can decline to serve someone with dodgy-looking mates, and as pressures on Russia go it's a pretty minor one. But I'd have thought they're on shaky legal ground to retain (and presumably earn interest) on cash given them for a service they aren't providing. Refunding the money might actually be difficult with the collapse of foreign exchange with Russia, though, and I don't fancy the chance of any Russian player trying to sue.
Moronic Governments of all flavours still insist exercise = weight loss. Rubbish.
The secret to losing weight is very simple, eat fewer calories. Yet we seem to gloss over this.
If you ate a Big Mac every day for a lifetime you'd never get fat, not enough calories. You would have all sorts of issues but it's not what people eat, it is the quantity.
I’m not sure about that.
Mathematically you are correct, but calories from protein seem to be less fattening than calories from carbs and sugar.
Fasting seems to speeds up overall calorie burn.
And frequent exercise is highly correlated with weight loss.
Thirty minutes of exercise a day is not going to put you into a caloric deficit on average. Not when the average person is something like 500+ calories over their caloric maintenance.
Halving one meal a day would go much further to cutting weight than exercise.
I am fully in support of exercise - but it is not a weight loss strategy on its own.
If people are on average 500+ calories above maintenance level then shouldn't they keep getting fatter and fatter until they explode?
The more weight you gain, the more calories you need to maintain it, so at some point the two line up. But people that keep eating do keep getting larger and larger and larger, so yes.
Obviously, the heavier you are, the more energy it takes to drag yourself around, and therefore the maintenance calorie level rises.
But you wrote "the average person is something like 500+ calories over their caloric maintenance".
Moronic Governments of all flavours still insist exercise = weight loss. Rubbish.
The secret to losing weight is very simple, eat fewer calories. Yet we seem to gloss over this.
If you ate a Big Mac every day for a lifetime you'd never get fat, not enough calories. You would have all sorts of issues but it's not what people eat, it is the quantity.
I’m not sure about that.
Mathematically you are correct, but calories from protein seem to be less fattening than calories from carbs and sugar.
Fasting seems to speeds up overall calorie burn.
And frequent exercise is highly correlated with weight loss.
Thirty minutes of exercise a day is not going to put you into a caloric deficit on average. Not when the average person is something like 500+ calories over their caloric maintenance.
Halving one meal a day would go much further to cutting weight than exercise.
I am fully in support of exercise - but it is not a weight loss strategy on its own.
If people are on average 500+ calories above maintenance level then shouldn't they keep getting fatter and fatter until they explode?
The more weight you gain, the more calories you need to maintain it, so at some point the two line up. But people that keep eating do keep getting larger and larger and larger, so yes.
Gaining muscle mass also increases your base metabolic rate, so exercising to lose weight (fat) isn't just a question of burning calories.
Excercise also helps to regulate appetite and mood so it's beneficial in other ways.
That's absolutely true, as I said I am fully in support of exercise. I run a lot and I lift weights a lot.
My point is that exercise is not the magic bullet to weight loss as it is often sold. If overweight people cut down the caloric intake they'd see a much bigger impact. People give up and quit because they see no impact.
Agreed. At my heaviest, having decided to cut my calorific intake (Eventually I found it easier to think in terms of weekly rather than daily deficits), I pretty quickly (after a month or two) started to feel motivated to exercise but always thought of it in terms of fitness rather than as a further weightloss strategy. While I might have motivated a particularly strenuous run with a promise of something quick and tasty to pop in the oven, any calories burned were considered incidental rather than the goal.
I had a massive burger and an Oreo milkshake after my last half, it was delicious!
I hope Lavrov wakes every night at 4am in cold sweat and thinks of Ratko Mladić.
His colleague Karadzic is apparently serving his time in a British prison. I would be happy for Putin to share a cell with him and Charles Taylor.
Blimey. I didn't know he was doing british porridge. Let's hope the food is shit and Grouty has got him polishing his boots every morning with his tongue.
Moronic Governments of all flavours still insist exercise = weight loss. Rubbish.
The secret to losing weight is very simple, eat fewer calories. Yet we seem to gloss over this.
If you ate a Big Mac every day for a lifetime you'd never get fat, not enough calories. You would have all sorts of issues but it's not what people eat, it is the quantity.
I’m not sure about that.
Mathematically you are correct, but calories from protein seem to be less fattening than calories from carbs and sugar.
Fasting seems to speeds up overall calorie burn.
And frequent exercise is highly correlated with weight loss.
Thirty minutes of exercise a day is not going to put you into a caloric deficit on average. Not when the average person is something like 500+ calories over their caloric maintenance.
Halving one meal a day would go much further to cutting weight than exercise.
I am fully in support of exercise - but it is not a weight loss strategy on its own.
If people are on average 500+ calories above maintenance level then shouldn't they keep getting fatter and fatter until they explode?
The more weight you gain, the more calories you need to maintain it, so at some point the two line up. But people that keep eating do keep getting larger and larger and larger, so yes.
Obviously, the heavier you are, the more energy it takes to drag yourself around, and therefore the maintenance calorie level rises.
But you wrote "the average person is something like 500+ calories over their caloric maintenance".
And I stand by that, the average person is something like 500 calories over. Every year obesity gets worse which would support that statement.
Recorded Stanley Tucci's Searching For Italy and watched the first two episodes tonight; very entertaining and while Tucci is always teetering on the edge of extreme self satisfaction, he mostly avoids falling in.
God, I've got the horn for getting back to Rome, particularly with a couple of new places to go.
Is that Netflix? Sounds watchable
Good, ol’ BBC, but I think it’s a CNN production originally.
Abramovich sanctions: We will go bust, Chelsea warn government
Chelsea will hold talks with the government this afternoon, warning that the club could soon face financial ruin because of the sanctions imposed on their owner Roman Abramovich.
The club will request that a number of amendments are made to the licence that has been issued by government officials, which allows Chelsea to continue “football-related activities” but has frozen Abramovich’s asset. It means the club has been forced to cease many of its commercial activities, including future ticket sales.
Chelsea, however, will argue that they need the revenue. “If we aren’t allowed to continue operating normally we will very quickly run into the red,” a senior Stamford Bridge source told The Times.
They have a point. It is no one's interest for a major business (and part of the EPL) to go bust, that doesn't benefit Putin it just harms the UK and London economies.
There must be a way of allowing Chelsea to function as a business while denying income to Abramovich, until the mess can be sorted
Yes, I loathe Chelsea with a passion for footballing reasons, but governments pushing football clubs to the wall is just bloody stupid. No-one should want clubs to go bust. As you suggest, finding a bridging option until a sale can be made would seem wise. A points deduction is possibly valid under some circumstances, but deliberately rendering them insolvent is negligent.
Sits uneasy with me too. It seems like it’s being done for positive publicity, but are we sure there are no loopholes such as the art market that saves all Roman’s real asset portfolio for him, whilst the devoted football fan and top English international product actually suffers?
To what extent have Arsenal beniffiteed from Putin Crony money? Their crony was much closer to Putin than Abramovich.
Why are Labour, Starmer and Corbyn so silent on Arsenal crony money 😠
Sam Kronke at Arsenal?
Usmanov.
Happy to answer your questions of things you don’t know Robert, football must be a chink in your armour of knowledge 😌
Which result do you look for 5pm UK time on Saturdays then?
Recorded Stanley Tucci's Searching For Italy and watched the first two episodes tonight; very entertaining and while Tucci is always teetering on the edge of extreme self satisfaction, he mostly avoids falling in.
God, I've got the horn for getting back to Rome, particularly with a couple of new places to go.
🚨Russian state television has broadcast calls for Vladimir Putin, the country’s president, to stop his war in Ukraine during a programme in which pundits openly likened the invasion to "Afghanistan, but even worse"
Abramovich sanctions: We will go bust, Chelsea warn government
Chelsea will hold talks with the government this afternoon, warning that the club could soon face financial ruin because of the sanctions imposed on their owner Roman Abramovich.
The club will request that a number of amendments are made to the licence that has been issued by government officials, which allows Chelsea to continue “football-related activities” but has frozen Abramovich’s asset. It means the club has been forced to cease many of its commercial activities, including future ticket sales.
Chelsea, however, will argue that they need the revenue. “If we aren’t allowed to continue operating normally we will very quickly run into the red,” a senior Stamford Bridge source told The Times.
They have a point. It is no one's interest for a major business (and part of the EPL) to go bust, that doesn't benefit Putin it just harms the UK and London economies.
There must be a way of allowing Chelsea to function as a business while denying income to Abramovich, until the mess can be sorted
Yes, I loathe Chelsea with a passion for footballing reasons, but governments pushing football clubs to the wall is just bloody stupid. No-one should want clubs to go bust. As you suggest, finding a bridging option until a sale can be made would seem wise. A points deduction is possibly valid under some circumstances, but deliberately rendering them insolvent is negligent.
Is anyone pushing them to the wall, though? They've been able to spend whatever the heck they liked for 20 years. Now they can't. They are perfectly capable of surviving on TV money. They'll just have to cut their cloth. They'd have had hundreds of points deducted under FFP. The European Super League Maintenance Regulations.
While we're on good vs evil in football, remember that Chelsea do have some credit in the bank for their position against the European Super League, or whatever it was called. Anyway. Matthew Lynn wrote an article in the speccy this morning in which he made the claim which people who think in money often do that English football is better now than it was thirty years ago. It just isn't. There may be higher levels of technical skill, there may be more big foreign names. It may be making more money. But the end product is much less satisfying. Who among us wouldn't turn the footballing clock back to before the Premier League, given the chance? Granted there is less hooliganism now. Though I'm not convinced a much more pleasant atmosphere.
Well, I have no memory of domestic league football from before the Premiership. So how could I say?
One of the obvious differences is that the best English players always used to leave to play abroad for the big money in Spain or Italy. Now plenty of the world's best players earn big money in the English league. That's a plus isn't it?
The English players leaving to play abroad was a very short period. And relatively few at their peak did. There were usually more foreign players in England than English players abroad by some distance after the overseas ban was lifted in 78-79.
I guess I was at an impressionable age when Platt and Gazza were off in Italy.
A minor poker ethical conundrum (if that's not a contradiction in terms) - Pokerstars has suspended all Russian players, but is not refunding their balances; they are going to sit on them "until the situation changes". There's a vigorous dispute running on Twitter - "keep war criminals out" vs "victimising ordinary players".
What are the rights and wrongs of that? I think they're entitled to decide who they want as customers, in the same way as a pub landlord can decline to serve someone with dodgy-looking mates, and as pressures on Russia go it's a pretty minor one. But I'd have thought they're on shaky legal ground to retain (and presumably earn interest) on cash given them for a service they aren't providing. Refunding the money might actually be difficult with the collapse of foreign exchange with Russia, though, and I don't fancy the chance of any Russian player trying to sue.
Yes, agreed. Up to them who their customers are - though I really don't think it much benefits anyone to exclude them, just as I'm not sure it benefits anyone to stop selling Netflix to Russians, but that's a separate issue. But not letting them have their money is a bit dodgy.
Abramovich sanctions: We will go bust, Chelsea warn government
Chelsea will hold talks with the government this afternoon, warning that the club could soon face financial ruin because of the sanctions imposed on their owner Roman Abramovich.
The club will request that a number of amendments are made to the licence that has been issued by government officials, which allows Chelsea to continue “football-related activities” but has frozen Abramovich’s asset. It means the club has been forced to cease many of its commercial activities, including future ticket sales.
Chelsea, however, will argue that they need the revenue. “If we aren’t allowed to continue operating normally we will very quickly run into the red,” a senior Stamford Bridge source told The Times.
They have a point. It is no one's interest for a major business (and part of the EPL) to go bust, that doesn't benefit Putin it just harms the UK and London economies.
There must be a way of allowing Chelsea to function as a business while denying income to Abramovich, until the mess can be sorted
Yes, I loathe Chelsea with a passion for footballing reasons, but governments pushing football clubs to the wall is just bloody stupid. No-one should want clubs to go bust. As you suggest, finding a bridging option until a sale can be made would seem wise. A points deduction is possibly valid under some circumstances, but deliberately rendering them insolvent is negligent.
Sits uneasy with me too. It seems like it’s being done for positive publicity, but are we sure there are no loopholes such as the art market that saves all Roman’s real asset portfolio for him, whilst the devoted football fan and top English international product actually suffers?
To what extent have Arsenal beniffiteed from Putin Crony money? Their crony was much closer to Putin than Abramovich.
Why are Labour, Starmer and Corbyn so silent on Arsenal crony money 😠
Arsenal supporters?
Shhhhh 😆 don’t let my GF see this post. My girlfriend and her Dad are Arsenal fans (though he has never lived in London) he took us to two games, like watching paint dry, they lost both to nil and got proper beaten up by their opponents
(YouGov/ITV Cymru Wales/Wales Governance Centre; 1,086; 25 Feb-1 Mar 2022)
Landslide win for Labour.
GE2024, Labour Government almost certainly.
Welsh poll They were +5 even in 2019
+5 becomes +15
Boris = Bozo
Wales will be a lot closer by GE24 with a hard left government enacting job destroying policies, a failing NHS, and in North Wales a tourist tax of all things
Wales is implementing a tourist tax?!
Yes
I like the conceit that Wales is SO seductive it can afford to tax the odd person who ends up there through no fault of their own
Gonnae be 10x higher in Penarth I hear.
I had a sad little private bet with myself that you would be the first to make this remark; I won
It's becoming a thing in Edinburgh with a tourist tax and controls on Airbnbs.
Given the council trashes Princes Street gardens every year and generally takes the piss (see the tram works in Leith right now - delayed, again), they aren't doing it for the benefit of people who actually live here.
Sure. But Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and Scotland has the Highlands and Islands. The weather ain't great, but if you go you are guaranteed spectacle and majesty, and lots of fabulous history
Wales, which I am very fond of, does not really have these things. A tourist tax seems ambitious
There's potential. As a mountain kind of guy, Snowdonia is good, but doesn't get a proper winter season like we enjoy up north. And the whole of Manchester is there.
Fishguard and the Llyn peninsula were both great.
Actually I'd say the most beautiful part of Wales is the most ignored: the Marches. The bit where it meets England. In Herefordshire and Shropshire (and their equivalents in Wales - Powys? Brecknockshire?!) it produces some of the most quietly beautiful countryside on the planet. And mostly unspoiled, and speckled with Norman castles and medieval churches, and really good gastropubs
Yes, I agree. Absolutely lovely. The best bike ride I ever did was in that neck of the woods - Lyonshall to Painscastle, over the Begwns via the Roundabout, Glasbury, Hay, Eardisley, Almely, Lyonshall. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Have you ever heard of the Begwns? I hadn't, before I went there. The view from there over Hay to the Black Mountains is one of the loveliest in Britain. An absolutely magical spot, especially at dawn or dusk. But if you're visiting the Marches, do you stay in Radnor, or do you stay in Kington, where everything is suddenly £3 per person more competitive than over the border?
Lyonshall (plus various numbers and symbols!) is one of my go-to passwords
I was lucky enough to grow up in Herefordshire, I didn't really appreciate its beauty until almost too late - age 17, when I got my first motorbike, and was truly mobile. But then I went for it. Zipping around the lanes and hills of the Marches, up to Hergest Ridge, down to Hay Bluff, over to Craswall, the Olchon, down to Tintern, over to Rhayader, Symond's Yat, Kilpeck. Eardisley, Grosmont, Garway, it is sublime sublime sublime
Back then, tho, the food was rubbish. Now it is gorgeous. Great chefs using the amazing local Anglo-Welsh produce
All it lacks is the sea, but then, that is probably why it is still unspoiled and relatively untouristed. It is still oddly remote and hard to reach. No motorways
When I got a bit too fed up of urban Oxford I'd get the first train to Hereford and head out on a bicycle to Hay, over the Bluff, across to Symonds Yat then back for the last train home. Sometimes further into Wales with a tent to pitch it somewhere in the Beacons or further north towards Rhayader. Some of the best countryside for that in the land. The timber buildings, the orchards and the open hills.
