Macron’s campaign gets knocked off course by the Corsican riots – politicalbetting.com

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Macron’s campaign gets knocked off course by the Corsican riots – politicalbetting.com

24 days to go before the first round of voting in the French election and the Macron campaign is in danger of being blown off course by rioting in Corsica and his pledge in response to look at autonomy for the island after he is reelected.

Read the full story here

JosiasJessop

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

JohnLilburne

Corsica is hardly a colony, it has been French, and an integral part of Metropolitan France, since Napoleon

DavidL

It''s a good try but I really don't think that anything is going to make the Presidential race in France interesting or anything other than predictable. Which is a shame because Macron is pretty crap.

MikeSmithson

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

If there had been an internet and PB in April 1982 then there would have been 100s of Falklands threads

FrankBooth

Is there any history of Putin trying to stir up trouble in Corsica?

JosiasJessop

MikeSmithson said:

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

If there had been an internet and PB in April 1982 then there would have been 100s of Falklands threads

And HYUFD would have been discussing Suez...

LostPassword

I think Macron had to make some sort of concession in the hope that it would bring the disturbances to an end, and thereby hopefully stop it from being an issue during the campaign. The worst thing for him would be a repeat of what happened with the yellow vests, where the protests continued on and on and on and he looked completely powerless.

If protests and riots do continue on Corsica then there must be a massive risk for Macron in the run-off.

Fishing

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

If Putin invades Corsica I bet Macron will nuke Russia.

Cicero

These events in Corsica do slightly smell of Russian subversion. There is also some concern about the Bosnian Serbs but so far Serbia is onside (Air Serbia just stopped flying to Russia, thus breaking a last link for Russians into Europe).

Meawnhile here in Tallinn we now have 22,000 Ukrainian refugees of which 40% are children.

The head of Estonian military intelligence just briefed ast night that they think that Russia has a maximum of 50,000 troops against Kyiv and given there are still 2 million people in the city and the Ukrainian armed forces have a minimum of 50,000 in the sector, means that the Russians can neither take nor encircle the city.

Estonia is pressing for NATO to renounce the NATO/Russia founding act so that the troops currently here on "temporary assignment" can be made permanent.

In more worrying news I can not get hold of friends in Minsk. There are rumours that there have been clashes between different military units in several places in Belarus.

TheScreamingEagles

The French are revolting!

MarqueeMark

Fishing said:

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

If Putin invades Corsica I bet Macron will nuke Russia.

But will Macron nuke Corsica to stop it being French? No doubt someone has a view....

Sandpit

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

It’s really simple and well documented.

(Okay, it’s very complex but still well documented)

Seventeen planes out of Ascencion, refuelling each other in a carefully co-ordinated manner, to get one Vulcan to do one bombing run in Falkland, before returning to Ascencion without landing.

MarqueeMark

With the closure of the railways in Belarus yesterday to stop Russian supplies getting to Ukraine, I wonder if the sonic booms/explosions heard there last night were operations against those stalled supplies?

FF43

DavidL said:

It''s a good try but I really don't think that anything is going to make the Presidential race in France interesting or anything other than predictable. Which is a shame because Macron is pretty crap.

You think Le Pen or the other possible candidates are better?

Scott_xP

Exclusive:

Britain was on the cusp of signing a near identical deal for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe & Anoosheh Ashoori last Summer

But it was blocked by the US because it wanted the deal to include Morad Tahbaz

Iran refused

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-on-way-to-tehran-airport-tc90f2lkn

DavidL

FF43 said:

DavidL said:

It''s a good try but I really don't think that anything is going to make the Presidential race in France interesting or anything other than predictable. Which is a shame because Macron is pretty crap.

You think Le Pen or the other possible candidates are better?

No. And that is the problem.

Fishing

The French principle of the unitary state isn't ancient at al. It arose after the revolution as a reaction to the feudal chaos of the ancien regime - in particular, the division between pays d'etat and pays d'election. And in an increasingly diverse France I think it's more and more untenable.

Malmesbury

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

It’s really simple and well documented.

(Okay, it’s very complex but still well documented)

Seventeen planes out of Ascencion, refuelling each other in a carefully co-ordinated manner, to get one Vulcan to do one bombing run in Falkland, before returning to Ascencion without landing.

An example of a logistics pyramid - the whole thing is necessary to support quite a small effort (the point).

Which explain why Russia's "1 million man" army, isn't.

FF43

DavidL said:

FF43 said:

DavidL said:

It''s a good try but I really don't think that anything is going to make the Presidential race in France interesting or anything other than predictable. Which is a shame because Macron is pretty crap.

You think Le Pen or the other possible candidates are better?

No. And that is the problem.

FWIW I think Macron quite a good president, which may be reflected in his support figures. First up he's a liberal, which is my kind of politics, at a time when liberalism is under siege. Secondly France, to use that unfortunate phrase is "going in the right direction" under his presidency, which it wouldn't be under Le Pen etc, and wasn't before. Thirdly he has a rare strategic view, almost completely missing amongst western politicians of recent years.

Macron is however insufferable, but I can accept that.

Big_G_NorthWales

MikeSmithson said:

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

If there had been an internet and PB in April 1982 then there would have been 100s of Falklands threads

And without @HYUFD !!!!

Dura_Ace

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

It’s really simple and well documented.

(Okay, it’s very complex but still well documented)

Seventeen planes out of Ascencion, refuelling each other in a carefully co-ordinated manner, to get one Vulcan to do one bombing run in Falkland, before returning to Ascencion without landing.

Never was the F-111K so badly missed. The USAF used 20 KC-135 to put 20 F-111F over Libya on Eldorado Canyon flying a similar distance to Black Buck.

Sandpit

Malmesbury said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

It’s really simple and well documented.

(Okay, it’s very complex but still well documented)

Seventeen planes out of Ascencion, refuelling each other in a carefully co-ordinated manner, to get one Vulcan to do one bombing run in Falkland, before returning to Ascencion without landing.

An example of a logistics pyramid - the whole thing is necessary to support quite a small effort (the point).

Which explain why Russia's "1 million man" army, isn't.

Indeed. The difference between Black Buck and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is that the latter appears to have many more single points of failure.

That one fuel train blown up, also taking out the track, probably led to several hundred abandoned vehicles on the way from Belarus to Kiev.

Jonathan

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

It’s really simple and well documented.

(Okay, it’s very complex but still well documented)

Seventeen planes out of Ascencion, refuelling each other in a carefully co-ordinated manner, to get one Vulcan to do one bombing run in Falkland, before returning to Ascencion without landing.

Have done similar manoeuvre at Sainsburys to avoid paying 20p for a carrier bag.

IshmaelZ

Malmesbury said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

It’s really simple and well documented.

(Okay, it’s very complex but still well documented)

Seventeen planes out of Ascencion, refuelling each other in a carefully co-ordinated manner, to get one Vulcan to do one bombing run in Falkland, before returning to Ascencion without landing.

An example of a logistics pyramid - the whole thing is necessary to support quite a small effort (the point).

Which explain why Russia's "1 million man" army, isn't.

Not really very Net Zero, is it?

RochdalePioneers

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

It’s really simple and well documented.

(Okay, it’s very complex but still well documented)

Seventeen planes out of Ascencion, refuelling each other in a carefully co-ordinated manner, to get one Vulcan to do one bombing run in Falkland, before returning to Ascencion without landing.

