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A BoJo 2022 exit still not an evens chance in the betting – politicalbetting.com

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  • felixfelix Posts: 15,147
    Nigelb said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Heathener said:

    China is in such a mess over covid. This latest Beijing lockdown is awful.

    Even I am coming to see now that we have to learn to live with this thing and thanks to vaccines we can.

    (I still think we should be mask wearing indoors in public but that's moot).

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-61212757

    The critical thing with the Omicron outbreak was getting a very high level of vaccination for the elderly with high quality vaccines. Especially with boosters.

    While COVID is not harmless to the young, it is orders of magnitude more dangerous for the older groups.

    For the very oldest, it managed case->fatality number (pre vaccination) above 30%. Which puts it in the Black Death column, for them.

    Those countries that did vaccinate the elderly well, did well in this outbreak.
    My wife and I had our fourth yesterday (Moderna) and felt quite light headed and jaded for the rest of the day. Indeed my wife took paracetamol for the pain in her arm. We are still a bit jaded this morning but we are so grateful that we have received it
    Read your first 8 words and was going to congratulate you heartily on the late blessing. Well done getting the jab anyway.
    I mischievously text my children yesterday with the words ' we have just had our fourth' as we do have three children, though they are 57, 51 and 47
    Moderna is an unusual choice of name.
    Beats Pfizer and Zeneca but I wouldn't mind being called Astra!
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,798

    IshmaelZ said:

    algarkirk said:

    Heathener said:

    I was given a pretty rough ride on here a few months back for telling you that misogynism was rife in the Parliamentary Conservative Party. It was partly my fault for telling you I had a source and because at the time some of you thought I was a troll.

    I think this latest incident about Angela Rayner indicates that my source was not wrong.
    https://news.sky.com/story/tory-whips-looking-at-whether-they-know-who-made-sexist-rayner-remarks-12598530

    What is heartening, and I mean this genuinely, is that a significant number of Conservatives have come out strongly in condemnation, including the PM. It gives me hope. There is still decency to be found in the Conservative Party, just as there was still decency to be found inside Corbyn's toxic Labour Party.

    I think it's this same decency which will help rebuild the Conservative brand. Labour have almost achieved this in two years, so it is possible.

    Is it possible that the story was made up by someone? As it happens it has taken off, but that is not entirely predictable, and someone somewhere may have wanted to fill some space in a way which may have been instantly forgettable but wasn't.

    Perhaps it was one of the 3 MPs who were about to defect to the Conservatives, that we were told about with such confidence?

    I am fairly convinced that about 50% of "anonymous sourced" stories in politics are made up. If nothing else, when they are proven false, why don't the journalists do the old fashioned thing and expose the liars (it's how they used to keep anonymous sources honest)?
    Don't think so, our PM is evidence that journalists making up stories are liable to the sack, even if the message from his overall career arc is a bit mixed

    I am fascinated by the GQ story that he reviewed cars without actually driving them, time and time again. Presented as a Good Old Boris what a card story but I think it ought to be damaging.
    One weird thing about that story is that, for many people, getting to drive a bunch of new cars around would be one of the attractions of such a job.
    It probably applies to plenty of pols but you get the impression that BJ entirely lacks a hinterland, and all visible activity relates to supporting the public persona. The most striking thing about the whole Boris and his bird get tanked up and have a screaming match brouhaha (how long ago that seems) was the revelations about guzzling cheap plonk and making models of London buses out of wine boxes appearing to be the home life of our dear future PM.

    Contra assertions about BJ being a great bloke to have a pint with, I suspect he’d be one of the most boring buggers on the planet, with long, uncomfortable silences ensuing if there were no cameras nearby. The suggestion that he doesn’t have real friends seems to support this.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,080
    kjh said:

    Heathener said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Indeed. HP are another classic example. A printer for c. £25 and then cartridges which can cost as much for each refill. And then they really went full tonto, programming their printers only to work when the chip inside ordered your next refill ... from HP.

    Nowadays I avoid all such buy-ins. My bean-to-cup DeLonghi Eletta is a complete joy and every so often I can snap up a bargain Lavazza bean or Starbucks bean offer making it even cheaper. Basically I get barista quality coffee for, what, 10p a cup?
    There was an old story about HP calling in management consultants who advised them to close loss-making division B and expand profitable division C. It was gently explained that B made the printers that used C's consumables.