It was pretty quiet then (30 years ago, eek) but the roads are no doubt a lot busier today. Perhaps it wouldn't be quite as fun now (and no doubt Hay Bluff would be more of a struggle!)
A minor poker ethical conundrum (if that's not a contradiction in terms) - Pokerstars has suspended all Russian players, but is not refunding their balances; they are going to sit on them "until the situation changes". There's a vigorous dispute running on Twitter - "keep war criminals out" vs "victimising ordinary players".
What are the rights and wrongs of that? I think they're entitled to decide who they want as customers, in the same way as a pub landlord can decline to serve someone with dodgy-looking mates, and as pressures on Russia go it's a pretty minor one. But I'd have thought they're on shaky legal ground to retain (and presumably earn interest) on cash given them for a service they aren't providing. Refunding the money might actually be difficult with the collapse of foreign exchange with Russia, though, and I don't fancy the chance of any Russian player trying to sue.
This is a bad decision. Doing this suggests that the conflict in Ukraine is driven by prejudice against Russians.
(YouGov/ITV Cymru Wales/Wales Governance Centre; 1,086; 25 Feb-1 Mar 2022)
Landslide win for Labour.
GE2024, Labour Government almost certainly.
Welsh poll They were +5 even in 2019
+5 becomes +15
Boris = Bozo
Wales will be a lot closer by GE24 with a hard left government enacting job destroying policies, a failing NHS, and in North Wales a tourist tax of all things
Wales is implementing a tourist tax?!
Yes
I like the conceit that Wales is SO seductive it can afford to tax the odd person who ends up there through no fault of their own
Gonnae be 10x higher in Penarth I hear.
I had a sad little private bet with myself that you would be the first to make this remark; I won
It's becoming a thing in Edinburgh with a tourist tax and controls on Airbnbs.
Given the council trashes Princes Street gardens every year and generally takes the piss (see the tram works in Leith right now - delayed, again), they aren't doing it for the benefit of people who actually live here.
Sure. But Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and Scotland has the Highlands and Islands. The weather ain't great, but if you go you are guaranteed spectacle and majesty, and lots of fabulous history
Wales, which I am very fond of, does not really have these things. A tourist tax seems ambitious
There's potential. As a mountain kind of guy, Snowdonia is good, but doesn't get a proper winter season like we enjoy up north. And the whole of Manchester is there.
Fishguard and the Llyn peninsula were both great.
Actually I'd say the most beautiful part of Wales is the most ignored: the Marches. The bit where it meets England. In Herefordshire and Shropshire (and their equivalents in Wales - Powys? Brecknockshire?!) it produces some of the most quietly beautiful countryside on the planet. And mostly unspoiled, and speckled with Norman castles and medieval churches, and really good gastropubs
Yes, I agree. Absolutely lovely. The best bike ride I ever did was in that neck of the woods - Lyonshall to Painscastle, over the Begwns via the Roundabout, Glasbury, Hay, Eardisley, Almely, Lyonshall. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Have you ever heard of the Begwns? I hadn't, before I went there. The view from there over Hay to the Black Mountains is one of the loveliest in Britain. An absolutely magical spot, especially at dawn or dusk. But if you're visiting the Marches, do you stay in Radnor, or do you stay in Kington, where everything is suddenly £3 per person more competitive than over the border?
Lyonshall (plus various numbers and symbols!) is one of my go-to passwords
I was lucky enough to grow up in Herefordshire, I didn't really appreciate its beauty until almost too late - age 17, when I got my first motorbike, and was truly mobile. But then I went for it. Zipping around the lanes and hills of the Marches, up to Hergest Ridge, down to Hay Bluff, over to Craswall, the Olchon, down to Tintern, over to Rhayader, Symond's Yat, Kilpeck. Eardisley, Grosmont, Garway, it is sublime sublime sublime
Back then, tho, the food was rubbish. Now it is gorgeous. Great chefs using the amazing local Anglo-Welsh produce
All it lacks is the sea, but then, that is probably why it is still unspoiled and relatively untouristed. It is still oddly remote and hard to reach. No motorways
When I got a bit too fed up of urban Oxford I'd get the first train to Hereford and head out on a bicycle to Hay, over the Bluff, across to Symonds Yat then back for the last train home. Sometimes further into Wales with a tent to pitch it somewhere in the Beacons or further north towards Rhayader. Some of the best countryside for that in the land. The timber buildings, the orchards and the open hills.
It was pretty quiet then (30 years ago, eek) but the roads are no doubt a lot busier today. Perhaps it wouldn't be quite as fun now (and no doubt Hay Bluff would be more of a struggle!)
I did a couple of trips out there last autumn, in bright sunshine, and - happily - it was no busier than I remember it 30 years ago (like you). Perhaps it is thronged in summer, but I doubt it. The roads are too narrow, there isn't the infrastructure, it is simply a quiet yet exquisite corner of the UK - and long may it remain so
It was actually rather fantastic - to come back to a place fearing it may have been despoiled, but in truth it was much better. Hereford has become a slightly chic city (incredibly), and the countryside is now dotted with excellent eateries. Yet almost zero crowds, as always
A minor poker ethical conundrum (if that's not a contradiction in terms) - Pokerstars has suspended all Russian players, but is not refunding their balances; they are going to sit on them "until the situation changes". There's a vigorous dispute running on Twitter - "keep war criminals out" vs "victimising ordinary players".
What are the rights and wrongs of that? I think they're entitled to decide who they want as customers, in the same way as a pub landlord can decline to serve someone with dodgy-looking mates, and as pressures on Russia go it's a pretty minor one. But I'd have thought they're on shaky legal ground to retain (and presumably earn interest) on cash given them for a service they aren't providing. Refunding the money might actually be difficult with the collapse of foreign exchange with Russia, though, and I don't fancy the chance of any Russian player trying to sue.
Pokerstars are absolute scummy operator these days, so doesn't surprise me at all. See how they screwed over those who were part of the Supernova Elite programme. And constant misleading (to less experience players) game types and promotions, where more often than not more dodgy info than a Lib Dem bar chart, resulting in more rake / less promo money back.
Nothing like the original owners, who even when banned from the US, managed to get all the money to the players (as well as buying Full Tilt and paying the balances for that operator as well).
(YouGov/ITV Cymru Wales/Wales Governance Centre; 1,086; 25 Feb-1 Mar 2022)
Landslide win for Labour.
GE2024, Labour Government almost certainly.
Welsh poll They were +5 even in 2019
+5 becomes +15
Boris = Bozo
Wales will be a lot closer by GE24 with a hard left government enacting job destroying policies, a failing NHS, and in North Wales a tourist tax of all things
Wales is implementing a tourist tax?!
Yes
I like the conceit that Wales is SO seductive it can afford to tax the odd person who ends up there through no fault of their own
Gonnae be 10x higher in Penarth I hear.
I had a sad little private bet with myself that you would be the first to make this remark; I won
It's becoming a thing in Edinburgh with a tourist tax and controls on Airbnbs.
Given the council trashes Princes Street gardens every year and generally takes the piss (see the tram works in Leith right now - delayed, again), they aren't doing it for the benefit of people who actually live here.
Sure. But Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and Scotland has the Highlands and Islands. The weather ain't great, but if you go you are guaranteed spectacle and majesty, and lots of fabulous history
Wales, which I am very fond of, does not really have these things. A tourist tax seems ambitious
There's potential. As a mountain kind of guy, Snowdonia is good, but doesn't get a proper winter season like we enjoy up north. And the whole of Manchester is there.
Fishguard and the Llyn peninsula were both great.
Actually I'd say the most beautiful part of Wales is the most ignored: the Marches. The bit where it meets England. In Herefordshire and Shropshire (and their equivalents in Wales - Powys? Brecknockshire?!) it produces some of the most quietly beautiful countryside on the planet. And mostly unspoiled, and speckled with Norman castles and medieval churches, and really good gastropubs
Yes, I agree. Absolutely lovely. The best bike ride I ever did was in that neck of the woods - Lyonshall to Painscastle, over the Begwns via the Roundabout, Glasbury, Hay, Eardisley, Almely, Lyonshall. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Have you ever heard of the Begwns? I hadn't, before I went there. The view from there over Hay to the Black Mountains is one of the loveliest in Britain. An absolutely magical spot, especially at dawn or dusk. But if you're visiting the Marches, do you stay in Radnor, or do you stay in Kington, where everything is suddenly £3 per person more competitive than over the border?
Lyonshall (plus various numbers and symbols!) is one of my go-to passwords
I was lucky enough to grow up in Herefordshire, I didn't really appreciate its beauty until almost too late - age 17, when I got my first motorbike, and was truly mobile. But then I went for it. Zipping around the lanes and hills of the Marches, up to Hergest Ridge, down to Hay Bluff, over to Craswall, the Olchon, down to Tintern, over to Rhayader, Symond's Yat, Kilpeck. Eardisley, Grosmont, Garway, it is sublime sublime sublime
Back then, tho, the food was rubbish. Now it is gorgeous. Great chefs using the amazing local Anglo-Welsh produce
All it lacks is the sea, but then, that is probably why it is still unspoiled and relatively untouristed. It is still oddly remote and hard to reach. No motorways
I've had a few weekends away in Herefordshire. Chosen entirely arbitrarily in trying to find a house which could accommodate 11 families (my friends from school and their families) - we did a couple of years in Lyonshall and one in the Wye Valley. Absolutely lovely. Very little there in terms of Things To Do, but the countryside is some of the most joy-inspiring in England. Lovely little pubs, pleasant walks, and three days of utter happiness.
Ooh, and while we're on about the marches, a word for my second favourite stone circle: Mitchell's Fold, in South West Shropshire, just on the border with Wales. Best viewed on a freezing dusk; England soft to one side, Wales hard to the other.
Abramovich sanctions: We will go bust, Chelsea warn government
Chelsea will hold talks with the government this afternoon, warning that the club could soon face financial ruin because of the sanctions imposed on their owner Roman Abramovich.
The club will request that a number of amendments are made to the licence that has been issued by government officials, which allows Chelsea to continue “football-related activities” but has frozen Abramovich’s asset. It means the club has been forced to cease many of its commercial activities, including future ticket sales.
Chelsea, however, will argue that they need the revenue. “If we aren’t allowed to continue operating normally we will very quickly run into the red,” a senior Stamford Bridge source told The Times.
They have a point. It is no one's interest for a major business (and part of the EPL) to go bust, that doesn't benefit Putin it just harms the UK and London economies.
There must be a way of allowing Chelsea to function as a business while denying income to Abramovich, until the mess can be sorted
Yes, I loathe Chelsea with a passion for footballing reasons, but governments pushing football clubs to the wall is just bloody stupid. No-one should want clubs to go bust. As you suggest, finding a bridging option until a sale can be made would seem wise. A points deduction is possibly valid under some circumstances, but deliberately rendering them insolvent is negligent.
Sits uneasy with me too. It seems like it’s being done for positive publicity, but are we sure there are no loopholes such as the art market that saves all Roman’s real asset portfolio for him, whilst the devoted football fan and top English international product actually suffers?
To what extent have Arsenal beniffiteed from Putin Crony money? Their crony was much closer to Putin than Abramovich.
Why are Labour, Starmer and Corbyn so silent on Arsenal crony money 😠
Sam Kronke at Arsenal?
Usmanov.
Happy to answer your questions of things you don’t know Robert, football must be a chink in your armour of knowledge 😌
Which result do you look for 5pm UK time on Saturdays then?
Abramovich sanctions: We will go bust, Chelsea warn government
Chelsea will hold talks with the government this afternoon, warning that the club could soon face financial ruin because of the sanctions imposed on their owner Roman Abramovich.
The club will request that a number of amendments are made to the licence that has been issued by government officials, which allows Chelsea to continue “football-related activities” but has frozen Abramovich’s asset. It means the club has been forced to cease many of its commercial activities, including future ticket sales.
Chelsea, however, will argue that they need the revenue. “If we aren’t allowed to continue operating normally we will very quickly run into the red,” a senior Stamford Bridge source told The Times.
They have a point. It is no one's interest for a major business (and part of the EPL) to go bust, that doesn't benefit Putin it just harms the UK and London economies.
There must be a way of allowing Chelsea to function as a business while denying income to Abramovich, until the mess can be sorted
Yes, I loathe Chelsea with a passion for footballing reasons, but governments pushing football clubs to the wall is just bloody stupid. No-one should want clubs to go bust. As you suggest, finding a bridging option until a sale can be made would seem wise. A points deduction is possibly valid under some circumstances, but deliberately rendering them insolvent is negligent.
Sits uneasy with me too. It seems like it’s being done for positive publicity, but are we sure there are no loopholes such as the art market that saves all Roman’s real asset portfolio for him, whilst the devoted football fan and top English international product actually suffers?
To what extent have Arsenal beniffiteed from Putin Crony money? Their crony was much closer to Putin than Abramovich.
Why are Labour, Starmer and Corbyn so silent on Arsenal crony money 😠
Arsenal supporters?
Shhhhh 😆 don’t let my GF see this post. My girlfriend and her Dad are Arsenal fans (though he has never lived in London) he took us to two games, like watching paint dry, they lost both to nil and got proper beaten up by their opponents
Back in the day I went to see Arsenal v Spurs at the old Highbury Stadium one Boxing Day. There were no advance tickets - you just queued in the street and paid at the turnstile. Liam Brady was playing for Arsenal, I don't remember anyone else (as I'm not particularly interested in football...) But the home crowd was vicious - chanting old Mosleyite marching songs from the 1930s. Even though I lived and/or worked in the area for another 30 years I was never tempted to return.
Recorded Stanley Tucci's Searching For Italy and watched the first two episodes tonight; very entertaining and while Tucci is always teetering on the edge of extreme self satisfaction, he mostly avoids falling in.
God, I've got the horn for getting back to Rome, particularly with a couple of new places to go.
Is that Netflix? Sounds watchable
Good, ol’ BBC, but I think it’s a CNN production originally.
Ta. Will check. I love cookery programmes with a bit of travel, or vice versa. I could watch them endlessly
A minor poker ethical conundrum (if that's not a contradiction in terms) - Pokerstars has suspended all Russian players, but is not refunding their balances; they are going to sit on them "until the situation changes". There's a vigorous dispute running on Twitter - "keep war criminals out" vs "victimising ordinary players".
What are the rights and wrongs of that? I think they're entitled to decide who they want as customers, in the same way as a pub landlord can decline to serve someone with dodgy-looking mates, and as pressures on Russia go it's a pretty minor one. But I'd have thought they're on shaky legal ground to retain (and presumably earn interest) on cash given them for a service they aren't providing. Refunding the money might actually be difficult with the collapse of foreign exchange with Russia, though, and I don't fancy the chance of any Russian player trying to sue.
Pokerstars are absolute scummy operator these days . See how they screwed over those who were part of the Supernova Elite programme.
Nothing like the original owners, who even when banned from the US, managed to get all the money to the players (as well as buying Full Tilt and paying the balances for that operator as well).
Yes, I always wondered what happened to the Elite people - one moment they were guaranteed lifelong benefits, the next they just weren't. How was that even legal?
Abramovich sanctions: We will go bust, Chelsea warn government
Chelsea will hold talks with the government this afternoon, warning that the club could soon face financial ruin because of the sanctions imposed on their owner Roman Abramovich.
The club will request that a number of amendments are made to the licence that has been issued by government officials, which allows Chelsea to continue “football-related activities” but has frozen Abramovich’s asset. It means the club has been forced to cease many of its commercial activities, including future ticket sales.
Chelsea, however, will argue that they need the revenue. “If we aren’t allowed to continue operating normally we will very quickly run into the red,” a senior Stamford Bridge source told The Times.
They have a point. It is no one's interest for a major business (and part of the EPL) to go bust, that doesn't benefit Putin it just harms the UK and London economies.