Lies. Multiple Vulcans were on the Falklands. Which meant they could have used Stanley's runway as a base to attack Argie bases.

boulay

It’s quite interesting contrasting France and the UK very generally on regional identity and separatism.

Both countries are a larger version of their original cores through war/conquest or absorption.

In the UK the “absorbed/conquered” parts have kept very strong visible identities and different levels of their own independent decision making away from London which have evolved over time but still have strong cultural identities and differences.

The degrees are wide from Scotland, Wales and NI to Cornish or Yorkshire identity.

France however had been very good/very brutal at suppressing the identities of their equivalents with a long focus on being totally “French”.

So whilst areas such as Brittany, Savoie and Basque pockets have independence movements they aren’t very strong and probably mirror Cornish independence movements.

Areas that weren’t historically “France” that aren’t Brittany and Savoie such as Aquitaine and Gascony are very much brought into the whole French demos.

It’s understandable why Corsica is more of an outlier as was always treated slightly badly by France in a cultural sneer kind of way - Napoleon was mocked non stop at military school for being a Corsican, treated like an educated monkey.

I would be surprised if this was a larger issue for France but interesting to see how it pans out.

RochdalePioneers

Going back to the sudden release of Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, it demonstrates the rapidly shifting geo-political map. Iran wants in from the cold, the west wants a non-Russian source of oil, so as a gesture of goodwill release the "guests".

Would she be free had Ukraine not blown up and a shift be happening? No. So as always, even in the darkest of situations there is some light to be found.

IanB2

MikeSmithson said:

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

If there had been an internet and PB in April 1982 then there would have been 100s of Falklands threads

But in the radioactive wasteland that would have been Argentina, maybe not so much?

malcolmg

Scott_xP said:

Exclusive:

Britain was on the cusp of signing a near identical deal for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe & Anoosheh Ashoori last Summer

But it was blocked by the US because it wanted the deal to include Morad Tahbaz

Iran refused

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-on-way-to-tehran-airport-tc90f2lkn

Always the US lapdog

Big_G_NorthWales

RochdalePioneers said:

Going back to the sudden release of Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, it demonstrates the rapidly shifting geo-political map. Iran wants in from the cold, the west wants a non-Russian source of oil, so as a gesture of goodwill release the "guests".

Would she be free had Ukraine not blown up and a shift be happening? No. So as always, even in the darkest of situations there is some light to be found.

It is the first very obvious evidence of how geo-politics has moved and everyone is going to have to get used to a new world order

Malmesbury

JosiasJessop said:

Sandpit said:

Andy_JS said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

Congrats to Astra Space, whose small rocket has successfully launched customers satellites for the first time. This is a fast turn-around after a failure last month.

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2022/03/15/astra-space-places-satellites-into-orbit-for-first-time/

Russia's increasingly going to fall behind in space. Now all we need is for ESA to develop a crew launcher...

The big worry is the ISS, an amazing project over more than two decades which has, up until now, remained outside any and all political tensions between the countries involved.

If Russia pulls out, the $200bn station, the most expensive item ever produced by humans, will quickly end up in the sea.

I wouldn't bet against Putin ruining the project.

Sadly agree. Watching it come back to Earth would be a big and visible “F You” to the West.

AIUI, one of the main orbit stabilisation systems is on the Russian side - if they don’t want to play ball, then we’ll need to get a Dragon attached and thrusting periodically, to keep the ISS in orbit.

Apparently there are complexities with Dragon doing it, due to the nature / positioning of the thrusters on the capsule. According to a podcast I listened to, they may not be able to work around the issue, and if they do, it would be horridly inefficient.

There is a half-finished American module that could do it. I wonder if NASA have been warming that project up, or something similar, just in case.

The big issue is not so much re-boost (giving the state a show to make it go faster, de to speed lost to the tiny amount of atmospheric drag) as de-saturating the gyros used for attitude control.

Essentially, ISS uses gyroscopes for attitude control - by spinning a particular gyroscope faster/slow it rotates the station without using thrusters. After a while the gyros are spinning at max speed. So you "de-saturate" by firing thrusters to cancel out the torque as the gyro is spun down.

There's quite a few questions about whether you could use Dragon for that or not.

The big problem is that there is very little time, if the Russians pull the de-saturate function, before the station starts to spin out of control.

Ariane 5 was built as a crew launcher - see Hermes.

ESA developing a human launch system now would run into the mud of European Space politics. Sadly, even more than the US, the actual space flight bit is seen as a minor effect of the program, by the politicians who fund it....

Burgessian

boulay said:

It’s quite interesting contrasting France and the UK very generally on regional identity and separatism.

Both countries are a larger version of their original cores through war/conquest or absorption.

In the UK the “absorbed/conquered” parts have kept very strong visible identities and different levels of their own independent decision making away from London which have evolved over time but still have strong cultural identities and differences.

The degrees are wide from Scotland, Wales and NI to Cornish or Yorkshire identity.

France however had been very good/very brutal at suppressing the identities of their equivalents with a long focus on being totally “French”.

So whilst areas such as Brittany, Savoie and Basque pockets have independence movements they aren’t very strong and probably mirror Cornish independence movements.

Areas that weren’t historically “France” that aren’t Brittany and Savoie such as Aquitaine and Gascony are very much brought into the whole French demos.

It’s understandable why Corsica is more of an outlier as was always treated slightly badly by France in a cultural sneer kind of way - Napoleon was mocked non stop at military school for being a Corsican, treated like an educated monkey.

I would be surprised if this was a larger issue for France but interesting to see how it pans out.

True, but didn't stop the French making him an emperor! And the "educated monkey" rewrote their constitution on his days off from conquering most of Europe.

Do the French still have that mocking attitude to Corsica?

kjh

I found yesterday quite cathartic bizarrely. Why? Well I am clearly not a fan of Thatcher, but I found myself defending her from @HYUFD mad demonic catagorisation of her. This was a new and refreshing experience for me. The more I thought about it the more I thought about the fact that (with the exception of Tebbit) the Thatcher Govt was made up of grown ups regardless of what I thought of their policies. Made me feel much happier.

No doubt my bubble will be burst by examples of idiots from that era, but currently I'm very relaxed in my view.

Scott_xP

It’s a miracle - civilians that were hiding in a basement at the Drama Theater in Mariupol survived the air strike.
Now they are getting evacuated from underneath the ruins.
https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1504378026800386051

Malmesbury

Dura_Ace said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

It’s really simple and well documented.

(Okay, it’s very complex but still well documented)

Seventeen planes out of Ascencion, refuelling each other in a carefully co-ordinated manner, to get one Vulcan to do one bombing run in Falkland, before returning to Ascencion without landing.

Never was the F-111K so badly missed. The USAF used 20 KC-135 to put 20 F-111F over Libya on Eldorado Canyon flying a similar distance to Black Buck.

Wasn't it the case that the KC-135s were staged out of airbases much close to Libya than Ascension Island to the Falklands? So that the Americans, in that case, had less of an issue with tankers having to refuel tankers to refuel....

Nigelb

FF43 said:

DavidL said:

FF43 said:

DavidL said:

It''s a good try but I really don't think that anything is going to make the Presidential race in France interesting or anything other than predictable. Which is a shame because Macron is pretty crap.