    On coffee, the secret is that Nespresso is better than instant and less faff than grounds. We had a whip-round to buy one in my old office.
    Management Consultancy can be summed up as paying someone to read you watch and then telling you the time and who then go on to sell your watch to other people.

    I have been on both ends of this relationship. Starting my career in it and involuntarily being on the receiving end of it. Neither were satisfying. Best justifications I can think of for employing them are:

    a) Because you can't see the wood for the trees
    b) Management are too scared to take a big decision and want someone to tell them what they should do
    c) Because they've been having the same argument with someone internally about the necessity to do something for years, and they need the consultancy report to hit them over the head with (metaphorically these days that it's not printed out).
  • Is rcs a software eng?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 22,703
    edited April 2022

    IshmaelZ said:

    algarkirk said:

    Heathener said:

    I was given a pretty rough ride on here a few months back for telling you that misogynism was rife in the Parliamentary Conservative Party. It was partly my fault for telling you I had a source and because at the time some of you thought I was a troll.

    I think this latest incident about Angela Rayner indicates that my source was not wrong.
    https://news.sky.com/story/tory-whips-looking-at-whether-they-know-who-made-sexist-rayner-remarks-12598530

    What is heartening, and I mean this genuinely, is that a significant number of Conservatives have come out strongly in condemnation, including the PM. It gives me hope. There is still decency to be found in the Conservative Party, just as there was still decency to be found inside Corbyn's toxic Labour Party.

    I think it's this same decency which will help rebuild the Conservative brand. Labour have almost achieved this in two years, so it is possible.

    Is it possible that the story was made up by someone? As it happens it has taken off, but that is not entirely predictable, and someone somewhere may have wanted to fill some space in a way which may have been instantly forgettable but wasn't.

    Perhaps it was one of the 3 MPs who were about to defect to the Conservatives, that we were told about with such confidence?

    I am fairly convinced that about 50% of "anonymous sourced" stories in politics are made up. If nothing else, when they are proven false, why don't the journalists do the old fashioned thing and expose the liars (it's how they used to keep anonymous sources honest)?
    Don't think so, our PM is evidence that journalists making up stories are liable to the sack, even if the message from his overall career arc is a bit mixed

    I am fascinated by the GQ story that he reviewed cars without actually driving them, time and time again. Presented as a Good Old Boris what a card story but I think it ought to be damaging.
    Didn’t the GQ editor essentially admit complicity with Boris’s deception on the undriven cars? He published the reviews knowing full well that Boris had at most just sat in them. I know he’s not our PM, but - on it’s own - it makes him look worse than Boris.
    Missed that one. No shortage of BS on both sides, I think.

    So the former editor of GQ is happy to admit he knowingly published reviews of cars where his reviewer had not driven the car? Hmmm. Perhaps a good editor would have hoofed BJ out quickly.

    £4000 of parking tickets over 10 years mainly in Islington. I make that one every 5-6 weeks or so at £40 per ticket. 'Building up on windscreens like a blizzard!" - Nah.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,205

    Is rcs a software eng?

    Are you?
  • MightyAlexMightyAlex Posts: 1,641
    Nigelb said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1518338557433323522
    Russian soldiers ransoming individual Ukrainian prisoners of war back to their relatives under threat of death. This is a war crime - and it's also exactly what Islamic State repeatedly did in Iraq and Syria.
    Eastern Ukraine should be looking forward to the Chechen experience. Politkovskaya's book should be mandatory reading for Austrian, German and Italian ministers
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,639
    edited April 2022

    IshmaelZ said:

    algarkirk said:

    Heathener said:

    I was given a pretty rough ride on here a few months back for telling you that misogynism was rife in the Parliamentary Conservative Party. It was partly my fault for telling you I had a source and because at the time some of you thought I was a troll.

    I think this latest incident about Angela Rayner indicates that my source was not wrong.
    https://news.sky.com/story/tory-whips-looking-at-whether-they-know-who-made-sexist-rayner-remarks-12598530

    What is heartening, and I mean this genuinely, is that a significant number of Conservatives have come out strongly in condemnation, including the PM. It gives me hope. There is still decency to be found in the Conservative Party, just as there was still decency to be found inside Corbyn's toxic Labour Party.

