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In England only in London does Starmer have a “Best PM” lead over Johnson – politicalbetting.com

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  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    Carnyx said:

    Given the background of most of the pseudo anarchist idiots who are involved in these stunts, mummy and daddy probably live in even bigger houses than the one they broke into.

    Guaranteed a Quentin, Tarquin, or Sheridan is involved.
    On their 8th year studying for a PhD exploring the institutional sexist and racist structures of the medieval pottery industry in the UK at f##k sticks new metropolitan university....
    PB's ongoing narrative of sneering academic snobbery shifts into overdrive.
    Indeed. One of the most important variables is the course one is studying. Unless of course it's not so much academic but social snobbery that is involved. You know, getting into Christ Church and the Oxford Union. I wonder why those Tories who went to places like Aberystwyth even bother, sometimes, given the emphasis placed by PBTories.
    Well it veers from "only Russell Group STEM (or Classics) firsts are worthy, and redbrick poly Desmonds don't count" to "I graduated from the University of Life, and redbrick poly Desmonds don't count".
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,051
    kyf_100 said:

    TOPPING said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    @Heathener seems to be a pretty gung ho advocate of more intervention in Ukraine and berates Western leaders for being so lilly-livered.

    She also repeatedly said that the virus isn't over and advocated more pro-active measures

    She has been called both a Russian and a Ukrainian propaganda spammer so must be doing something right.

    Apparently she has a dodgy IP address which I am told renders all her posts and arguments redundant but I'm not 100% sure why.

    Other than that nothing that I can see.
    There is a distinct vein of "guilty until proved innocent" running through PB today. Is it a McCarthyite, reds-under-the-bed spasm, or are we heading for full on martial law as PB prepares for a war footing?
    Found another one.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468

    Carnyx said:

    Given the background of most of the pseudo anarchist idiots who are involved in these stunts, mummy and daddy probably live in even bigger houses than the one they broke into.

    Guaranteed a Quentin, Tarquin, or Sheridan is involved.
    On their 8th year studying for a PhD exploring the institutional sexist and racist structures of the medieval pottery industry in the UK at f##k sticks new metropolitan university....
    PB's ongoing narrative of sneering academic snobbery shifts into overdrive.
    Indeed. One of the most important variables is the course one is studying. Unless of course it's not so much academic but social snobbery that is involved. You know, getting into Christ Church and the Oxford Union. I wonder why those Tories who went to places like Aberystwyth even bother, sometimes, given the emphasis placed by PBTories.
    Well it veers from "only Russell Group STEM (or Classics) firsts are worthy, and redbrick poly Desmonds don't count" to "I graduated from the University of Life, and redbrick poly Desmonds don't count".
    And there I was thinking that 8 of the 9 redbricks were in the Russell Group.
  • UnpopularUnpopular Posts: 882

    Andy_JS said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    Based in Mother Russia....
    Why am I not shocked?
    Not quite that - IP on a blacklist.

    That could well be an IP from a troll farm, but not conclusive.
    What if Heathener was initially employed by a troll farm in Russia to spread misinformation on the site, but instead found joy in engaging in the free and full debate of PB, a small act of defiance slowly being awoken by our acerbic wit and cutting insight.

    Also, I wish someone would pay me to post here, my offerings would be a lot more frequent if someone was paying for my time.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    Carnyx said:

    Given the background of most of the pseudo anarchist idiots who are involved in these stunts, mummy and daddy probably live in even bigger houses than the one they broke into.

    Guaranteed a Quentin, Tarquin, or Sheridan is involved.
    On their 8th year studying for a PhD exploring the institutional sexist and racist structures of the medieval pottery industry in the UK at f##k sticks new metropolitan university....
    PB's ongoing narrative of sneering academic snobbery shifts into overdrive.
    Indeed. One of the most important variables is the course one is studying. Unless of course it's not so much academic but social snobbery that is involved. You know, getting into Christ Church and the Oxford Union. I wonder why those Tories who went to places like Aberystwyth even bother, sometimes, given the emphasis placed by PBTories.
    My wife has an Oxford degree and I went to Warwick for my undergrad degree.

    Though the Tory party is actually less posh than ever, only 29% of Tory MPs elected in 2019 went to Oxbridge, just 8% more than the 28% of LD MPs who went to Oxbridge and 8% more than the 21% of Labour MPs who went to Oxbridge.

    A long way from the peak of 1997 when 51% of Tory MPs went to Oxbridge
    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7483/CBP-7483.pdf
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486
    TimT said:

    Thanks everyone responding re Heathener. While I often did not agree with him/her, I admit I would not have taken the totality of posts under that name as coming from a Russian bot.

    Really don’t think Heathener is a Russian bot at all. Because I’m very sad and had time this morning I went through her posts to see if it was plausible and she’s clearly not a Russian bot based on the vast majority of her posts - just has a slightly different worldview and is quite extreme on positions re Covid/beating maskless shoppers with her walking stick, NFZ and especially Leon !!

    Also very capable of blistering analysis as we all are occasionally.


  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,249
    biggles said:

    kyf_100 said:

    TOPPING said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    @Heathener seems to be a pretty gung ho advocate of more intervention in Ukraine and berates Western leaders for being so lilly-livered.

    She also repeatedly said that the virus isn't over and advocated more pro-active measures

    She has been called both a Russian and a Ukrainian propaganda spammer so must be doing something right.

    Apparently she has a dodgy IP address which I am told renders all her posts and arguments redundant but I'm not 100% sure why.

    Other than that nothing that I can see.
    There is a distinct vein of "guilty until proved innocent" running through PB today. Is it a McCarthyite, reds-under-the-bed spasm, or are we heading for full on martial law as PB prepares for a war footing?
    Found another one.
    biggles said:

    kyf_100 said:

    TOPPING said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    @Heathener seems to be a pretty gung ho advocate of more intervention in Ukraine and berates Western leaders for being so lilly-livered.

    She also repeatedly said that the virus isn't over and advocated more pro-active measures

    She has been called both a Russian and a Ukrainian propaganda spammer so must be doing something right.

    Apparently she has a dodgy IP address which I am told renders all her posts and arguments redundant but I'm not 100% sure why.

    Other than that nothing that I can see.
    There is a distinct vein of "guilty until proved innocent" running through PB today. Is it a McCarthyite, reds-under-the-bed spasm, or are we heading for full on martial law as PB prepares for a war footing?
    Found another one.
    On a serious note.

    I've been told be friends who moderate other discussion groups, that Russian trolls seem to come in 2 forms. One is crude, Putin is Awesome etc. The other uses the "I'm anti-Putin, but" schtick. The later is much rarer, since it requires more effort.

    Apparently, evaporating when question about their location - i.e. someone claiming to be a South Korean, who uses a spam IP in another country - is a standard response.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,647
    edited March 2022
    Unpopular said:

    Andy_JS said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    Based in Mother Russia....
    Why am I not shocked?
    Not quite that - IP on a blacklist.

    That could well be an IP from a troll farm, but not conclusive.
    What if Heathener was initially employed by a troll farm in Russia to spread misinformation on the site, but instead found joy in engaging in the free and full debate of PB, a small act of defiance slowly being awoken by our acerbic wit and cutting insight.

    Also, I wish someone would pay me to post here, my offerings would be a lot more frequent if someone was paying for my time.
    If Heathener really does have a former career in intelligence then he/she/they might be concealing their identity for that reason alone.

    I'm not sure how VPNs react with the blacklist thing OGH is using.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,164

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    MISTY said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted FPT)
    I think that Johnson will ride out the Lebedev issues. He will keep saying that the security services never issued any meaningful warnings about him. I still haven't seen any significant evidence that Lebedev is a malign influence, other than he had a line to Putin - not unexpected for someone in his position. How Lebedev got to be where he is, and where all his money came from, is an interesting question; but Boris Johnson cannot be blamed for that.

    Johnson's luck is astounding.

    Ukraine has enabled him to get beyond partygate, keep covid blunders out of the headlines, turn immigration around from a very unpromising place, bury tax rises and find an excuse to finesse energy policy beyond net zero.

    And then there's inflation......Food prices? Petrol costs? Vlad's fault guvnor.

    Its almost tailor made.
    Is politics like sport, where good teams have skill and bad teams always complain that they don't have luck?
    There's been a growing sense of alarm ⏰ and panic from some of our left-wing posters of a nervous disposition - the watch for the RW Monday poll must be agonising for them - 2 hours 30 minutes still to go! The soothing London poll earlier is already wearing off not helped by this latest header.
    Firstly, not all politics is left right, Tory Labour, there’s those of us right of centre voting Lib Dem who are actually torn between getting the popcorn in for the inevitable castration of big dog on one hand and sympathy for sensible minded Tories on the other, unluckily lumbered with this albatross of a PM Much longer than natural because of this terrible crisis situation .

    other pollsters are available for a more peer reviewed picture, rather than swigging just the medicine you like the sound of.

    another way to look at it would be, here is the table when news dominated by an extra ordinary crisis, where even Doug Ross has withdrawn his letter to the 1922, what could this table look like in more normal times? So as a fun ending antidote to Mike’s fake tease of a header, I can actually show you the real state of play today, if it wasn’t for War Crisis rally round flag bounce.

    image
    I have no clue what your point is and care rather less.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,051

    biggles said:

    kyf_100 said:

    TOPPING said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    @Heathener seems to be a pretty gung ho advocate of more intervention in Ukraine and berates Western leaders for being so lilly-livered.

    She also repeatedly said that the virus isn't over and advocated more pro-active measures

    She has been called both a Russian and a Ukrainian propaganda spammer so must be doing something right.

    Apparently she has a dodgy IP address which I am told renders all her posts and arguments redundant but I'm not 100% sure why.

    Other than that nothing that I can see.
    There is a distinct vein of "guilty until proved innocent" running through PB today. Is it a McCarthyite, reds-under-the-bed spasm, or are we heading for full on martial law as PB prepares for a war footing?
    Found another one.
    biggles said:

    kyf_100 said:

    TOPPING said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    @Heathener seems to be a pretty gung ho advocate of more intervention in Ukraine and berates Western leaders for being so lilly-livered.

    She also repeatedly said that the virus isn't over and advocated more pro-active measures

    She has been called both a Russian and a Ukrainian propaganda spammer so must be doing something right.

    Apparently she has a dodgy IP address which I am told renders all her posts and arguments redundant but I'm not 100% sure why.

    Other than that nothing that I can see.
    There is a distinct vein of "guilty until proved innocent" running through PB today. Is it a McCarthyite, reds-under-the-bed spasm, or are we heading for full on martial law as PB prepares for a war footing?
    Found another one.
    On a serious note.

    I've been told be friends who moderate other discussion groups, that Russian trolls seem to come in 2 forms. One is crude, Putin is Awesome etc. The other uses the "I'm anti-Putin, but" schtick. The later is much rarer, since it requires more effort.

    Apparently, evaporating when question about their location - i.e. someone claiming to be a South Korean, who uses a spam IP in another country - is a standard response.
    I do find the topic interesting, especially the idea that you can automate a lot of it on the likes of Twitter. It would be fascinating to pick an issue that doesn’t matter and run an experiment using all the same methods to see how far you could tip the polling, then release the whole thing to the public to make the point. Hard to think of the right issue or manage the ethics though.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,786
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Given the background of most of the pseudo anarchist idiots who are involved in these stunts, mummy and daddy probably live in even bigger houses than the one they broke into.

    Guaranteed a Quentin, Tarquin, or Sheridan is involved.
    On their 8th year studying for a PhD exploring the institutional sexist and racist structures of the medieval pottery industry in the UK at f##k sticks new metropolitan university....
    PB's ongoing narrative of sneering academic snobbery shifts into overdrive.
    Indeed. One of the most important variables is the course one is studying. Unless of course it's not so much academic but social snobbery that is involved. You know, getting into Christ Church and the Oxford Union. I wonder why those Tories who went to places like Aberystwyth even bother, sometimes, given the emphasis placed by PBTories.
    My wife has an Oxford degree and I went to Warwick for my undergrad degree.

    Though the Tory party is actually less posh than ever, only 29% of Tory MPs elected in 2019 went to Oxbridge, just 8% more than the 28% of LD MPs who went to Oxbridge and 8% more than the 21% of Labour MPs who went to Oxbridge.

    A long way from the peak of 1997 when 51% of Tory MPs went to Oxbridge
    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7483/CBP-7483.pdf
    I have to say if I am making any off the top of my head subjective judgement on someone's intelligence I tend to look at the subject of their degree as the prime deciding factor.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,497

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    MISTY said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted FPT)
    I think that Johnson will ride out the Lebedev issues. He will keep saying that the security services never issued any meaningful warnings about him. I still haven't seen any significant evidence that Lebedev is a malign influence, other than he had a line to Putin - not unexpected for someone in his position. How Lebedev got to be where he is, and where all his money came from, is an interesting question; but Boris Johnson cannot be blamed for that.

    Johnson's luck is astounding.

    Ukraine has enabled him to get beyond partygate, keep covid blunders out of the headlines, turn immigration around from a very unpromising place, bury tax rises and find an excuse to finesse energy policy beyond net zero.

    And then there's inflation......Food prices? Petrol costs? Vlad's fault guvnor.

    Its almost tailor made.
    Is politics like sport, where good teams have skill and bad teams always complain that they don't have luck?
    There's been a growing sense of alarm ⏰ and panic from some of our left-wing posters of a nervous disposition - the watch for the RW Monday poll must be agonising for them - 2 hours 30 minutes still to go! The soothing London poll earlier is already wearing off not helped by this latest header.
    Firstly, not all politics is left right, Tory Labour, there’s those of us right of centre voting Lib Dem who are actually torn between getting the popcorn in for the inevitable castration of big dog on one hand and sympathy for sensible minded Tories on the other, unluckily lumbered with this albatross of a PM Much longer than natural because of this terrible crisis situation .

    other pollsters are available for a more peer reviewed picture, rather than swigging just the medicine you like the sound of.

    another way to look at it would be, here is the table when news dominated by an extra ordinary crisis, where even Doug Ross has withdrawn his letter to the 1922, what could this table look like in more normal times? So as a fun ending antidote to Mike’s fake tease of a header, I can actually show you the real state of play today, if it wasn’t for War Crisis rally round flag bounce.

    image
    To use a Malmesbury summing up of my own little data monolith (everyone gotta start somewhere), If it wasn’t for this crisis, Boris not winning anywhere actually behind in midlands the same pollster said, before the news narrative went extra ordinary in Feb.

    so it’s either nuclear war or is this a party 😃
    Hmmmm.....

    image
    I know just the thing! Atomic cocktails o’clock

    45 ml of a Premium Vodka
45 ml Brandy or Cognac
15 ml Dry Sherry
Enough champagne to fill the glass to the top
Garnish: Twist of orange zest

    Combine the first three ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake for 15 seconds. Carefully strain into a chilled martini glass. Top up with champagne and add a twist of orange zest.

    image

    Soundtrack? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0DFQQ
  • pingping Posts: 3,805
    edited March 2022
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/60738120

    Hmm.

    The problem with double barrel surnames is - well - it creates a dilemma for the kid, doesn’t it? What do they do when they get married (to another double barrel surnamed spouse!?) Are we heading into a world of exponentially increasing surnames? Will no one think of the registrars?