There must be a way of allowing Chelsea to function as a business while denying income to Abramovich, until the mess can be sorted
Yes, I loathe Chelsea with a passion for footballing reasons, but governments pushing football clubs to the wall is just bloody stupid. No-one should want clubs to go bust. As you suggest, finding a bridging option until a sale can be made would seem wise. A points deduction is possibly valid under some circumstances, but deliberately rendering them insolvent is negligent.
Is anyone pushing them to the wall, though? They've been able to spend whatever the heck they liked for 20 years. Now they can't. They are perfectly capable of surviving on TV money. They'll just have to cut their cloth. They'd have had hundreds of points deducted under FFP. The European Super League Maintenance Regulations.
While we're on good vs evil in football, remember that Chelsea do have some credit in the bank for their position against the European Super League, or whatever it was called. Anyway. Matthew Lynn wrote an article in the speccy this morning in which he made the claim which people who think in money often do that English football is better now than it was thirty years ago. It just isn't. There may be higher levels of technical skill, there may be more big foreign names. It may be making more money. But the end product is much less satisfying. Who among us wouldn't turn the footballing clock back to before the Premier League, given the chance? Granted there is less hooliganism now. Though I'm not convinced a much more pleasant atmosphere.
Well, I have no memory of domestic league football from before the Premiership. So how could I say?
One of the obvious differences is that the best English players always used to leave to play abroad for the big money in Spain or Italy. Now plenty of the world's best players earn big money in the English league. That's a plus isn't it?
The English players leaving to play abroad was a very short period. And relatively few at their peak did. There were usually more foreign players in England than English players abroad by some distance after the overseas ban was lifted in 78-79.
I guess I was at an impressionable age when Platt and Gazza were off in Italy.
Yes. That was the relatively short time. About a decade. Lineker at Barca. More ended up at Rangers. There had been ones before. Laurie Cunningham at Real. John Charles, Keegan. Jimmy Greaves for a short time. But they were very much the exception not the rule.
(YouGov/ITV Cymru Wales/Wales Governance Centre; 1,086; 25 Feb-1 Mar 2022)
Landslide win for Labour.
GE2024, Labour Government almost certainly.
Welsh poll They were +5 even in 2019
+5 becomes +15
Boris = Bozo
Wales will be a lot closer by GE24 with a hard left government enacting job destroying policies, a failing NHS, and in North Wales a tourist tax of all things
Wales is implementing a tourist tax?!
Yes
I like the conceit that Wales is SO seductive it can afford to tax the odd person who ends up there through no fault of their own
Gonnae be 10x higher in Penarth I hear.
I had a sad little private bet with myself that you would be the first to make this remark; I won
It's becoming a thing in Edinburgh with a tourist tax and controls on Airbnbs.
Given the council trashes Princes Street gardens every year and generally takes the piss (see the tram works in Leith right now - delayed, again), they aren't doing it for the benefit of people who actually live here.
Sure. But Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and Scotland has the Highlands and Islands. The weather ain't great, but if you go you are guaranteed spectacle and majesty, and lots of fabulous history
Wales, which I am very fond of, does not really have these things. A tourist tax seems ambitious
There's potential. As a mountain kind of guy, Snowdonia is good, but doesn't get a proper winter season like we enjoy up north. And the whole of Manchester is there.
Fishguard and the Llyn peninsula were both great.
Actually I'd say the most beautiful part of Wales is the most ignored: the Marches. The bit where it meets England. In Herefordshire and Shropshire (and their equivalents in Wales - Powys? Brecknockshire?!) it produces some of the most quietly beautiful countryside on the planet. And mostly unspoiled, and speckled with Norman castles and medieval churches, and really good gastropubs
Yes, I agree. Absolutely lovely. The best bike ride I ever did was in that neck of the woods - Lyonshall to Painscastle, over the Begwns via the Roundabout, Glasbury, Hay, Eardisley, Almely, Lyonshall. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Have you ever heard of the Begwns? I hadn't, before I went there. The view from there over Hay to the Black Mountains is one of the loveliest in Britain. An absolutely magical spot, especially at dawn or dusk. But if you're visiting the Marches, do you stay in Radnor, or do you stay in Kington, where everything is suddenly £3 per person more competitive than over the border?
Lyonshall (plus various numbers and symbols!) is one of my go-to passwords
I was lucky enough to grow up in Herefordshire, I didn't really appreciate its beauty until almost too late - age 17, when I got my first motorbike, and was truly mobile. But then I went for it. Zipping around the lanes and hills of the Marches, up to Hergest Ridge, down to Hay Bluff, over to Craswall, the Olchon, down to Tintern, over to Rhayader, Symond's Yat, Kilpeck. Eardisley, Grosmont, Garway, it is sublime sublime sublime
Back then, tho, the food was rubbish. Now it is gorgeous. Great chefs using the amazing local Anglo-Welsh produce
All it lacks is the sea, but then, that is probably why it is still unspoiled and relatively untouristed. It is still oddly remote and hard to reach. No motorways
Moronic Governments of all flavours still insist exercise = weight loss. Rubbish.
The secret to losing weight is very simple, eat fewer calories. Yet we seem to gloss over this.
If you ate a Big Mac every day for a lifetime you'd never get fat, not enough calories. You would have all sorts of issues but it's not what people eat, it is the quantity.
I’m not sure about that.
Mathematically you are correct, but calories from protein seem to be less fattening than calories from carbs and sugar.
Fasting seems to speeds up overall calorie burn.
And frequent exercise is highly correlated with weight loss.
Thirty minutes of exercise a day is not going to put you into a caloric deficit on average. Not when the average person is something like 500+ calories over their caloric maintenance.
Halving one meal a day would go much further to cutting weight than exercise.
I am fully in support of exercise - but it is not a weight loss strategy on its own.
If people are on average 500+ calories above maintenance level then shouldn't they keep getting fatter and fatter until they explode?
The more weight you gain, the more calories you need to maintain it, so at some point the two line up. But people that keep eating do keep getting larger and larger and larger, so yes.
Obviously, the heavier you are, the more energy it takes to drag yourself around, and therefore the maintenance calorie level rises.
But you wrote "the average person is something like 500+ calories over their caloric maintenance".
And I stand by that, the average person is something like 500 calories over. Every year obesity gets worse which would support that statement.
Calories in/calories out. Eating absolutely loads while doing mad exercise is one of life's great pleasures.
Otherwise, sleep enough so you don't crave sugar rush to bear tiredness. Drink water to keep stomach full, and carb up before you do your weekly shop (makes crisps look much less appetising).
A minor poker ethical conundrum (if that's not a contradiction in terms) - Pokerstars has suspended all Russian players, but is not refunding their balances; they are going to sit on them "until the situation changes". There's a vigorous dispute running on Twitter - "keep war criminals out" vs "victimising ordinary players".
What are the rights and wrongs of that? I think they're entitled to decide who they want as customers, in the same way as a pub landlord can decline to serve someone with dodgy-looking mates, and as pressures on Russia go it's a pretty minor one. But I'd have thought they're on shaky legal ground to retain (and presumably earn interest) on cash given them for a service they aren't providing. Refunding the money might actually be difficult with the collapse of foreign exchange with Russia, though, and I don't fancy the chance of any Russian player trying to sue.
Pokerstars are absolute scummy operator these days . See how they screwed over those who were part of the Supernova Elite programme.
Nothing like the original owners, who even when banned from the US, managed to get all the money to the players (as well as buying Full Tilt and paying the balances for that operator as well).
Yes, I always wondered what happened to the Elite people - one moment they were guaranteed lifelong benefits, the next they just weren't. How was that even legal?
I am surprised there wasn't some sort of class action law suit. I am guessing in the small print there was enough wiggle room that allowed them to do, as a lot of the lost benefits were future ones. I presume there was some sort of get out that said benefits may change in the future. There had been some previous fiddling around the edges e.g. a one point it wasn't just the huge cash back, there were some free big live tournament entries, and I think they got removed a couple of years before they just took an axe to it.
I know a couple of people who were regular SNE. One who achieved SNE in a single 1 month. Crypto people now.
(YouGov/ITV Cymru Wales/Wales Governance Centre; 1,086; 25 Feb-1 Mar 2022)
Landslide win for Labour.
GE2024, Labour Government almost certainly.
Welsh poll They were +5 even in 2019
+5 becomes +15
Boris = Bozo
Wales will be a lot closer by GE24 with a hard left government enacting job destroying policies, a failing NHS, and in North Wales a tourist tax of all things
Wales is implementing a tourist tax?!
Yes
I like the conceit that Wales is SO seductive it can afford to tax the odd person who ends up there through no fault of their own
Gonnae be 10x higher in Penarth I hear.
I had a sad little private bet with myself that you would be the first to make this remark; I won
It's becoming a thing in Edinburgh with a tourist tax and controls on Airbnbs.
Given the council trashes Princes Street gardens every year and generally takes the piss (see the tram works in Leith right now - delayed, again), they aren't doing it for the benefit of people who actually live here.
Sure. But Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and Scotland has the Highlands and Islands. The weather ain't great, but if you go you are guaranteed spectacle and majesty, and lots of fabulous history
Wales, which I am very fond of, does not really have these things. A tourist tax seems ambitious
There's potential. As a mountain kind of guy, Snowdonia is good, but doesn't get a proper winter season like we enjoy up north. And the whole of Manchester is there.
Fishguard and the Llyn peninsula were both great.
Actually I'd say the most beautiful part of Wales is the most ignored: the Marches. The bit where it meets England. In Herefordshire and Shropshire (and their equivalents in Wales - Powys? Brecknockshire?!) it produces some of the most quietly beautiful countryside on the planet. And mostly unspoiled, and speckled with Norman castles and medieval churches, and really good gastropubs
Yes, I agree. Absolutely lovely. The best bike ride I ever did was in that neck of the woods - Lyonshall to Painscastle, over the Begwns via the Roundabout, Glasbury, Hay, Eardisley, Almely, Lyonshall. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Have you ever heard of the Begwns? I hadn't, before I went there. The view from there over Hay to the Black Mountains is one of the loveliest in Britain. An absolutely magical spot, especially at dawn or dusk. But if you're visiting the Marches, do you stay in Radnor, or do you stay in Kington, where everything is suddenly £3 per person more competitive than over the border?
Lyonshall (plus various numbers and symbols!) is one of my go-to passwords
I was lucky enough to grow up in Herefordshire, I didn't really appreciate its beauty until almost too late - age 17, when I got my first motorbike, and was truly mobile. But then I went for it. Zipping around the lanes and hills of the Marches, up to Hergest Ridge, down to Hay Bluff, over to Craswall, the Olchon, down to Tintern, over to Rhayader, Symond's Yat, Kilpeck. Eardisley, Grosmont, Garway, it is sublime sublime sublime
Back then, tho, the food was rubbish. Now it is gorgeous. Great chefs using the amazing local Anglo-Welsh produce
All it lacks is the sea, but then, that is probably why it is still unspoiled and relatively untouristed. It is still oddly remote and hard to reach. No motorways
I've had a few weekends away in Herefordshire. Chosen entirely arbitrarily in trying to find a house which could accommodate 11 families (my friends from school and their families) - we did a couple of years in Lyonshall and one in the Wye Valley. Absolutely lovely. Very little there in terms of Things To Do, but the countryside is some of the most joy-inspiring in England. Lovely little pubs, pleasant walks, and three days of utter happiness.
Ooh, and while we're on about the marches, a word for my second favourite stone circle: Mitchell's Fold, in South West Shropshire, just on the border with Wales. Best viewed on a freezing dusk; England soft to one side, Wales hard to the other.
OK, I'll bite: what is your favourite stone circle?
Given your background I'm going to have a guess: Castlerigg
If so, good choice. Certainly in my top 10 of GLOBAL stone circles
A minor poker ethical conundrum (if that's not a contradiction in terms) - Pokerstars has suspended all Russian players, but is not refunding their balances; they are going to sit on them "until the situation changes". There's a vigorous dispute running on Twitter - "keep war criminals out" vs "victimising ordinary players".
What are the rights and wrongs of that? I think they're entitled to decide who they want as customers, in the same way as a pub landlord can decline to serve someone with dodgy-looking mates, and as pressures on Russia go it's a pretty minor one. But I'd have thought they're on shaky legal ground to retain (and presumably earn interest) on cash given them for a service they aren't providing. Refunding the money might actually be difficult with the collapse of foreign exchange with Russia, though, and I don't fancy the chance of any Russian player trying to sue.
I don't really like the blanket demonising of all Russians. There might be some justification if it was likely to produce a positive effect in Russia there could be some justification but it could certainly be just as easily counterproductive.
Let's not forget this is a country in which it is very hard to dissent against the government.
Its worth noting that Pokerstars (unlike when they were banned in US) aren't some single operator, they are part of the massive Flutter which also includes Paddy Power, Betfair, Sky Bet.
Maybe that's the problem that as such a large operator they can't be seen to be moving large amount of money to Russia at this time. However, I don't know, as paying balances out is the absolute normal when a betting operator closes or merges.
Given Melenchon is even more pro Putin than Le Pen and wants to pull France out of NATO (Le Pen has at least shredded pictures of her meeting Putin and opposed the invasion) I doubt it makes any difference at all to the likelihood of Le Pen being Macron's opponent in the runoff.
The latest poll has Macron getting a boost from the situation on 30%, Le Pen still second on 18%, Pecresse third on 12% and Melenchon and Zemmour tied 4th on 11%.
As this is a betting site, and you don’t wish to mislead us, “ Given Melenchon is even more pro Putin than Le Pen and wants to pull France out of NATO” share with us this evidence you have seen from this campaign. I looked around for this and couldn’t find it.
The problem is that Mélenchon is a Corbyn lookalike who is just as compromised as Le Pen when it comes to his stance vis a vis Putin. Hollande has just said that Mélenchon may be a “useful vote”, in that he’s the front runner amongst the fissiparous left, but he weren’t be a “useful president”! He’s plateauing in recent polls.
I’m calling you out on this, Blurp. to call the ardent Nationalist Melenchon Corbynite is to call Corbyn an ardent Nationalist. Le Pen and Melenchon sit on the opposite side of the table from Corbyn. Anti immigration. Anti EU. Close borders, look after our own with early retirement etc. you need to take a closer look and rethink your response.
Once it gets underway this French election is not as it seems - Macrons policy positions are a declaration of war on what the French Electorate want right now.
That’s a good find HY! 🙂 have you got TASS on speed dial. I didn’t actually go looking for quote from TASS, the Russian news agency, I thought maybe people would disbelieve it on here, can we be sure he did actually say that, even if it was just what we wanted to hear, can we trust TASS, I checked BBC and French press for same thing.
The next bit, "I would first and foremost like to restore our military sovereignty. France, who has nuclear deterrent forces, should be independent and should not depend on the US in terms of arms production," Melenchon added. That makes him sound very much the French Nationalist? That line might actually be popular with a lot of the French electorate? Especially post AUKUS double dealing? It doesn’t prove Melenchon is pro Putin because De Gaulle was not Pro Kremlin when he took France out NATO. France only rejoined NATO in 2009, when de gaule took them out they were out 44 years, so it’s not such a wild proposition for the French electorate out NATO as for UK? Especially with this Ukraine situation playing in this French election. “"Why do we have to protect Ukraine’s borders?" Melenchon said. As it turned out, we didn’t, as last evening on PB showed we are watching Putin place Ukraine borders where he wants, without UK and France defending them, leaving Melenchon position very little different than the UK governments now, and probably just a tad more honest and straight speaking about it ☹️
All I’m saying is, as political bettors, we shouldn’t view French election as though it was English. The fact they have been out NATO those 44 years recently shows they are different, far more independent minded and nationalist than the English. And a lot of very local factors could play a part in French election this year, I’ll give you one example, there’s a lot of clear yellow between Macron on one side and the Yellowjacket candidates Melenchon and Le Pen regarding credit crunch, pension age, unfair tax system.