You think Le Pen or the other possible candidates are better?

No. And that is the problem.

FWIW I think Macron quite a good president, which may be reflected in his support figures. First up he's a liberal, which is my kind of politics, at a time when liberalism is under siege. Secondly France, to use that unfortunate phrase is "going in the right direction" under his presidency, which it wouldn't be under Le Pen etc, and wasn't before. Thirdly he has a rare strategic view, almost completely missing amongst western politicians of recent years.

Macron is however insufferable, but I can accept that.

He is, after all, French...

Theuniondivvie

DavidL said:

FF43 said:

DavidL said:

It''s a good try but I really don't think that anything is going to make the Presidential race in France interesting or anything other than predictable. Which is a shame because Macron is pretty crap.

You think Le Pen or the other possible candidates are better?

No. And that is the problem.

A familiar theme..

CarlottaVance

Update from previous thread - there are now seven Russian government planes in the air - six of them flying east to an unspecified destination. FlightRadar24 Airline RSD

Sandpit

As highlighted by @CarlottaVance on FPT, the Financial Times has decided to drop their paywall for the Ukraine war coverage. Very good coverage it is too.

https://www.ft.com/content/77ab8dcf-cb02-4e57-aff0-85c8a84f5a1f

Malmesbury

IshmaelZ said:

Malmesbury said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

It’s really simple and well documented.

(Okay, it’s very complex but still well documented)

Seventeen planes out of Ascencion, refuelling each other in a carefully co-ordinated manner, to get one Vulcan to do one bombing run in Falkland, before returning to Ascencion without landing.

An example of a logistics pyramid - the whole thing is necessary to support quite a small effort (the point).

Which explain why Russia's "1 million man" army, isn't.

Not really very Net Zero, is it?

I'm pretty sure I saw an estimate for the carbon footprint of Trident, once.

Malmesbury

kjh said:

I found yesterday quite cathartic bizarrely. Why? Well I am clearly not a fan of Thatcher, but I found myself defending her from @HYUFD mad demonic catagorisation of her. This was a new and refreshing experience for me. The more I thought about it the more I thought about the fact that (with the exception of Tebbit) the Thatcher Govt was made up of grown ups regardless of what I thought of their policies. Made me feel much happier.

No doubt my bubble will be burst by examples of idiots from that era, but currently I'm very relaxed in my view.

The clown back then was David Mellor.

HYUFD

kjh said:

I found yesterday quite cathartic bizarrely. Why? Well I am clearly not a fan of Thatcher, but I found myself defending her from @HYUFD mad demonic catagorisation of her. This was a new and refreshing experience for me. The more I thought about it the more I thought about the fact that (with the exception of Tebbit) the Thatcher Govt was made up of grown ups regardless of what I thought of their policies. Made me feel much happier.

No doubt my bubble will be burst by examples of idiots from that era, but currently I'm very relaxed in my view.

Tebbit was tough and had guts, so no wonder you were not a fan

StillWaters

JohnLilburne said:

Corsica is hardly a colony, it has been French, and an integral part of Metropolitan France, since Napoleon

Technically before Napoleon as I’m fairly sure he was born French not Savoyard

Malmesbury

malcolmg said:

Scott_xP said:

Exclusive:

Britain was on the cusp of signing a near identical deal for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe & Anoosheh Ashoori last Summer

But it was blocked by the US because it wanted the deal to include Morad Tahbaz

Iran refused

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-on-way-to-tehran-airport-tc90f2lkn

Always the US lapdog

Morad Tahbaz holds dual British and American citizenship. He lives mostly in the US, which is why the US State Dept. was making the case for him.

He was released as part of this deal.

HYUFD

As long as Macron just sticks to giving Corsica greater autonomy and not full independence I doubt it will make much difference

IanB2

kjh said:

I found yesterday quite cathartic bizarrely. Why? Well I am clearly not a fan of Thatcher, but I found myself defending her from @HYUFD mad demonic catagorisation of her. This was a new and refreshing experience for me. The more I thought about it the more I thought about the fact that (with the exception of Tebbit) the Thatcher Govt was made up of grown ups regardless of what I thought of their policies. Made me feel much happier.

No doubt my bubble will be burst by examples of idiots from that era, but currently I'm very relaxed in my view.

Some of the backbenchers from that period were fairly nutty, but the difference is that they weren't running the place.

kjh

HYUFD said:

kjh said:

I found yesterday quite cathartic bizarrely. Why? Well I am clearly not a fan of Thatcher, but I found myself defending her from @HYUFD mad demonic catagorisation of her. This was a new and refreshing experience for me. The more I thought about it the more I thought about the fact that (with the exception of Tebbit) the Thatcher Govt was made up of grown ups regardless of what I thought of their policies. Made me feel much happier.

No doubt my bubble will be burst by examples of idiots from that era, but currently I'm very relaxed in my view.

Tebbit was tough and had guts, so no wonder you were not a fan

Oh you want to carry on do you, even though it ruined your evening?

As pointed out by others your last post last night must have been the most ironic statement ever made in history. It was mindbogglingly you have so little self awareness.

kjh

HYUFD said:

kjh said:

I found yesterday quite cathartic bizarrely. Why? Well I am clearly not a fan of Thatcher, but I found myself defending her from @HYUFD mad demonic catagorisation of her. This was a new and refreshing experience for me. The more I thought about it the more I thought about the fact that (with the exception of Tebbit) the Thatcher Govt was made up of grown ups regardless of what I thought of their policies. Made me feel much happier.

No doubt my bubble will be burst by examples of idiots from that era, but currently I'm very relaxed in my view.

Tebbit was tough and had guts, so no wonder you were not a fan

He may well have been but he was also exceptionally unpleasant.

boulay

Burgessian said:

boulay said:

It’s quite interesting contrasting France and the UK very generally on regional identity and separatism.

Both countries are a larger version of their original cores through war/conquest or absorption.

In the UK the “absorbed/conquered” parts have kept very strong visible identities and different levels of their own independent decision making away from London which have evolved over time but still have strong cultural identities and differences.

The degrees are wide from Scotland, Wales and NI to Cornish or Yorkshire identity.

France however had been very good/very brutal at suppressing the identities of their equivalents with a long focus on being totally “French”.

So whilst areas such as Brittany, Savoie and Basque pockets have independence movements they aren’t very strong and probably mirror Cornish independence movements.

Areas that weren’t historically “France” that aren’t Brittany and Savoie such as Aquitaine and Gascony are very much brought into the whole French demos.

It’s understandable why Corsica is more of an outlier as was always treated slightly badly by France in a cultural sneer kind of way - Napoleon was mocked non stop at military school for being a Corsican, treated like an educated monkey.

I would be surprised if this was a larger issue for France but interesting to see how it pans out.

True, but didn't stop the French making him an emperor! And the "educated monkey" rewrote their constitution on his days off from conquering most of Europe.

Do the French still have that mocking attitude to Corsica?

To be honest I’m not sure how modern French see Corsicans but at the time of Napoleon it was seen as very backwards and different - I would guess very much like how a lot of English viewed Ireland and the Irish at the same time. Interesting that Napoleon and Wellington were both from places that were looked down on by the people who worshipped them later!