    And why does Hamilton stop at adding just his mother’s surname? What about his grandmothers’ on both sides. And so on…..

    There are all sorts of practical - and logical - difficulties with dismantling the patriarchy.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,249
    Eabhal said:

    Unpopular said:

    Andy_JS said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    Based in Mother Russia....
    Why am I not shocked?
    Not quite that - IP on a blacklist.

    That could well be an IP from a troll farm, but not conclusive.
    What if Heathener was initially employed by a troll farm in Russia to spread misinformation on the site, but instead found joy in engaging in the free and full debate of PB, a small act of defiance slowly being awoken by our acerbic wit and cutting insight.

    Also, I wish someone would pay me to post here, my offerings would be a lot more frequent if someone was paying for my time.
    If Heathener really does have a former career in intelligence then he/she/they might be concealing their identity for that reason alone.

    I'm not sure how VPNs react with the blacklist thing OGH is using.
    VPNs don't generally exit into spammer ranges. Otherwise you are setting your clients up to be blocked.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    MISTY said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted FPT)
    I think that Johnson will ride out the Lebedev issues. He will keep saying that the security services never issued any meaningful warnings about him. I still haven't seen any significant evidence that Lebedev is a malign influence, other than he had a line to Putin - not unexpected for someone in his position. How Lebedev got to be where he is, and where all his money came from, is an interesting question; but Boris Johnson cannot be blamed for that.

    Johnson's luck is astounding.

    Ukraine has enabled him to get beyond partygate, keep covid blunders out of the headlines, turn immigration around from a very unpromising place, bury tax rises and find an excuse to finesse energy policy beyond net zero.

    And then there's inflation......Food prices? Petrol costs? Vlad's fault guvnor.

    Its almost tailor made.
    Is politics like sport, where good teams have skill and bad teams always complain that they don't have luck?
    There's been a growing sense of alarm ⏰ and panic from some of our left-wing posters of a nervous disposition - the watch for the RW Monday poll must be agonising for them - 2 hours 30 minutes still to go! The soothing London poll earlier is already wearing off not helped by this latest header.
    Firstly, not all politics is left right, Tory Labour, there’s those of us right of centre voting Lib Dem who are actually torn between getting the popcorn in for the inevitable castration of big dog on one hand and sympathy for sensible minded Tories on the other, unluckily lumbered with this albatross of a PM Much longer than natural because of this terrible crisis situation .

    other pollsters are available for a more peer reviewed picture, rather than swigging just the medicine you like the sound of.

    another way to look at it would be, here is the table when news dominated by an extra ordinary crisis, where even Doug Ross has withdrawn his letter to the 1922, what could this table look like in more normal times? So as a fun ending antidote to Mike’s fake tease of a header, I can actually show you the real state of play today, if it wasn’t for War Crisis rally round flag bounce.

    image
    To use a Malmesbury summing up of my own little data monolith (everyone gotta start somewhere), If it wasn’t for this crisis, Boris not winning anywhere actually behind in midlands the same pollster said, before the news narrative went extra ordinary in Feb.

    so it’s either nuclear war or is this a party 😃
    Hmmmm.....

    image
    I know just the thing! Atomic cocktails o’clock

    45 ml of a Premium Vodka
45 ml Brandy or Cognac
15 ml Dry Sherry
Enough champagne to fill the glass to the top
Garnish: Twist of orange zest

    Combine the first three ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake for 15 seconds. Carefully strain into a chilled martini glass. Top up with champagne and add a twist of orange zest.

    image

    Soundtrack? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0DFQQ
    I don't think you could top that lot up with enough champagne to notice in a standard martini glass. Sounds nice though.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,051
    edited March 2022
    IshmaelZ said:

    Eabhal said:

    Unpopular said:

    Andy_JS said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    Based in Mother Russia....
    Why am I not shocked?
    Not quite that - IP on a blacklist.

    That could well be an IP from a troll farm, but not conclusive.
    What if Heathener was initially employed by a troll farm in Russia to spread misinformation on the site, but instead found joy in engaging in the free and full debate of PB, a small act of defiance slowly being awoken by our acerbic wit and cutting insight.

    Also, I wish someone would pay me to post here, my offerings would be a lot more frequent if someone was paying for my time.
    Of Heathener really does have a former career in intelligence then he/she/they might be concealing their identity for that reason alone.

    I'm not sure how VPNs react with the blacklist thing OGH is using.
    First rule of intelligence work: pointlessly out yourself on a reasonably widely read website as part of a point scoring exercise. I remember that from my first day at Quantico. George reiterated it when I moved to the Circus.
    Or is that exactly what they want us to think?
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,523
    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    MISTY said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted FPT)
    I think that Johnson will ride out the Lebedev issues. He will keep saying that the security services never issued any meaningful warnings about him. I still haven't seen any significant evidence that Lebedev is a malign influence, other than he had a line to Putin - not unexpected for someone in his position. How Lebedev got to be where he is, and where all his money came from, is an interesting question; but Boris Johnson cannot be blamed for that.

    Johnson's luck is astounding.

    Ukraine has enabled him to get beyond partygate, keep covid blunders out of the headlines, turn immigration around from a very unpromising place, bury tax rises and find an excuse to finesse energy policy beyond net zero.

    And then there's inflation......Food prices? Petrol costs? Vlad's fault guvnor.

    Its almost tailor made.
    Is politics like sport, where good teams have skill and bad teams always complain that they don't have luck?
    There's been a growing sense of alarm ⏰ and panic from some of our left-wing posters of a nervous disposition - the watch for the RW Monday poll must be agonising for them - 2 hours 30 minutes still to go! The soothing London poll earlier is already wearing off not helped by this latest header.
    Most of us lefties have either acquired a Buddhist approach (what will be will be...) or long since died of apoplexy. I'm certainly not getting worked up by a poll or two...
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,249
    IshmaelZ said:

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    MISTY said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted FPT)
    I think that Johnson will ride out the Lebedev issues. He will keep saying that the security services never issued any meaningful warnings about him. I still haven't seen any significant evidence that Lebedev is a malign influence, other than he had a line to Putin - not unexpected for someone in his position. How Lebedev got to be where he is, and where all his money came from, is an interesting question; but Boris Johnson cannot be blamed for that.

    Johnson's luck is astounding.

    Ukraine has enabled him to get beyond partygate, keep covid blunders out of the headlines, turn immigration around from a very unpromising place, bury tax rises and find an excuse to finesse energy policy beyond net zero.

    And then there's inflation......Food prices? Petrol costs? Vlad's fault guvnor.

    Its almost tailor made.
    Is politics like sport, where good teams have skill and bad teams always complain that they don't have luck?
    There's been a growing sense of alarm ⏰ and panic from some of our left-wing posters of a nervous disposition - the watch for the RW Monday poll must be agonising for them - 2 hours 30 minutes still to go! The soothing London poll earlier is already wearing off not helped by this latest header.
    Firstly, not all politics is left right, Tory Labour, there’s those of us right of centre voting Lib Dem who are actually torn between getting the popcorn in for the inevitable castration of big dog on one hand and sympathy for sensible minded Tories on the other, unluckily lumbered with this albatross of a PM Much longer than natural because of this terrible crisis situation .

    other pollsters are available for a more peer reviewed picture, rather than swigging just the medicine you like the sound of.

    another way to look at it would be, here is the table when news dominated by an extra ordinary crisis, where even Doug Ross has withdrawn his letter to the 1922, what could this table look like in more normal times? So as a fun ending antidote to Mike’s fake tease of a header, I can actually show you the real state of play today, if it wasn’t for War Crisis rally round flag bounce.

    image
    To use a Malmesbury summing up of my own little data monolith (everyone gotta start somewhere), If it wasn’t for this crisis, Boris not winning anywhere actually behind in midlands the same pollster said, before the news narrative went extra ordinary in Feb.

    so it’s either nuclear war or is this a party 😃
    Hmmmm.....

    image
    I know just the thing! Atomic cocktails o’clock

    45 ml of a Premium Vodka
45 ml Brandy or Cognac
15 ml Dry Sherry
Enough champagne to fill the glass to the top
Garnish: Twist of orange zest

    Combine the first three ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake for 15 seconds. Carefully strain into a chilled martini glass. Top up with champagne and add a twist of orange zest.

    image

    Soundtrack? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0DFQQ
    I don't think you could top that lot up with enough champagne to notice in a standard martini glass. Sounds nice though.
    Define "Standard"

    image
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,249
    IshmaelZ said:

    Eabhal said:

    Unpopular said:

    Andy_JS said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    Based in Mother Russia....
    Why am I not shocked?
    Not quite that - IP on a blacklist.

    That could well be an IP from a troll farm, but not conclusive.
    What if Heathener was initially employed by a troll farm in Russia to spread misinformation on the site, but instead found joy in engaging in the free and full debate of PB, a small act of defiance slowly being awoken by our acerbic wit and cutting insight.

    Also, I wish someone would pay me to post here, my offerings would be a lot more frequent if someone was paying for my time.
    Of Heathener really does have a former career in intelligence then he/she/they might be concealing their identity for that reason alone.

    I'm not sure how VPNs react with the blacklist thing OGH is using.
    First rule of intelligence work: pointlessly out yourself on a reasonably widely read website as part of a point scoring exercise. I remember that from my first day at Quantico. George reiterated it when I moved to the Circus.
    I thought the first rule was remembering the colour of the boathouse?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153
    biggles said:

    NEW DELHI, March 14 (Reuters) - India is considering taking up a Russian offer to buy its crude oil and other commodities at discounted prices with payment via a rupee-rouble transaction, two Indian officials said, amid tough Western sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

    India, which imports 80% of its oil needs, usually buys about 2% to 3% of its supplies from Russia. But with oil prices up 40% so far this year, the government is looking at increasing this if it can help reduce its rising energy bill.

    "Russia is offering oil and other commodities at a heavy discount. We will be happy to take that. We have some issues like tanker, insurance cover and oil blends to be resolved. Once we have that we will take the discount offer," one of the Indian government officials said.


    https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-considers-buying-discounted-russian-oil-commodities-officials-say-2022-03-14/

    How will the oil get there? (Assuming the west buys up tanker capacity and doesn’t want it to).
    Well, there are lots of oil tankers in the world, and many of them are owned by private companies in tax havens who will happily take a premium rate to shift oil from Russia to Delhi.

    However... India's behaviour here is pretty appalling. The reality is that Russia will continue to be able to export oil (albeit gas is harder), if the Indians and Chinese say 'discount oil, lovely jubbly'.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    TimT said:

    Carnyx said:

    Given the background of most of the pseudo anarchist idiots who are involved in these stunts, mummy and daddy probably live in even bigger houses than the one they broke into.

    Guaranteed a Quentin, Tarquin, or Sheridan is involved.
    On their 8th year studying for a PhD exploring the institutional sexist and racist structures of the medieval pottery industry in the UK at f##k sticks new metropolitan university....
    PB's ongoing narrative of sneering academic snobbery shifts into overdrive.
    Indeed. One of the most important variables is the course one is studying. Unless of course it's not so much academic but social snobbery that is involved. You know, getting into Christ Church and the Oxford Union. I wonder why those Tories who went to places like Aberystwyth even bother, sometimes, given the emphasis placed by PBTories.
    Well it veers from "only Russell Group STEM (or Classics) firsts are worthy, and redbrick poly Desmonds don't count" to "I graduated from the University of Life, and redbrick poly Desmonds don't count".
    And there I was thinking that 8 of the 9 redbricks were in the Russell Group.
    I believe it 6. I went to Cardiff which is strictly not a redbrick.

    I was trying to make a point about PB's academic snobbery, but you shot my fox on the grounds of historical accuracy so I'll just retire wounded.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    MISTY said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted FPT)
    I think that Johnson will ride out the Lebedev issues. He will keep saying that the security services never issued any meaningful warnings about him. I still haven't seen any significant evidence that Lebedev is a malign influence, other than he had a line to Putin - not unexpected for someone in his position. How Lebedev got to be where he is, and where all his money came from, is an interesting question; but Boris Johnson cannot be blamed for that.

    Johnson's luck is astounding.

    Ukraine has enabled him to get beyond partygate, keep covid blunders out of the headlines, turn immigration around from a very unpromising place, bury tax rises and find an excuse to finesse energy policy beyond net zero.

    And then there's inflation......Food prices? Petrol costs? Vlad's fault guvnor.

    Its almost tailor made.
    Is politics like sport, where good teams have skill and bad teams always complain that they don't have luck?
    There's been a growing sense of alarm ⏰ and panic from some of our left-wing posters of a nervous disposition - the watch for the RW Monday poll must be agonising for them - 2 hours 30 minutes still to go! The soothing London poll earlier is already wearing off not helped by this latest header.
    Firstly, not all politics is left right, Tory Labour, there’s those of us right of centre voting Lib Dem who are actually torn between getting the popcorn in for the inevitable castration of big dog on one hand and sympathy for sensible minded Tories on the other, unluckily lumbered with this albatross of a PM Much longer than natural because of this terrible crisis situation .

    other pollsters are available for a more peer reviewed picture, rather than swigging just the medicine you like the sound of.

    another way to look at it would be, here is the table when news dominated by an extra ordinary crisis, where even Doug Ross has withdrawn his letter to the 1922, what could this table look like in more normal times? So as a fun ending antidote to Mike’s fake tease of a header, I can actually show you the real state of play today, if it wasn’t for War Crisis rally round flag bounce.

    image
    To use a Malmesbury summing up of my own little data monolith (everyone gotta start somewhere), If it wasn’t for this crisis, Boris not winning anywhere actually behind in midlands the same pollster said, before the news narrative went extra ordinary in Feb.

    so it’s either nuclear war or is this a party 😃
    Hmmmm.....

    image
    I know just the thing! Atomic cocktails o’clock

    45 ml of a Premium Vodka
45 ml Brandy or Cognac
15 ml Dry Sherry
Enough champagne to fill the glass to the top
Garnish: Twist of orange zest

    Combine the first three ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake for 15 seconds. Carefully strain into a chilled martini glass. Top up with champagne and add a twist of orange zest.

    image

    Soundtrack? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0DFQQ
    I don't think you could top that lot up with enough champagne to notice in a standard martini glass. Sounds nice though.
    Define "Standard"

    image
    :lol:
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,497

    IshmaelZ said:

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    MISTY said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted FPT)
    I think that Johnson will ride out the Lebedev issues. He will keep saying that the security services never issued any meaningful warnings about him. I still haven't seen any significant evidence that Lebedev is a malign influence, other than he had a line to Putin - not unexpected for someone in his position. How Lebedev got to be where he is, and where all his money came from, is an interesting question; but Boris Johnson cannot be blamed for that.

    Johnson's luck is astounding.

    Ukraine has enabled him to get beyond partygate, keep covid blunders out of the headlines, turn immigration around from a very unpromising place, bury tax rises and find an excuse to finesse energy policy beyond net zero.

    And then there's inflation......Food prices? Petrol costs? Vlad's fault guvnor.