De Gaulle didn't leave NATO - he opted the French military out of the integrated command structure, but France remained a part of NATO.
(YouGov/ITV Cymru Wales/Wales Governance Centre; 1,086; 25 Feb-1 Mar 2022)
Landslide win for Labour.
GE2024, Labour Government almost certainly.
Welsh poll They were +5 even in 2019
+5 becomes +15
Boris = Bozo
Wales will be a lot closer by GE24 with a hard left government enacting job destroying policies, a failing NHS, and in North Wales a tourist tax of all things
Wales is implementing a tourist tax?!
Yes
I like the conceit that Wales is SO seductive it can afford to tax the odd person who ends up there through no fault of their own
Gonnae be 10x higher in Penarth I hear.
I had a sad little private bet with myself that you would be the first to make this remark; I won
It's becoming a thing in Edinburgh with a tourist tax and controls on Airbnbs.
Given the council trashes Princes Street gardens every year and generally takes the piss (see the tram works in Leith right now - delayed, again), they aren't doing it for the benefit of people who actually live here.
Sure. But Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and Scotland has the Highlands and Islands. The weather ain't great, but if you go you are guaranteed spectacle and majesty, and lots of fabulous history
Wales, which I am very fond of, does not really have these things. A tourist tax seems ambitious
There's potential. As a mountain kind of guy, Snowdonia is good, but doesn't get a proper winter season like we enjoy up north. And the whole of Manchester is there.
Fishguard and the Llyn peninsula were both great.
Actually I'd say the most beautiful part of Wales is the most ignored: the Marches. The bit where it meets England. In Herefordshire and Shropshire (and their equivalents in Wales - Powys? Brecknockshire?!) it produces some of the most quietly beautiful countryside on the planet. And mostly unspoiled, and speckled with Norman castles and medieval churches, and really good gastropubs
Yes, I agree. Absolutely lovely. The best bike ride I ever did was in that neck of the woods - Lyonshall to Painscastle, over the Begwns via the Roundabout, Glasbury, Hay, Eardisley, Almely, Lyonshall. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Have you ever heard of the Begwns? I hadn't, before I went there. The view from there over Hay to the Black Mountains is one of the loveliest in Britain. An absolutely magical spot, especially at dawn or dusk. But if you're visiting the Marches, do you stay in Radnor, or do you stay in Kington, where everything is suddenly £3 per person more competitive than over the border?
Lyonshall (plus various numbers and symbols!) is one of my go-to passwords
I was lucky enough to grow up in Herefordshire, I didn't really appreciate its beauty until almost too late - age 17, when I got my first motorbike, and was truly mobile. But then I went for it. Zipping around the lanes and hills of the Marches, up to Hergest Ridge, down to Hay Bluff, over to Craswall, the Olchon, down to Tintern, over to Rhayader, Symond's Yat, Kilpeck. Eardisley, Grosmont, Garway, it is sublime sublime sublime
Back then, tho, the food was rubbish. Now it is gorgeous. Great chefs using the amazing local Anglo-Welsh produce
All it lacks is the sea, but then, that is probably why it is still unspoiled and relatively untouristed. It is still oddly remote and hard to reach. No motorways
I've had a few weekends away in Herefordshire. Chosen entirely arbitrarily in trying to find a house which could accommodate 11 families (my friends from school and their families) - we did a couple of years in Lyonshall and one in the Wye Valley. Absolutely lovely. Very little there in terms of Things To Do, but the countryside is some of the most joy-inspiring in England. Lovely little pubs, pleasant walks, and three days of utter happiness.
Ooh, and while we're on about the marches, a word for my second favourite stone circle: Mitchell's Fold, in South West Shropshire, just on the border with Wales. Best viewed on a freezing dusk; England soft to one side, Wales hard to the other.
OK, I'll bite: what is your favourite stone circle?
Given your background I'm going to have a guess: Castlerigg
If so, good choice. Certainly in my top 10 of GLOBAL stone circles
Given Melenchon is even more pro Putin than Le Pen and wants to pull France out of NATO (Le Pen has at least shredded pictures of her meeting Putin and opposed the invasion) I doubt it makes any difference at all to the likelihood of Le Pen being Macron's opponent in the runoff.
The latest poll has Macron getting a boost from the situation on 30%, Le Pen still second on 18%, Pecresse third on 12% and Melenchon and Zemmour tied 4th on 11%.
As this is a betting site, and you don’t wish to mislead us, “ Given Melenchon is even more pro Putin than Le Pen and wants to pull France out of NATO” share with us this evidence you have seen from this campaign. I looked around for this and couldn’t find it.
The problem is that Mélenchon is a Corbyn lookalike who is just as compromised as Le Pen when it comes to his stance vis a vis Putin. Hollande has just said that Mélenchon may be a “useful vote”, in that he’s the front runner amongst the fissiparous left, but he weren’t be a “useful president”! He’s plateauing in recent polls.
I’m calling you out on this, Blurp. to call the ardent Nationalist Melenchon Corbynite is to call Corbyn an ardent Nationalist. Le Pen and Melenchon sit on the opposite side of the table from Corbyn. Anti immigration. Anti EU. Close borders, look after our own with early retirement etc. you need to take a closer look and rethink your response.
Once it gets underway this French election is not as it seems - Macrons policy positions are a declaration of war on what the French Electorate want right now.
That’s a good find HY! 🙂 have you got TASS on speed dial. I didn’t actually go looking for quote from TASS, the Russian news agency, I thought maybe people would disbelieve it on here, can we be sure he did actually say that, even if it was just what we wanted to hear, can we trust TASS, I checked BBC and French press for same thing.
The next bit, "I would first and foremost like to restore our military sovereignty. France, who has nuclear deterrent forces, should be independent and should not depend on the US in terms of arms production," Melenchon added. That makes him sound very much the French Nationalist? That line might actually be popular with a lot of the French electorate? Especially post AUKUS double dealing? It doesn’t prove Melenchon is pro Putin because De Gaulle was not Pro Kremlin when he took France out NATO. France only rejoined NATO in 2009, when de gaule took them out they were out 44 years, so it’s not such a wild proposition for the French electorate out NATO as for UK? Especially with this Ukraine situation playing in this French election. “"Why do we have to protect Ukraine’s borders?" Melenchon said. As it turned out, we didn’t, as last evening on PB showed we are watching Putin place Ukraine borders where he wants, without UK and France defending them, leaving Melenchon position very little different than the UK governments now, and probably just a tad more honest and straight speaking about it ☹️
All I’m saying is, as political bettors, we shouldn’t view French election as though it was English. The fact they have been out NATO those 44 years recently shows they are different, far more independent minded and nationalist than the English. And a lot of very local factors could play a part in French election this year, I’ll give you one example, there’s a lot of clear yellow between Macron on one side and the Yellowjacket candidates Melenchon and Le Pen regarding credit crunch, pension age, unfair tax system.
De Gaulle didn't leave NATO - he opted the French military out of the integrated command structure, but France remained a part of NATO.
Not as the headlines on Google search tells it. Joined 49, left 66, rejoined 2009
(YouGov/ITV Cymru Wales/Wales Governance Centre; 1,086; 25 Feb-1 Mar 2022)
Landslide win for Labour.
GE2024, Labour Government almost certainly.
Welsh poll They were +5 even in 2019
+5 becomes +15
Boris = Bozo
Wales will be a lot closer by GE24 with a hard left government enacting job destroying policies, a failing NHS, and in North Wales a tourist tax of all things
Wales is implementing a tourist tax?!
Yes
I like the conceit that Wales is SO seductive it can afford to tax the odd person who ends up there through no fault of their own
Gonnae be 10x higher in Penarth I hear.
I had a sad little private bet with myself that you would be the first to make this remark; I won
It's becoming a thing in Edinburgh with a tourist tax and controls on Airbnbs.
Given the council trashes Princes Street gardens every year and generally takes the piss (see the tram works in Leith right now - delayed, again), they aren't doing it for the benefit of people who actually live here.
Sure. But Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and Scotland has the Highlands and Islands. The weather ain't great, but if you go you are guaranteed spectacle and majesty, and lots of fabulous history
Wales, which I am very fond of, does not really have these things. A tourist tax seems ambitious
There's potential. As a mountain kind of guy, Snowdonia is good, but doesn't get a proper winter season like we enjoy up north. And the whole of Manchester is there.
Fishguard and the Llyn peninsula were both great.
Actually I'd say the most beautiful part of Wales is the most ignored: the Marches. The bit where it meets England. In Herefordshire and Shropshire (and their equivalents in Wales - Powys? Brecknockshire?!) it produces some of the most quietly beautiful countryside on the planet. And mostly unspoiled, and speckled with Norman castles and medieval churches, and really good gastropubs
Yes, I agree. Absolutely lovely. The best bike ride I ever did was in that neck of the woods - Lyonshall to Painscastle, over the Begwns via the Roundabout, Glasbury, Hay, Eardisley, Almely, Lyonshall. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Have you ever heard of the Begwns? I hadn't, before I went there. The view from there over Hay to the Black Mountains is one of the loveliest in Britain. An absolutely magical spot, especially at dawn or dusk. But if you're visiting the Marches, do you stay in Radnor, or do you stay in Kington, where everything is suddenly £3 per person more competitive than over the border?
Lyonshall (plus various numbers and symbols!) is one of my go-to passwords
I was lucky enough to grow up in Herefordshire, I didn't really appreciate its beauty until almost too late - age 17, when I got my first motorbike, and was truly mobile. But then I went for it. Zipping around the lanes and hills of the Marches, up to Hergest Ridge, down to Hay Bluff, over to Craswall, the Olchon, down to Tintern, over to Rhayader, Symond's Yat, Kilpeck. Eardisley, Grosmont, Garway, it is sublime sublime sublime
Back then, tho, the food was rubbish. Now it is gorgeous. Great chefs using the amazing local Anglo-Welsh produce
All it lacks is the sea, but then, that is probably why it is still unspoiled and relatively untouristed. It is still oddly remote and hard to reach. No motorways
PB pedant alert:
... apart from the M50.
Which is only two lanes and always emptier than the M74.
A minor poker ethical conundrum (if that's not a contradiction in terms) - Pokerstars has suspended all Russian players, but is not refunding their balances; they are going to sit on them "until the situation changes". There's a vigorous dispute running on Twitter - "keep war criminals out" vs "victimising ordinary players".
What are the rights and wrongs of that? I think they're entitled to decide who they want as customers, in the same way as a pub landlord can decline to serve someone with dodgy-looking mates, and as pressures on Russia go it's a pretty minor one. But I'd have thought they're on shaky legal ground to retain (and presumably earn interest) on cash given them for a service they aren't providing. Refunding the money might actually be difficult with the collapse of foreign exchange with Russia, though, and I don't fancy the chance of any Russian player trying to sue.
I don't really like the blanket demonising of all Russians. There might be some justification if it was likely to produce a positive effect in Russia there could be some justification but it could certainly be just as easily counterproductive.
Let's not forget this is a country in which it is very hard to dissent against the government.
I agree. Quite apart from not tainting all Russians with Putins crimes, in the end it is very likely that it is other Russians that depose Putin. We should not make them our enemies.
(YouGov/ITV Cymru Wales/Wales Governance Centre; 1,086; 25 Feb-1 Mar 2022)
Landslide win for Labour.
GE2024, Labour Government almost certainly.
Welsh poll They were +5 even in 2019
+5 becomes +15
Boris = Bozo
Wales will be a lot closer by GE24 with a hard left government enacting job destroying policies, a failing NHS, and in North Wales a tourist tax of all things
Wales is implementing a tourist tax?!
Yes
I like the conceit that Wales is SO seductive it can afford to tax the odd person who ends up there through no fault of their own
Gonnae be 10x higher in Penarth I hear.
I had a sad little private bet with myself that you would be the first to make this remark; I won
It's becoming a thing in Edinburgh with a tourist tax and controls on Airbnbs.
Given the council trashes Princes Street gardens every year and generally takes the piss (see the tram works in Leith right now - delayed, again), they aren't doing it for the benefit of people who actually live here.
Sure. But Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and Scotland has the Highlands and Islands. The weather ain't great, but if you go you are guaranteed spectacle and majesty, and lots of fabulous history
Wales, which I am very fond of, does not really have these things. A tourist tax seems ambitious
There's potential. As a mountain kind of guy, Snowdonia is good, but doesn't get a proper winter season like we enjoy up north. And the whole of Manchester is there.
Fishguard and the Llyn peninsula were both great.
Actually I'd say the most beautiful part of Wales is the most ignored: the Marches. The bit where it meets England. In Herefordshire and Shropshire (and their equivalents in Wales - Powys? Brecknockshire?!) it produces some of the most quietly beautiful countryside on the planet. And mostly unspoiled, and speckled with Norman castles and medieval churches, and really good gastropubs
Yes, I agree. Absolutely lovely. The best bike ride I ever did was in that neck of the woods - Lyonshall to Painscastle, over the Begwns via the Roundabout, Glasbury, Hay, Eardisley, Almely, Lyonshall. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Have you ever heard of the Begwns? I hadn't, before I went there. The view from there over Hay to the Black Mountains is one of the loveliest in Britain. An absolutely magical spot, especially at dawn or dusk. But if you're visiting the Marches, do you stay in Radnor, or do you stay in Kington, where everything is suddenly £3 per person more competitive than over the border?
Lyonshall (plus various numbers and symbols!) is one of my go-to passwords
I was lucky enough to grow up in Herefordshire, I didn't really appreciate its beauty until almost too late - age 17, when I got my first motorbike, and was truly mobile. But then I went for it. Zipping around the lanes and hills of the Marches, up to Hergest Ridge, down to Hay Bluff, over to Craswall, the Olchon, down to Tintern, over to Rhayader, Symond's Yat, Kilpeck. Eardisley, Grosmont, Garway, it is sublime sublime sublime
Back then, tho, the food was rubbish. Now it is gorgeous. Great chefs using the amazing local Anglo-Welsh produce
All it lacks is the sea, but then, that is probably why it is still unspoiled and relatively untouristed. It is still oddly remote and hard to reach. No motorways
I've had a few weekends away in Herefordshire. Chosen entirely arbitrarily in trying to find a house which could accommodate 11 families (my friends from school and their families) - we did a couple of years in Lyonshall and one in the Wye Valley. Absolutely lovely. Very little there in terms of Things To Do, but the countryside is some of the most joy-inspiring in England. Lovely little pubs, pleasant walks, and three days of utter happiness.
Ooh, and while we're on about the marches, a word for my second favourite stone circle: Mitchell's Fold, in South West Shropshire, just on the border with Wales. Best viewed on a freezing dusk; England soft to one side, Wales hard to the other.
OK, I'll bite: what is your favourite stone circle?
Given your background I'm going to have a guess: Castlerigg
If so, good choice. Certainly in my top 10 of GLOBAL stone circles
Given Melenchon is even more pro Putin than Le Pen and wants to pull France out of NATO (Le Pen has at least shredded pictures of her meeting Putin and opposed the invasion) I doubt it makes any difference at all to the likelihood of Le Pen being Macron's opponent in the runoff.
The latest poll has Macron getting a boost from the situation on 30%, Le Pen still second on 18%, Pecresse third on 12% and Melenchon and Zemmour tied 4th on 11%.
As this is a betting site, and you don’t wish to mislead us, “ Given Melenchon is even more pro Putin than Le Pen and wants to pull France out of NATO” share with us this evidence you have seen from this campaign. I looked around for this and couldn’t find it.
The problem is that Mélenchon is a Corbyn lookalike who is just as compromised as Le Pen when it comes to his stance vis a vis Putin. Hollande has just said that Mélenchon may be a “useful vote”, in that he’s the front runner amongst the fissiparous left, but he weren’t be a “useful president”! He’s plateauing in recent polls.
I’m calling you out on this, Blurp. to call the ardent Nationalist Melenchon Corbynite is to call Corbyn an ardent Nationalist. Le Pen and Melenchon sit on the opposite side of the table from Corbyn. Anti immigration. Anti EU. Close borders, look after our own with early retirement etc. you need to take a closer look and rethink your response.