HYUFD

kjh said:

HYUFD said:

kjh said:

I found yesterday quite cathartic bizarrely. Why? Well I am clearly not a fan of Thatcher, but I found myself defending her from @HYUFD mad demonic catagorisation of her. This was a new and refreshing experience for me. The more I thought about it the more I thought about the fact that (with the exception of Tebbit) the Thatcher Govt was made up of grown ups regardless of what I thought of their policies. Made me feel much happier.

No doubt my bubble will be burst by examples of idiots from that era, but currently I'm very relaxed in my view.

Tebbit was tough and had guts, so no wonder you were not a fan

Oh you want to carry on do you, even though it ruined your evening?

As pointed out by others your last post last night must have been the most ironic statement ever made in history. It was mindbogglingly you have so little self awareness.

It was the truth and if it annoyed you tough

Theuniondivvie

IanB2 said:

kjh said:

I found yesterday quite cathartic bizarrely. Why? Well I am clearly not a fan of Thatcher, but I found myself defending her from @HYUFD mad demonic catagorisation of her. This was a new and refreshing experience for me. The more I thought about it the more I thought about the fact that (with the exception of Tebbit) the Thatcher Govt was made up of grown ups regardless of what I thought of their policies. Made me feel much happier.

No doubt my bubble will be burst by examples of idiots from that era, but currently I'm very relaxed in my view.

Some of the backbenchers from that period were fairly nutty, but the difference is that they weren't running the place.

Even in these debased times I still find it bizarre that Dorries is an actual cabinet minister. No doubt that frog will be boiled in time as well, and we’ll be suitably softened up for the promotion of Francois and Swayne.

Burgessian

St Nicola: "'NATO and the democratic world shouldn't be writing Putin blank cheques'

Well, that's them telt.

https://twitter.com/ITVBorderRB/status/1504094294080208896

Fairliered

Malmesbury said:

kjh said:

I found yesterday quite cathartic bizarrely. Why? Well I am clearly not a fan of Thatcher, but I found myself defending her from @HYUFD mad demonic catagorisation of her. This was a new and refreshing experience for me. The more I thought about it the more I thought about the fact that (with the exception of Tebbit) the Thatcher Govt was made up of grown ups regardless of what I thought of their policies. Made me feel much happier.

No doubt my bubble will be burst by examples of idiots from that era, but currently I'm very relaxed in my view.

The clown back then was David Mellor.

Chelsea supporters have been obnoxious idiots for a long long time.

Malmesbury

boulay said:

Burgessian said:

boulay said:

It’s quite interesting contrasting France and the UK very generally on regional identity and separatism.

Both countries are a larger version of their original cores through war/conquest or absorption.

In the UK the “absorbed/conquered” parts have kept very strong visible identities and different levels of their own independent decision making away from London which have evolved over time but still have strong cultural identities and differences.

The degrees are wide from Scotland, Wales and NI to Cornish or Yorkshire identity.

France however had been very good/very brutal at suppressing the identities of their equivalents with a long focus on being totally “French”.

So whilst areas such as Brittany, Savoie and Basque pockets have independence movements they aren’t very strong and probably mirror Cornish independence movements.

Areas that weren’t historically “France” that aren’t Brittany and Savoie such as Aquitaine and Gascony are very much brought into the whole French demos.

It’s understandable why Corsica is more of an outlier as was always treated slightly badly by France in a cultural sneer kind of way - Napoleon was mocked non stop at military school for being a Corsican, treated like an educated monkey.

I would be surprised if this was a larger issue for France but interesting to see how it pans out.

True, but didn't stop the French making him an emperor! And the "educated monkey" rewrote their constitution on his days off from conquering most of Europe.

Do the French still have that mocking attitude to Corsica?

To be honest I’m not sure how modern French see Corsicans but at the time of Napoleon it was seen as very backwards and different - I would guess very much like how a lot of English viewed Ireland and the Irish at the same time. Interesting that Napoleon and Wellington were both from places that were looked down on by the people who worshipped them later!

Stalin & Georgia as well...

TOPPING

IanB2 said:

kjh said:

I found yesterday quite cathartic bizarrely. Why? Well I am clearly not a fan of Thatcher, but I found myself defending her from @HYUFD mad demonic catagorisation of her. This was a new and refreshing experience for me. The more I thought about it the more I thought about the fact that (with the exception of Tebbit) the Thatcher Govt was made up of grown ups regardless of what I thought of their policies. Made me feel much happier.

No doubt my bubble will be burst by examples of idiots from that era, but currently I'm very relaxed in my view.

Some of the backbenchers from that period were fairly nutty, but the difference is that they weren't running the place.

The huge concern being that many of those self same nutty back benchers are actually running the Conservative Party now.

Fairliered

kjh said:

HYUFD said:

kjh said:

I found yesterday quite cathartic bizarrely. Why? Well I am clearly not a fan of Thatcher, but I found myself defending her from @HYUFD mad demonic catagorisation of her. This was a new and refreshing experience for me. The more I thought about it the more I thought about the fact that (with the exception of Tebbit) the Thatcher Govt was made up of grown ups regardless of what I thought of their policies. Made me feel much happier.

No doubt my bubble will be burst by examples of idiots from that era, but currently I'm very relaxed in my view.

Tebbit was tough and had guts, so no wonder you were not a fan

He may well have been but he was also exceptionally unpleasant.

A warning to Epping cats. You may get kicked today, especially if you attack blue tits.

Benpointer

Bloody hell, it's still 1982 on here, I see. How depressing.

JohnLilburne

StillWaters said:

JohnLilburne said:

Corsica is hardly a colony, it has been French, and an integral part of Metropolitan France, since Napoleon

Technically before Napoleon as I’m fairly sure he was born French not Savoyard

Genoese. But it was independent for a while. It was conquered in 1769 so Napoleon was - just - born in French Corsica. Facebook suggests it wasn't actually incorporated into France until 1789 hence my guess that it can only really be considered part of Metropolitan France since Napoleon

Malmesbury

Burgessian said:

St Nicola: "'NATO and the democratic world shouldn't be writing Putin blank cheques'

Well, that's them telt.

https://twitter.com/ITVBorderRB/status/1504094294080208896

I thought the only blank cheques were the ones for ammunition for Ukraine - so far I've heard no suggestion of a limit in monetary value for what is being supplied.

malcolmg

My nags for today , had poor day yesterday with non runners and others being donkeys. Tough racing today , winners will be hard to come by.
@moonrabbit @stodge @ping

EW Patent
Sire Du Berlais 14:10 Cheltenham
Champ 15:30 Cheltenham
Imperial Alcazar 16:10 Cheltenham

Singles EW
Sire Du Berlais 14:10 Cheltenham
Champ 15:30 Cheltenham
Imperial Alcazar 16:10 Cheltenham

Malmesbury

Benpointer said:

Bloody hell, it's still 1982 on here, I see. How depressing.

Could we have a thread discussing the 1780 General Election, consequences etc?

kjh

HYUFD said:

kjh said:

HYUFD said:

kjh said:

I found yesterday quite cathartic bizarrely. Why? Well I am clearly not a fan of Thatcher, but I found myself defending her from @HYUFD mad demonic catagorisation of her. This was a new and refreshing experience for me. The more I thought about it the more I thought about the fact that (with the exception of Tebbit) the Thatcher Govt was made up of grown ups regardless of what I thought of their policies. Made me feel much happier.

