On the nuclear threat, I don't think any of our more mature readers has mentioned nuclear-free zones. Back in the 1980s, many of us metropolitan lefties and luvvies lived in London Labour boroughs or cities that designated themselves as nuclear-free zones. Very sensible. I think these should be re-introduced to protect those of us who live in such places - I'm sure they'd work against Putin.
So if you lived in Camden, Islington or Hackney, you'd be safe. Unlike Bexley, Barnet or Bromley, where you'd be buggered. Sheffield safe. Harrogate irradiated. Happy days.
The Nuclear Free Zone Movement in the United Kingdom was very strong in early 1980s; up to two hundred local authorities including county councils, district councils and city councils such as the Greater London Council (GLC) (before its abolition) declared themselves to be 'nuclear free'. The first 'nuclear-free zone' in the UK was Manchester City Council in 1980 – this still exists to this day. Wales became 'nuclear free' on 23 February 1982 after Clwyd County Council declared itself 'nuclear free' and the Nuclear Free Wales Declaration was made. This policy was legally underpinned by Section 137 of the Local Government Act, which allowed local authorities to spend a small amount on whatever members considered was in the interest of their area or a part of their area.
UK nuclear-free local authorities refused to take part in civil defence exercises relating to nuclear war, which they thought were futile. The non-cooperation of the nuclear-free zone authorities was the main reason for the cancellation of the national 'Hard Rock' civil defence exercise in July 1982. In England and Wales 24 of the 54 county councils refused to participate and seven more co-operated only in a half-hearted way.[27] This has been seen as a victory for the British Peace movement against the policies of Margaret Thatcher. Generally, nuclear-free zones were predominantly Labour Party controlled councils but Liberal Party and even a few Conservative Party councillors were often active in this respect too.
I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.
Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.
I think Cotswold villages would be glowing with or without the afternoon sunshine.
Yes, but they wold be nearly all intact. Russian nukes are larger than their Western equivalents - probably accuracy issues. But blast and thermal effects don't scale linearly.
Lets say we nuke Oxford with a 450Kt weapon. The circle is the damage radius.
Crime would go down massively as Blackbird Lees gets tonked.
Safest place is Cambridge. No way they zap their spies....
Why would the target and indifferent polytechnic in a swamp, anyway?
Because it churns out useful stuff like highly talented scientists and engineers and mathematicians and geographers.
The PPEs that Oxford produces are doing so much damage to the country already that dropping a bomb on it would be counter-productive.
On the nuclear threat, I don't think any of our more mature readers has mentioned nuclear-free zones. Back in the 1980s, many of us metropolitan lefties and luvvies lived in London Labour boroughs or cities that designated themselves as nuclear-free zones. Very sensible. I think these should be re-introduced to protect those of us who live in such places - I'm sure they'd work against Putin.
So if you lived in Camden, Islington or Hackney, you'd be safe. Unlike Bexley, Barnet or Bromley, where you'd be buggered. Sheffield safe. Harrogate irradiated. Happy days.
I’m going the other way. I’m off to Greenham Common to protest for the immediate reintroduction of some cruise missiles.
The Worlds End in Camden, I think, still has the nuclear free zone sign up.
I never asked if they would bar you if you tried to bring a nuclear weapon into the pub, though.
I felt like a punk who’d gone out for a switchblade and come back with a tactical nuke. “Shit,” I said, “screwed again. What good’s a tactical nuke in a streetfight?” — William Gibson, Burning Chrome
On the nuclear threat, I don't think any of our more mature readers has mentioned nuclear-free zones. Back in the 1980s, many of us metropolitan lefties and luvvies lived in London Labour boroughs or cities that designated themselves as nuclear-free zones. Very sensible. I think these should be re-introduced to protect those of us who live in such places - I'm sure they'd work against Putin.
So if you lived in Camden, Islington or Hackney, you'd be safe. Unlike Bexley, Barnet or Bromley, where you'd be buggered. Sheffield safe. Harrogate irradiated. Happy days.
I’m going the other way. I’m off to Greenham Common to protest for the immediate reintroduction of some cruise missiles.
I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.
Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.
I think Cotswold villages would be glowing with or without the afternoon sunshine.
Yes, but they wold be nearly all intact. Russian nukes are larger than their Western equivalents - probably accuracy issues. But blast and thermal effects don't scale linearly.