    Its almost tailor made.
    Is politics like sport, where good teams have skill and bad teams always complain that they don't have luck?
    There's been a growing sense of alarm ⏰ and panic from some of our left-wing posters of a nervous disposition - the watch for the RW Monday poll must be agonising for them - 2 hours 30 minutes still to go! The soothing London poll earlier is already wearing off not helped by this latest header.
    Firstly, not all politics is left right, Tory Labour, there’s those of us right of centre voting Lib Dem who are actually torn between getting the popcorn in for the inevitable castration of big dog on one hand and sympathy for sensible minded Tories on the other, unluckily lumbered with this albatross of a PM Much longer than natural because of this terrible crisis situation .

    other pollsters are available for a more peer reviewed picture, rather than swigging just the medicine you like the sound of.

    another way to look at it would be, here is the table when news dominated by an extra ordinary crisis, where even Doug Ross has withdrawn his letter to the 1922, what could this table look like in more normal times? So as a fun ending antidote to Mike’s fake tease of a header, I can actually show you the real state of play today, if it wasn’t for War Crisis rally round flag bounce.

    image
    To use a Malmesbury summing up of my own little data monolith (everyone gotta start somewhere), If it wasn’t for this crisis, Boris not winning anywhere actually behind in midlands the same pollster said, before the news narrative went extra ordinary in Feb.

    so it’s either nuclear war or is this a party 😃
    Hmmmm.....

    image
    I know just the thing! Atomic cocktails o’clock

    45 ml of a Premium Vodka
45 ml Brandy or Cognac
15 ml Dry Sherry
Enough champagne to fill the glass to the top
Garnish: Twist of orange zest

    Combine the first three ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake for 15 seconds. Carefully strain into a chilled martini glass. Top up with champagne and add a twist of orange zest.

    image

    Soundtrack? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0DFQQ
    I don't think you could top that lot up with enough champagne to notice in a standard martini glass. Sounds nice though.
    Define "Standard"

    image
    I want one of those! 😛
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368

    IshmaelZ said:

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    MISTY said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted FPT)
    I think that Johnson will ride out the Lebedev issues. He will keep saying that the security services never issued any meaningful warnings about him. I still haven't seen any significant evidence that Lebedev is a malign influence, other than he had a line to Putin - not unexpected for someone in his position. How Lebedev got to be where he is, and where all his money came from, is an interesting question; but Boris Johnson cannot be blamed for that.

    Johnson's luck is astounding.

    Ukraine has enabled him to get beyond partygate, keep covid blunders out of the headlines, turn immigration around from a very unpromising place, bury tax rises and find an excuse to finesse energy policy beyond net zero.

    And then there's inflation......Food prices? Petrol costs? Vlad's fault guvnor.

    Its almost tailor made.
    Is politics like sport, where good teams have skill and bad teams always complain that they don't have luck?
    There's been a growing sense of alarm ⏰ and panic from some of our left-wing posters of a nervous disposition - the watch for the RW Monday poll must be agonising for them - 2 hours 30 minutes still to go! The soothing London poll earlier is already wearing off not helped by this latest header.
    Firstly, not all politics is left right, Tory Labour, there’s those of us right of centre voting Lib Dem who are actually torn between getting the popcorn in for the inevitable castration of big dog on one hand and sympathy for sensible minded Tories on the other, unluckily lumbered with this albatross of a PM Much longer than natural because of this terrible crisis situation .

    other pollsters are available for a more peer reviewed picture, rather than swigging just the medicine you like the sound of.

    another way to look at it would be, here is the table when news dominated by an extra ordinary crisis, where even Doug Ross has withdrawn his letter to the 1922, what could this table look like in more normal times? So as a fun ending antidote to Mike’s fake tease of a header, I can actually show you the real state of play today, if it wasn’t for War Crisis rally round flag bounce.

    image
    To use a Malmesbury summing up of my own little data monolith (everyone gotta start somewhere), If it wasn’t for this crisis, Boris not winning anywhere actually behind in midlands the same pollster said, before the news narrative went extra ordinary in Feb.

    so it’s either nuclear war or is this a party 😃
    Hmmmm.....

    image
    I know just the thing! Atomic cocktails o’clock

    45 ml of a Premium Vodka
45 ml Brandy or Cognac
15 ml Dry Sherry
Enough champagne to fill the glass to the top
Garnish: Twist of orange zest

    Combine the first three ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake for 15 seconds. Carefully strain into a chilled martini glass. Top up with champagne and add a twist of orange zest.

    image

    Soundtrack? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0DFQQ
    I don't think you could top that lot up with enough champagne to notice in a standard martini glass. Sounds nice though.
    Define "Standard"

    image
    Elizabeth Montgomery- my first crush! Gorgeous!
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    edited March 2022

    TimT said:

    Carnyx said:

    Given the background of most of the pseudo anarchist idiots who are involved in these stunts, mummy and daddy probably live in even bigger houses than the one they broke into.

    Guaranteed a Quentin, Tarquin, or Sheridan is involved.
    On their 8th year studying for a PhD exploring the institutional sexist and racist structures of the medieval pottery industry in the UK at f##k sticks new metropolitan university....
    PB's ongoing narrative of sneering academic snobbery shifts into overdrive.
    Indeed. One of the most important variables is the course one is studying. Unless of course it's not so much academic but social snobbery that is involved. You know, getting into Christ Church and the Oxford Union. I wonder why those Tories who went to places like Aberystwyth even bother, sometimes, given the emphasis placed by PBTories.
    Well it veers from "only Russell Group STEM (or Classics) firsts are worthy, and redbrick poly Desmonds don't count" to "I graduated from the University of Life, and redbrick poly Desmonds don't count".
    And there I was thinking that 8 of the 9 redbricks were in the Russell Group.
    I believe it 6. I went to Cardiff which is strictly not a redbrick.

    I was trying to make a point about PB's academic snobbery, but you shot my fox on the grounds of historical accuracy so I'll just retire wounded.
    LOL. Fellow Redbricker here. Bristol. As is our very own Cyclefree.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,051
    rcs1000 said:

    biggles said:

    NEW DELHI, March 14 (Reuters) - India is considering taking up a Russian offer to buy its crude oil and other commodities at discounted prices with payment via a rupee-rouble transaction, two Indian officials said, amid tough Western sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

    India, which imports 80% of its oil needs, usually buys about 2% to 3% of its supplies from Russia. But with oil prices up 40% so far this year, the government is looking at increasing this if it can help reduce its rising energy bill.

    "Russia is offering oil and other commodities at a heavy discount. We will be happy to take that. We have some issues like tanker, insurance cover and oil blends to be resolved. Once we have that we will take the discount offer," one of the Indian government officials said.


    https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-considers-buying-discounted-russian-oil-commodities-officials-say-2022-03-14/

    How will the oil get there? (Assuming the west buys up tanker capacity and doesn’t want it to).
    Well, there are lots of oil tankers in the world, and many of them are owned by private companies in tax havens who will happily take a premium rate to shift oil from Russia to Delhi.

    However... India's behaviour here is pretty appalling. The reality is that Russia will continue to be able to export oil (albeit gas is harder), if the Indians and Chinese say 'discount oil, lovely jubbly'.
    The market’s that responsive to a country making such a big change?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,553
    One of Russia's war casualties according to this article.

    "Vladimir Zhonga: Leader of neo-Nazi Sparta Batallion backed by the Kremlin"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10610071/Ukraine-war-Russia-admits-loss-GRU-intelligence-officer.html#comments
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    Eabhal said:

    Unpopular said:

    Andy_JS said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    Based in Mother Russia....
    Why am I not shocked?
    Not quite that - IP on a blacklist.

    That could well be an IP from a troll farm, but not conclusive.
    What if Heathener was initially employed by a troll farm in Russia to spread misinformation on the site, but instead found joy in engaging in the free and full debate of PB, a small act of defiance slowly being awoken by our acerbic wit and cutting insight.

    Also, I wish someone would pay me to post here, my offerings would be a lot more frequent if someone was paying for my time.
    If Heathener really does have a former career in intelligence then he/she/they might be concealing their identity for that reason alone.

    I'm not sure how VPNs react with the blacklist thing OGH is using.
    Only a personal view but I would say that Heathener's posts are almost certainly the work of a human. They display a lot of emotion. I cannot see any obvious agenda in them. I would guess that the time spent writing them far exceeds the influence they are having in the real world, so I cannot imagine there is any malign intent, but who knows.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,348
    FPT, if it still existed, the British Empire would be a massive burden to this country.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    TimT said:

    TimT said:

    Carnyx said:

    Given the background of most of the pseudo anarchist idiots who are involved in these stunts, mummy and daddy probably live in even bigger houses than the one they broke into.

    Guaranteed a Quentin, Tarquin, or Sheridan is involved.
    On their 8th year studying for a PhD exploring the institutional sexist and racist structures of the medieval pottery industry in the UK at f##k sticks new metropolitan university....
    PB's ongoing narrative of sneering academic snobbery shifts into overdrive.
    Indeed. One of the most important variables is the course one is studying. Unless of course it's not so much academic but social snobbery that is involved. You know, getting into Christ Church and the Oxford Union. I wonder why those Tories who went to places like Aberystwyth even bother, sometimes, given the emphasis placed by PBTories.
    Well it veers from "only Russell Group STEM (or Classics) firsts are worthy, and redbrick poly Desmonds don't count" to "I graduated from the University of Life, and redbrick poly Desmonds don't count".
    And there I was thinking that 8 of the 9 redbricks were in the Russell Group.
    I believe it 6. I went to Cardiff which is strictly not a redbrick.

    I was trying to make a point about PB's academic snobbery, but you shot my fox on the grounds of historical accuracy so I'll just retire wounded.
    LOL. Fellow Redbricker here. Bristol. As is our very own Cyclefree.
    This is PB, do you mean Redland-Clifton Poly?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,829
    edited March 2022
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Given the background of most of the pseudo anarchist idiots who are involved in these stunts, mummy and daddy probably live in even bigger houses than the one they broke into.

    Guaranteed a Quentin, Tarquin, or Sheridan is involved.
    On their 8th year studying for a PhD exploring the institutional sexist and racist structures of the medieval pottery industry in the UK at f##k sticks new metropolitan university....
    PB's ongoing narrative of sneering academic snobbery shifts into overdrive.
    Indeed. One of the most important variables is the course one is studying. Unless of course it's not so much academic but social snobbery that is involved. You know, getting into Christ Church and the Oxford Union. I wonder why those Tories who went to places like Aberystwyth even bother, sometimes, given the emphasis placed by PBTories.
    My wife has an Oxford degree and I went to Warwick for my undergrad degree.

    Though the Tory party is actually less posh than ever, only 29% of Tory MPs elected in 2019 went to Oxbridge, just 8% more than the 28% of LD MPs who went to Oxbridge and 8% more than the 21% of Labour MPs who went to Oxbridge.

    A long way from the peak of 1997 when 51% of Tory MPs went to Oxbridge
    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7483/CBP-7483.pdf
    That's just very snobbish as opposed to excruciatingly snobbish.

    I'll ignore the fact that you don't add in Cambridge U.

    The University of Oxford has about 3.3K new undergrads a year.
    https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/admissions-statistics

    There are about 560K undergrad acceptances in the UK as a whole.
    https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7857/

    So Oxford forms about 0.6% (six in every hundred) of the total annual intake.

    This is pretty rough - it doesn't take into account different percentages of home and foreign students, for instance. But the raw conclusion is clear. It's not intelligence, and it's not the attraction of the specific courses (many of which will be as goor or better elsewhere), that is driving this ratio of Tory MPs, and the others too.

  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    kyf_100 said:

    TOPPING said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    @Heathener seems to be a pretty gung ho advocate of more intervention in Ukraine and berates Western leaders for being so lilly-livered.

    She also repeatedly said that the virus isn't over and advocated more pro-active measures

    She has been called both a Russian and a Ukrainian propaganda spammer so must be doing something right.

    Apparently she has a dodgy IP address which I am told renders all her posts and arguments redundant but I'm not 100% sure why.

    Other than that nothing that I can see.
    There is a distinct vein of "guilty until proved innocent" running through PB today. Is it a McCarthyite, reds-under-the-bed spasm, or are we heading for full on martial law as PB prepares for a war footing?
    The pb.com threads over the last two weeks are of particular interest to anyone exploring the themes of conformity, mass hysteria, illogicality, mob mentality, jingoism, nationalistic fever, paranoia and sham morality.

    Also, ... the paths to fascism.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,032
    edited March 2022
    I have noticed that in the last few days I have seen a dramatic drop in my daily energy use from about £4.75per day to about £2.75 per day and expect it to drop further with the warmer weather

    The onset of Spring and Summer may just give some relief to this issue
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Given the background of most of the pseudo anarchist idiots who are involved in these stunts, mummy and daddy probably live in even bigger houses than the one they broke into.

    Guaranteed a Quentin, Tarquin, or Sheridan is involved.
    On their 8th year studying for a PhD exploring the institutional sexist and racist structures of the medieval pottery industry in the UK at f##k sticks new metropolitan university....
    PB's ongoing narrative of sneering academic snobbery shifts into overdrive.
    Indeed. One of the most important variables is the course one is studying. Unless of course it's not so much academic but social snobbery that is involved. You know, getting into Christ Church and the Oxford Union. I wonder why those Tories who went to places like Aberystwyth even bother, sometimes, given the emphasis placed by PBTories.
    My wife has an Oxford degree and I went to Warwick for my undergrad degree.

    Though the Tory party is actually less posh than ever, only 29% of Tory MPs elected in 2019 went to Oxbridge, just 1% more than the 28% of LD MPs who went to Oxbridge and 8% more than the 21% of Labour MPs who went to Oxbridge.

    A long way from the peak of 1997 when 51% of Tory MPs went to Oxbridge
    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7483/CBP-7483.pdf
    I have to say if I am making any off the top of my head subjective judgement on someone's intelligence I tend to look at the subject of their degree as the prime deciding factor.
    If they are both Oxbridge or Russell Group graduates maybe
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,355
    ping said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/60738120

    Hmm.

    The problem with double barrel surnames is - well - it creates a dilemma for the kid, doesn’t it? What do they do when they get married (to another double barrel surnamed spouse!?) Are we heading into a world of exponentially increasing surnames? Will no one think of the registrars?

    And why does Hamilton stop at adding just his mother’s surname? What about his grandmothers’ on both sides. And so on…..

    There are all sorts of practical - and logical - difficulties with dismantling the patriarchy.

    I took the approach of choosing to take my wife's surname. It keeps things nice and simple, and breaks with the patriarchy.
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,590

    IshmaelZ said:

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    MISTY said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted FPT)
    I think that Johnson will ride out the Lebedev issues. He will keep saying that the security services never issued any meaningful warnings about him. I still haven't seen any significant evidence that Lebedev is a malign influence, other than he had a line to Putin - not unexpected for someone in his position. How Lebedev got to be where he is, and where all his money came from, is an interesting question; but Boris Johnson cannot be blamed for that.

    Johnson's luck is astounding.

    Ukraine has enabled him to get beyond partygate, keep covid blunders out of the headlines, turn immigration around from a very unpromising place, bury tax rises and find an excuse to finesse energy policy beyond net zero.

    And then there's inflation......Food prices? Petrol costs? Vlad's fault guvnor.