Once it gets underway this French election is not as it seems - Macrons policy positions are a declaration of war on what the French Electorate want right now.
That’s a good find HY! 🙂 have you got TASS on speed dial. I didn’t actually go looking for quote from TASS, the Russian news agency, I thought maybe people would disbelieve it on here, can we be sure he did actually say that, even if it was just what we wanted to hear, can we trust TASS, I checked BBC and French press for same thing.
The next bit, "I would first and foremost like to restore our military sovereignty. France, who has nuclear deterrent forces, should be independent and should not depend on the US in terms of arms production," Melenchon added. That makes him sound very much the French Nationalist? That line might actually be popular with a lot of the French electorate? Especially post AUKUS double dealing? It doesn’t prove Melenchon is pro Putin because De Gaulle was not Pro Kremlin when he took France out NATO. France only rejoined NATO in 2009, when de gaule took them out they were out 44 years, so it’s not such a wild proposition for the French electorate out NATO as for UK? Especially with this Ukraine situation playing in this French election. “"Why do we have to protect Ukraine’s borders?" Melenchon said. As it turned out, we didn’t, as last evening on PB showed we are watching Putin place Ukraine borders where he wants, without UK and France defending them, leaving Melenchon position very little different than the UK governments now, and probably just a tad more honest and straight speaking about it ☹️
All I’m saying is, as political bettors, we shouldn’t view French election as though it was English. The fact they have been out NATO those 44 years recently shows they are different, far more independent minded and nationalist than the English. And a lot of very local factors could play a part in French election this year, I’ll give you one example, there’s a lot of clear yellow between Macron on one side and the Yellowjacket candidates Melenchon and Le Pen regarding credit crunch, pension age, unfair tax system.
De Gaulle didn't leave NATO - he opted the French military out of the integrated command structure, but France remained a part of NATO.
Not as the headlines on Google search tells it. Joined 49, left 66, rejoined 2009
It's still wrong though. :-)
They were part of the integrated planning for WWIII all through those years, paying into the various common funds, providing tons of staff at NATO headquarters etc etc.
EDIT: One thing about NATO that seems to get missed is that it is a very variable geometry alliance - there are some minima requirements to be a member, but after that then nature of the relationship a country has with NATO is quite flexible.
“ By Ella Griffith, Sky News producer in Lille, northern France We have spent the day at a hotel on the outskirts of Lille. It is one of several where refugees, hoping to make it to Britain, are staying. There are 50 people here, and they were brought here because of a visa application centre being set up by the Home Office, 70 miles from Calais. It was where Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told MPs it would be. The Home Office said it would be opening today. Despite insistence from Home Offices sources, however, that a centre in Lille does exist, we have not found anyone here who has been able to access it or even knows where it is. Now, it's emerged that a centre will be opening in Arras, 40 miles from here, on Friday.”
Is there a chance, eventually at some point, some Ukraine Refugees will actually defeat the UK government and find a way into Britain?
Moronic Governments of all flavours still insist exercise = weight loss. Rubbish.
The secret to losing weight is very simple, eat fewer calories. Yet we seem to gloss over this.
If you ate a Big Mac every day for a lifetime you'd never get fat, not enough calories. You would have all sorts of issues but it's not what people eat, it is the quantity.
I’m not sure about that.
Mathematically you are correct, but calories from protein seem to be less fattening than calories from carbs and sugar.
Fasting seems to speeds up overall calorie burn.
And frequent exercise is highly correlated with weight loss.
Thirty minutes of exercise a day is not going to put you into a caloric deficit on average. Not when the average person is something like 500+ calories over their caloric maintenance.
Halving one meal a day would go much further to cutting weight than exercise.
I am fully in support of exercise - but it is not a weight loss strategy on its own.
If people are on average 500+ calories above maintenance level then shouldn't they keep getting fatter and fatter until they explode?
The more weight you gain, the more calories you need to maintain it, so at some point the two line up. But people that keep eating do keep getting larger and larger and larger, so yes.
Obviously, the heavier you are, the more energy it takes to drag yourself around, and therefore the maintenance calorie level rises.
But you wrote "the average person is something like 500+ calories over their caloric maintenance".
And I stand by that, the average person is something like 500 calories over. Every year obesity gets worse which would support that statement.
Calories in/calories out. Eating absolutely loads while doing mad exercise is one of life's great pleasures.
Otherwise, sleep enough so you don't crave sugar rush to bear tiredness. Drink water to keep stomach full, and carb up before you do your weekly shop (makes crisps look much less appetising).
Well said.
I've been bulking for the last year or so - just finished - and have put on about 15KG of muscle. It's been a pleasurable experience being able to eat lots.
(YouGov/ITV Cymru Wales/Wales Governance Centre; 1,086; 25 Feb-1 Mar 2022)
Landslide win for Labour.
GE2024, Labour Government almost certainly.
Welsh poll They were +5 even in 2019
+5 becomes +15
Boris = Bozo
Wales will be a lot closer by GE24 with a hard left government enacting job destroying policies, a failing NHS, and in North Wales a tourist tax of all things
Wales is implementing a tourist tax?!
Yes
I like the conceit that Wales is SO seductive it can afford to tax the odd person who ends up there through no fault of their own
Gonnae be 10x higher in Penarth I hear.
I had a sad little private bet with myself that you would be the first to make this remark; I won
It's becoming a thing in Edinburgh with a tourist tax and controls on Airbnbs.
Given the council trashes Princes Street gardens every year and generally takes the piss (see the tram works in Leith right now - delayed, again), they aren't doing it for the benefit of people who actually live here.
Sure. But Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and Scotland has the Highlands and Islands. The weather ain't great, but if you go you are guaranteed spectacle and majesty, and lots of fabulous history
Wales, which I am very fond of, does not really have these things. A tourist tax seems ambitious
There's potential. As a mountain kind of guy, Snowdonia is good, but doesn't get a proper winter season like we enjoy up north. And the whole of Manchester is there.
Fishguard and the Llyn peninsula were both great.
Actually I'd say the most beautiful part of Wales is the most ignored: the Marches. The bit where it meets England. In Herefordshire and Shropshire (and their equivalents in Wales - Powys? Brecknockshire?!) it produces some of the most quietly beautiful countryside on the planet. And mostly unspoiled, and speckled with Norman castles and medieval churches, and really good gastropubs
Yes, I agree. Absolutely lovely. The best bike ride I ever did was in that neck of the woods - Lyonshall to Painscastle, over the Begwns via the Roundabout, Glasbury, Hay, Eardisley, Almely, Lyonshall. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Have you ever heard of the Begwns? I hadn't, before I went there. The view from there over Hay to the Black Mountains is one of the loveliest in Britain. An absolutely magical spot, especially at dawn or dusk. But if you're visiting the Marches, do you stay in Radnor, or do you stay in Kington, where everything is suddenly £3 per person more competitive than over the border?
Lyonshall (plus various numbers and symbols!) is one of my go-to passwords
I was lucky enough to grow up in Herefordshire, I didn't really appreciate its beauty until almost too late - age 17, when I got my first motorbike, and was truly mobile. But then I went for it. Zipping around the lanes and hills of the Marches, up to Hergest Ridge, down to Hay Bluff, over to Craswall, the Olchon, down to Tintern, over to Rhayader, Symond's Yat, Kilpeck. Eardisley, Grosmont, Garway, it is sublime sublime sublime
Back then, tho, the food was rubbish. Now it is gorgeous. Great chefs using the amazing local Anglo-Welsh produce
All it lacks is the sea, but then, that is probably why it is still unspoiled and relatively untouristed. It is still oddly remote and hard to reach. No motorways
I've had a few weekends away in Herefordshire. Chosen entirely arbitrarily in trying to find a house which could accommodate 11 families (my friends from school and their families) - we did a couple of years in Lyonshall and one in the Wye Valley. Absolutely lovely. Very little there in terms of Things To Do, but the countryside is some of the most joy-inspiring in England. Lovely little pubs, pleasant walks, and three days of utter happiness.
Ooh, and while we're on about the marches, a word for my second favourite stone circle: Mitchell's Fold, in South West Shropshire, just on the border with Wales. Best viewed on a freezing dusk; England soft to one side, Wales hard to the other.
OK, I'll bite: what is your favourite stone circle?
Given your background I'm going to have a guess: Castlerigg
If so, good choice. Certainly in my top 10 of GLOBAL stone circles
Scorhill stone circle near Chagford
Scorhill is definitely atmospheric. Not a top tenner, tho
If I had to choose one in Dartmoor it would be Grey Wethers. Apparently humble, yet exceedingly eerie when you get there
Abramovich sanctions: We will go bust, Chelsea warn government
Chelsea will hold talks with the government this afternoon, warning that the club could soon face financial ruin because of the sanctions imposed on their owner Roman Abramovich.
The club will request that a number of amendments are made to the licence that has been issued by government officials, which allows Chelsea to continue “football-related activities” but has frozen Abramovich’s asset. It means the club has been forced to cease many of its commercial activities, including future ticket sales.
Chelsea, however, will argue that they need the revenue. “If we aren’t allowed to continue operating normally we will very quickly run into the red,” a senior Stamford Bridge source told The Times.
They have a point. It is no one's interest for a major business (and part of the EPL) to go bust, that doesn't benefit Putin it just harms the UK and London economies.
There must be a way of allowing Chelsea to function as a business while denying income to Abramovich, until the mess can be sorted
Yes, I loathe Chelsea with a passion for footballing reasons, but governments pushing football clubs to the wall is just bloody stupid. No-one should want clubs to go bust. As you suggest, finding a bridging option until a sale can be made would seem wise. A points deduction is possibly valid under some circumstances, but deliberately rendering them insolvent is negligent.
Maybe the fans and the PL should have thought about what they were getting involved with when they allowed Oligarchs and other corrupt state affiliated operations to buy into the league. Chelsea fans always knew this day would come, I'm sure Newcastle and Man City fans realise it too. The sooner we get the dodgy money out of the league the better. If that means Chelsea, Newcastle and Man City go bankrupt then that's their problem. No sympathy.
As far as Chelsea is concerned, if they’re looking for sympathy, they’ll find it in the dictionary between shit and syphilis.
Moronic Governments of all flavours still insist exercise = weight loss. Rubbish.
The secret to losing weight is very simple, eat fewer calories. Yet we seem to gloss over this.
If you ate a Big Mac every day for a lifetime you'd never get fat, not enough calories. You would have all sorts of issues but it's not what people eat, it is the quantity.
I’m not sure about that.
Mathematically you are correct, but calories from protein seem to be less fattening than calories from carbs and sugar.
Fasting seems to speeds up overall calorie burn.
And frequent exercise is highly correlated with weight loss.
Thirty minutes of exercise a day is not going to put you into a caloric deficit on average. Not when the average person is something like 500+ calories over their caloric maintenance.
Halving one meal a day would go much further to cutting weight than exercise.
I am fully in support of exercise - but it is not a weight loss strategy on its own.
If people are on average 500+ calories above maintenance level then shouldn't they keep getting fatter and fatter until they explode?
The more weight you gain, the more calories you need to maintain it, so at some point the two line up. But people that keep eating do keep getting larger and larger and larger, so yes.
Obviously, the heavier you are, the more energy it takes to drag yourself around, and therefore the maintenance calorie level rises.
But you wrote "the average person is something like 500+ calories over their caloric maintenance".
And I stand by that, the average person is something like 500 calories over. Every year obesity gets worse which would support that statement.
Calories in/calories out. Eating absolutely loads while doing mad exercise is one of life's great pleasures.
Otherwise, sleep enough so you don't crave sugar rush to bear tiredness. Drink water to keep stomach full, and carb up before you do your weekly shop (makes crisps look much less appetising).
Well said.
I've been bulking for the last year or so - just finished - and have put on about 15KG of muscle. It's been a pleasurable experience being able to eat lots.
15kg of MUSCLE...are you sure? How many PEDs have you been taking....your pee must be like the colour of a rusty pipe.
A minor poker ethical conundrum (if that's not a contradiction in terms) - Pokerstars has suspended all Russian players, but is not refunding their balances; they are going to sit on them "until the situation changes". There's a vigorous dispute running on Twitter - "keep war criminals out" vs "victimising ordinary players".
What are the rights and wrongs of that? I think they're entitled to decide who they want as customers, in the same way as a pub landlord can decline to serve someone with dodgy-looking mates, and as pressures on Russia go it's a pretty minor one. But I'd have thought they're on shaky legal ground to retain (and presumably earn interest) on cash given them for a service they aren't providing. Refunding the money might actually be difficult with the collapse of foreign exchange with Russia, though, and I don't fancy the chance of any Russian player trying to sue.
I don't really like the blanket demonising of all Russians. There might be some justification if it was likely to produce a positive effect in Russia there could be some justification but it could certainly be just as easily counterproductive.
Let's not forget this is a country in which it is very hard to dissent against the government.
We should be trying to win the hearts and minds of the Russian people - not polarising the situation by cutting them off. Most of them want to be part of the connected, civilised world - even the oligarchs and their families. We need to separate the Putin-Lavrov clique from the rest, not drive them together into the same corner.
NZ: National is now outpolling Labour in both major polls.
Making a pregnant single mother beg the Taliban not to kill her seems to have done it for St Jacinda.
I think its partly the realisation that all the lockdowns and isolation only delayed the pandemic not stopped it, as NZ now has the 4th or 5th highest case rate in the would, and is very short on test kits/capacity.
Mostly though it might be the economy, NZ I think now has one of the highest rates of inflation in the developed would.
(YouGov/ITV Cymru Wales/Wales Governance Centre; 1,086; 25 Feb-1 Mar 2022)
Landslide win for Labour.
GE2024, Labour Government almost certainly.
Welsh poll They were +5 even in 2019
+5 becomes +15
Boris = Bozo
Wales will be a lot closer by GE24 with a hard left government enacting job destroying policies, a failing NHS, and in North Wales a tourist tax of all things
Wales is implementing a tourist tax?!
Yes
I like the conceit that Wales is SO seductive it can afford to tax the odd person who ends up there through no fault of their own
Gonnae be 10x higher in Penarth I hear.
I had a sad little private bet with myself that you would be the first to make this remark; I won
It's becoming a thing in Edinburgh with a tourist tax and controls on Airbnbs.
Given the council trashes Princes Street gardens every year and generally takes the piss (see the tram works in Leith right now - delayed, again), they aren't doing it for the benefit of people who actually live here.
Sure. But Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and Scotland has the Highlands and Islands. The weather ain't great, but if you go you are guaranteed spectacle and majesty, and lots of fabulous history
Wales, which I am very fond of, does not really have these things. A tourist tax seems ambitious
There's potential. As a mountain kind of guy, Snowdonia is good, but doesn't get a proper winter season like we enjoy up north. And the whole of Manchester is there.
Fishguard and the Llyn peninsula were both great.
Actually I'd say the most beautiful part of Wales is the most ignored: the Marches. The bit where it meets England. In Herefordshire and Shropshire (and their equivalents in Wales - Powys? Brecknockshire?!) it produces some of the most quietly beautiful countryside on the planet. And mostly unspoiled, and speckled with Norman castles and medieval churches, and really good gastropubs
Yes, I agree. Absolutely lovely. The best bike ride I ever did was in that neck of the woods - Lyonshall to Painscastle, over the Begwns via the Roundabout, Glasbury, Hay, Eardisley, Almely, Lyonshall. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Have you ever heard of the Begwns? I hadn't, before I went there. The view from there over Hay to the Black Mountains is one of the loveliest in Britain. An absolutely magical spot, especially at dawn or dusk. But if you're visiting the Marches, do you stay in Radnor, or do you stay in Kington, where everything is suddenly £3 per person more competitive than over the border?