Lets say we nuke Oxford with a 450Kt weapon. The circle is the damage radius.
Crime would go down massively as Blackbird Lees gets tonked.
Safest place is Cambridge. No way they zap their spies....
Fake news. I remember how to survive this. I just have to sit under my stairs with a mattress covering the gap.
If you are out of the immediate blast zone, and had some kind of fallout protection - sealed the house up, with a filter, say... after a 3-4 weeks you would be ok to go outside, probably.
As long as I beat the rush to book those Waitrose delivery slots, I should be OK, then.
It’s really rather pleasing that MPs will get to keep their lucrative uncapped second jobs and also receive their £2k pay rise on the same day my tax will increase to pay for the care of old people, very many of whom have more assets than me and won’t themselves be hit by the tax rise.
On top of everything else skyrocketing. Inflation’s at 8%, apparently.
Assuming we’re not all fried imminently this will knock Ukraine off the headlines here soon as people start to really feel the hit in their pockets.
It feels like the calm before this particular storm. I cannot understand for the life of me why the government isn’t doing more about all this, but rather insisting the NI rise must go ahead.
Did I hear something about the tiny Sunak doing a ‘wartime budget’ soon? Does a glorious, magnanimous, beneficent U-turn seem likely?
I think the timings of assorted finance bills and the links to live systems makes it pretty hard now. He’s bound to do something showy though. Petrol? VAT on fuel? 5-10% cut to VAT in general?
Since they are getting these pay rises, presumably MPs' taxes will increase quite a lot more
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
"like a pariah"? Well, it's good to see that the ridiculous over-reacting has stopped.
It's really brought it home. I was born an EEC/EU citizen, with all the freedoms that came with that. Now I am a complete foreigner. Of course I have known this was coming since 2016, but in all honesty seeing it happening in reality is fucking depressing. Really really sad.
For me, flying back into the UK and seeing all the EU lanes removed felt unexpectedly uplifting. It was a reminder that we are still a serious, modern European country, and there is life beyond Brexit.
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.
Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.
I think Cotswold villages would be glowing with or without the afternoon sunshine.
Yes, but they wold be nearly all intact. Russian nukes are larger than their Western equivalents - probably accuracy issues. But blast and thermal effects don't scale linearly.
Lets say we nuke Oxford with a 450Kt weapon. The circle is the damage radius.
Crime would go down massively as Blackbird Lees gets tonked.
Safest place is Cambridge. No way they zap their spies....
Why would the target and indifferent polytechnic in a swamp, anyway?
Because it churns out useful stuff like highly talented scientists and engineers and mathematicians and geographers.
The PPEs that Oxford produces are doing so much damage to the country already that dropping a bomb on it would be counter-productive.
It's because of Rutherford we are all busy assessing the refuge value of the various ditches within a mile or so of our homes. Useful indeed.
On the nuclear threat, I don't think any of our more mature readers has mentioned nuclear-free zones. Back in the 1980s, many of us metropolitan lefties and luvvies lived in London Labour boroughs or cities that designated themselves as nuclear-free zones. Very sensible. I think these should be re-introduced to protect those of us who live in such places - I'm sure they'd work against Putin.
So if you lived in Camden, Islington or Hackney, you'd be safe. Unlike Bexley, Barnet or Bromley, where you'd be buggered. Sheffield safe. Harrogate irradiated. Happy days.
The Nuclear Free Zone Movement in the United Kingdom was very strong in early 1980s; up to two hundred local authorities including county councils, district councils and city councils such as the Greater London Council (GLC) (before its abolition) declared themselves to be 'nuclear free'. The first 'nuclear-free zone' in the UK was Manchester City Council in 1980 – this still exists to this day. Wales became 'nuclear free' on 23 February 1982 after Clwyd County Council declared itself 'nuclear free' and the Nuclear Free Wales Declaration was made. This policy was legally underpinned by Section 137 of the Local Government Act, which allowed local authorities to spend a small amount on whatever members considered was in the interest of their area or a part of their area.