    Its almost tailor made.
    Is politics like sport, where good teams have skill and bad teams always complain that they don't have luck?
    There's been a growing sense of alarm ⏰ and panic from some of our left-wing posters of a nervous disposition - the watch for the RW Monday poll must be agonising for them - 2 hours 30 minutes still to go! The soothing London poll earlier is already wearing off not helped by this latest header.
    Firstly, not all politics is left right, Tory Labour, there’s those of us right of centre voting Lib Dem who are actually torn between getting the popcorn in for the inevitable castration of big dog on one hand and sympathy for sensible minded Tories on the other, unluckily lumbered with this albatross of a PM Much longer than natural because of this terrible crisis situation .

    other pollsters are available for a more peer reviewed picture, rather than swigging just the medicine you like the sound of.

    another way to look at it would be, here is the table when news dominated by an extra ordinary crisis, where even Doug Ross has withdrawn his letter to the 1922, what could this table look like in more normal times? So as a fun ending antidote to Mike’s fake tease of a header, I can actually show you the real state of play today, if it wasn’t for War Crisis rally round flag bounce.

    image
    To use a Malmesbury summing up of my own little data monolith (everyone gotta start somewhere), If it wasn’t for this crisis, Boris not winning anywhere actually behind in midlands the same pollster said, before the news narrative went extra ordinary in Feb.

    so it’s either nuclear war or is this a party 😃
    Hmmmm.....

    image
    I know just the thing! Atomic cocktails o’clock

    45 ml of a Premium Vodka
45 ml Brandy or Cognac
15 ml Dry Sherry
Enough champagne to fill the glass to the top
Garnish: Twist of orange zest

    Combine the first three ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake for 15 seconds. Carefully strain into a chilled martini glass. Top up with champagne and add a twist of orange zest.

    image

    Soundtrack? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0DFQQ
    I don't think you could top that lot up with enough champagne to notice in a standard martini glass. Sounds nice though.
    Define "Standard"

    image
    Elizabeth Montgomery- my first crush! Gorgeous!
    While we are on wartime cocktails, you can't go wrong with a French 75. Named after their WWI 75mm artillery piece.

    10ml stock syrup
    30ml gin
    15ml lemon juice
    Top up a coupe (or flute if you must) with champagne.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,051
    mwadams said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    MISTY said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted FPT)
    I think that Johnson will ride out the Lebedev issues. He will keep saying that the security services never issued any meaningful warnings about him. I still haven't seen any significant evidence that Lebedev is a malign influence, other than he had a line to Putin - not unexpected for someone in his position. How Lebedev got to be where he is, and where all his money came from, is an interesting question; but Boris Johnson cannot be blamed for that.

    Johnson's luck is astounding.

    Ukraine has enabled him to get beyond partygate, keep covid blunders out of the headlines, turn immigration around from a very unpromising place, bury tax rises and find an excuse to finesse energy policy beyond net zero.

    And then there's inflation......Food prices? Petrol costs? Vlad's fault guvnor.

    Its almost tailor made.
    Is politics like sport, where good teams have skill and bad teams always complain that they don't have luck?
    There's been a growing sense of alarm ⏰ and panic from some of our left-wing posters of a nervous disposition - the watch for the RW Monday poll must be agonising for them - 2 hours 30 minutes still to go! The soothing London poll earlier is already wearing off not helped by this latest header.
    Firstly, not all politics is left right, Tory Labour, there’s those of us right of centre voting Lib Dem who are actually torn between getting the popcorn in for the inevitable castration of big dog on one hand and sympathy for sensible minded Tories on the other, unluckily lumbered with this albatross of a PM Much longer than natural because of this terrible crisis situation .

    other pollsters are available for a more peer reviewed picture, rather than swigging just the medicine you like the sound of.

    another way to look at it would be, here is the table when news dominated by an extra ordinary crisis, where even Doug Ross has withdrawn his letter to the 1922, what could this table look like in more normal times? So as a fun ending antidote to Mike’s fake tease of a header, I can actually show you the real state of play today, if it wasn’t for War Crisis rally round flag bounce.

    image
    To use a Malmesbury summing up of my own little data monolith (everyone gotta start somewhere), If it wasn’t for this crisis, Boris not winning anywhere actually behind in midlands the same pollster said, before the news narrative went extra ordinary in Feb.

    so it’s either nuclear war or is this a party 😃
    Hmmmm.....

    image
    I know just the thing! Atomic cocktails o’clock

    45 ml of a Premium Vodka
45 ml Brandy or Cognac
15 ml Dry Sherry
Enough champagne to fill the glass to the top
Garnish: Twist of orange zest

    Combine the first three ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake for 15 seconds. Carefully strain into a chilled martini glass. Top up with champagne and add a twist of orange zest.

    image

    Soundtrack? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0DFQQ
    I don't think you could top that lot up with enough champagne to notice in a standard martini glass. Sounds nice though.
    Define "Standard"

    image
    Elizabeth Montgomery- my first crush! Gorgeous!
    While we are on wartime cocktails, you can't go wrong with a French 75. Named after their WWI 75mm artillery piece.

    10ml stock syrup
    30ml gin
    15ml lemon juice
    Top up a coupe (or flute if you must) with champagne.
    That does sound nice, but I always regret losing the fizz and creaminess of having it by itself when putting champagne in cocktails.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    edited March 2022
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Given the background of most of the pseudo anarchist idiots who are involved in these stunts, mummy and daddy probably live in even bigger houses than the one they broke into.

    Guaranteed a Quentin, Tarquin, or Sheridan is involved.
    On their 8th year studying for a PhD exploring the institutional sexist and racist structures of the medieval pottery industry in the UK at f##k sticks new metropolitan university....
    PB's ongoing narrative of sneering academic snobbery shifts into overdrive.
    Indeed. One of the most important variables is the course one is studying. Unless of course it's not so much academic but social snobbery that is involved. You know, getting into Christ Church and the Oxford Union. I wonder why those Tories who went to places like Aberystwyth even bother, sometimes, given the emphasis placed by PBTories.
    My wife has an Oxford degree and I went to Warwick for my undergrad degree.

    Though the Tory party is actually less posh than ever, only 29% of Tory MPs elected in 2019 went to Oxbridge, just 8% more than the 28% of LD MPs who went to Oxbridge and 8% more than the 21% of Labour MPs who went to Oxbridge.

    A long way from the peak of 1997 when 51% of Tory MPs went to Oxbridge
    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7483/CBP-7483.pdf
    That's just very snobbish as opposed to excruciatingly snobbish.

    I'll ignore the fact that you don't add in Cambridge U.

    The University of Oxford has about 3.3K new undergrads a year.
    https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/admissions-statistics

    There are about 560K undergrad acceptances in the UK as a whole.
    https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7857/

    So Oxford forms about 0.6% (six in every hundred) of the total annual intake.

    This is pretty rough - it doesn't take into account different percentages of home and foreign students, for instance. But the raw conclusion is clear. It's not intelligence, and it's not the attraction of the specific courses (many of which will be as goor or better elsewhere), that is driving this ratio of Tory MPs, and the others too.

    Cambridge is included in Oxbridge.

    The average Oxford degree requires A level grades between between A*A*A and AAA.

    https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/admission-requirements/admission-requirements-table

    Cambridge also says 'Colleges expect required subjects to be passed, normally with an A* or A at A Level/grade 7 or 6 at Higher Level of the IB (or equivalent). '
    https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/applying/entrance-requirements/course-requirements
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,590
    biggles said:

    mwadams said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    MISTY said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted FPT)
    I think that Johnson will ride out the Lebedev issues. He will keep saying that the security services never issued any meaningful warnings about him. I still haven't seen any significant evidence that Lebedev is a malign influence, other than he had a line to Putin - not unexpected for someone in his position. How Lebedev got to be where he is, and where all his money came from, is an interesting question; but Boris Johnson cannot be blamed for that.

    Johnson's luck is astounding.

    Ukraine has enabled him to get beyond partygate, keep covid blunders out of the headlines, turn immigration around from a very unpromising place, bury tax rises and find an excuse to finesse energy policy beyond net zero.

    And then there's inflation......Food prices? Petrol costs? Vlad's fault guvnor.

    Its almost tailor made.
    Is politics like sport, where good teams have skill and bad teams always complain that they don't have luck?
    There's been a growing sense of alarm ⏰ and panic from some of our left-wing posters of a nervous disposition - the watch for the RW Monday poll must be agonising for them - 2 hours 30 minutes still to go! The soothing London poll earlier is already wearing off not helped by this latest header.
    Firstly, not all politics is left right, Tory Labour, there’s those of us right of centre voting Lib Dem who are actually torn between getting the popcorn in for the inevitable castration of big dog on one hand and sympathy for sensible minded Tories on the other, unluckily lumbered with this albatross of a PM Much longer than natural because of this terrible crisis situation .

    other pollsters are available for a more peer reviewed picture, rather than swigging just the medicine you like the sound of.

    another way to look at it would be, here is the table when news dominated by an extra ordinary crisis, where even Doug Ross has withdrawn his letter to the 1922, what could this table look like in more normal times? So as a fun ending antidote to Mike’s fake tease of a header, I can actually show you the real state of play today, if it wasn’t for War Crisis rally round flag bounce.

    image
    To use a Malmesbury summing up of my own little data monolith (everyone gotta start somewhere), If it wasn’t for this crisis, Boris not winning anywhere actually behind in midlands the same pollster said, before the news narrative went extra ordinary in Feb.

    so it’s either nuclear war or is this a party 😃
    Hmmmm.....

    image
    I know just the thing! Atomic cocktails o’clock

    45 ml of a Premium Vodka
45 ml Brandy or Cognac
15 ml Dry Sherry
Enough champagne to fill the glass to the top
Garnish: Twist of orange zest

    Combine the first three ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake for 15 seconds. Carefully strain into a chilled martini glass. Top up with champagne and add a twist of orange zest.

    image

    Soundtrack? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0DFQQ
    I don't think you could top that lot up with enough champagne to notice in a standard martini glass. Sounds nice though.
    Define "Standard"

    image
    Elizabeth Montgomery- my first crush! Gorgeous!
    While we are on wartime cocktails, you can't go wrong with a French 75. Named after their WWI 75mm artillery piece.

    10ml stock syrup
    30ml gin
    15ml lemon juice
    Top up a coupe (or flute if you must) with champagne.
    That does sound nice, but I always regret losing the fizz and creaminess of having it by itself when putting champagne in cocktails.
    The secret is to drink the rest of the bottle with your meal. You don't regret it so much then!
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    mwadams said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    MISTY said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted FPT)
    I think that Johnson will ride out the Lebedev issues. He will keep saying that the security services never issued any meaningful warnings about him. I still haven't seen any significant evidence that Lebedev is a malign influence, other than he had a line to Putin - not unexpected for someone in his position. How Lebedev got to be where he is, and where all his money came from, is an interesting question; but Boris Johnson cannot be blamed for that.

    Johnson's luck is astounding.

    Ukraine has enabled him to get beyond partygate, keep covid blunders out of the headlines, turn immigration around from a very unpromising place, bury tax rises and find an excuse to finesse energy policy beyond net zero.

    And then there's inflation......Food prices? Petrol costs? Vlad's fault guvnor.

    Its almost tailor made.
    Is politics like sport, where good teams have skill and bad teams always complain that they don't have luck?
    There's been a growing sense of alarm ⏰ and panic from some of our left-wing posters of a nervous disposition - the watch for the RW Monday poll must be agonising for them - 2 hours 30 minutes still to go! The soothing London poll earlier is already wearing off not helped by this latest header.
    Firstly, not all politics is left right, Tory Labour, there’s those of us right of centre voting Lib Dem who are actually torn between getting the popcorn in for the inevitable castration of big dog on one hand and sympathy for sensible minded Tories on the other, unluckily lumbered with this albatross of a PM Much longer than natural because of this terrible crisis situation .

    other pollsters are available for a more peer reviewed picture, rather than swigging just the medicine you like the sound of.

    another way to look at it would be, here is the table when news dominated by an extra ordinary crisis, where even Doug Ross has withdrawn his letter to the 1922, what could this table look like in more normal times? So as a fun ending antidote to Mike’s fake tease of a header, I can actually show you the real state of play today, if it wasn’t for War Crisis rally round flag bounce.

    image
    To use a Malmesbury summing up of my own little data monolith (everyone gotta start somewhere), If it wasn’t for this crisis, Boris not winning anywhere actually behind in midlands the same pollster said, before the news narrative went extra ordinary in Feb.

    so it’s either nuclear war or is this a party 😃
    Hmmmm.....

    image
    I know just the thing! Atomic cocktails o’clock

    45 ml of a Premium Vodka
45 ml Brandy or Cognac
15 ml Dry Sherry
Enough champagne to fill the glass to the top
Garnish: Twist of orange zest

    Combine the first three ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake for 15 seconds. Carefully strain into a chilled martini glass. Top up with champagne and add a twist of orange zest.

    image

    Soundtrack? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0DFQQ
    I don't think you could top that lot up with enough champagne to notice in a standard martini glass. Sounds nice though.
    Define "Standard"

    image
    Elizabeth Montgomery- my first crush! Gorgeous!
    While we are on wartime cocktails, you can't go wrong with a French 75. Named after their WWI 75mm artillery piece.

    10ml stock syrup
    30ml gin
    15ml lemon juice
    Top up a coupe (or flute if you must) with champagne.
    You've lost me.

    Elizabeth Montgomery was Samantha the Bewitched witch. Immortalised as a statue in Salem MA. Elizabeth Montgomery/ Samantha was gorgeous!
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208
    rcs1000 said:

    biggles said:

    NEW DELHI, March 14 (Reuters) - India is considering taking up a Russian offer to buy its crude oil and other commodities at discounted prices with payment via a rupee-rouble transaction, two Indian officials said, amid tough Western sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

    India, which imports 80% of its oil needs, usually buys about 2% to 3% of its supplies from Russia. But with oil prices up 40% so far this year, the government is looking at increasing this if it can help reduce its rising energy bill.

    "Russia is offering oil and other commodities at a heavy discount. We will be happy to take that. We have some issues like tanker, insurance cover and oil blends to be resolved. Once we have that we will take the discount offer," one of the Indian government officials said.


    https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-considers-buying-discounted-russian-oil-commodities-officials-say-2022-03-14/

    How will the oil get there? (Assuming the west buys up tanker capacity and doesn’t want it to).
    Well, there are lots of oil tankers in the world, and many of them are owned by private companies in tax havens who will happily take a premium rate to shift oil from Russia to Delhi.

    However... India's behaviour here is pretty appalling. The reality is that Russia will continue to be able to export oil (albeit gas is harder), if the Indians and Chinese say 'discount oil, lovely jubbly'.
    Tactless of India to be quite so blatant in their sanctions busting. They are supposed to be a trusted partner, blah blah...
  • eekeek Posts: 28,368
    edited March 2022

    TimT said:

    Carnyx said:

    Given the background of most of the pseudo anarchist idiots who are involved in these stunts, mummy and daddy probably live in even bigger houses than the one they broke into.

    Guaranteed a Quentin, Tarquin, or Sheridan is involved.
    On their 8th year studying for a PhD exploring the institutional sexist and racist structures of the medieval pottery industry in the UK at f##k sticks new metropolitan university....
    PB's ongoing narrative of sneering academic snobbery shifts into overdrive.
    Indeed. One of the most important variables is the course one is studying. Unless of course it's not so much academic but social snobbery that is involved. You know, getting into Christ Church and the Oxford Union. I wonder why those Tories who went to places like Aberystwyth even bother, sometimes, given the emphasis placed by PBTories.
    Well it veers from "only Russell Group STEM (or Classics) firsts are worthy, and redbrick poly Desmonds don't count" to "I graduated from the University of Life, and redbrick poly Desmonds don't count".
    And there I was thinking that 8 of the 9 redbricks were in the Russell Group.
    I believe it 6. I went to Cardiff which is strictly not a redbrick.