Lyonshall (plus various numbers and symbols!) is one of my go-to passwords
I was lucky enough to grow up in Herefordshire, I didn't really appreciate its beauty until almost too late - age 17, when I got my first motorbike, and was truly mobile. But then I went for it. Zipping around the lanes and hills of the Marches, up to Hergest Ridge, down to Hay Bluff, over to Craswall, the Olchon, down to Tintern, over to Rhayader, Symond's Yat, Kilpeck. Eardisley, Grosmont, Garway, it is sublime sublime sublime
Back then, tho, the food was rubbish. Now it is gorgeous. Great chefs using the amazing local Anglo-Welsh produce
All it lacks is the sea, but then, that is probably why it is still unspoiled and relatively untouristed. It is still oddly remote and hard to reach. No motorways
I've had a few weekends away in Herefordshire. Chosen entirely arbitrarily in trying to find a house which could accommodate 11 families (my friends from school and their families) - we did a couple of years in Lyonshall and one in the Wye Valley. Absolutely lovely. Very little there in terms of Things To Do, but the countryside is some of the most joy-inspiring in England. Lovely little pubs, pleasant walks, and three days of utter happiness.
Ooh, and while we're on about the marches, a word for my second favourite stone circle: Mitchell's Fold, in South West Shropshire, just on the border with Wales. Best viewed on a freezing dusk; England soft to one side, Wales hard to the other.
OK, I'll bite: what is your favourite stone circle?
Given your background I'm going to have a guess: Castlerigg
If so, good choice. Certainly in my top 10 of GLOBAL stone circles
Scorhill stone circle near Chagford
Scorhill is definitely atmospheric. Not a top tenner, tho
If I had to choose one in Dartmoor it would be Grey Wethers. Apparently humble, yet exceedingly eerie when you get there
Abramovich sanctions: We will go bust, Chelsea warn government
Chelsea will hold talks with the government this afternoon, warning that the club could soon face financial ruin because of the sanctions imposed on their owner Roman Abramovich.
The club will request that a number of amendments are made to the licence that has been issued by government officials, which allows Chelsea to continue “football-related activities” but has frozen Abramovich’s asset. It means the club has been forced to cease many of its commercial activities, including future ticket sales.
Chelsea, however, will argue that they need the revenue. “If we aren’t allowed to continue operating normally we will very quickly run into the red,” a senior Stamford Bridge source told The Times.
They have a point. It is no one's interest for a major business (and part of the EPL) to go bust, that doesn't benefit Putin it just harms the UK and London economies.
There must be a way of allowing Chelsea to function as a business while denying income to Abramovich, until the mess can be sorted
Yes, I loathe Chelsea with a passion for footballing reasons, but governments pushing football clubs to the wall is just bloody stupid. No-one should want clubs to go bust. As you suggest, finding a bridging option until a sale can be made would seem wise. A points deduction is possibly valid under some circumstances, but deliberately rendering them insolvent is negligent.
Sits uneasy with me too. It seems like it’s being done for positive publicity, but are we sure there are no loopholes such as the art market that saves all Roman’s real asset portfolio for him, whilst the devoted football fan and top English international product actually suffers?
To what extent have Arsenal beniffiteed from Putin Crony money? Their crony was much closer to Putin than Abramovich.
Why are Labour, Starmer and Corbyn so silent on Arsenal crony money 😠
Sam Kronke at Arsenal?
Usmanov.
Happy to answer your questions of things you don’t know Robert, football must be a chink in your armour of knowledge 😌
Which result do you look for 5pm UK time on Saturdays then?
Sold his minority share nearly 4 years ago.
30%. Sold to kronky Aug 18.
Otherwise what sort of sanctions would Arsenal have on them today?
NZ: National is now outpolling Labour in both major polls.
Making a pregnant single mother beg the Taliban not to kill her seems to have done it for St Jacinda.
I think its partly the realisation that all the lockdowns and isolation only delayed the pandemic not stopped it, as NZ now has the 4th or 5th highest case rate in the would, and is very short on test kits/capacity.
Mostly though it might be the economy, NZ I think now has one of the highest rates of inflation in the developed would.
And unlike Australia, which has high CoL, even higher wages, NZ has the brilliant combo of higher CoL and rubbish wages.
(YouGov/ITV Cymru Wales/Wales Governance Centre; 1,086; 25 Feb-1 Mar 2022)
Landslide win for Labour.
GE2024, Labour Government almost certainly.
Welsh poll They were +5 even in 2019
+5 becomes +15
Boris = Bozo
Wales will be a lot closer by GE24 with a hard left government enacting job destroying policies, a failing NHS, and in North Wales a tourist tax of all things
Wales is implementing a tourist tax?!
Yes
I like the conceit that Wales is SO seductive it can afford to tax the odd person who ends up there through no fault of their own
Gonnae be 10x higher in Penarth I hear.
I had a sad little private bet with myself that you would be the first to make this remark; I won
It's becoming a thing in Edinburgh with a tourist tax and controls on Airbnbs.
Given the council trashes Princes Street gardens every year and generally takes the piss (see the tram works in Leith right now - delayed, again), they aren't doing it for the benefit of people who actually live here.
Sure. But Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and Scotland has the Highlands and Islands. The weather ain't great, but if you go you are guaranteed spectacle and majesty, and lots of fabulous history
Wales, which I am very fond of, does not really have these things. A tourist tax seems ambitious
There's potential. As a mountain kind of guy, Snowdonia is good, but doesn't get a proper winter season like we enjoy up north. And the whole of Manchester is there.
Fishguard and the Llyn peninsula were both great.
Actually I'd say the most beautiful part of Wales is the most ignored: the Marches. The bit where it meets England. In Herefordshire and Shropshire (and their equivalents in Wales - Powys? Brecknockshire?!) it produces some of the most quietly beautiful countryside on the planet. And mostly unspoiled, and speckled with Norman castles and medieval churches, and really good gastropubs
Yes, I agree. Absolutely lovely. The best bike ride I ever did was in that neck of the woods - Lyonshall to Painscastle, over the Begwns via the Roundabout, Glasbury, Hay, Eardisley, Almely, Lyonshall. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Have you ever heard of the Begwns? I hadn't, before I went there. The view from there over Hay to the Black Mountains is one of the loveliest in Britain. An absolutely magical spot, especially at dawn or dusk. But if you're visiting the Marches, do you stay in Radnor, or do you stay in Kington, where everything is suddenly £3 per person more competitive than over the border?
Lyonshall (plus various numbers and symbols!) is one of my go-to passwords
I was lucky enough to grow up in Herefordshire, I didn't really appreciate its beauty until almost too late - age 17, when I got my first motorbike, and was truly mobile. But then I went for it. Zipping around the lanes and hills of the Marches, up to Hergest Ridge, down to Hay Bluff, over to Craswall, the Olchon, down to Tintern, over to Rhayader, Symond's Yat, Kilpeck. Eardisley, Grosmont, Garway, it is sublime sublime sublime
Back then, tho, the food was rubbish. Now it is gorgeous. Great chefs using the amazing local Anglo-Welsh produce
All it lacks is the sea, but then, that is probably why it is still unspoiled and relatively untouristed. It is still oddly remote and hard to reach. No motorways
I've had a few weekends away in Herefordshire. Chosen entirely arbitrarily in trying to find a house which could accommodate 11 families (my friends from school and their families) - we did a couple of years in Lyonshall and one in the Wye Valley. Absolutely lovely. Very little there in terms of Things To Do, but the countryside is some of the most joy-inspiring in England. Lovely little pubs, pleasant walks, and three days of utter happiness.
Ooh, and while we're on about the marches, a word for my second favourite stone circle: Mitchell's Fold, in South West Shropshire, just on the border with Wales. Best viewed on a freezing dusk; England soft to one side, Wales hard to the other.
OK, I'll bite: what is your favourite stone circle?
Given your background I'm going to have a guess: Castlerigg
If so, good choice. Certainly in my top 10 of GLOBAL stone circles
It's the ones not on this globe that really impress me.
NZ: National is now outpolling Labour in both major polls.
Making a pregnant single mother beg the Taliban not to kill her seems to have done it for St Jacinda.
I think its partly the realisation that all the lockdowns and isolation only delayed the pandemic not stopped it, as NZ now has the 4th or 5th highest case rate in the would, and is very short on test kits/capacity.
Mostly though it might be the economy, NZ I think now has one of the highest rates of inflation in the developed would.
And unlike Australia, which has high CoL, even higher wages, NZ has the brilliant combo of higher CoL and rubbish wages.
I have never been to NZ, thanks COVID. But we had some friends over from there pre-COVID and I was shocked when they went around the super market amazed at how cheap our food was, and that especially meat like lamb is just eye wateringly expensive there.
NZ: National is now outpolling Labour in both major polls.
Making a pregnant single mother beg the Taliban not to kill her seems to have done it for St Jacinda.
I think its partly the realisation that all the lockdowns and isolation only delayed the pandemic not stopped it, as NZ now has the 4th or 5th highest case rate in the would, and is very short on test kits/capacity.
Mostly though it might be the economy, NZ I think now has one of the highest rates of inflation in the developed would.
And unlike Australia, which has high CoL, even higher wages, NZ has the brilliant combo of higher CoL and rubbish wages.
Inflation is 5.9%
Jacinda has always been crap, and she’s running out of road now that the cost of living is an issue.
The new National guy has promised tax cuts, too. Keir Starmer, take note.
(YouGov/ITV Cymru Wales/Wales Governance Centre; 1,086; 25 Feb-1 Mar 2022)
Landslide win for Labour.
GE2024, Labour Government almost certainly.
Welsh poll They were +5 even in 2019
+5 becomes +15
Boris = Bozo
Wales will be a lot closer by GE24 with a hard left government enacting job destroying policies, a failing NHS, and in North Wales a tourist tax of all things
Wales is implementing a tourist tax?!
Yes
I like the conceit that Wales is SO seductive it can afford to tax the odd person who ends up there through no fault of their own
Gonnae be 10x higher in Penarth I hear.
I had a sad little private bet with myself that you would be the first to make this remark; I won
It's becoming a thing in Edinburgh with a tourist tax and controls on Airbnbs.
Given the council trashes Princes Street gardens every year and generally takes the piss (see the tram works in Leith right now - delayed, again), they aren't doing it for the benefit of people who actually live here.
Sure. But Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and Scotland has the Highlands and Islands. The weather ain't great, but if you go you are guaranteed spectacle and majesty, and lots of fabulous history
Wales, which I am very fond of, does not really have these things. A tourist tax seems ambitious
There's potential. As a mountain kind of guy, Snowdonia is good, but doesn't get a proper winter season like we enjoy up north. And the whole of Manchester is there.
Fishguard and the Llyn peninsula were both great.
Actually I'd say the most beautiful part of Wales is the most ignored: the Marches. The bit where it meets England. In Herefordshire and Shropshire (and their equivalents in Wales - Powys? Brecknockshire?!) it produces some of the most quietly beautiful countryside on the planet. And mostly unspoiled, and speckled with Norman castles and medieval churches, and really good gastropubs
Yes, I agree. Absolutely lovely. The best bike ride I ever did was in that neck of the woods - Lyonshall to Painscastle, over the Begwns via the Roundabout, Glasbury, Hay, Eardisley, Almely, Lyonshall. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Have you ever heard of the Begwns? I hadn't, before I went there. The view from there over Hay to the Black Mountains is one of the loveliest in Britain. An absolutely magical spot, especially at dawn or dusk. But if you're visiting the Marches, do you stay in Radnor, or do you stay in Kington, where everything is suddenly £3 per person more competitive than over the border?
Lyonshall (plus various numbers and symbols!) is one of my go-to passwords
I was lucky enough to grow up in Herefordshire, I didn't really appreciate its beauty until almost too late - age 17, when I got my first motorbike, and was truly mobile. But then I went for it. Zipping around the lanes and hills of the Marches, up to Hergest Ridge, down to Hay Bluff, over to Craswall, the Olchon, down to Tintern, over to Rhayader, Symond's Yat, Kilpeck. Eardisley, Grosmont, Garway, it is sublime sublime sublime
Back then, tho, the food was rubbish. Now it is gorgeous. Great chefs using the amazing local Anglo-Welsh produce
All it lacks is the sea, but then, that is probably why it is still unspoiled and relatively untouristed. It is still oddly remote and hard to reach. No motorways
I've had a few weekends away in Herefordshire. Chosen entirely arbitrarily in trying to find a house which could accommodate 11 families (my friends from school and their families) - we did a couple of years in Lyonshall and one in the Wye Valley. Absolutely lovely. Very little there in terms of Things To Do, but the countryside is some of the most joy-inspiring in England. Lovely little pubs, pleasant walks, and three days of utter happiness.
Ooh, and while we're on about the marches, a word for my second favourite stone circle: Mitchell's Fold, in South West Shropshire, just on the border with Wales. Best viewed on a freezing dusk; England soft to one side, Wales hard to the other.
OK, I'll bite: what is your favourite stone circle?
Given your background I'm going to have a guess: Castlerigg
If so, good choice. Certainly in my top 10 of GLOBAL stone circles
Top 10 list of stone circles! LOL
Mate, I could do a top 50! I love megaliths, if I go anywhere and find out there is some mysterious ancient stone monument nearby, I practically orgasm
And now you've set me off. Here are my top ten megalithic monuments of the world
10. Newgrange, Ireland 9. Avebury, England 8. Carnac, France 7. Castlerigg, England 6. Uragh, Ireland 5. Callanish, Scotland 4. Ggantija, Malta 3. Brodgar, Orkney 2. Stonehenge, England 1. Gobekli Tepe, Turkey
NZ: National is now outpolling Labour in both major polls.
Making a pregnant single mother beg the Taliban not to kill her seems to have done it for St Jacinda.
I think its partly the realisation that all the lockdowns and isolation only delayed the pandemic not stopped it, as NZ now has the 4th or 5th highest case rate in the would, and is very short on test kits/capacity.
Mostly though it might be the economy, NZ I think now has one of the highest rates of inflation in the developed would.
And unlike Australia, which has high CoL, even higher wages, NZ has the brilliant combo of higher CoL and rubbish wages.
I have never been to NZ, thanks COVID. But we had some friends over from there pre-COVID and I was shocked when they went around the super market amazed at how cheap our food was, and that especially meat like lamb is just eye wateringly expensive there.
UK has some of the cheapest food in the developed world thanks to a mix of farm subsidies and a very competitive supermarket sector.
Abramovich sanctions: We will go bust, Chelsea warn government
Chelsea will hold talks with the government this afternoon, warning that the club could soon face financial ruin because of the sanctions imposed on their owner Roman Abramovich.
The club will request that a number of amendments are made to the licence that has been issued by government officials, which allows Chelsea to continue “football-related activities” but has frozen Abramovich’s asset. It means the club has been forced to cease many of its commercial activities, including future ticket sales.
Chelsea, however, will argue that they need the revenue. “If we aren’t allowed to continue operating normally we will very quickly run into the red,” a senior Stamford Bridge source told The Times.
They have a point. It is no one's interest for a major business (and part of the EPL) to go bust, that doesn't benefit Putin it just harms the UK and London economies.
There must be a way of allowing Chelsea to function as a business while denying income to Abramovich, until the mess can be sorted
Yes, I loathe Chelsea with a passion for footballing reasons, but governments pushing football clubs to the wall is just bloody stupid. No-one should want clubs to go bust. As you suggest, finding a bridging option until a sale can be made would seem wise. A points deduction is possibly valid under some circumstances, but deliberately rendering them insolvent is negligent.
Minor point of order: even the biggest of football clubs can't really be called a major business. I don't know exactly, but I would say guess Chelsea equal in size to, say, Oak Furniture Land.
Not particularly fussed about arguments about revenue though. If ticket sales are going to fund Russian tanks, then absolutely we shouldn't allow them to be selling tickets. If that's the case. Doesn't mean they can't play. Just that they can't be charging people to see it. If they can't afford to pay the wages of some mercenary professional, fine, I'm sure there's plenty of other people would like to play. I'm not deliberately misunderstanding the system here. The people who are deliberately misunderstanding the system are those who took a sport and tried to turn it into a business.