UK nuclear-free local authorities refused to take part in civil defence exercises relating to nuclear war, which they thought were futile. The non-cooperation of the nuclear-free zone authorities was the main reason for the cancellation of the national 'Hard Rock' civil defence exercise in July 1982. In England and Wales 24 of the 54 county councils refused to participate and seven more co-operated only in a half-hearted way.[27] This has been seen as a victory for the British Peace movement against the policies of Margaret Thatcher. Generally, nuclear-free zones were predominantly Labour Party controlled councils but Liberal Party and even a few Conservative Party councillors were often active in this respect too.
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
"like a pariah"? Well, it's good to see that the ridiculous over-reacting has stopped.
It's really brought it home. I was born an EEC/EU citizen, with all the freedoms that came with that. Now I am a complete foreigner. Of course I have known this was coming since 2016, but in all honesty seeing it happening in reality is fucking depressing. Really really sad.
For me, flying back into the UK and seeing all the EU lanes removed felt unexpectedly uplifting. It was a reminder that we are still a serious, modern European country, and there is life beyond Brexit.
This was flying back from your europhile to europhobic re-education camp in some far-flung part of empire, such as Gibraltar? It must be said, they did an excellent job. The Prevent people should go on the same course
On the nuclear threat, I don't think any of our more mature readers has mentioned nuclear-free zones. Back in the 1980s, many of us metropolitan lefties and luvvies lived in London Labour boroughs or cities that designated themselves as nuclear-free zones. Very sensible. I think these should be re-introduced to protect those of us who live in such places - I'm sure they'd work against Putin.
So if you lived in Camden, Islington or Hackney, you'd be safe. Unlike Bexley, Barnet or Bromley, where you'd be buggered. Sheffield safe. Harrogate irradiated. Happy days.
The Nuclear Free Zone Movement in the United Kingdom was very strong in early 1980s; up to two hundred local authorities including county councils, district councils and city councils such as the Greater London Council (GLC) (before its abolition) declared themselves to be 'nuclear free'. The first 'nuclear-free zone' in the UK was Manchester City Council in 1980 – this still exists to this day. Wales became 'nuclear free' on 23 February 1982 after Clwyd County Council declared itself 'nuclear free' and the Nuclear Free Wales Declaration was made. This policy was legally underpinned by Section 137 of the Local Government Act, which allowed local authorities to spend a small amount on whatever members considered was in the interest of their area or a part of their area.
UK nuclear-free local authorities refused to take part in civil defence exercises relating to nuclear war, which they thought were futile. The non-cooperation of the nuclear-free zone authorities was the main reason for the cancellation of the national 'Hard Rock' civil defence exercise in July 1982. In England and Wales 24 of the 54 county councils refused to participate and seven more co-operated only in a half-hearted way.[27] This has been seen as a victory for the British Peace movement against the policies of Margaret Thatcher. Generally, nuclear-free zones were predominantly Labour Party controlled councils but Liberal Party and even a few Conservative Party councillors were often active in this respect too.
WATCH: The first Eurasian beaver to be released in London since the species went extinct in Britain 400 years ago. A male and female were this morning introduced to their new woodland enclosure at @FortyHallFarm in Enfield!
Interesting. There’s a consultation running currently on the island as to whether we should introduce beavers here. Meanwhile a third of our sea eagles has been found dead in suspicious circumstances; one fears that our farmers aren’t entirely behind these initiatives with species diversity.
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
Meanwhile non-EU Albania doesn't seem to feel the need to do any of that shit, they don't seem to have bothered to stamp my passport. Unlike the Spanish who stamped it in at Malaga and out at La Linea. It really says more about our former EU partners than it says about us.
EU countries will stamp your passport so they know whether you have overstayed your 90 days, and if so, there will be penalties and fines.
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
"like a pariah"? Well, it's good to see that the ridiculous over-reacting has stopped.
It's really brought it home. I was born an EEC/EU citizen, with all the freedoms that came with that. Now I am a complete foreigner. Of course I have known this was coming since 2016, but in all honesty seeing it happening in reality is fucking depressing. Really really sad.
Since we have never been in Shengen, surely passports and stamps have always applied.
eg Irish need a passport when travelling to France.
One of the scary things is that it’s still not entirely clear what Putin’s political aims were/are.
Was it just to normalise Donbas annexation? Seize the Ukrainian seaboard? Annex all of Ukraine? Return to pre-1989 borders?
Or is it that - unbeknownst to us - he was about to be toppled and needs a long long war and besieged economy to accrue the kind of authortitarian powers necessary to stay in control?