    I was trying to make a point about PB's academic snobbery, but you shot my fox on the grounds of historical accuracy so I'll just retire wounded.
    6 original Red Bricks and 5 others depending on how you define it see https://www.theuniguide.co.uk/advice/choosing-a-course/what-is-a-red-brick-university-list-of-red-brick-universities

    There was a 1980's program about Newcastle University called Redbrick when Newcastle isn't one by any definition. It grew out of King's College Durham back in the 1950s when the differences between the 2 sites became to big to ignore... https://collectionscaptured.ncl.ac.uk/digital/collection/p21051coll2/id/100/

    So I suppose on a loose definition you can get to 12.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    kyf_100 said:

    TOPPING said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    @Heathener seems to be a pretty gung ho advocate of more intervention in Ukraine and berates Western leaders for being so lilly-livered.

    She also repeatedly said that the virus isn't over and advocated more pro-active measures

    She has been called both a Russian and a Ukrainian propaganda spammer so must be doing something right.

    Apparently she has a dodgy IP address which I am told renders all her posts and arguments redundant but I'm not 100% sure why.

    Other than that nothing that I can see.
    There is a distinct vein of "guilty until proved innocent" running through PB today. Is it a McCarthyite, reds-under-the-bed spasm, or are we heading for full on martial law as PB prepares for a war footing?
    The pb.com threads over the last two weeks are of particular interest to anyone exploring the themes of conformity, mass hysteria, illogicality, mob mentality, jingoism, nationalistic fever, paranoia and sham morality.

    Also, ... the paths to fascism.
    The "Wales is a colony of England" claim being a real high spot.
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,590

    mwadams said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    MISTY said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted FPT)
    I think that Johnson will ride out the Lebedev issues. He will keep saying that the security services never issued any meaningful warnings about him. I still haven't seen any significant evidence that Lebedev is a malign influence, other than he had a line to Putin - not unexpected for someone in his position. How Lebedev got to be where he is, and where all his money came from, is an interesting question; but Boris Johnson cannot be blamed for that.

    Johnson's luck is astounding.

    Ukraine has enabled him to get beyond partygate, keep covid blunders out of the headlines, turn immigration around from a very unpromising place, bury tax rises and find an excuse to finesse energy policy beyond net zero.

    And then there's inflation......Food prices? Petrol costs? Vlad's fault guvnor.

    Its almost tailor made.
    Is politics like sport, where good teams have skill and bad teams always complain that they don't have luck?
    There's been a growing sense of alarm ⏰ and panic from some of our left-wing posters of a nervous disposition - the watch for the RW Monday poll must be agonising for them - 2 hours 30 minutes still to go! The soothing London poll earlier is already wearing off not helped by this latest header.
    Firstly, not all politics is left right, Tory Labour, there’s those of us right of centre voting Lib Dem who are actually torn between getting the popcorn in for the inevitable castration of big dog on one hand and sympathy for sensible minded Tories on the other, unluckily lumbered with this albatross of a PM Much longer than natural because of this terrible crisis situation .

    other pollsters are available for a more peer reviewed picture, rather than swigging just the medicine you like the sound of.

    another way to look at it would be, here is the table when news dominated by an extra ordinary crisis, where even Doug Ross has withdrawn his letter to the 1922, what could this table look like in more normal times? So as a fun ending antidote to Mike’s fake tease of a header, I can actually show you the real state of play today, if it wasn’t for War Crisis rally round flag bounce.

    image
    To use a Malmesbury summing up of my own little data monolith (everyone gotta start somewhere), If it wasn’t for this crisis, Boris not winning anywhere actually behind in midlands the same pollster said, before the news narrative went extra ordinary in Feb.

    so it’s either nuclear war or is this a party 😃
    Hmmmm.....

    image
    I know just the thing! Atomic cocktails o’clock

    45 ml of a Premium Vodka
45 ml Brandy or Cognac
15 ml Dry Sherry
Enough champagne to fill the glass to the top
Garnish: Twist of orange zest

    Combine the first three ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake for 15 seconds. Carefully strain into a chilled martini glass. Top up with champagne and add a twist of orange zest.

    image

    Soundtrack? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0DFQQ
    I don't think you could top that lot up with enough champagne to notice in a standard martini glass. Sounds nice though.
    Define "Standard"

    image
    Elizabeth Montgomery- my first crush! Gorgeous!
    While we are on wartime cocktails, you can't go wrong with a French 75. Named after their WWI 75mm artillery piece.

    10ml stock syrup
    30ml gin
    15ml lemon juice
    Top up a coupe (or flute if you must) with champagne.
    You've lost me.

    Elizabeth Montgomery was Samantha the Bewitched witch. Immortalised as a statue in Salem MA. Elizabeth Montgomery/ Samantha was gorgeous!
    Elizabeth Montgomery was indeed gorgeous. I was contributing to the champagne cocktail with military overtones thread that prompted her being pictured with giant martini glass.

    Any excuse for an EM pic is welcome though.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,249
    biggles said:

    mwadams said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    MISTY said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted FPT)
    I think that Johnson will ride out the Lebedev issues. He will keep saying that the security services never issued any meaningful warnings about him. I still haven't seen any significant evidence that Lebedev is a malign influence, other than he had a line to Putin - not unexpected for someone in his position. How Lebedev got to be where he is, and where all his money came from, is an interesting question; but Boris Johnson cannot be blamed for that.

    Johnson's luck is astounding.

    Ukraine has enabled him to get beyond partygate, keep covid blunders out of the headlines, turn immigration around from a very unpromising place, bury tax rises and find an excuse to finesse energy policy beyond net zero.

    And then there's inflation......Food prices? Petrol costs? Vlad's fault guvnor.

    Its almost tailor made.
    Is politics like sport, where good teams have skill and bad teams always complain that they don't have luck?
    There's been a growing sense of alarm ⏰ and panic from some of our left-wing posters of a nervous disposition - the watch for the RW Monday poll must be agonising for them - 2 hours 30 minutes still to go! The soothing London poll earlier is already wearing off not helped by this latest header.
    Firstly, not all politics is left right, Tory Labour, there’s those of us right of centre voting Lib Dem who are actually torn between getting the popcorn in for the inevitable castration of big dog on one hand and sympathy for sensible minded Tories on the other, unluckily lumbered with this albatross of a PM Much longer than natural because of this terrible crisis situation .

    other pollsters are available for a more peer reviewed picture, rather than swigging just the medicine you like the sound of.

    another way to look at it would be, here is the table when news dominated by an extra ordinary crisis, where even Doug Ross has withdrawn his letter to the 1922, what could this table look like in more normal times? So as a fun ending antidote to Mike’s fake tease of a header, I can actually show you the real state of play today, if it wasn’t for War Crisis rally round flag bounce.

    image
    To use a Malmesbury summing up of my own little data monolith (everyone gotta start somewhere), If it wasn’t for this crisis, Boris not winning anywhere actually behind in midlands the same pollster said, before the news narrative went extra ordinary in Feb.

    so it’s either nuclear war or is this a party 😃
    Hmmmm.....

    image
    I know just the thing! Atomic cocktails o’clock

    45 ml of a Premium Vodka
45 ml Brandy or Cognac
15 ml Dry Sherry
Enough champagne to fill the glass to the top
Garnish: Twist of orange zest

    Combine the first three ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake for 15 seconds. Carefully strain into a chilled martini glass. Top up with champagne and add a twist of orange zest.

    image

    Soundtrack? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0DFQQ
    I don't think you could top that lot up with enough champagne to notice in a standard martini glass. Sounds nice though.
    Define "Standard"

    image
    Elizabeth Montgomery- my first crush! Gorgeous!
    While we are on wartime cocktails, you can't go wrong with a French 75. Named after their WWI 75mm artillery piece.

    10ml stock syrup
    30ml gin
    15ml lemon juice
    Top up a coupe (or flute if you must) with champagne.
    That does sound nice, but I always regret losing the fizz and creaminess of having it by itself when putting champagne in cocktails.
    I advocate The Stinger

    1 measure White Creme De Menthe
    2 measures Cognac

    I've seen it sink more ships than Arnauld de la Perière
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,829
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Given the background of most of the pseudo anarchist idiots who are involved in these stunts, mummy and daddy probably live in even bigger houses than the one they broke into.

    Guaranteed a Quentin, Tarquin, or Sheridan is involved.
    On their 8th year studying for a PhD exploring the institutional sexist and racist structures of the medieval pottery industry in the UK at f##k sticks new metropolitan university....
    PB's ongoing narrative of sneering academic snobbery shifts into overdrive.
    Indeed. One of the most important variables is the course one is studying. Unless of course it's not so much academic but social snobbery that is involved. You know, getting into Christ Church and the Oxford Union. I wonder why those Tories who went to places like Aberystwyth even bother, sometimes, given the emphasis placed by PBTories.
    My wife has an Oxford degree and I went to Warwick for my undergrad degree.

    Though the Tory party is actually less posh than ever, only 29% of Tory MPs elected in 2019 went to Oxbridge, just 8% more than the 28% of LD MPs who went to Oxbridge and 8% more than the 21% of Labour MPs who went to Oxbridge.

    A long way from the peak of 1997 when 51% of Tory MPs went to Oxbridge
    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7483/CBP-7483.pdf
    That's just very snobbish as opposed to excruciatingly snobbish.

    I'll ignore the fact that you don't add in Cambridge U.

    The University of Oxford has about 3.3K new undergrads a year.
    https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/admissions-statistics

    There are about 560K undergrad acceptances in the UK as a whole.
    https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7857/

    So Oxford forms about 0.6% (six in every hundred) of the total annual intake.

    This is pretty rough - it doesn't take into account different percentages of home and foreign students, for instance. But the raw conclusion is clear. It's not intelligence, and it's not the attraction of the specific courses (many of which will be as goor or better elsewhere), that is driving this ratio of Tory MPs, and the others too.

    Cambridge is included in Oxbridge.

    The average Oxford degree requires A level grades between between A*A*A and AAA.

    https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/admission-requirements/admission-requirements-table

    Cambridge also says 'Colleges expect required subjects to be passed, normally with an A* or A at A Level/grade 7 or 6 at Higher Level of the IB (or equivalent). '
    https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/applying/entrance-requirements/course-requirements
    Oh good, thank you for the correction - so a factor of about 25 still.

    This misses the point why they are so desperage to get in ... and it still can't be intelligence. Look at the HoC.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468

    ping said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/60738120

    Hmm.

    The problem with double barrel surnames is - well - it creates a dilemma for the kid, doesn’t it? What do they do when they get married (to another double barrel surnamed spouse!?) Are we heading into a world of exponentially increasing surnames? Will no one think of the registrars?

    And why does Hamilton stop at adding just his mother’s surname? What about his grandmothers’ on both sides. And so on…..

    There are all sorts of practical - and logical - difficulties with dismantling the patriarchy.

    I took the approach of choosing to take my wife's surname. It keeps things nice and simple, and breaks with the patriarchy.
    My wife took mine, against my expectations and without consulting me. Apparently she was fed up with spelling out her 12-letter family name, so preferred my 6-letter one. Perhaps we should have gone with my mother's (Beck) as, although mine is just 6-letters, as it's Cornish, I have collected well over 30 misspellings of it over the years.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,991
    Don't panic Captain Mainwaring...

    A well as daily rates setting new U.K. records and rising at over 10k cases daily the Zoe app is picking up big increases in the elderly for the first time this year. Covid is not over.. thx for everyone’s support!

    https://twitter.com/timspector/status/1503403314452570112?s=20&t=nOHx6xRa5zGThQLFLFgtEw
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,497
    edited March 2022
    darkage said:

    Eabhal said:

    Unpopular said:

    Andy_JS said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    Based in Mother Russia....
    Why am I not shocked?
    Not quite that - IP on a blacklist.

    That could well be an IP from a troll farm, but not conclusive.
    What if Heathener was initially employed by a troll farm in Russia to spread misinformation on the site, but instead found joy in engaging in the free and full debate of PB, a small act of defiance slowly being awoken by our acerbic wit and cutting insight.

    Also, I wish someone would pay me to post here, my offerings would be a lot more frequent if someone was paying for my time.
    If Heathener really does have a former career in intelligence then he/she/they might be concealing their identity for that reason alone.

    I'm not sure how VPNs react with the blacklist thing OGH is using.
    Only a personal view but I would say that Heathener's posts are almost certainly the work of a human. They display a lot of emotion. I cannot see any obvious agenda in them. I would guess that the time spent writing them far exceeds the influence they are having in the real world, so I cannot imagine there is any malign intent, but who knows.
    My view is certainly out of step with all the pro Heathener posts. I feel now like maybe I was becoming groomed by Heathener, I have been liking awful lot of her posts, and I have not posted any nude, sexy German actresses here since she told me off for posting the last one 😼
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673
    Eabhal said:

    Unpopular said:

    Andy_JS said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    Based in Mother Russia....
    Why am I not shocked?
    Not quite that - IP on a blacklist.

    That could well be an IP from a troll farm, but not conclusive.
    What if Heathener was initially employed by a troll farm in Russia to spread misinformation on the site, but instead found joy in engaging in the free and full debate of PB, a small act of defiance slowly being awoken by our acerbic wit and cutting insight.

    Also, I wish someone would pay me to post here, my offerings would be a lot more frequent if someone was paying for my time.
    If Heathener really does have a former career in intelligence then he/she/they might be concealing their identity for that reason alone.

    I'm not sure how VPNs react with the blacklist thing OGH is using.
    The regular destroying of Russian trolls on this forum is delightful.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,829

    biggles said:

    mwadams said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    MISTY said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted FPT)
    I think that Johnson will ride out the Lebedev issues. He will keep saying that the security services never issued any meaningful warnings about him. I still haven't seen any significant evidence that Lebedev is a malign influence, other than he had a line to Putin - not unexpected for someone in his position. How Lebedev got to be where he is, and where all his money came from, is an interesting question; but Boris Johnson cannot be blamed for that.

    Johnson's luck is astounding.

    Ukraine has enabled him to get beyond partygate, keep covid blunders out of the headlines, turn immigration around from a very unpromising place, bury tax rises and find an excuse to finesse energy policy beyond net zero.

    And then there's inflation......Food prices? Petrol costs? Vlad's fault guvnor.