No doubt my bubble will be burst by examples of idiots from that era, but currently I'm very relaxed in my view.

Tebbit was tough and had guts, so no wonder you were not a fan

Oh you want to carry on do you, even though it ruined your evening?

As pointed out by others your last post last night must have been the most ironic statement ever made in history. It was mindbogglingly you have so little self awareness.

It was the truth and if it annoyed you tough

Didn't annoy me. Made me laugh out loud that you did a perfect description of yourself and were completely unaware of it.

You have no self awareness. Do you not see everyone laughing at you this morning with their posts or do you not understand them? I can only assume you don't which is sad.

You do realise I am doing it on purpose don't you?

Sandpit

CarlottaVance said:

Update from previous thread - there are now seven Russian government planes in the air - six of them flying east to an unspecified destination. FlightRadar24 Airline RSD

Where are they all going? I guess we will find out soon enough, heading to Siberia or Vladivostok for a summit, or to Beijing to ask Mr Xi nicely to help out?

Unusually, there’s only one plane I care about today - flight EK008, just leaving Heathrow with my parents on board, I’ll see them tonight for the first time in more than three years.

Benpointer

CarlottaVance said:

Update from previous thread - there are now seven Russian government planes in the air - six of them flying east to an unspecified destination. FlightRadar24 Airline RSD

Would they have their transponders on if this was anything too ominous?

TOPPING

HYUFD said:

kjh said:

HYUFD said:

kjh said:

I found yesterday quite cathartic bizarrely. Why? Well I am clearly not a fan of Thatcher, but I found myself defending her from @HYUFD mad demonic catagorisation of her. This was a new and refreshing experience for me. The more I thought about it the more I thought about the fact that (with the exception of Tebbit) the Thatcher Govt was made up of grown ups regardless of what I thought of their policies. Made me feel much happier.

No doubt my bubble will be burst by examples of idiots from that era, but currently I'm very relaxed in my view.

Tebbit was tough and had guts, so no wonder you were not a fan

Oh you want to carry on do you, even though it ruined your evening?

As pointed out by others your last post last night must have been the most ironic statement ever made in history. It was mindbogglingly you have so little self awareness.

It was the truth and if it annoyed you tough

Just looked at your last post yesterday. So you are equating "guts" in the same sense as Heathener as in having the guts to put other people in harms way. I'm not sure that is how I would necessarily categorise "guts" in the context you used it.

Benpointer

Malmesbury said:

Benpointer said:

Bloody hell, it's still 1982 on here, I see. How depressing.

Could we have a thread discussing the 1780 General Election, consequences etc?

Surely, it's too soon to tell?

JohnLilburne

Malmesbury said:

boulay said:

Burgessian said:

boulay said:

It’s quite interesting contrasting France and the UK very generally on regional identity and separatism.

Both countries are a larger version of their original cores through war/conquest or absorption.

In the UK the “absorbed/conquered” parts have kept very strong visible identities and different levels of their own independent decision making away from London which have evolved over time but still have strong cultural identities and differences.

The degrees are wide from Scotland, Wales and NI to Cornish or Yorkshire identity.

France however had been very good/very brutal at suppressing the identities of their equivalents with a long focus on being totally “French”.

So whilst areas such as Brittany, Savoie and Basque pockets have independence movements they aren’t very strong and probably mirror Cornish independence movements.

Areas that weren’t historically “France” that aren’t Brittany and Savoie such as Aquitaine and Gascony are very much brought into the whole French demos.

It’s understandable why Corsica is more of an outlier as was always treated slightly badly by France in a cultural sneer kind of way - Napoleon was mocked non stop at military school for being a Corsican, treated like an educated monkey.

I would be surprised if this was a larger issue for France but interesting to see how it pans out.

True, but didn't stop the French making him an emperor! And the "educated monkey" rewrote their constitution on his days off from conquering most of Europe.

Do the French still have that mocking attitude to Corsica?

To be honest I’m not sure how modern French see Corsicans but at the time of Napoleon it was seen as very backwards and different - I would guess very much like how a lot of English viewed Ireland and the Irish at the same time. Interesting that Napoleon and Wellington were both from places that were looked down on by the people who worshipped them later!

Stalin & Georgia as well...

Wellington was Ascendency though and famously denied being Irish.

Nigelb

CarlottaVance said:

Update from previous thread - there are now seven Russian government planes in the air - six of them flying east to an unspecified destination. FlightRadar24 Airline RSD

Seeking political asylum in China ?

IshmaelZ

JohnLilburne said:

StillWaters said:

JohnLilburne said:

Corsica is hardly a colony, it has been French, and an integral part of Metropolitan France, since Napoleon

Technically before Napoleon as I’m fairly sure he was born French not Savoyard

Genoese. But it was independent for a while. It was conquered in 1769 so Napoleon was - just - born in French Corsica. Facebook suggests it wasn't actually incorporated into France until 1789 hence my guess that it can only really be considered part of Metropolitan France since Napoleon

NB was a native Italian and Corsican speaker, only started learning French at 10.

Malmesbury

JohnLilburne said:

Malmesbury said:

boulay said:

Burgessian said:

boulay said:

It’s quite interesting contrasting France and the UK very generally on regional identity and separatism.

Both countries are a larger version of their original cores through war/conquest or absorption.

In the UK the “absorbed/conquered” parts have kept very strong visible identities and different levels of their own independent decision making away from London which have evolved over time but still have strong cultural identities and differences.

The degrees are wide from Scotland, Wales and NI to Cornish or Yorkshire identity.

France however had been very good/very brutal at suppressing the identities of their equivalents with a long focus on being totally “French”.

So whilst areas such as Brittany, Savoie and Basque pockets have independence movements they aren’t very strong and probably mirror Cornish independence movements.

Areas that weren’t historically “France” that aren’t Brittany and Savoie such as Aquitaine and Gascony are very much brought into the whole French demos.

It’s understandable why Corsica is more of an outlier as was always treated slightly badly by France in a cultural sneer kind of way - Napoleon was mocked non stop at military school for being a Corsican, treated like an educated monkey.

I would be surprised if this was a larger issue for France but interesting to see how it pans out.

True, but didn't stop the French making him an emperor! And the "educated monkey" rewrote their constitution on his days off from conquering most of Europe.

Do the French still have that mocking attitude to Corsica?

To be honest I’m not sure how modern French see Corsicans but at the time of Napoleon it was seen as very backwards and different - I would guess very much like how a lot of English viewed Ireland and the Irish at the same time. Interesting that Napoleon and Wellington were both from places that were looked down on by the people who worshipped them later!

Stalin & Georgia as well...

Wellington was Ascendency though and famously denied being Irish.

That was actually O'Connell saying the "famous quote". Given Wellington's habit of repeating aphorisms it is quite unlikely that he said it since no contemporary recalls him saying it.

NerysHughes

Totally O/T, we have just priced for installing a new ASHP heating/hot water system in a small infants school.
The school currently has an old oil fired boiler which will need removing. Normally we replace this with a modern gas boiler and new control panel. The average cost for such a project is around £65k

The ASHP system for this small school requires 4 outdoor units and 11 indoor units, the pipework throughout the school has to be doubled in size as do the radiators. Significant building works are required to house all the new equipment. The electrical supply to the school has to be upgraded to 185mm cable to cope with the hugh increase in electricity required to power all the new equipment. And the funniest part is that the job includes for the installing of a small gas boiler as back up as they know the new system will not work.