Nobody knows, but it seems important in terms of figuring out whether he, indeed, likely he to resort to nuclear weaponry.
His aim is probably to get as much as he can, depending on how much resistance there is.
The most convincing explanation I have seen is that the primary intention of the Donbas revolt was not so much for Russia to control those areas, but to produce a Ukraine that weak, in civil war, and subject to Russian interference, so that it could not meaningfully be brought within a Western sphere of influence.
On that basis, things weren't working out. The invasion would therefore also have been aimed at removing the current political leadership, creating a vacuum, balkanising power within Ukraine, and removing Ukraine's military capability (therefore obliging Ukraine to come to Russia).
Those aims have already failed, so Ukraine must instead be economically and militarily strangled, to make up for its current political strength.
Or, more fundamentally, to destroy any chance that a democratic and prosperous Ukraine on his doorstep wouldn’t show up the failings of his own oligarchic-fascistic economy.
Turning the Donbas into a gangster economy has however nullified the support Russia previously enjoyed in eastern Ukraine.
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
It's not a decision looking better with time, is it? As the bullshit and brittle boosterism falls away what's left, standing ever more starkly revealed, is the utter pointlessness of the whole thing and the essential tawdriness at its core. I don't enjoy saying this but it's true. In 10 years or so there'll be few admitting to being in the 52% - even amongst those still alive.
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
"like a pariah"? Well, it's good to see that the ridiculous over-reacting has stopped.
It's really brought it home. I was born an EEC/EU citizen, with all the freedoms that came with that. Now I am a complete foreigner. Of course I have known this was coming since 2016, but in all honesty seeing it happening in reality is fucking depressing. Really really sad.
Since we have never been in Shengen, surely passports and stamps have always applied.
eg Irish need a passport when travelling to France.
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
"like a pariah"? Well, it's good to see that the ridiculous over-reacting has stopped.
It's really brought it home. I was born an EEC/EU citizen, with all the freedoms that came with that. Now I am a complete foreigner. Of course I have known this was coming since 2016, but in all honesty seeing it happening in reality is fucking depressing. Really really sad.
I wasn't born an EEC/EU citizen and had no choice in the matter. I have no interest in being an EU citizen and am delighted we are out of the idiotic mess. I travel extensively all over the world and if the worst that can be said is I have to queue for a few minutes at passport control (something by the way you always had to do anyway when going into Europe as we were not in Schengen) then so fucking what? If that is what makes you sad then you have led far too sheltered a life.
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
"like a pariah"? Well, it's good to see that the ridiculous over-reacting has stopped.
It's really brought it home. I was born an EEC/EU citizen, with all the freedoms that came with that. Now I am a complete foreigner. Of course I have known this was coming since 2016, but in all honesty seeing it happening in reality is fucking depressing. Really really sad.
Freedom from having your passport stamped when visiting a foreign country? Donnez-moi un break.
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
Nevertheless, make sure that Brexit misery doesn’t stop your going to check out their recently completed restoration of Frankfurt Altstadt.
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
"like a pariah"? Well, it's good to see that the ridiculous over-reacting has stopped.
It's really brought it home. I was born an EEC/EU citizen, with all the freedoms that came with that. Now I am a complete foreigner. Of course I have known this was coming since 2016, but in all honesty seeing it happening in reality is fucking depressing. Really really sad.
Freedom from having your passport stamped when visiting a foreign country? Donnez-moi un break.
I didn’t even get a stamp going into the US last week. They’ve stopped it, apparently.
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
"like a pariah"? Well, it's good to see that the ridiculous over-reacting has stopped.
It's really brought it home. I was born an EEC/EU citizen, with all the freedoms that came with that. Now I am a complete foreigner. Of course I have known this was coming since 2016, but in all honesty seeing it happening in reality is fucking depressing. Really really sad.
For me, flying back into the UK and seeing all the EU lanes removed felt unexpectedly uplifting. It was a reminder that we are still a serious, modern European country, and there is life beyond Brexit.
If people really truly are born and live as 'citizens' of the EU, then it really is a proper question to ask what precisely is the EU's policy and military preparedness for the invasion of Finland or Sweden.
And as a sub question to wonder at the ludicrous pretence of European non countries holding all those seats in the UN and exchanging ambassadors with each other.
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
"like a pariah"? Well, it's good to see that the ridiculous over-reacting has stopped.