But Chelsea FC are an important part of the EPL, which is a fucking HUGE business and projects amazing soft power for the UK
It should be treated as such. Sure, carefully detach some particular oligarch, by all means, but don't destroy an historic and foundational club. That's like levelling a medieval cathedral because you hate the latest bishop
I sometimes think Brits don't understand what a massive asset the EPL is, in terms of selling the UK abroad. It is up there with the BBC, possibly bigger
It is. But Chelsea aren't a special case. They were a bankrupt basket case for a very long time. They are no more integral to the league than Sunderland, Forest or Leeds (for 20 years) were. Nor than Everton will be. There'll still be a 20 team league to sell abroad. Regardless of who is in it.
I'm certainly backing Oak Furniture Land FC's promotion push
Abramovich sanctions: We will go bust, Chelsea warn government
Chelsea will hold talks with the government this afternoon, warning that the club could soon face financial ruin because of the sanctions imposed on their owner Roman Abramovich.
The club will request that a number of amendments are made to the licence that has been issued by government officials, which allows Chelsea to continue “football-related activities” but has frozen Abramovich’s asset. It means the club has been forced to cease many of its commercial activities, including future ticket sales.
Chelsea, however, will argue that they need the revenue. “If we aren’t allowed to continue operating normally we will very quickly run into the red,” a senior Stamford Bridge source told The Times.
They have a point. It is no one's interest for a major business (and part of the EPL) to go bust, that doesn't benefit Putin it just harms the UK and London economies.
There must be a way of allowing Chelsea to function as a business while denying income to Abramovich, until the mess can be sorted
Yes, I loathe Chelsea with a passion for footballing reasons, but governments pushing football clubs to the wall is just bloody stupid. No-one should want clubs to go bust. As you suggest, finding a bridging option until a sale can be made would seem wise. A points deduction is possibly valid under some circumstances, but deliberately rendering them insolvent is negligent.
Sits uneasy with me too. It seems like it’s being done for positive publicity, but are we sure there are no loopholes such as the art market that saves all Roman’s real asset portfolio for him, whilst the devoted football fan and top English international product actually suffers?
To what extent have Arsenal beniffiteed from Putin Crony money? Their crony was much closer to Putin than Abramovich.
Why are Labour, Starmer and Corbyn so silent on Arsenal crony money 😠
Arsenal supporters?
Shhhhh 😆 don’t let my GF see this post. My girlfriend and her Dad are Arsenal fans (though he has never lived in London) he took us to two games, like watching paint dry, they lost both to nil and got proper beaten up by their opponents
Back in the day I went to see Arsenal v Spurs at the old Highbury Stadium one Boxing Day. There were no advance tickets - you just queued in the street and paid at the turnstile. Liam Brady was playing for Arsenal, I don't remember anyone else (as I'm not particularly interested in football...) But the home crowd was vicious - chanting old Mosleyite marching songs from the 1930s. Even though I lived and/or worked in the area for another 30 years I was never tempted to return.
“ chanting old Mosleyite marching songs from the 1930s “
Flipping eck alphabet. No wonder a Putin Nazi chose them. Fever Pitch alright for all wrong reasons.
Abramovich sanctions: We will go bust, Chelsea warn government
Chelsea will hold talks with the government this afternoon, warning that the club could soon face financial ruin because of the sanctions imposed on their owner Roman Abramovich.
The club will request that a number of amendments are made to the licence that has been issued by government officials, which allows Chelsea to continue “football-related activities” but has frozen Abramovich’s asset. It means the club has been forced to cease many of its commercial activities, including future ticket sales.
Chelsea, however, will argue that they need the revenue. “If we aren’t allowed to continue operating normally we will very quickly run into the red,” a senior Stamford Bridge source told The Times.
They have a point. It is no one's interest for a major business (and part of the EPL) to go bust, that doesn't benefit Putin it just harms the UK and London economies.
There must be a way of allowing Chelsea to function as a business while denying income to Abramovich, until the mess can be sorted
Yes, I loathe Chelsea with a passion for footballing reasons, but governments pushing football clubs to the wall is just bloody stupid. No-one should want clubs to go bust. As you suggest, finding a bridging option until a sale can be made would seem wise. A points deduction is possibly valid under some circumstances, but deliberately rendering them insolvent is negligent.
Minor point of order: even the biggest of football clubs can't really be called a major business. I don't know exactly, but I would say guess Chelsea equal in size to, say, Oak Furniture Land.
Not particularly fussed about arguments about revenue though. If ticket sales are going to fund Russian tanks, then absolutely we shouldn't allow them to be selling tickets. If that's the case. Doesn't mean they can't play. Just that they can't be charging people to see it. If they can't afford to pay the wages of some mercenary professional, fine, I'm sure there's plenty of other people would like to play. I'm not deliberately misunderstanding the system here. The people who are deliberately misunderstanding the system are those who took a sport and tried to turn it into a business.
But Chelsea FC are an important part of the EPL, which is a fucking HUGE business and projects amazing soft power for the UK
It should be treated as such. Sure, carefully detach some particular oligarch, by all means, but don't destroy an historic and foundational club. That's like levelling a medieval cathedral because you hate the latest bishop
I sometimes think Brits don't understand what a massive asset the EPL is, in terms of selling the UK abroad. It is up there with the BBC, possibly bigger
It is. But Chelsea aren't a special case. They were a bankrupt basket case for a very long time. They are no more integral to the league than Sunderland, Forest or Leeds (for 20 years) were. Nor than Everton will be. There'll still be a 20 team league to sell abroad. Regardless of who is in it.
I'm certainly backing Oak Furniture Land FC's promotion push
Moronic Governments of all flavours still insist exercise = weight loss. Rubbish.
The secret to losing weight is very simple, eat fewer calories. Yet we seem to gloss over this.
If you ate a Big Mac every day for a lifetime you'd never get fat, not enough calories. You would have all sorts of issues but it's not what people eat, it is the quantity.
I’m not sure about that.
Mathematically you are correct, but calories from protein seem to be less fattening than calories from carbs and sugar.
Fasting seems to speeds up overall calorie burn.
And frequent exercise is highly correlated with weight loss.
Thirty minutes of exercise a day is not going to put you into a caloric deficit on average. Not when the average person is something like 500+ calories over their caloric maintenance.
Halving one meal a day would go much further to cutting weight than exercise.
I am fully in support of exercise - but it is not a weight loss strategy on its own.
If people are on average 500+ calories above maintenance level then shouldn't they keep getting fatter and fatter until they explode?
The more weight you gain, the more calories you need to maintain it, so at some point the two line up. But people that keep eating do keep getting larger and larger and larger, so yes.
Obviously, the heavier you are, the more energy it takes to drag yourself around, and therefore the maintenance calorie level rises.
But you wrote "the average person is something like 500+ calories over their caloric maintenance".
And I stand by that, the average person is something like 500 calories over. Every year obesity gets worse which would support that statement.
Calories in/calories out. Eating absolutely loads while doing mad exercise is one of life's great pleasures.
Otherwise, sleep enough so you don't crave sugar rush to bear tiredness. Drink water to keep stomach full, and carb up before you do your weekly shop (makes crisps look much less appetising).
Well said.
I've been bulking for the last year or so - just finished - and have put on about 15KG of muscle. It's been a pleasurable experience being able to eat lots.
15kg of MUSCLE...are you sure? How many PEDs have you been taking....your pee must be like the colour of a rusty pipe.
About 0.25kg a week, you can gain about 0.5kg in early training (which I am in).
Yes I am pretty sure. We can round it down to 10kg if you'd like but I am still as lean as I was because I've bulked so slowly.
NZ: National is now outpolling Labour in both major polls.
This seemed eminently avoidable for Jacinda. The utter cock up with omicron there: trying useless restrictions like vaxports that have failed everywhere and leaning on extreme isolation rules was just stupid. Overall NZ has had an excellent pandemic but recency bias has probably done for her.
(YouGov/ITV Cymru Wales/Wales Governance Centre; 1,086; 25 Feb-1 Mar 2022)
Landslide win for Labour.
GE2024, Labour Government almost certainly.
Welsh poll They were +5 even in 2019
+5 becomes +15
Boris = Bozo
Wales will be a lot closer by GE24 with a hard left government enacting job destroying policies, a failing NHS, and in North Wales a tourist tax of all things
Wales is implementing a tourist tax?!
Yes
I like the conceit that Wales is SO seductive it can afford to tax the odd person who ends up there through no fault of their own
Gonnae be 10x higher in Penarth I hear.
I had a sad little private bet with myself that you would be the first to make this remark; I won
It's becoming a thing in Edinburgh with a tourist tax and controls on Airbnbs.
Given the council trashes Princes Street gardens every year and generally takes the piss (see the tram works in Leith right now - delayed, again), they aren't doing it for the benefit of people who actually live here.
Sure. But Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and Scotland has the Highlands and Islands. The weather ain't great, but if you go you are guaranteed spectacle and majesty, and lots of fabulous history
Wales, which I am very fond of, does not really have these things. A tourist tax seems ambitious
There's potential. As a mountain kind of guy, Snowdonia is good, but doesn't get a proper winter season like we enjoy up north. And the whole of Manchester is there.
Fishguard and the Llyn peninsula were both great.
Actually I'd say the most beautiful part of Wales is the most ignored: the Marches. The bit where it meets England. In Herefordshire and Shropshire (and their equivalents in Wales - Powys? Brecknockshire?!) it produces some of the most quietly beautiful countryside on the planet. And mostly unspoiled, and speckled with Norman castles and medieval churches, and really good gastropubs
Yes, I agree. Absolutely lovely. The best bike ride I ever did was in that neck of the woods - Lyonshall to Painscastle, over the Begwns via the Roundabout, Glasbury, Hay, Eardisley, Almely, Lyonshall. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Have you ever heard of the Begwns? I hadn't, before I went there. The view from there over Hay to the Black Mountains is one of the loveliest in Britain. An absolutely magical spot, especially at dawn or dusk. But if you're visiting the Marches, do you stay in Radnor, or do you stay in Kington, where everything is suddenly £3 per person more competitive than over the border?
Lyonshall (plus various numbers and symbols!) is one of my go-to passwords
I was lucky enough to grow up in Herefordshire, I didn't really appreciate its beauty until almost too late - age 17, when I got my first motorbike, and was truly mobile. But then I went for it. Zipping around the lanes and hills of the Marches, up to Hergest Ridge, down to Hay Bluff, over to Craswall, the Olchon, down to Tintern, over to Rhayader, Symond's Yat, Kilpeck. Eardisley, Grosmont, Garway, it is sublime sublime sublime
Back then, tho, the food was rubbish. Now it is gorgeous. Great chefs using the amazing local Anglo-Welsh produce
All it lacks is the sea, but then, that is probably why it is still unspoiled and relatively untouristed. It is still oddly remote and hard to reach. No motorways
I've had a few weekends away in Herefordshire. Chosen entirely arbitrarily in trying to find a house which could accommodate 11 families (my friends from school and their families) - we did a couple of years in Lyonshall and one in the Wye Valley. Absolutely lovely. Very little there in terms of Things To Do, but the countryside is some of the most joy-inspiring in England. Lovely little pubs, pleasant walks, and three days of utter happiness.
Ooh, and while we're on about the marches, a word for my second favourite stone circle: Mitchell's Fold, in South West Shropshire, just on the border with Wales. Best viewed on a freezing dusk; England soft to one side, Wales hard to the other.
OK, I'll bite: what is your favourite stone circle?
Given your background I'm going to have a guess: Castlerigg
If so, good choice. Certainly in my top 10 of GLOBAL stone circles
Top 10 list of stone circles! LOL
Mate, I could do a top 50! I love megaliths, if I go anywhere and find out there is some mysterious ancient stone monument nearby, I practically orgasm
And now you've set me off. Here are my top ten megalithic monuments of the world
10. Newgrange, Ireland 9. Avebury, England 8. Carnac, France 7. Castlerigg, England 6. Uragh, Ireland 5. Callanish, Scotland 4. Ggantija, Malta 3. Brodgar, Orkney 2. Stonehenge, England 1. Gobekli Tepe, Turkey
And I have seen them all
This might be mis-remembered nonsense: On Orkney there are two standing stones with holes in them, miles apart.
If you line them both up it directs you down the entrance tunnel to Maes Howe. Which is also aligned with the setting sun on the solstice, bathing the chamber in light.
It doesn't work any more as the axis of the earth had shifted since then.
Moronic Governments of all flavours still insist exercise = weight loss. Rubbish.
The secret to losing weight is very simple, eat fewer calories. Yet we seem to gloss over this.
If you ate a Big Mac every day for a lifetime you'd never get fat, not enough calories. You would have all sorts of issues but it's not what people eat, it is the quantity.
I’m not sure about that.
Mathematically you are correct, but calories from protein seem to be less fattening than calories from carbs and sugar.
Fasting seems to speeds up overall calorie burn.
And frequent exercise is highly correlated with weight loss.
Thirty minutes of exercise a day is not going to put you into a caloric deficit on average. Not when the average person is something like 500+ calories over their caloric maintenance.
Halving one meal a day would go much further to cutting weight than exercise.
I am fully in support of exercise - but it is not a weight loss strategy on its own.
If people are on average 500+ calories above maintenance level then shouldn't they keep getting fatter and fatter until they explode?
The more weight you gain, the more calories you need to maintain it, so at some point the two line up. But people that keep eating do keep getting larger and larger and larger, so yes.
Obviously, the heavier you are, the more energy it takes to drag yourself around, and therefore the maintenance calorie level rises.
But you wrote "the average person is something like 500+ calories over their caloric maintenance".
And I stand by that, the average person is something like 500 calories over. Every year obesity gets worse which would support that statement.
Calories in/calories out. Eating absolutely loads while doing mad exercise is one of life's great pleasures.
Otherwise, sleep enough so you don't crave sugar rush to bear tiredness. Drink water to keep stomach full, and carb up before you do your weekly shop (makes crisps look much less appetising).
Well said.
I've been bulking for the last year or so - just finished - and have put on about 15KG of muscle. It's been a pleasurable experience being able to eat lots.
15kg of MUSCLE...are you sure? How many PEDs have you been taking....your pee must be like the colour of a rusty pipe.
About 0.25kg a week, you can gain about 0.5kg in early training (which I am in).
Yes I am pretty sure. We can round it down to 10kg if you'd like but I am still as lean as I was because I've bulked so slowly.
(YouGov/ITV Cymru Wales/Wales Governance Centre; 1,086; 25 Feb-1 Mar 2022)
Landslide win for Labour.
GE2024, Labour Government almost certainly.
Welsh poll They were +5 even in 2019
+5 becomes +15
Boris = Bozo
Wales will be a lot closer by GE24 with a hard left government enacting job destroying policies, a failing NHS, and in North Wales a tourist tax of all things
Wales is implementing a tourist tax?!
Yes
I like the conceit that Wales is SO seductive it can afford to tax the odd person who ends up there through no fault of their own
Gonnae be 10x higher in Penarth I hear.
I had a sad little private bet with myself that you would be the first to make this remark; I won
It's becoming a thing in Edinburgh with a tourist tax and controls on Airbnbs.
Given the council trashes Princes Street gardens every year and generally takes the piss (see the tram works in Leith right now - delayed, again), they aren't doing it for the benefit of people who actually live here.
Sure. But Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and Scotland has the Highlands and Islands. The weather ain't great, but if you go you are guaranteed spectacle and majesty, and lots of fabulous history
Wales, which I am very fond of, does not really have these things. A tourist tax seems ambitious
There's potential. As a mountain kind of guy, Snowdonia is good, but doesn't get a proper winter season like we enjoy up north. And the whole of Manchester is there.
Fishguard and the Llyn peninsula were both great.