Our quote for the job is £410k.

Its no wonder other Councils are abandoning the idea of ASHPs to heat their buildings.

ExiledInScotland

Malmesbury said:

IshmaelZ said:

Malmesbury said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

It’s really simple and well documented.

(Okay, it’s very complex but still well documented)

Seventeen planes out of Ascencion, refuelling each other in a carefully co-ordinated manner, to get one Vulcan to do one bombing run in Falkland, before returning to Ascencion without landing.

An example of a logistics pyramid - the whole thing is necessary to support quite a small effort (the point).

Which explain why Russia's "1 million man" army, isn't.

Not really very Net Zero, is it?

I'm pretty sure I saw an estimate for the carbon footprint of Trident, once.

Well using Trident would pretty rapidly lead to near zero emissions for a few centuries.

Malmesbury

Nigelb said:

CarlottaVance said:

Update from previous thread - there are now seven Russian government planes in the air - six of them flying east to an unspecified destination. FlightRadar24 Airline RSD

Seeking political asylum in China ?

Cash shrink wrapped to pallets takes a lot of space. And weight.

JohnLilburne

TOPPING said:

HYUFD said:

kjh said:

HYUFD said:

kjh said:

I found yesterday quite cathartic bizarrely. Why? Well I am clearly not a fan of Thatcher, but I found myself defending her from @HYUFD mad demonic catagorisation of her. This was a new and refreshing experience for me. The more I thought about it the more I thought about the fact that (with the exception of Tebbit) the Thatcher Govt was made up of grown ups regardless of what I thought of their policies. Made me feel much happier.

No doubt my bubble will be burst by examples of idiots from that era, but currently I'm very relaxed in my view.

Tebbit was tough and had guts, so no wonder you were not a fan

Oh you want to carry on do you, even though it ruined your evening?

As pointed out by others your last post last night must have been the most ironic statement ever made in history. It was mindbogglingly you have so little self awareness.

It was the truth and if it annoyed you tough

Just looked at your last post yesterday. So you are equating "guts" in the same sense as Heathener as in having the guts to put other people in harms way. I'm not sure that is how I would necessarily categorise "guts" in the context you used it.

I think HYUFD has guts, in the sense they are full of the same sort of stuff

BlancheLivermore

Quite remarkable just how long Nancy Pelosi has been around the heart of US politics. This is at JFK's inauguration

TOPPING

malcolmg said:

My nags for today , had poor day yesterday with non runners and others being donkeys. Tough racing today , winners will be hard to come by.
@moonrabbit @stodge @ping

EW Patent
Sire Du Berlais 14:10 Cheltenham
Champ 15:30 Cheltenham
Imperial Alcazar 16:10 Cheltenham

Singles EW
Sire Du Berlais 14:10 Cheltenham
Champ 15:30 Cheltenham
Imperial Alcazar 16:10 Cheltenham

Morning Malc just as well I go to Cheltenham for the booze and socialising racing not the money (although I did back Facile Vega as in an RP article prior to the meeting Willie Mullins, discussing his chances, had said of it "of all the runners I have I would want to be on Facile Vega..." which sounded pretty emphatic to me!)

Yesterday was a cracking day, that said. Quite surreal with essentially a morass of horses moving around the track everyone looking grey and brown behind the front runners. Shishkin didn't travel a yard and I'm not going to get into the should they/shouldn't they have watered debate - suffice to say that rain was showing on all weather apps on the Weds for days and yet unwatered/rained upon the ground would have probably been good/good to firm... Who'd be clerk of the course.

Equally it was a good advert for honest racing to see Delta Work win when we were all imagining what would have happened in F1 with Jack Kennedy receiving instructions through his comms system to let Tiger Roll pass. The biggest mystery continues to be what the cross country race is for, that said.

Have a great day today.

kjh

I have just 'Off Topic' myself, so think it is time to leave for the hospital appointment before I do anything sillier.

Theuniondivvie

JohnLilburne said:

Malmesbury said:

boulay said:

Burgessian said:

boulay said:

It’s quite interesting contrasting France and the UK very generally on regional identity and separatism.

Both countries are a larger version of their original cores through war/conquest or absorption.

In the UK the “absorbed/conquered” parts have kept very strong visible identities and different levels of their own independent decision making away from London which have evolved over time but still have strong cultural identities and differences.

The degrees are wide from Scotland, Wales and NI to Cornish or Yorkshire identity.

France however had been very good/very brutal at suppressing the identities of their equivalents with a long focus on being totally “French”.

So whilst areas such as Brittany, Savoie and Basque pockets have independence movements they aren’t very strong and probably mirror Cornish independence movements.

Areas that weren’t historically “France” that aren’t Brittany and Savoie such as Aquitaine and Gascony are very much brought into the whole French demos.

It’s understandable why Corsica is more of an outlier as was always treated slightly badly by France in a cultural sneer kind of way - Napoleon was mocked non stop at military school for being a Corsican, treated like an educated monkey.

I would be surprised if this was a larger issue for France but interesting to see how it pans out.

True, but didn't stop the French making him an emperor! And the "educated monkey" rewrote their constitution on his days off from conquering most of Europe.

Do the French still have that mocking attitude to Corsica?

To be honest I’m not sure how modern French see Corsicans but at the time of Napoleon it was seen as very backwards and different - I would guess very much like how a lot of English viewed Ireland and the Irish at the same time. Interesting that Napoleon and Wellington were both from places that were looked down on by the people who worshipped them later!

Stalin & Georgia as well...

Wellington was Ascendency though and famously denied being Irish.

I thought he denied being a horse..or something..

Wouldn’t be surprised if Arthur had more respect for horse flesh than the average Irish peasant.

mwadams

MikeSmithson said:

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

If there had been an internet and PB in April 1982 then there would have been 100s of Falklands threads

Interesting question though - would we have known much more about it than we did from the embedded reporters at the time? With a small population rapidly brought under the invader, and a remote location essentially only reachable by the forces involved, it feels like a conflict that wouldn't have had the TikTok treatment.

Malmesbury

Theuniondivvie said:

JohnLilburne said:

Malmesbury said:

boulay said:

Burgessian said:

boulay said:

It’s quite interesting contrasting France and the UK very generally on regional identity and separatism.

Both countries are a larger version of their original cores through war/conquest or absorption.

In the UK the “absorbed/conquered” parts have kept very strong visible identities and different levels of their own independent decision making away from London which have evolved over time but still have strong cultural identities and differences.

The degrees are wide from Scotland, Wales and NI to Cornish or Yorkshire identity.

France however had been very good/very brutal at suppressing the identities of their equivalents with a long focus on being totally “French”.

So whilst areas such as Brittany, Savoie and Basque pockets have independence movements they aren’t very strong and probably mirror Cornish independence movements.

Areas that weren’t historically “France” that aren’t Brittany and Savoie such as Aquitaine and Gascony are very much brought into the whole French demos.

It’s understandable why Corsica is more of an outlier as was always treated slightly badly by France in a cultural sneer kind of way - Napoleon was mocked non stop at military school for being a Corsican, treated like an educated monkey.

I would be surprised if this was a larger issue for France but interesting to see how it pans out.