    Its almost tailor made.
    Is politics like sport, where good teams have skill and bad teams always complain that they don't have luck?
    There's been a growing sense of alarm ⏰ and panic from some of our left-wing posters of a nervous disposition - the watch for the RW Monday poll must be agonising for them - 2 hours 30 minutes still to go! The soothing London poll earlier is already wearing off not helped by this latest header.
    Firstly, not all politics is left right, Tory Labour, there’s those of us right of centre voting Lib Dem who are actually torn between getting the popcorn in for the inevitable castration of big dog on one hand and sympathy for sensible minded Tories on the other, unluckily lumbered with this albatross of a PM Much longer than natural because of this terrible crisis situation .

    other pollsters are available for a more peer reviewed picture, rather than swigging just the medicine you like the sound of.

    another way to look at it would be, here is the table when news dominated by an extra ordinary crisis, where even Doug Ross has withdrawn his letter to the 1922, what could this table look like in more normal times? So as a fun ending antidote to Mike’s fake tease of a header, I can actually show you the real state of play today, if it wasn’t for War Crisis rally round flag bounce.

    image
    To use a Malmesbury summing up of my own little data monolith (everyone gotta start somewhere), If it wasn’t for this crisis, Boris not winning anywhere actually behind in midlands the same pollster said, before the news narrative went extra ordinary in Feb.

    so it’s either nuclear war or is this a party 😃
    Hmmmm.....

    image
    I know just the thing! Atomic cocktails o’clock

    45 ml of a Premium Vodka
45 ml Brandy or Cognac
15 ml Dry Sherry
Enough champagne to fill the glass to the top
Garnish: Twist of orange zest

    Combine the first three ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake for 15 seconds. Carefully strain into a chilled martini glass. Top up with champagne and add a twist of orange zest.

    image

    Soundtrack? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0DFQQ
    I don't think you could top that lot up with enough champagne to notice in a standard martini glass. Sounds nice though.
    Define "Standard"

    image
    Elizabeth Montgomery- my first crush! Gorgeous!
    While we are on wartime cocktails, you can't go wrong with a French 75. Named after their WWI 75mm artillery piece.

    10ml stock syrup
    30ml gin
    15ml lemon juice
    Top up a coupe (or flute if you must) with champagne.
    That does sound nice, but I always regret losing the fizz and creaminess of having it by itself when putting champagne in cocktails.
    I advocate The Stinger

    1 measure White Creme De Menthe
    2 measures Cognac

    I've seen it sink more ships than Arnauld de la Perière
    Re wartime - that assumes the ingredients are to be had.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABHtgCSM2HU
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,625
    edited March 2022
    Emmanuel Macron is now trying to imitate Zelensky by turning up at the Elysée in jeans and a hoodie.

    image
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Given the background of most of the pseudo anarchist idiots who are involved in these stunts, mummy and daddy probably live in even bigger houses than the one they broke into.

    Guaranteed a Quentin, Tarquin, or Sheridan is involved.
    On their 8th year studying for a PhD exploring the institutional sexist and racist structures of the medieval pottery industry in the UK at f##k sticks new metropolitan university....
    PB's ongoing narrative of sneering academic snobbery shifts into overdrive.
    Indeed. One of the most important variables is the course one is studying. Unless of course it's not so much academic but social snobbery that is involved. You know, getting into Christ Church and the Oxford Union. I wonder why those Tories who went to places like Aberystwyth even bother, sometimes, given the emphasis placed by PBTories.
    My wife has an Oxford degree and I went to Warwick for my undergrad degree.

    Though the Tory party is actually less posh than ever, only 29% of Tory MPs elected in 2019 went to Oxbridge, just 8% more than the 28% of LD MPs who went to Oxbridge and 8% more than the 21% of Labour MPs who went to Oxbridge.

    A long way from the peak of 1997 when 51% of Tory MPs went to Oxbridge
    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7483/CBP-7483.pdf
    That's just very snobbish as opposed to excruciatingly snobbish.

    I'll ignore the fact that you don't add in Cambridge U.

    The University of Oxford has about 3.3K new undergrads a year.
    https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/admissions-statistics

    There are about 560K undergrad acceptances in the UK as a whole.
    https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7857/

    So Oxford forms about 0.6% (six in every hundred) of the total annual intake.

    This is pretty rough - it doesn't take into account different percentages of home and foreign students, for instance. But the raw conclusion is clear. It's not intelligence, and it's not the attraction of the specific courses (many of which will be as goor or better elsewhere), that is driving this ratio of Tory MPs, and the others too.

    Cambridge is included in Oxbridge.

    The average Oxford degree requires A level grades between between A*A*A and AAA.

    https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/admission-requirements/admission-requirements-table

    Cambridge also says 'Colleges expect required subjects to be passed, normally with an A* or A at A Level/grade 7 or 6 at Higher Level of the IB (or equivalent). '
    https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/applying/entrance-requirements/course-requirements
    Zzzzz.

    Does anyone care?
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,051

    biggles said:

    mwadams said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    MISTY said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted FPT)
    I think that Johnson will ride out the Lebedev issues. He will keep saying that the security services never issued any meaningful warnings about him. I still haven't seen any significant evidence that Lebedev is a malign influence, other than he had a line to Putin - not unexpected for someone in his position. How Lebedev got to be where he is, and where all his money came from, is an interesting question; but Boris Johnson cannot be blamed for that.

    Johnson's luck is astounding.

    Ukraine has enabled him to get beyond partygate, keep covid blunders out of the headlines, turn immigration around from a very unpromising place, bury tax rises and find an excuse to finesse energy policy beyond net zero.

    And then there's inflation......Food prices? Petrol costs? Vlad's fault guvnor.

    Its almost tailor made.
    Is politics like sport, where good teams have skill and bad teams always complain that they don't have luck?
    There's been a growing sense of alarm ⏰ and panic from some of our left-wing posters of a nervous disposition - the watch for the RW Monday poll must be agonising for them - 2 hours 30 minutes still to go! The soothing London poll earlier is already wearing off not helped by this latest header.
    Firstly, not all politics is left right, Tory Labour, there’s those of us right of centre voting Lib Dem who are actually torn between getting the popcorn in for the inevitable castration of big dog on one hand and sympathy for sensible minded Tories on the other, unluckily lumbered with this albatross of a PM Much longer than natural because of this terrible crisis situation .

    other pollsters are available for a more peer reviewed picture, rather than swigging just the medicine you like the sound of.

    another way to look at it would be, here is the table when news dominated by an extra ordinary crisis, where even Doug Ross has withdrawn his letter to the 1922, what could this table look like in more normal times? So as a fun ending antidote to Mike’s fake tease of a header, I can actually show you the real state of play today, if it wasn’t for War Crisis rally round flag bounce.

    image
    To use a Malmesbury summing up of my own little data monolith (everyone gotta start somewhere), If it wasn’t for this crisis, Boris not winning anywhere actually behind in midlands the same pollster said, before the news narrative went extra ordinary in Feb.

    so it’s either nuclear war or is this a party 😃
    Hmmmm.....

    image
    I know just the thing! Atomic cocktails o’clock

    45 ml of a Premium Vodka
45 ml Brandy or Cognac
15 ml Dry Sherry
Enough champagne to fill the glass to the top
Garnish: Twist of orange zest

    Combine the first three ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake for 15 seconds. Carefully strain into a chilled martini glass. Top up with champagne and add a twist of orange zest.

    image

    Soundtrack? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0DFQQ
    I don't think you could top that lot up with enough champagne to notice in a standard martini glass. Sounds nice though.
    Define "Standard"

    image
    Elizabeth Montgomery- my first crush! Gorgeous!
    While we are on wartime cocktails, you can't go wrong with a French 75. Named after their WWI 75mm artillery piece.

    10ml stock syrup
    30ml gin
    15ml lemon juice
    Top up a coupe (or flute if you must) with champagne.
    That does sound nice, but I always regret losing the fizz and creaminess of having it by itself when putting champagne in cocktails.
    I advocate The Stinger

    1 measure White Creme De Menthe
    2 measures Cognac

    I've seen it sink more ships than Arnauld de la Perière
    I’m partial to the NLAW. It’s a martini in which you first smash and destroy a bottle of vodka before pouring yourself a large measure of gin.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,991
    edited March 2022

    Emmanuel Macron is now trying to imitate Zelensky by turning up at the Elysée in jeans and a hoodie.

    image

    To sit behind his golden desk in his golden palace?
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594
    BP's Wild Bean Cafe reusable coffee cup makes quite a good cocktail shaker.

    Just remember to put your thumb firmly over the hole meant for drinking coffee out of when shaking.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,586
    mwadams said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    MISTY said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted FPT)
    I think that Johnson will ride out the Lebedev issues. He will keep saying that the security services never issued any meaningful warnings about him. I still haven't seen any significant evidence that Lebedev is a malign influence, other than he had a line to Putin - not unexpected for someone in his position. How Lebedev got to be where he is, and where all his money came from, is an interesting question; but Boris Johnson cannot be blamed for that.

    Johnson's luck is astounding.

    Ukraine has enabled him to get beyond partygate, keep covid blunders out of the headlines, turn immigration around from a very unpromising place, bury tax rises and find an excuse to finesse energy policy beyond net zero.

    And then there's inflation......Food prices? Petrol costs? Vlad's fault guvnor.

    Its almost tailor made.
    Is politics like sport, where good teams have skill and bad teams always complain that they don't have luck?
    There's been a growing sense of alarm ⏰ and panic from some of our left-wing posters of a nervous disposition - the watch for the RW Monday poll must be agonising for them - 2 hours 30 minutes still to go! The soothing London poll earlier is already wearing off not helped by this latest header.
    Firstly, not all politics is left right, Tory Labour, there’s those of us right of centre voting Lib Dem who are actually torn between getting the popcorn in for the inevitable castration of big dog on one hand and sympathy for sensible minded Tories on the other, unluckily lumbered with this albatross of a PM Much longer than natural because of this terrible crisis situation .

    other pollsters are available for a more peer reviewed picture, rather than swigging just the medicine you like the sound of.

    another way to look at it would be, here is the table when news dominated by an extra ordinary crisis, where even Doug Ross has withdrawn his letter to the 1922, what could this table look like in more normal times? So as a fun ending antidote to Mike’s fake tease of a header, I can actually show you the real state of play today, if it wasn’t for War Crisis rally round flag bounce.

    image
    To use a Malmesbury summing up of my own little data monolith (everyone gotta start somewhere), If it wasn’t for this crisis, Boris not winning anywhere actually behind in midlands the same pollster said, before the news narrative went extra ordinary in Feb.

    so it’s either nuclear war or is this a party 😃
    Hmmmm.....

    image
    I know just the thing! Atomic cocktails o’clock

    45 ml of a Premium Vodka
45 ml Brandy or Cognac
15 ml Dry Sherry
Enough champagne to fill the glass to the top
Garnish: Twist of orange zest

    Combine the first three ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake for 15 seconds. Carefully strain into a chilled martini glass. Top up with champagne and add a twist of orange zest.

    image

    Soundtrack? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0DFQQ
    I don't think you could top that lot up with enough champagne to notice in a standard martini glass. Sounds nice though.
    Define "Standard"

    image
    Elizabeth Montgomery- my first crush! Gorgeous!
    While we are on wartime cocktails, you can't go wrong with a French 75. Named after their WWI 75mm artillery piece.

    10ml stock syrup
    30ml gin
    15ml lemon juice
    Top up a coupe (or flute if you must) with champagne.
    Any recommendations for completely dry cocktails? Anything more complicated than a martini seems to have at least one sweet ingredient...
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    IshmaelZ said:

    kyf_100 said:

    TOPPING said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    @Heathener seems to be a pretty gung ho advocate of more intervention in Ukraine and berates Western leaders for being so lilly-livered.

    She also repeatedly said that the virus isn't over and advocated more pro-active measures

    She has been called both a Russian and a Ukrainian propaganda spammer so must be doing something right.

    Apparently she has a dodgy IP address which I am told renders all her posts and arguments redundant but I'm not 100% sure why.

    Other than that nothing that I can see.
    There is a distinct vein of "guilty until proved innocent" running through PB today. Is it a McCarthyite, reds-under-the-bed spasm, or are we heading for full on martial law as PB prepares for a war footing?
    The pb.com threads over the last two weeks are of particular interest to anyone exploring the themes of conformity, mass hysteria, illogicality, mob mentality, jingoism, nationalistic fever, paranoia and sham morality.

    Also, ... the paths to fascism.
    The "Wales is a colony of England" claim being a real high spot.
    A colony is a place that is run for the benefit of another country. Wales is run for the benefit of England.

    To disguise the nature of the beast, there is sometimes a veneer of Welsh involvement. That is all.

    It is a classic symptom of colonialism. Members of a native elite profit from the plundering of their country and its resources. It both buys their loyalty and disguises the colonialism.

    But, you know this. You learnt it with your ABC.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486

    Emmanuel Macron is now trying to imitate Zelensky by turning up at the Elysée in jeans and a hoodie.

    image

    That’s fucking tragic - even going for the unshaven “spent the last two weeks with people trying to assassinate me so no time to shave “ look.

  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,590
    edited March 2022

    biggles said:

    mwadams said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    MISTY said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted FPT)
    I think that Johnson will ride out the Lebedev issues. He will keep saying that the security services never issued any meaningful warnings about him. I still haven't seen any significant evidence that Lebedev is a malign influence, other than he had a line to Putin - not unexpected for someone in his position. How Lebedev got to be where he is, and where all his money came from, is an interesting question; but Boris Johnson cannot be blamed for that.

    Johnson's luck is astounding.

    Ukraine has enabled him to get beyond partygate, keep covid blunders out of the headlines, turn immigration around from a very unpromising place, bury tax rises and find an excuse to finesse energy policy beyond net zero.

    And then there's inflation......Food prices? Petrol costs? Vlad's fault guvnor.

    Its almost tailor made.
    Is politics like sport, where good teams have skill and bad teams always complain that they don't have luck?
    There's been a growing sense of alarm ⏰ and panic from some of our left-wing posters of a nervous disposition - the watch for the RW Monday poll must be agonising for them - 2 hours 30 minutes still to go! The soothing London poll earlier is already wearing off not helped by this latest header.
    Firstly, not all politics is left right, Tory Labour, there’s those of us right of centre voting Lib Dem who are actually torn between getting the popcorn in for the inevitable castration of big dog on one hand and sympathy for sensible minded Tories on the other, unluckily lumbered with this albatross of a PM Much longer than natural because of this terrible crisis situation .

    other pollsters are available for a more peer reviewed picture, rather than swigging just the medicine you like the sound of.

    another way to look at it would be, here is the table when news dominated by an extra ordinary crisis, where even Doug Ross has withdrawn his letter to the 1922, what could this table look like in more normal times? So as a fun ending antidote to Mike’s fake tease of a header, I can actually show you the real state of play today, if it wasn’t for War Crisis rally round flag bounce.

    image
    To use a Malmesbury summing up of my own little data monolith (everyone gotta start somewhere), If it wasn’t for this crisis, Boris not winning anywhere actually behind in midlands the same pollster said, before the news narrative went extra ordinary in Feb.

    so it’s either nuclear war or is this a party 😃
    Hmmmm.....

    image
    I know just the thing! Atomic cocktails o’clock

    45 ml of a Premium Vodka
45 ml Brandy or Cognac
15 ml Dry Sherry
Enough champagne to fill the glass to the top
Garnish: Twist of orange zest

    Combine the first three ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake for 15 seconds. Carefully strain into a chilled martini glass. Top up with champagne and add a twist of orange zest.

    image

    Soundtrack? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0DFQQ
    I don't think you could top that lot up with enough champagne to notice in a standard martini glass. Sounds nice though.
    Define "Standard"

    image
    Elizabeth Montgomery- my first crush! Gorgeous!
    While we are on wartime cocktails, you can't go wrong with a French 75. Named after their WWI 75mm artillery piece.