It's really brought it home. I was born an EEC/EU citizen, with all the freedoms that came with that. Now I am a complete foreigner. Of course I have known this was coming since 2016, but in all honesty seeing it happening in reality is fucking depressing. Really really sad.
I wasn't born an EEC/EU citizen and had no choice in the matter. I have no interest in being an EU citizen and am delighted we are out of the idiotic mess. I travel extensively all over the world and if the worst that can be said is I have to queue for a few minutes at passport control (something by the way you always had to do anyway when going into Europe as we were not in Schengen) then so fucking what? If that is what makes you sad then you have led far too sheltered a life.
Grow up you child.
because look at the benefits.
... "Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
Meanwhile non-EU Albania doesn't seem to feel the need to do any of that shit, they don't seem to have bothered to stamp my passport. Unlike the Spanish who stamped it in at Malaga and out at La Linea. It really says more about our former EU partners than it says about us.
EU countries will stamp your passport so they know whether you have overstayed your 90 days, and if so, there will be penalties and fines.
A key point. When you leave the EU (including returning home), make sure your passport is date-stamped. There are some sad cases of people who have returned home without a date-stamp who have been refused entry to the EU as a consequence.
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
"like a pariah"? Well, it's good to see that the ridiculous over-reacting has stopped.
It's really brought it home. I was born an EEC/EU citizen, with all the freedoms that came with that. Now I am a complete foreigner. Of course I have known this was coming since 2016, but in all honesty seeing it happening in reality is fucking depressing. Really really sad.
For me, flying back into the UK and seeing all the EU lanes removed felt unexpectedly uplifting. It was a reminder that we are still a serious, modern European country, and there is life beyond Brexit.
You must be going to different airports to me. Whenever I've flown in the last couple of years everyone from the EU has been using the e-gates with the British (and Americans, Japanese etc).
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, has hit out at Russian “dirty tricks” after being targeted by an impostor posing as the Ukrainian prime minister.
He told The Times that a man pretending to be prime minister Denys Shmyhal on a video call asked him a series of questions which “got wilder and wilder so I ended the call”.
One line of inquiry is that the call was orchestrated by Russian intelligence as an attempt to extract sensitive information from Wallace or as an attempt to embarrass him.
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
"like a pariah"? Well, it's good to see that the ridiculous over-reacting has stopped.
It's really brought it home. I was born an EEC/EU citizen, with all the freedoms that came with that. Now I am a complete foreigner. Of course I have known this was coming since 2016, but in all honesty seeing it happening in reality is fucking depressing. Really really sad.
Freedom from having your passport stamped when visiting a foreign country? Donnez-moi un break.
I didn’t even get a stamp going into the US last week. They’ve stopped it, apparently.
Did you still get the usual five minutes of accusatory questions pitched from the perspective of your being less than welcome in the land of the free?
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
Meanwhile non-EU Albania doesn't seem to feel the need to do any of that shit, they don't seem to have bothered to stamp my passport. Unlike the Spanish who stamped it in at Malaga and out at La Linea. It really says more about our former EU partners than it says about us.
EU countries will stamp your passport so they know whether you have overstayed your 90 days, and if so, there will be penalties and fines.
A key point. When you leave the EU (including returning home), make sure your passport is date-stamped. There are some sad cases of people who have returned home without a date-stamp who have been refused entry to the EU as a consequence.
The Schengen Information System holds this electronically. The stamps are a backup. No border officer is counting up the stamps by hand in normal procedure.
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
"like a pariah"? Well, it's good to see that the ridiculous over-reacting has stopped.
It's really brought it home. I was born an EEC/EU citizen, with all the freedoms that came with that. Now I am a complete foreigner. Of course I have known this was coming since 2016, but in all honesty seeing it happening in reality is fucking depressing. Really really sad.
Freedom from having your passport stamped when visiting a foreign country? Donnez-moi un break.
I didn’t even get a stamp going into the US last week. They’ve stopped it, apparently.
Did you still get the usual five minutes of accusatory questions pitched from the perspective of your being less than welcome in the land of the free?
Oh, of course. How dare I come on holiday. Don’t I have a job? How can I take so long off?