True, but didn't stop the French making him an emperor! And the "educated monkey" rewrote their constitution on his days off from conquering most of Europe.

Do the French still have that mocking attitude to Corsica?

To be honest I’m not sure how modern French see Corsicans but at the time of Napoleon it was seen as very backwards and different - I would guess very much like how a lot of English viewed Ireland and the Irish at the same time. Interesting that Napoleon and Wellington were both from places that were looked down on by the people who worshipped them later!

Stalin & Georgia as well...

Wellington was Ascendency though and famously denied being Irish.

I thought he denied being a horse..or something..

Wouldn’t be surprised if Arthur had more respect for horse flesh than the average Irish peasant.

Though he actually fought a duel to get Catholic Emancipation passed....

Sean_F

boulay said:

It’s quite interesting contrasting France and the UK very generally on regional identity and separatism.

Both countries are a larger version of their original cores through war/conquest or absorption.

In the UK the “absorbed/conquered” parts have kept very strong visible identities and different levels of their own independent decision making away from London which have evolved over time but still have strong cultural identities and differences.

The degrees are wide from Scotland, Wales and NI to Cornish or Yorkshire identity.

France however had been very good/very brutal at suppressing the identities of their equivalents with a long focus on being totally “French”.

So whilst areas such as Brittany, Savoie and Basque pockets have independence movements they aren’t very strong and probably mirror Cornish independence movements.

Areas that weren’t historically “France” that aren’t Brittany and Savoie such as Aquitaine and Gascony are very much brought into the whole French demos.

It’s understandable why Corsica is more of an outlier as was always treated slightly badly by France in a cultural sneer kind of way - Napoleon was mocked non stop at military school for being a Corsican, treated like an educated monkey.

I would be surprised if this was a larger issue for France but interesting to see how it pans out.

The French revolutionaries bascially wrote the template for assimilationist policies towards national minorities. The minorities were to become French, just as later, Poles and Sorbs were to become German, and American Indians were to become white Americans.

This was undoubtedly more enlightened than the alternative approach of genocide or ethnic cleansing.

mwadams

JosiasJessop said:

MikeSmithson said:

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

If there had been an internet and PB in April 1982 then there would have been 100s of Falklands threads

And HYUFD would have been discussing Suez...

And why it was, in fact, a triumph for the Tory gov of the day.

Anabobazina

DavidL said:

FF43 said:

DavidL said:

It''s a good try but I really don't think that anything is going to make the Presidential race in France interesting or anything other than predictable. Which is a shame because Macron is pretty crap.

You think Le Pen or the other possible candidates are better?

No. And that is the problem.

Then why is it 'a shame' that Macron is going to walk it?

He might not be brilliant, but he's clearly the best candidate in a poor field.

BartholomewRoberts

Anabobazina said:

DavidL said:

FF43 said:

DavidL said:

It''s a good try but I really don't think that anything is going to make the Presidential race in France interesting or anything other than predictable. Which is a shame because Macron is pretty crap.

You think Le Pen or the other possible candidates are better?

No. And that is the problem.

Then why is it 'a shame' that Macron is going to walk it?

He might not be brilliant, but he's clearly the best candidate in a poor field.

And that's a shame.

Its not a shame that Biden beat Trump, but it is a shame that Biden was the best the US had to offer.

Many here think the same with regards to Boris and Corbyn.

IshmaelZ

Theuniondivvie said:

JohnLilburne said:

Malmesbury said:

boulay said:

Burgessian said:

boulay said:

It’s quite interesting contrasting France and the UK very generally on regional identity and separatism.

Both countries are a larger version of their original cores through war/conquest or absorption.

In the UK the “absorbed/conquered” parts have kept very strong visible identities and different levels of their own independent decision making away from London which have evolved over time but still have strong cultural identities and differences.

The degrees are wide from Scotland, Wales and NI to Cornish or Yorkshire identity.

France however had been very good/very brutal at suppressing the identities of their equivalents with a long focus on being totally “French”.

So whilst areas such as Brittany, Savoie and Basque pockets have independence movements they aren’t very strong and probably mirror Cornish independence movements.

Areas that weren’t historically “France” that aren’t Brittany and Savoie such as Aquitaine and Gascony are very much brought into the whole French demos.

It’s understandable why Corsica is more of an outlier as was always treated slightly badly by France in a cultural sneer kind of way - Napoleon was mocked non stop at military school for being a Corsican, treated like an educated monkey.

I would be surprised if this was a larger issue for France but interesting to see how it pans out.

True, but didn't stop the French making him an emperor! And the "educated monkey" rewrote their constitution on his days off from conquering most of Europe.

Do the French still have that mocking attitude to Corsica?

To be honest I’m not sure how modern French see Corsicans but at the time of Napoleon it was seen as very backwards and different - I would guess very much like how a lot of English viewed Ireland and the Irish at the same time. Interesting that Napoleon and Wellington were both from places that were looked down on by the people who worshipped them later!

Stalin & Georgia as well...

Wellington was Ascendency though and famously denied being Irish.

I thought he denied being a horse..or something..

Wouldn’t be surprised if Arthur had more respect for horse flesh than the average Irish peasant.

So did and does the average Irish peasant

I saw them kneeling by the holy well –
It was for life, life, life they prayed:
Life that for a farmer is land enough to keep two horses,
Life that is healthy husband to a maid.
I saw them climbing the holy mountain –
It was the knowledge, knowledge, knowledge of life they pursued:
Knowledge that is in knowing what fair to sell the cattle in,
Knowledge that is in being able to cart an acre from a field.
I saw them lying on the burning stones –
It was vision, vision, vision they desired:
Vision that is forecasting a mare’s hour of foaling,
Vision that is catching the idler, newly hired.
I saw them kneeling, climbing and prostrate –
It was love, love, love they found:
Love that is Christ green walking from the summer headlands
To His scarecrow cross in the turnip-ground.

Pilgrims by Patrick Kavanagh

Taz

malcolmg said:

My nags for today , had poor day yesterday with non runners and others being donkeys. Tough racing today , winners will be hard to come by.
@moonrabbit @stodge @ping

EW Patent
Sire Du Berlais 14:10 Cheltenham
Champ 15:30 Cheltenham
Imperial Alcazar 16:10 Cheltenham

Singles EW
Sire Du Berlais 14:10 Cheltenham
Champ 15:30 Cheltenham
Imperial Alcazar 16:10 Cheltenham

I have used my free bet on Imperial Alcazar to win.

Like the name. There was a Europop band called Alcazar. Not great but liked the name

Good luck Malc

BlancheLivermore

Should we listen to him now?

"Why I should have listened to Garry Kasparov about Putin"
https://www.ft.com/content/4079c3f7-75f0-4d5e-9c9d-bc673d26cfd9

IshmaelZ

mwadams said:

MikeSmithson said:

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

If there had been an internet and PB in April 1982 then there would have been 100s of Falklands threads

Interesting question though - would we have known much more about it than we did from the embedded reporters at the time? With a small population rapidly brought under the invader, and a remote location essentially only reachable by the forces involved, it feels like a conflict that wouldn't have had the TikTok treatment.

No, because taking out all internet access would have been trivially easy, and would have been done. won't be true in 5 years time when starlink is up and running

Theuniondivvie

BartholomewRoberts said:

Anabobazina said:

DavidL said:

FF43 said:

DavidL said:

It''s a good try but I really don't think that anything is going to make the Presidential race in France interesting or anything other than predictable. Which is a shame because Macron is pretty crap.