    10ml stock syrup
    30ml gin
    15ml lemon juice
    Top up a coupe (or flute if you must) with champagne.
    That does sound nice, but I always regret losing the fizz and creaminess of having it by itself when putting champagne in cocktails.
    I advocate The Stinger

    1 measure White Creme De Menthe
    2 measures Cognac

    I've seen it sink more ships than Arnauld de la Perière
    I will always have a soft spot for the Sidecar (also invented at the end of WWI and named for the despatch riders) - 2:1:1 Cognac, Lemon Juice and Cointreau. It goes down readily, but isn't cloyingly sweet like most easy-drinking cocktails. The Cointreau just adds a balancing sweetness to the LJ rather than a flavour per se.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,991
    edited March 2022
    boulay said:

    Emmanuel Macron is now trying to imitate Zelensky by turning up at the Elysée in jeans and a hoodie.

    image

    That’s fucking tragic - even going for the unshaven “spent the last two weeks with people trying to assassinate me so no time to shave “ look.

    To be fair, its probably more likely due to Putin being on the blower for hours at a time.....
  • Gove showing Patel how to deal with Ukrainian refugees
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368

    IshmaelZ said:

    kyf_100 said:

    TOPPING said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    @Heathener seems to be a pretty gung ho advocate of more intervention in Ukraine and berates Western leaders for being so lilly-livered.

    She also repeatedly said that the virus isn't over and advocated more pro-active measures

    She has been called both a Russian and a Ukrainian propaganda spammer so must be doing something right.

    Apparently she has a dodgy IP address which I am told renders all her posts and arguments redundant but I'm not 100% sure why.

    Other than that nothing that I can see.
    There is a distinct vein of "guilty until proved innocent" running through PB today. Is it a McCarthyite, reds-under-the-bed spasm, or are we heading for full on martial law as PB prepares for a war footing?
    The pb.com threads over the last two weeks are of particular interest to anyone exploring the themes of conformity, mass hysteria, illogicality, mob mentality, jingoism, nationalistic fever, paranoia and sham morality.

    Also, ... the paths to fascism.
    The "Wales is a colony of England" claim being a real high spot.
    A colony is a place that is run for the benefit of another country. Wales is run for the benefit of England.

    To disguise the nature of the beast, there is sometimes a veneer of Welsh involvement. That is all.

    It is a classic symptom of colonialism. Members of a native elite profit from the plundering of their country and its resources. It both buys their loyalty and disguises the colonialism.

    But, you know this. You learnt it with your ABC.
    Write to me,

    Mexicanpete
    ****** Road
    Cowbridge
    Vale of Glamorgan
    CF71***
    Wales
    Nr. England
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    kyf_100 said:

    TOPPING said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    @Heathener seems to be a pretty gung ho advocate of more intervention in Ukraine and berates Western leaders for being so lilly-livered.

    She also repeatedly said that the virus isn't over and advocated more pro-active measures

    She has been called both a Russian and a Ukrainian propaganda spammer so must be doing something right.

    Apparently she has a dodgy IP address which I am told renders all her posts and arguments redundant but I'm not 100% sure why.

    Other than that nothing that I can see.
    There is a distinct vein of "guilty until proved innocent" running through PB today. Is it a McCarthyite, reds-under-the-bed spasm, or are we heading for full on martial law as PB prepares for a war footing?
    The pb.com threads over the last two weeks are of particular interest to anyone exploring the themes of conformity, mass hysteria, illogicality, mob mentality, jingoism, nationalistic fever, paranoia and sham morality.

    Also, ... the paths to fascism.
    The "Wales is a colony of England" claim being a real high spot.
    A colony is a place that is run for the benefit of another country. Wales is run for the benefit of England.

    To disguise the nature of the beast, there is sometimes a veneer of Welsh involvement. That is all.

    It is a classic symptom of colonialism. Members of a native elite profit from the plundering of their country and its resources. It both buys their loyalty and disguises the colonialism.

    But, you know this. You learnt it with your ABC.
    And what is England getting from Wales other than a bit of tap water from Vyrnwy?

    "Net recipient" is a handy phrase.
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,590
    carnforth said:

    mwadams said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    MISTY said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted FPT)
    I think that Johnson will ride out the Lebedev issues. He will keep saying that the security services never issued any meaningful warnings about him. I still haven't seen any significant evidence that Lebedev is a malign influence, other than he had a line to Putin - not unexpected for someone in his position. How Lebedev got to be where he is, and where all his money came from, is an interesting question; but Boris Johnson cannot be blamed for that.

    Johnson's luck is astounding.

    Ukraine has enabled him to get beyond partygate, keep covid blunders out of the headlines, turn immigration around from a very unpromising place, bury tax rises and find an excuse to finesse energy policy beyond net zero.

    And then there's inflation......Food prices? Petrol costs? Vlad's fault guvnor.

    Its almost tailor made.
    Is politics like sport, where good teams have skill and bad teams always complain that they don't have luck?
    There's been a growing sense of alarm ⏰ and panic from some of our left-wing posters of a nervous disposition - the watch for the RW Monday poll must be agonising for them - 2 hours 30 minutes still to go! The soothing London poll earlier is already wearing off not helped by this latest header.
    Firstly, not all politics is left right, Tory Labour, there’s those of us right of centre voting Lib Dem who are actually torn between getting the popcorn in for the inevitable castration of big dog on one hand and sympathy for sensible minded Tories on the other, unluckily lumbered with this albatross of a PM Much longer than natural because of this terrible crisis situation .

    other pollsters are available for a more peer reviewed picture, rather than swigging just the medicine you like the sound of.

    another way to look at it would be, here is the table when news dominated by an extra ordinary crisis, where even Doug Ross has withdrawn his letter to the 1922, what could this table look like in more normal times? So as a fun ending antidote to Mike’s fake tease of a header, I can actually show you the real state of play today, if it wasn’t for War Crisis rally round flag bounce.

    image
    To use a Malmesbury summing up of my own little data monolith (everyone gotta start somewhere), If it wasn’t for this crisis, Boris not winning anywhere actually behind in midlands the same pollster said, before the news narrative went extra ordinary in Feb.

    so it’s either nuclear war or is this a party 😃
    Hmmmm.....

    image
    I know just the thing! Atomic cocktails o’clock

    45 ml of a Premium Vodka
45 ml Brandy or Cognac
15 ml Dry Sherry
Enough champagne to fill the glass to the top
Garnish: Twist of orange zest

    Combine the first three ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake for 15 seconds. Carefully strain into a chilled martini glass. Top up with champagne and add a twist of orange zest.

    image

    Soundtrack? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0DFQQ
    I don't think you could top that lot up with enough champagne to notice in a standard martini glass. Sounds nice though.
    Define "Standard"

    image
    Elizabeth Montgomery- my first crush! Gorgeous!
    While we are on wartime cocktails, you can't go wrong with a French 75. Named after their WWI 75mm artillery piece.

    10ml stock syrup
    30ml gin
    15ml lemon juice
    Top up a coupe (or flute if you must) with champagne.
    Any recommendations for completely dry cocktails? Anything more complicated than a martini seems to have at least one sweet ingredient...
    (The sidecar I mentioned elsewhere is very dry, and can be made more so by altering the cognac/LJ/Cointreau ratio to e.g. 4:2:!)
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,164

    Emmanuel Macron is now trying to imitate Zelensky by turning up at the Elysée in jeans and a hoodie.

    image

    To sit behind his golden desk in his golden palace?
    Is this the quasi-Zelensky look from the catwalk this season?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    City A.M.
    @CityAM
    ·
    2m
    Police called to John Bercow’s Battersea home over domestic disturbance following assault claim by wife Sally http://dlvr.it/SLgcgT
  • JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 6,241

    ping said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/60738120

    Hmm.

    The problem with double barrel surnames is - well - it creates a dilemma for the kid, doesn’t it? What do they do when they get married (to another double barrel surnamed spouse!?) Are we heading into a world of exponentially increasing surnames? Will no one think of the registrars?

    And why does Hamilton stop at adding just his mother’s surname? What about his grandmothers’ on both sides. And so on…..

    There are all sorts of practical - and logical - difficulties with dismantling the patriarchy.

    I took the approach of choosing to take my wife's surname. It keeps things nice and simple, and breaks with the patriarchy.
    Then there's the Portuguese approach... our Portuguese cleaner at work was quite surprised when I explained that British people, in general, only have one surname. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_name?wprov=sfla1
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,355
    TimT said:

    ping said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/60738120

    Hmm.

    The problem with double barrel surnames is - well - it creates a dilemma for the kid, doesn’t it? What do they do when they get married (to another double barrel surnamed spouse!?) Are we heading into a world of exponentially increasing surnames? Will no one think of the registrars?

    And why does Hamilton stop at adding just his mother’s surname? What about his grandmothers’ on both sides. And so on…..

    There are all sorts of practical - and logical - difficulties with dismantling the patriarchy.

    I took the approach of choosing to take my wife's surname. It keeps things nice and simple, and breaks with the patriarchy.
    My wife took mine, against my expectations and without consulting me. Apparently she was fed up with spelling out her 12-letter family name, so preferred my 6-letter one. Perhaps we should have gone with my mother's (Beck) as, although mine is just 6-letters, as it's Cornish, I have collected well over 30 misspellings of it over the years.
    I was amused when doing a literature review to come across one PhD thesis dedicated to the Doctor's husband, thus, "thanks for giving me a more interesting name than Smith", and another where the dedication was, "thanks for giving me a simpler name than < complicated name >".

    Now, possibly there is convergence onto a happy medium of names that are neither too boring or too complicated, but it did sort of strike me as finding an excuse for sticking with tradition and not causing a fuss.

    Which is fine if that's what people want, but if it were really a free choice then equal numbers of men would change their name after marriage as women. And they don't. Which suggests it isn't.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921

    IshmaelZ said:

    kyf_100 said:

    TOPPING said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    @Heathener seems to be a pretty gung ho advocate of more intervention in Ukraine and berates Western leaders for being so lilly-livered.

    She also repeatedly said that the virus isn't over and advocated more pro-active measures

    She has been called both a Russian and a Ukrainian propaganda spammer so must be doing something right.

    Apparently she has a dodgy IP address which I am told renders all her posts and arguments redundant but I'm not 100% sure why.

    Other than that nothing that I can see.
    There is a distinct vein of "guilty until proved innocent" running through PB today. Is it a McCarthyite, reds-under-the-bed spasm, or are we heading for full on martial law as PB prepares for a war footing?
    The pb.com threads over the last two weeks are of particular interest to anyone exploring the themes of conformity, mass hysteria, illogicality, mob mentality, jingoism, nationalistic fever, paranoia and sham morality.

    Also, ... the paths to fascism.
    The "Wales is a colony of England" claim being a real high spot.
    A colony is a place that is run for the benefit of another country. Wales is run for the benefit of England.

    To disguise the nature of the beast, there is sometimes a veneer of Welsh involvement. That is all.

    It is a classic symptom of colonialism. Members of a native elite profit from the plundering of their country and its resources. It both buys their loyalty and disguises the colonialism.

    But, you know this. You learnt it with your ABC.
    No, to be a colony the Senedd would have to be abolished, all Welsh MPs expelled from the House of Commons and direct rule over Wales imposed from Westminster
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    BTW I'm not sure why that Bercow story is emerging NOW, it refers to an incident last August

    Or is City AM just desperate for clicks? It has become quite eccentric of late
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,214
    edited March 2022

    darkage said:

    Eabhal said:

    Unpopular said:

    Andy_JS said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    Based in Mother Russia....
    Why am I not shocked?
    Not quite that - IP on a blacklist.

    That could well be an IP from a troll farm, but not conclusive.
    What if Heathener was initially employed by a troll farm in Russia to spread misinformation on the site, but instead found joy in engaging in the free and full debate of PB, a small act of defiance slowly being awoken by our acerbic wit and cutting insight.

    Also, I wish someone would pay me to post here, my offerings would be a lot more frequent if someone was paying for my time.
    If Heathener really does have a former career in intelligence then he/she/they might be concealing their identity for that reason alone.

    I'm not sure how VPNs react with the blacklist thing OGH is using.
    Only a personal view but I would say that Heathener's posts are almost certainly the work of a human. They display a lot of emotion. I cannot see any obvious agenda in them. I would guess that the time spent writing them far exceeds the influence they are having in the real world, so I cannot imagine there is any malign intent, but who knows.
    My view is certainly out of step with all the pro Heathener posts. I feel now like maybe I was becoming groomed by Heathener, I have been liking awful lot of her posts, and I have not posted any nude, sexy German actresses here since she told me off for posting the last one 😼
    Given that you and I are very close ideologically, I'm surprised to hear you have found a need to like any posts from that particular poster.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,164
    Leon said:

    City A.M.
    @CityAM
    ·
    2m
    Police called to John Bercow’s Battersea home over domestic disturbance following assault claim by wife Sally http://dlvr.it/SLgcgT

    He apparently left the home following plod's arrival with a face like thunder. Sound like Sally had the upper hand .. or even the uppercut maybe.
  • DumbosaurusDumbosaurus Posts: 795
    kyf_100 said:

    TOPPING said:

    TimT said:

    moonshine said:

    And there was me thinking all this time that @Heathener was just annoying, a wet blanket and a bit dim… must admit that they were a more skilled operative than the other two and they lasted a hell of a lot longer. Experiences that will all being going back to hq in the report to fine tune the training manual no doubt.

    What's the issue with @heathener
    @Heathener seems to be a pretty gung ho advocate of more intervention in Ukraine and berates Western leaders for being so lilly-livered.

    She also repeatedly said that the virus isn't over and advocated more pro-active measures

    She has been called both a Russian and a Ukrainian propaganda spammer so must be doing something right.

    Apparently she has a dodgy IP address which I am told renders all her posts and arguments redundant but I'm not 100% sure why.

    Other than that nothing that I can see.
    There is a distinct vein of "guilty until proved innocent" running through PB today. Is it a McCarthyite, reds-under-the-bed spasm, or are we heading for full on martial law as PB prepares for a war footing?
    Quite agree, being on a dodgy IP address could be for as simple a reason as using TOR or a VPN.

    There may be other reasons to believe she is/was a Putin spam bot (haven't seen any publically disclosed but I don't read every post) but that ain't it.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    felix said:

    Leon said:

    City A.M.
    @CityAM
    ·
    2m
    Police called to John Bercow’s Battersea home over domestic disturbance following assault claim by wife Sally http://dlvr.it/SLgcgT

    He apparently left the home following plod's arrival with a face like thunder. Sound like Sally had the upper hand .. or even the uppercut maybe.
    Yes. I see now that it has been widely reported, today


    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10609257/Police-called-home-Commons-bully-John-Bercow-bust-wife-Sally.html


    Odd time for it to emerge....
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,164

    ping said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/60738120

    Hmm.

    The problem with double barrel surnames is - well - it creates a dilemma for the kid, doesn’t it? What do they do when they get married (to another double barrel surnamed spouse!?) Are we heading into a world of exponentially increasing surnames? Will no one think of the registrars?

    And why does Hamilton stop at adding just his mother’s surname? What about his grandmothers’ on both sides. And so on…..

    There are all sorts of practical - and logical - difficulties with dismantling the patriarchy.

    I took the approach of choosing to take my wife's surname. It keeps things nice and simple, and breaks with the patriarchy.
    Then there's the Portuguese approach... our Portuguese cleaner at work was quite surprised when I explained that British people, in general, only have one surname. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_name?wprov=sfla1
    Same in Spain - normally the huband and wife's family names form the new double surname - the male having precedence.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,401

    TimT said:

    ping said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/60738120

    Hmm.