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
Meanwhile non-EU Albania doesn't seem to feel the need to do any of that shit, they don't seem to have bothered to stamp my passport. Unlike the Spanish who stamped it in at Malaga and out at La Linea. It really says more about our former EU partners than it says about us.
EU countries will stamp your passport so they know whether you have overstayed your 90 days, and if so, there will be penalties and fines.
A key point. When you leave the EU (including returning home), make sure your passport is date-stamped. There are some sad cases of people who have returned home without a date-stamp who have been refused entry to the EU as a consequence.
I once got turned down for an Australian visa because I hadn't been stamped out properly, as an illegal overstayed from a previous trip. It took ages to sort out, as Australia House didn't do face to face appointments. I had an arrival stamp for Indonesia to prove the date that I left, but ran into a dead wall of bureaucratic silence. Mind you, stories of our Home Office or USA are at least as bad.
Idiots. Time to get rid of mask altogether and forever.
There appears to be an abundance of international evidence that masking is near or completely useless against omicron (e.g. Hong Kong, NZ). It's not clear why anyone would persisting with an intrusive, antisocial measure for no obvious health benefit.
Has there been a scientific study demonstrating this?
I can't see how @Anabobazina can come to that conclusion. If one has a respiratory tract infection, and one wears a mask, then (a) the pace/speed at which viral matter comes out the mouth is slowed dramatically, and (b) a significant portion is simply goìng to get trapped by the mask.
Now, it's entirely possible that - because Omicron is so infectious - that R0 only coms down to (say) 2 with compulsory masking. It's also fine to say that, given high levels of natural immunity and vaccinations, then the benefits of compulsory masking are outweighed by its costs.
But it is clearly rubbish to claim - without evidence - that it does nothing to reduce transmission rates.
And in countries with limited natural immunity (*cough* China) it it probably essential to minimise viral load recieved by the immune naïve, and slow the spread of the disease.
I said "there appears to be" and "near or completely useless". I am simply reading off from the numbers abroad. I haven't come to any confirmed conclusion. I am simply asking why anyone would persist with the masks in the absence of much evidence of their effectiveness against omicron. They do, after all, have massive downsides of their own.
Yeah, but an R of 3 and an R of 2.5 both show ridiculously steep curves, that it would be very hard to tell apart by simple eyeballing. And yet the former case will result in a 80% of cases happening in a four week period and infections reaching 80% of the population, while in the latter, it's five and a half weeks and 62%.
We are lucky as a nation that (a) lots of us have had Covid, and (b) everyone has been vaccinated (often triple vaccinated) with decent Western vaccines. And we should probably have removed mask mandates earlier
But in China, yeah, they should probably keep them. It'll be utterly shit even with them... but it won't be quite as shit as it would otherwise be.
I assume everyone, or nearly everyone, in Hong Kong is still wearing masks. Why, then, are they having a terrible Covid problem atm?
Because R of 2.5 still gives you a terrible Covid problem - it's just slightly better than it would be with an R of 3.
There's one thing and only one thing that doesn't give you a terrible Covid problem.
8 letter word, starts with a 'v'.
I can get that - "vaccination" but you like to go with the more punchy "vaccines", don't you?
You remember when you kept posting stuff like - "There's only one way out of this and that's vaccines"? Ending almost every post with "and that's vaccines".
I do. God, that was annoying. I think I told you at the time it was. And tbf you did stop after a few days, which was a relief.
But, point is, you were right. Eg I have it now and though ropey and smell-less the vaccine makes such a difference. I'd be much more worried if I hadn't had the jabs.
So, you know, there's one thing and one thing only stopping me fretting about having come down with Covid right now ... and that's vaccines.
I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.
Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.
I think Cotswold villages would be glowing with or without the afternoon sunshine.
Yes, but they wold be nearly all intact. Russian nukes are larger than their Western equivalents - probably accuracy issues. But blast and thermal effects don't scale linearly.
Lets say we nuke Oxford with a 450Kt weapon. The circle is the damage radius.
Crime would go down massively as Blackbird Lees gets tonked.
Safest place is Cambridge. No way they zap their spies....
Why would the target and indifferent polytechnic in a swamp, anyway?
Because it churns out useful stuff like highly talented scientists and engineers and mathematicians and geographers.
The PPEs that Oxford produces are doing so much damage to the country already that dropping a bomb on it would be counter-productive.