You think Le Pen or the other possible candidates are better?

No. And that is the problem.

Then why is it 'a shame' that Macron is going to walk it?

He might not be brilliant, but he's clearly the best candidate in a poor field.

And that's a shame.

Its not a shame that Biden beat Trump, but it is a shame that Biden was the best the US had to offer.

Many here think the same with regards to Boris and Corbyn.

Lol, you stuck in the last bit before I had a chance to point out similar.

I dare say France has its share of gormless fanbois who think Macron is exceptionel.

MarqueeMark

Burgessian said:

St Nicola: "'NATO and the democratic world shouldn't be writing Putin blank cheques'

Well, that's them telt.

https://twitter.com/ITVBorderRB/status/1504094294080208896

Only Nicola should get blank cheques, written by London...

MarqueeMark

Benpointer said:

Bloody hell, it's still 1982 on here, I see. How depressing.

Music's great though....

Theuniondivvie

MarqueeMark said:

Burgessian said:

St Nicola: "'NATO and the democratic world shouldn't be writing Putin blank cheques'

Well, that's them telt.

https://twitter.com/ITVBorderRB/status/1504094294080208896

Only Nicola should get blank cheques, written by London...

That’s what you Unionists keep on voting for, I just can’t work out why you seem so unhappy with the result.

Mexicanpete

HYUFD said:

kjh said:

I found yesterday quite cathartic bizarrely. Why? Well I am clearly not a fan of Thatcher, but I found myself defending her from @HYUFD mad demonic catagorisation of her. This was a new and refreshing experience for me. The more I thought about it the more I thought about the fact that (with the exception of Tebbit) the Thatcher Govt was made up of grown ups regardless of what I thought of their policies. Made me feel much happier.

No doubt my bubble will be burst by examples of idiots from that era, but currently I'm very relaxed in my view.

Tebbit was tough and had guts, so no wonder you were not a fan

His dad had a bicycle as I recall.

A reminder to us that for all Boris Johnson's stone cold heartlessness, the Conservative Party had and have even more objectionable operatives waiting in the wings.

IshmaelZ

BlancheLivermore said:

Should we listen to him now?

"Why I should have listened to Garry Kasparov about Putin"
https://www.ft.com/content/4079c3f7-75f0-4d5e-9c9d-bc673d26cfd9

"Kasparov warned that Putin was becoming increasingly authoritarian, isolated from the west and, as a result, likely to lash out at neighbors such as Ukraine in a dangerous way.

When the rest of the table rowdily dismissed his catastrophizing, Kasparov became heated and, as the wine flowed, the conversation grew so animated that I started to worry that guests would walk out."

And then

"When we caught up by phone last week, he recalled that night, lamenting, “I was stunned by the unwillingness of people [in the west] to hear these warnings, because I grew up in the Soviet Union and knew all about the historical events of the 20th century. I knew you could have stopped Hitler in 1935 and 1936 and 1937 and did not. But I had so much outright rejection of what I have been saying." ”

Drunk in drunken rant shock. I mean, who believed anything else about Putin in 2017 or whenever, who could have "stopped" Hitler and how, and same question about Putin?

Cyclefree

Dura_Ace said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

It’s really simple and well documented.

(Okay, it’s very complex but still well documented)

Seventeen planes out of Ascencion, refuelling each other in a carefully co-ordinated manner, to get one Vulcan to do one bombing run in Falkland, before returning to Ascencion without landing.

Never was the F-111K so badly missed. The USAF used 20 KC-135 to put 20 F-111F over Libya on Eldorado Canyon flying a similar distance to Black Buck.

Oh, I think talking about the Falklands is fine though it would have to be done only by those who were adults at the time.

boulay

Cyclefree said:

Dura_Ace said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

It’s really simple and well documented.

(Okay, it’s very complex but still well documented)

Seventeen planes out of Ascencion, refuelling each other in a carefully co-ordinated manner, to get one Vulcan to do one bombing run in Falkland, before returning to Ascencion without landing.

Never was the F-111K so badly missed. The USAF used 20 KC-135 to put 20 F-111F over Libya on Eldorado Canyon flying a similar distance to Black Buck.

Oh, I think talking about the Falklands is fine though it would have to be done only by those who were adults at the time.

Does this mean that only JackW can talk about Napoleon and Wellington?

IshmaelZ

Mexicanpete said:

HYUFD said:

kjh said:

I found yesterday quite cathartic bizarrely. Why? Well I am clearly not a fan of Thatcher, but I found myself defending her from @HYUFD mad demonic catagorisation of her. This was a new and refreshing experience for me. The more I thought about it the more I thought about the fact that (with the exception of Tebbit) the Thatcher Govt was made up of grown ups regardless of what I thought of their policies. Made me feel much happier.

No doubt my bubble will be burst by examples of idiots from that era, but currently I'm very relaxed in my view.

Tebbit was tough and had guts, so no wonder you were not a fan

His dad had a bicycle as I recall.

A reminder to us that for all Boris Johnson's stone cold heartlessness, the Conservative Party had and have even more objectionable operatives waiting in the wings.

Epping's second finest contribution to Conservative politics.

He was proper working class, mind. For that and other reasons I'd take him over the flsoj any day of the week.

FF43

BartholomewRoberts said:

Anabobazina said:

DavidL said:

FF43 said:

DavidL said:

It''s a good try but I really don't think that anything is going to make the Presidential race in France interesting or anything other than predictable. Which is a shame because Macron is pretty crap.

You think Le Pen or the other possible candidates are better?

No. And that is the problem.

Then why is it 'a shame' that Macron is going to walk it?

He might not be brilliant, but he's clearly the best candidate in a poor field.

And that's a shame.

Its not a shame that Biden beat Trump, but it is a shame that Biden was the best the US had to offer.

Many here think the same with regards to Boris and Corbyn.

Biden is another underrated on here politician in my view. He has achieved two wonderful things for the world.

Firstly he beat Trump in the 2020 presidential election when Clinton, who was also far better than her opposition, didn't the previous time.

Secondly he has done an excellent job herding the many cats on the response to the Russian invasion.

geoffw

Cyclefree said:

Dura_Ace said:

Sandpit said:

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

It’s really simple and well documented.

(Okay, it’s very complex but still well documented)

Seventeen planes out of Ascencion, refuelling each other in a carefully co-ordinated manner, to get one Vulcan to do one bombing run in Falkland, before returning to Ascencion without landing.

Never was the F-111K so badly missed. The USAF used 20 KC-135 to put 20 F-111F over Libya on Eldorado Canyon flying a similar distance to Black Buck.

Oh, I think talking about the Falklands is fine though it would have to be done only by those who were adults at the time.

Can we make that a rule?

Chris

mwadams said:

JosiasJessop said:

MikeSmithson said:

JosiasJessop said:

Instead of talking about France, could we discuss the Falkland Islands on this thread?

We don't talk about them enough.

(runs for cover)

If there had been an internet and PB in April 1982 then there would have been 100s of Falklands threads

And HYUFD would have been discussing Suez...

And why it was, in fact, a triumph for the Tory gov of the day.

Though the publication of only one opinion poll a month (?) might have cramped his style a little.