Actually I'd say the most beautiful part of Wales is the most ignored: the Marches. The bit where it meets England. In Herefordshire and Shropshire (and their equivalents in Wales - Powys? Brecknockshire?!) it produces some of the most quietly beautiful countryside on the planet. And mostly unspoiled, and speckled with Norman castles and medieval churches, and really good gastropubs
Yes, I agree. Absolutely lovely. The best bike ride I ever did was in that neck of the woods - Lyonshall to Painscastle, over the Begwns via the Roundabout, Glasbury, Hay, Eardisley, Almely, Lyonshall. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Have you ever heard of the Begwns? I hadn't, before I went there. The view from there over Hay to the Black Mountains is one of the loveliest in Britain. An absolutely magical spot, especially at dawn or dusk. But if you're visiting the Marches, do you stay in Radnor, or do you stay in Kington, where everything is suddenly £3 per person more competitive than over the border?
Lyonshall (plus various numbers and symbols!) is one of my go-to passwords
I was lucky enough to grow up in Herefordshire, I didn't really appreciate its beauty until almost too late - age 17, when I got my first motorbike, and was truly mobile. But then I went for it. Zipping around the lanes and hills of the Marches, up to Hergest Ridge, down to Hay Bluff, over to Craswall, the Olchon, down to Tintern, over to Rhayader, Symond's Yat, Kilpeck. Eardisley, Grosmont, Garway, it is sublime sublime sublime
Back then, tho, the food was rubbish. Now it is gorgeous. Great chefs using the amazing local Anglo-Welsh produce
All it lacks is the sea, but then, that is probably why it is still unspoiled and relatively untouristed. It is still oddly remote and hard to reach. No motorways
I've had a few weekends away in Herefordshire. Chosen entirely arbitrarily in trying to find a house which could accommodate 11 families (my friends from school and their families) - we did a couple of years in Lyonshall and one in the Wye Valley. Absolutely lovely. Very little there in terms of Things To Do, but the countryside is some of the most joy-inspiring in England. Lovely little pubs, pleasant walks, and three days of utter happiness.
Ooh, and while we're on about the marches, a word for my second favourite stone circle: Mitchell's Fold, in South West Shropshire, just on the border with Wales. Best viewed on a freezing dusk; England soft to one side, Wales hard to the other.
OK, I'll bite: what is your favourite stone circle?
Given your background I'm going to have a guess: Castlerigg
If so, good choice. Certainly in my top 10 of GLOBAL stone circles
Top 10 list of stone circles! LOL
Mate, I could do a top 50! I love megaliths, if I go anywhere and find out there is some mysterious ancient stone monument nearby, I practically orgasm
And now you've set me off. Here are my top ten megalithic monuments of the world
10. Newgrange, Ireland 9. Avebury, England 8. Carnac, France 7. Castlerigg, England 6. Uragh, Ireland 5. Callanish, Scotland 4. Ggantija, Malta 3. Brodgar, Orkney 2. Stonehenge, England 1. Gobekli Tepe, Turkey
And I have seen them all
This might be mis-remembered nonsense: On Orkney there are two standing stones with holes in them, miles apart.
If you line them both up it directs you down the entrance tunnel to Maes Howe. Which is also aligned with the setting sun on the solstice, bathing the chamber in light.
It doesn't work any more as the axis of the earth had shifted since then.
(YouGov/ITV Cymru Wales/Wales Governance Centre; 1,086; 25 Feb-1 Mar 2022)
Landslide win for Labour.
GE2024, Labour Government almost certainly.
Welsh poll They were +5 even in 2019
+5 becomes +15
Boris = Bozo
Wales will be a lot closer by GE24 with a hard left government enacting job destroying policies, a failing NHS, and in North Wales a tourist tax of all things
Wales is implementing a tourist tax?!
Yes
I like the conceit that Wales is SO seductive it can afford to tax the odd person who ends up there through no fault of their own
Gonnae be 10x higher in Penarth I hear.
I had a sad little private bet with myself that you would be the first to make this remark; I won
It's becoming a thing in Edinburgh with a tourist tax and controls on Airbnbs.
Given the council trashes Princes Street gardens every year and generally takes the piss (see the tram works in Leith right now - delayed, again), they aren't doing it for the benefit of people who actually live here.
Sure. But Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and Scotland has the Highlands and Islands. The weather ain't great, but if you go you are guaranteed spectacle and majesty, and lots of fabulous history
Wales, which I am very fond of, does not really have these things. A tourist tax seems ambitious
There's potential. As a mountain kind of guy, Snowdonia is good, but doesn't get a proper winter season like we enjoy up north. And the whole of Manchester is there.
Fishguard and the Llyn peninsula were both great.
Actually I'd say the most beautiful part of Wales is the most ignored: the Marches. The bit where it meets England. In Herefordshire and Shropshire (and their equivalents in Wales - Powys? Brecknockshire?!) it produces some of the most quietly beautiful countryside on the planet. And mostly unspoiled, and speckled with Norman castles and medieval churches, and really good gastropubs
Yes, I agree. Absolutely lovely. The best bike ride I ever did was in that neck of the woods - Lyonshall to Painscastle, over the Begwns via the Roundabout, Glasbury, Hay, Eardisley, Almely, Lyonshall. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Have you ever heard of the Begwns? I hadn't, before I went there. The view from there over Hay to the Black Mountains is one of the loveliest in Britain. An absolutely magical spot, especially at dawn or dusk. But if you're visiting the Marches, do you stay in Radnor, or do you stay in Kington, where everything is suddenly £3 per person more competitive than over the border?
Lyonshall (plus various numbers and symbols!) is one of my go-to passwords
I was lucky enough to grow up in Herefordshire, I didn't really appreciate its beauty until almost too late - age 17, when I got my first motorbike, and was truly mobile. But then I went for it. Zipping around the lanes and hills of the Marches, up to Hergest Ridge, down to Hay Bluff, over to Craswall, the Olchon, down to Tintern, over to Rhayader, Symond's Yat, Kilpeck. Eardisley, Grosmont, Garway, it is sublime sublime sublime
Back then, tho, the food was rubbish. Now it is gorgeous. Great chefs using the amazing local Anglo-Welsh produce
All it lacks is the sea, but then, that is probably why it is still unspoiled and relatively untouristed. It is still oddly remote and hard to reach. No motorways
I've had a few weekends away in Herefordshire. Chosen entirely arbitrarily in trying to find a house which could accommodate 11 families (my friends from school and their families) - we did a couple of years in Lyonshall and one in the Wye Valley. Absolutely lovely. Very little there in terms of Things To Do, but the countryside is some of the most joy-inspiring in England. Lovely little pubs, pleasant walks, and three days of utter happiness.
Ooh, and while we're on about the marches, a word for my second favourite stone circle: Mitchell's Fold, in South West Shropshire, just on the border with Wales. Best viewed on a freezing dusk; England soft to one side, Wales hard to the other.
OK, I'll bite: what is your favourite stone circle?
Given your background I'm going to have a guess: Castlerigg
If so, good choice. Certainly in my top 10 of GLOBAL stone circles
Scorhill stone circle near Chagford
Scorhill is definitely atmospheric. Not a top tenner, tho
If I had to choose one in Dartmoor it would be Grey Wethers. Apparently humble, yet exceedingly eerie when you get there
Comments
I'd rather see the top flight staffed by players I know something about and can identify with.
In the 1980s, I could name a good handful of first team players of pretty much every top flight team. Because they were much the same as last year. Familiarity was part of the story. Now, they come in from Lille, and go off a year later to Milan. Much harder to keep track of, and frankly, there is less incentive to do so.
And very difficult to like players who are in such different worlds. You used to see Gary Pallister in the lane next to you at the bowling alley, Paul Ince pushing the baby in the park. Now they're all off in a gated community somewhere.
It's the lament of old men the world over that things were better in their day. But that's honestly the way I see it. I don't mind the odd sprinkling of foreigners, but it's very hard to care who wins a match between two arbitrary teams of professionals drawn from all over the world.
Look at this. This is how I used to feel about football.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCm3bS6wXvk
I know in practice there were a lot of turgid and dull 1-0s. But I honestly don't think the quality of entertainment is any better.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/10/afghanistan-even-worse-ukraine-war-denounced-russian-state/
But Chelsea aren't a special case. They were a bankrupt basket case for a very long time. They are no more integral to the league than Sunderland, Forest or Leeds (for 20 years) were.
Nor than Everton will be.
There'll still be a 20 team league to sell abroad.
Regardless of who is in it.
My point is that exercise is not the magic bullet to weight loss as it is often sold. If overweight people cut down the caloric intake they'd see a much bigger impact. People give up and quit because they see no impact.
I was lucky enough to grow up in Herefordshire, I didn't really appreciate its beauty until almost too late - age 17, when I got my first motorbike, and was truly mobile. But then I went for it. Zipping around the lanes and hills of the Marches, up to Hergest Ridge, down to Hay Bluff, over to Craswall, the Olchon, down to Tintern, over to Rhayader, Symond's Yat, Kilpeck. Eardisley, Grosmont, Garway, it is sublime sublime sublime
Back then, tho, the food was rubbish. Now it is gorgeous. Great chefs using the amazing local Anglo-Welsh produce
All it lacks is the sea, but then, that is probably why it is still unspoiled and relatively untouristed. It is still oddly remote and hard to reach. No motorways
There were usually more foreign players in England than English players abroad by some distance after the overseas ban was lifted in 78-79.
That’s a good find HY! 🙂 have you got TASS on speed dial. I didn’t actually go looking for quote from TASS, the Russian news agency, I thought maybe people would disbelieve it on here, can we be sure he did actually say that, even if it was just what we wanted to hear, can we trust TASS, I checked BBC and French press for same thing.
The next bit, "I would first and foremost like to restore our military sovereignty. France, who has nuclear deterrent forces, should be independent and should not depend on the US in terms of arms production," Melenchon added. That makes him sound very much the French Nationalist? That line might actually be popular with a lot of the French electorate? Especially post AUKUS double dealing? It doesn’t prove Melenchon is pro Putin because De Gaulle was not Pro Kremlin when he took France out NATO. France only rejoined NATO in 2009, when de gaule took them out they were out 44 years, so it’s not such a wild proposition for the French electorate out NATO as for UK? Especially with this Ukraine situation playing in this French election.
“"Why do we have to protect Ukraine’s borders?" Melenchon said. As it turned out, we didn’t, as last evening on PB showed we are watching Putin place Ukraine borders where he wants, without UK and France defending them, leaving Melenchon position very little different than the UK governments now, and probably just a tad more honest and straight speaking about it ☹️
All I’m saying is, as political bettors, we shouldn’t view French election as though it was English. The fact they have been out NATO those 44 years recently shows they are different, far more independent minded and nationalist than the English. And a lot of very local factors could play a part in French election this year, I’ll give you one example, there’s a lot of clear yellow between Macron on one side and the Yellowjacket candidates Melenchon and Le Pen regarding credit crunch, pension age, unfair tax system.
God, I've got the horn for getting back to Rome, particularly with a couple of new places to go.
Strangely it even seems to be denting exports *outside* the EU, perhaps because it’s buggered some manufacturers ability to get parts etc.
https://twitter.com/johnspringford/status/1501966414080532481?s=21
What are the rights and wrongs of that? I think they're entitled to decide who they want as customers, in the same way as a pub landlord can decline to serve someone with dodgy-looking mates, and as pressures on Russia go it's a pretty minor one. But I'd have thought they're on shaky legal ground to retain (and presumably earn interest) on cash given them for a service they aren't providing. Refunding the money might actually be difficult with the collapse of foreign exchange with Russia, though, and I don't fancy the chance of any Russian player trying to sue.
But you wrote "the average person is something like 500+ calories over their caloric maintenance".
Happy to answer your questions of things you don’t know Robert, football must be a chink in your armour of knowledge 😌
Which result do you look for 5pm UK time on Saturdays then?
Mosely is one of the few people who doesn't sell exercise as a get thin quick strategy.
Up to them who their customers are - though I really don't think it much benefits anyone to exclude them, just as I'm not sure it benefits anyone to stop selling Netflix to Russians, but that's a separate issue. But not letting them have their money is a bit dodgy.
It was pretty quiet then (30 years ago, eek) but the roads are no doubt a lot busier today. Perhaps it wouldn't be quite as fun now (and no doubt Hay Bluff would be more of a struggle!)
It was actually rather fantastic - to come back to a place fearing it may have been despoiled, but in truth it was much better. Hereford has become a slightly chic city (incredibly), and the countryside is now dotted with excellent eateries. Yet almost zero crowds, as always
Yay
Nothing like the original owners, who even when banned from the US, managed to get all the money to the players (as well as buying Full Tilt and paying the balances for that operator as well).
Ooh, and while we're on about the marches, a word for my second favourite stone circle: Mitchell's Fold, in South West Shropshire, just on the border with Wales. Best viewed on a freezing dusk; England soft to one side, Wales hard to the other.
... apart from the M50.
Otherwise, sleep enough so you don't crave sugar rush to bear tiredness. Drink water to keep stomach full, and carb up before you do your weekly shop (makes crisps look much less appetising).
I know a couple of people who were regular SNE. One who achieved SNE in a single 1 month. Crypto people now.
Given your background I'm going to have a guess: Castlerigg
If so, good choice. Certainly in my top 10 of GLOBAL stone circles
Let's not forget this is a country in which it is very hard to dissent against the government.
Maybe that's the problem that as such a large operator they can't be seen to be moving large amount of money to Russia at this time. However, I don't know, as paying balances out is the absolute normal when a betting operator closes or merges.
They were part of the integrated planning for WWIII all through those years, paying into the various common funds, providing tons of staff at NATO headquarters etc etc.
EDIT: One thing about NATO that seems to get missed is that it is a very variable geometry alliance - there are some minima requirements to be a member, but after that then nature of the relationship a country has with NATO is quite flexible.
We have spent the day at a hotel on the outskirts of Lille.
It is one of several where refugees, hoping to make it to Britain, are staying.
There are 50 people here, and they were brought here because of a visa application centre being set up by the Home Office, 70 miles from Calais.
It was where Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told MPs it would be.
The Home Office said it would be opening today.
Despite insistence from Home Offices sources, however, that a centre in Lille does exist, we have not found anyone here who has been able to access it or even knows where it is.
Now, it's emerged that a centre will be opening in Arras, 40 miles from here, on Friday.”
Is there a chance, eventually at some point, some Ukraine Refugees will actually defeat the UK government and find a way into Britain?
I've been bulking for the last year or so - just finished - and have put on about 15KG of muscle. It's been a pleasurable experience being able to eat lots.
If I had to choose one in Dartmoor it would be Grey Wethers. Apparently humble, yet exceedingly eerie when you get there
http://www.stone-circles.org.uk/stone/greywethers.htm
Mostly though it might be the economy, NZ I think now has one of the highest rates of inflation in the developed would.
Otherwise what sort of sanctions would Arsenal have on them today?
Jacinda has always been crap, and she’s running out of road now that the cost of living is an issue.
The new National guy has promised tax cuts, too. Keir Starmer, take note.
"Whoever keeps those Arizona iced teas at $0.99 should be in charge of inflation"
And now you've set me off. Here are my top ten megalithic monuments of the world
10. Newgrange, Ireland
9. Avebury, England
8. Carnac, France
7. Castlerigg, England
6. Uragh, Ireland
5. Callanish, Scotland
4. Ggantija, Malta
3. Brodgar, Orkney
2. Stonehenge, England
1. Gobekli Tepe, Turkey
And I have seen them all
Flipping eck alphabet. No wonder a Putin Nazi chose them. Fever Pitch alright for all wrong reasons.
Cedar I did there? Elm on fire tonight.
Yes I am pretty sure. We can round it down to 10kg if you'd like but I am still as lean as I was because I've bulked so slowly.
Perfectly normal Gallic behaviour. Do not be alarmed.
If you line them both up it directs you down the entrance tunnel to Maes Howe. Which is also aligned with the setting sun on the solstice, bathing the chamber in light.
It doesn't work any more as the axis of the earth had shifted since then.