It's because of Rutherford we are all busy assessing the refuge value of the various ditches within a mile or so of our homes. Useful indeed.
Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
"like a pariah"? Well, it's good to see that the ridiculous over-reacting has stopped.
It's really brought it home. I was born an EEC/EU citizen, with all the freedoms that came with that. Now I am a complete foreigner. Of course I have known this was coming since 2016, but in all honesty seeing it happening in reality is fucking depressing. Really really sad.
For me, flying back into the UK and seeing all the EU lanes removed felt unexpectedly uplifting. It was a reminder that we are still a serious, modern European country, and there is life beyond Brexit.
You must be going to different airports to me. Whenever I've flown in the last couple of years everyone from the EU has been using the e-gates with the British (and Americans, Japanese etc).
I'm talking more about the customs lanes. There's no longer a 'blue' lane, just 'red' and 'green'.
Regarding Ukraine: is there a change in tone from China? IE: this from Chinese state sponsored media: "Russian troops have killed at least 10 civilians standing in line for bread in Chernihiv, a city in northern Ukraine, according to a Ukrainian public broadcaster and the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv".
WATCH: The first Eurasian beaver to be released in London since the species went extinct in Britain 400 years ago. A male and female were this morning introduced to their new woodland enclosure at @FortyHallFarm in Enfield!
Comments
UK nuclear-free local authorities refused to take part in civil defence exercises relating to nuclear war, which they thought were futile. The non-cooperation of the nuclear-free zone authorities was the main reason for the cancellation of the national 'Hard Rock' civil defence exercise in July 1982. In England and Wales 24 of the 54 county councils refused to participate and seven more co-operated only in a half-hearted way.[27] This has been seen as a victory for the British Peace movement against the policies of Margaret Thatcher. Generally, nuclear-free zones were predominantly Labour Party controlled councils but Liberal Party and even a few Conservative Party councillors were often active in this respect too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-free_zone#United_Kingdom
The PPEs that Oxford produces are doing so much damage to the country already that dropping a bomb on it would be counter-productive.
I never asked if they would bar you if you tried to bring a nuclear weapon into the pub, though.
I felt like a punk who’d gone out for a switchblade and come back with a tactical nuke.
“Shit,” I said, “screwed again. What good’s a tactical nuke in a streetfight?”
— William Gibson, Burning Chrome
How much Russian influence is there in Dubai?
https://lieber.westpoint.edu/ukraines-legal-counterattack/
Political self-abuse. I remember thinking even then that these tossers were undermining our position wrt the Warsaw Pact. Fortunately they failed.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/17/france-exported-bombs-aircraft-russia-2014-eu-arms-embargo/
eg Irish need a passport when travelling to France.
Tame your imagination?
Turning the Donbas into a gangster economy has however nullified the support Russia previously enjoyed in eastern Ukraine.
Grow up you child.
And as a sub question to wonder at the ludicrous pretence of European non countries holding all those seats in the UN and exchanging ambassadors with each other.
... "Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Arrogance and appalling lack of sympathy
He instantly made himself the most despised employer in the UK
I cannot believe he can get away with this
Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, has hit out at Russian “dirty tricks” after being targeted by an impostor posing as the Ukrainian prime minister.
He told The Times that a man pretending to be prime minister Denys Shmyhal on a video call asked him a series of questions which “got wilder and wilder so I ended the call”.
One line of inquiry is that the call was orchestrated by Russian intelligence as an attempt to extract sensitive information from Wallace or as an attempt to embarrass him.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/impostor-tries-to-dupe-defence-secretary-35rqqkbjw
NEW THREAD
faded away and radiated
You remember when you kept posting stuff like - "There's only one way out of this and that's vaccines"? Ending almost every post with "and that's vaccines".
I do. God, that was annoying. I think I told you at the time it was. And tbf you did stop after a few days, which was a relief.
But, point is, you were right. Eg I have it now and though ropey and smell-less the vaccine makes such a difference. I'd be much more worried if I hadn't had the jabs.
So, you know, there's one thing and one thing only stopping me fretting about having come down with Covid right now ... and that's vaccines.
IE: this from Chinese state sponsored media: "Russian troops have killed at least 10 civilians standing in line for bread in Chernihiv, a city in northern Ukraine, according to a Ukrainian public broadcaster and the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv".
https://twitter.com/cgtnamerica/status/1504510377446543362