    The problem with double barrel surnames is - well - it creates a dilemma for the kid, doesn’t it? What do they do when they get married (to another double barrel surnamed spouse!?) Are we heading into a world of exponentially increasing surnames? Will no one think of the registrars?

    And why does Hamilton stop at adding just his mother’s surname? What about his grandmothers’ on both sides. And so on…..

    There are all sorts of practical - and logical - difficulties with dismantling the patriarchy.

    I took the approach of choosing to take my wife's surname. It keeps things nice and simple, and breaks with the patriarchy.
    My wife took mine, against my expectations and without consulting me. Apparently she was fed up with spelling out her 12-letter family name, so preferred my 6-letter one. Perhaps we should have gone with my mother's (Beck) as, although mine is just 6-letters, as it's Cornish, I have collected well over 30 misspellings of it over the years.
    I was amused when doing a literature review to come across one PhD thesis dedicated to the Doctor's husband, thus, "thanks for giving me a more interesting name than Smith", and another where the dedication was, "thanks for giving me a simpler name than < complicated name >".

    Now, possibly there is convergence onto a happy medium of names that are neither too boring or too complicated, but it did sort of strike me as finding an excuse for sticking with tradition and not causing a fuss.

    Which is fine if that's what people want, but if it were really a free choice then equal numbers of men would change their name after marriage as women. And they don't. Which suggests it isn't.
    The Dutch used to have a tradition of taking the higher class of the two surnames. Is only an issue when they are equal.
    Hence Jan Vennegoor of (or) Hesselink.
  • LennonLennon Posts: 1,779
    Leon said:

    BTW I'm not sure why that Bercow story is emerging NOW, it refers to an incident last August

    Or is City AM just desperate for clicks? It has become quite eccentric of late

    Is it possible that they couldn't report on it previously as it would have been seen to be prejudicial for the HoC bullying case - so can now come out post the release of that last week?
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,011
    Eabhal said:

    I have noticed that in the last few days I have seen a dramatic drop in my daily energy use from about £4.75per day to about £2.75 per day and expect it to drop further with the warmer weather

    The onset of Spring and Summer may just give some relief to this issue

    I have taken to spending a lot more time at my girlfriend's place. Lovely long showers.
    "Save water - bath with a friend"
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486
    dixiedean said:

    TimT said:

    ping said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/60738120

    Hmm.

    The problem with double barrel surnames is - well - it creates a dilemma for the kid, doesn’t it? What do they do when they get married (to another double barrel surnamed spouse!?) Are we heading into a world of exponentially increasing surnames? Will no one think of the registrars?

    And why does Hamilton stop at adding just his mother’s surname? What about his grandmothers’ on both sides. And so on…..

    There are all sorts of practical - and logical - difficulties with dismantling the patriarchy.

    I took the approach of choosing to take my wife's surname. It keeps things nice and simple, and breaks with the patriarchy.
    My wife took mine, against my expectations and without consulting me. Apparently she was fed up with spelling out her 12-letter family name, so preferred my 6-letter one. Perhaps we should have gone with my mother's (Beck) as, although mine is just 6-letters, as it's Cornish, I have collected well over 30 misspellings of it over the years.
    I was amused when doing a literature review to come across one PhD thesis dedicated to the Doctor's husband, thus, "thanks for giving me a more interesting name than Smith", and another where the dedication was, "thanks for giving me a simpler name than < complicated name >".

    Now, possibly there is convergence onto a happy medium of names that are neither too boring or too complicated, but it did sort of strike me as finding an excuse for sticking with tradition and not causing a fuss.

    Which is fine if that's what people want, but if it were really a free choice then equal numbers of men would change their name after marriage as women. And they don't. Which suggests it isn't.
    The Dutch used to have a tradition of taking the higher class of the two surnames. Is only an issue when they are equal.
    Hence Jan Vennegoor of (or) Hesselink.
    Or like some English families who double up surnames to highlight their absolute lack of class. Like Rees-Mogg.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    Lennon said:

    Leon said:

    BTW I'm not sure why that Bercow story is emerging NOW, it refers to an incident last August

    Or is City AM just desperate for clicks? It has become quite eccentric of late

    Is it possible that they couldn't report on it previously as it would have been seen to be prejudicial for the HoC bullying case - so can now come out post the release of that last week?
    Or someone has just got it in for Bercow, and felt that this is the opportune moment, after the HoC case
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,011
    TimT said:

    ping said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/60738120

    Hmm.

    The problem with double barrel surnames is - well - it creates a dilemma for the kid, doesn’t it? What do they do when they get married (to another double barrel surnamed spouse!?) Are we heading into a world of exponentially increasing surnames? Will no one think of the registrars?

    And why does Hamilton stop at adding just his mother’s surname? What about his grandmothers’ on both sides. And so on…..

    There are all sorts of practical - and logical - difficulties with dismantling the patriarchy.

    I took the approach of choosing to take my wife's surname. It keeps things nice and simple, and breaks with the patriarchy.
    My wife took mine, against my expectations and without consulting me. Apparently she was fed up with spelling out her 12-letter family name, so preferred my 6-letter one. Perhaps we should have gone with my mother's (Beck) as, although mine is just 6-letters, as it's Cornish, I have collected well over 30 misspellings of it over the years.
    Changing names just seems odd to me. And isn't it a bit of a faff?

    I was very surprised that our niece changed hers when she got married. So she now has a Punjabi first name and a Lancashire surname.

    Mind, if I adopted my mother's maiden name, I might be eligible for an Irish passport...
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,759
    Leon said:

    Lennon said:

    Leon said:

    BTW I'm not sure why that Bercow story is emerging NOW, it refers to an incident last August

    Or is City AM just desperate for clicks? It has become quite eccentric of late

    Is it possible that they couldn't report on it previously as it would have been seen to be prejudicial for the HoC bullying case - so can now come out post the release of that last week?
    Or someone has just got it in for Bercow, and felt that this is the opportune moment, after the HoC case
    Not met him, but he does strike me as potentially annoying. (Good points too though)
  • JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 6,241
    felix said:

    ping said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/60738120

    Hmm.

    The problem with double barrel surnames is - well - it creates a dilemma for the kid, doesn’t it? What do they do when they get married (to another double barrel surnamed spouse!?) Are we heading into a world of exponentially increasing surnames? Will no one think of the registrars?

    And why does Hamilton stop at adding just his mother’s surname? What about his grandmothers’ on both sides. And so on…..

    There are all sorts of practical - and logical - difficulties with dismantling the patriarchy.

    I took the approach of choosing to take my wife's surname. It keeps things nice and simple, and breaks with the patriarchy.
    Then there's the Portuguese approach... our Portuguese cleaner at work was quite surprised when I explained that British people, in general, only have one surname. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_name?wprov=sfla1
    Same in Spain - normally the huband and wife's family names form the new double surname - the male having precedence.
    But it appears you can have up to four in Portugal, and pick the one you like for everyday use. Six if you are a married woman.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070

    IshmaelZ said:

    felix said:

    Applicant said:

    MISTY said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted FPT)
    I think that Johnson will ride out the Lebedev issues. He will keep saying that the security services never issued any meaningful warnings about him. I still haven't seen any significant evidence that Lebedev is a malign influence, other than he had a line to Putin - not unexpected for someone in his position. How Lebedev got to be where he is, and where all his money came from, is an interesting question; but Boris Johnson cannot be blamed for that.

    Johnson's luck is astounding.

    Ukraine has enabled him to get beyond partygate, keep covid blunders out of the headlines, turn immigration around from a very unpromising place, bury tax rises and find an excuse to finesse energy policy beyond net zero.

    And then there's inflation......Food prices? Petrol costs? Vlad's fault guvnor.

    Its almost tailor made.
    Is politics like sport, where good teams have skill and bad teams always complain that they don't have luck?
    There's been a growing sense of alarm ⏰ and panic from some of our left-wing posters of a nervous disposition - the watch for the RW Monday poll must be agonising for them - 2 hours 30 minutes still to go! The soothing London poll earlier is already wearing off not helped by this latest header.
    Firstly, not all politics is left right, Tory Labour, there’s those of us right of centre voting Lib Dem who are actually torn between getting the popcorn in for the inevitable castration of big dog on one hand and sympathy for sensible minded Tories on the other, unluckily lumbered with this albatross of a PM Much longer than natural because of this terrible crisis situation .

    other pollsters are available for a more peer reviewed picture, rather than swigging just the medicine you like the sound of.

    another way to look at it would be, here is the table when news dominated by an extra ordinary crisis, where even Doug Ross has withdrawn his letter to the 1922, what could this table look like in more normal times? So as a fun ending antidote to Mike’s fake tease of a header, I can actually show you the real state of play today, if it wasn’t for War Crisis rally round flag bounce.

    image
    To use a Malmesbury summing up of my own little data monolith (everyone gotta start somewhere), If it wasn’t for this crisis, Boris not winning anywhere actually behind in midlands the same pollster said, before the news narrative went extra ordinary in Feb.

    so it’s either nuclear war or is this a party 😃
    Hmmmm.....

    image
    I know just the thing! Atomic cocktails o’clock

    45 ml of a Premium Vodka
45 ml Brandy or Cognac
15 ml Dry Sherry
Enough champagne to fill the glass to the top
Garnish: Twist of orange zest

    Combine the first three ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake for 15 seconds. Carefully strain into a chilled martini glass. Top up with champagne and add a twist of orange zest.

    image

    Soundtrack? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0DFQQ
    I don't think you could top that lot up with enough champagne to notice in a standard martini glass. Sounds nice though.
    Define "Standard"

    image
    I want one of those! 😛
    Which one ? :smile:
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    Leon said:

    Lennon said:

    Leon said:

    BTW I'm not sure why that Bercow story is emerging NOW, it refers to an incident last August

    Or is City AM just desperate for clicks? It has become quite eccentric of late

    Is it possible that they couldn't report on it previously as it would have been seen to be prejudicial for the HoC bullying case - so can now come out post the release of that last week?
    Or someone has just got it in for Bercow, and felt that this is the opportune moment, after the HoC case
    So, that could be Sally ... or almost anyone else in the English-speaking world.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,900
    edited March 2022
    Leon said:

    felix said:

    Leon said:

    City A.M.
    @CityAM
    ·
    2m
    Police called to John Bercow’s Battersea home over domestic disturbance following assault claim by wife Sally http://dlvr.it/SLgcgT

    He apparently left the home following plod's arrival with a face like thunder. Sound like Sally had the upper hand .. or even the uppercut maybe.
    Yes. I see now that it has been widely reported, today


    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10609257/Police-called-home-Commons-bully-John-Bercow-bust-wife-Sally.html


    Odd time for it to emerge....
    Perhaps the expected pile-on after his defenestering by the Commons authorities didn't shore up the Tories "he was always a bad'un, bloody remoaners can't accept they lost" position enough. So they wheel out him and Sally Libel having a barney.
  • Leon said:

    felix said:

    Leon said:

    City A.M.
    @CityAM
    ·
    2m
    Police called to John Bercow’s Battersea home over domestic disturbance following assault claim by wife Sally http://dlvr.it/SLgcgT

    He apparently left the home following plod's arrival with a face like thunder. Sound like Sally had the upper hand .. or even the uppercut maybe.
    Yes. I see now that it has been widely reported, today


    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10609257/Police-called-home-Commons-bully-John-Bercow-bust-wife-Sally.html


    Odd time for it to emerge....
    Perhaps the expected pile-on after his defenestering by the Commons authorities didn't shore up the Tories "he was always a bad'un, bloody remoaners can't accept they lost" position enough. So they wheel out him and Sally Libel having a barney.
    Not one of your better contributions
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    "I can confirm Saudi Media Group have made a £2.7bn ($3.5bn) offer to buy Chelsea. Mohamed Alkhereiji is a Chelsea fan and leading a private consortium. No direct government links."

    https://twitter.com/JacobsBen/status/1503378247148621829?s=20&t=_HA-1kalR9LJCgO23Ho-4g

    lol
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,759

    TimT said:

    ping said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/60738120

    Hmm.

    The problem with double barrel surnames is - well - it creates a dilemma for the kid, doesn’t it? What do they do when they get married (to another double barrel surnamed spouse!?) Are we heading into a world of exponentially increasing surnames? Will no one think of the registrars?

    And why does Hamilton stop at adding just his mother’s surname? What about his grandmothers’ on both sides. And so on…..

    There are all sorts of practical - and logical - difficulties with dismantling the patriarchy.

    I took the approach of choosing to take my wife's surname. It keeps things nice and simple, and breaks with the patriarchy.
    My wife took mine, against my expectations and without consulting me. Apparently she was fed up with spelling out her 12-letter family name, so preferred my 6-letter one. Perhaps we should have gone with my mother's (Beck) as, although mine is just 6-letters, as it's Cornish, I have collected well over 30 misspellings of it over the years.
    Changing names just seems odd to me. And isn't it a bit of a faff?

    I was very surprised that our niece changed hers when she got married. So she now has a Punjabi first name and a Lancashire surname.

    Mind, if I adopted my mother's maiden name, I might be eligible for an Irish passport...
    Are there any McMc's about or O'O' s? DotterSohns? Smithsonsons?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,585
    Leon said:

    BTW I'm not sure why that Bercow story is emerging NOW, it refers to an incident last August

    Or is City AM just desperate for clicks? It has become quite eccentric of late

    Or perhaps Bercow was making good use of m’learned friends to try and stop the reporting of it?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    boulay said:

    Emmanuel Macron is now trying to imitate Zelensky by turning up at the Elysée in jeans and a hoodie.

    image

    That’s fucking tragic - even going for the unshaven “spent the last two weeks with people trying to assassinate me so no time to shave “ look.

    Cut him a bit of slack.
    Most of us would look pretty rough had we been obliged to spend the last fortnight on the phone with a homicidal maniac.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    Omnium said:

    Leon said:

    Lennon said:

    Leon said:

    BTW I'm not sure why that Bercow story is emerging NOW, it refers to an incident last August

    Or is City AM just desperate for clicks? It has become quite eccentric of late

    Is it possible that they couldn't report on it previously as it would have been seen to be prejudicial for the HoC bullying case - so can now come out post the release of that last week?
    Or someone has just got it in for Bercow, and felt that this is the opportune moment, after the HoC case
    Not met him, but he does strike me as potentially annoying. (Good points too though)
    His unfortunate reactions to the HoC bullying verdict were quite telling. Basically: bullying the interviewers, the public, his accusers, anyone who doubted him. Red faced, hectoring and querulous. Not a good look
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,874
    Afternoon all :)

    A rare day off to contemplate the shenanigans at Prestbury Park over the next four days. It must be wonderful to be wealthy and retired before Cheltenham and know that, by following Stodge's selections, in fewer than 100 hours, only 50% of those adjectives will still be valid.

    More French Presidential polling about and the decline of Valerie Pecresse continues as she now trails fifth in two polls and equal third in another with just 11% so she has lost 45% of the votes of her predecessor, Fillon. This is awful for LR though of course the legislative elections may tell a different story.

    Macron-Le Pen looks increasingly likely and although Macron now only wins a hypothetical run off 60-40, that's petty convincing by most measures.
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