    I think it's this same decency which will help rebuild the Conservative brand. Labour have almost achieved this in two years, so it is possible.

    Is it possible that the story was made up by someone? As it happens it has taken off, but that is not entirely predictable, and someone somewhere may have wanted to fill some space in a way which may have been instantly forgettable but wasn't.

    Perhaps it was one of the 3 MPs who were about to defect to the Conservatives, that we were told about with such confidence?

    I am fairly convinced that about 50% of "anonymous sourced" stories in politics are made up. If nothing else, when they are proven false, why don't the journalists do the old fashioned thing and expose the liars (it's how they used to keep anonymous sources honest)?
    Don't think so, our PM is evidence that journalists making up stories are liable to the sack, even if the message from his overall career arc is a bit mixed

    I am fascinated by the GQ story that he reviewed cars without actually driving them, time and time again. Presented as a Good Old Boris what a card story but I think it ought to be damaging.
    One weird thing about that story is that, for many people, getting to drive a bunch of new cars around would be one of the attractions of such a job.
    It probably applies to plenty of pols but you get the impression that BJ entirely lacks a hinterland, and all visible activity relates to supporting the public persona. The most striking thing about the whole Boris and his bird get tanked up and have a screaming match brouhaha (how long ago that seems) was the revelations about guzzling cheap plonk and making models of London buses out of wine boxes appearing to be the home life of our dear future PM.

    Contra assertions about BJ being a great bloke to have a pint with, I suspect he’d be one of the most boring buggers on the planet, with long, uncomfortable silences ensuing if there were no cameras nearby. The suggestion that he doesn’t have real friends seems to support this.
    The model buses were (literally) a smokescreen to obscure Google etc hits on (a) Boris buses [sic] in London and (b) that promise of £350m pw for NHS on that bus.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,177

    Britain Predicts — model update

    An election held today would yield...

    LAB: 301 MPs (+99)
    CON: 254 (-111)
    SNP: 56 (+8)
    LDEM: 15 (+4)

    When will Keir Starmer resign?

    After he loses Scotland following a disastrous SNP referendum - the price for coalition.
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 5,255
    Hopefully 4th vaccines for the elderly and the onset of something of a spring is what will finally quash this long and slowly, stealthily still quite deadly* third wave.

    * according to ONS cause of death
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,314

    Is rcs a software eng?

    He has been. These days he’s the CEO of an insurance tech company.

    https://insuranceaum.com/telematics-insurance-with-robert-smithson-ceo-of-just-insure/
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,162
    OllyT said:

    Taz said:

    OllyT said:

    MrEd said:

    FPT, thanks @CorrectHorseBattery for your comment re the bullying. TBH (1) it was confined to @Anabobazina (with a little help from a 'fact checker') and (2) I was laughing this morning at how many posts they spewed out late on a Sunday night. The reverse ferret on denying they had been mocking on Virginia and then, when presented with the post, turning round and saying they were right all along was also funny (I say 'they' because I have no idea whether it's a man or woman).

    Still, my view of such people is that it is best to hope that they get the help they so obviously need with what seems like multiple issues.

    I sort of concur with your last sentence but the vile personal abuse I received from a poster last night crossed the line for me. Sometimes it's best to just walk away.
    Just ignore them, I do. They only seek to argue for the hell of it. In my case for the heinous crime of saying the police weren’t doing much to tackle the insulate Britain mob. They quickly resort to the sort of crap thrown at you yesterday. Ignore. Your experience here will be so much better for not engaging with them.
    I fully understand that Mike & Robert don't have the resources to moderate comments so I am not criticising them in any way but I'll be sticking to the moderated sites from now on. No doubt I will get a deluge of abuse from Ishmael for being a snowflake but I'm getting on a bit and can't be bothered putting up with it.
    I’m sorry to see that. They already drove @Charles off the site.

    It’s a shame to lose people who contribute and retain someone who just wants to pick arguments and get into online scraps.

    All the best.
  • Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,080
    Nigelb said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1518338557433323522
    Russian soldiers ransoming individual Ukrainian prisoners of war back to their relatives under threat of death. This is a war crime - and it's also exactly what Islamic State repeatedly did in Iraq and Syria.
    "Are you beaten? Apart from a punch just now."
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,798
    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    algarkirk said:

    Heathener said:

    I was given a pretty rough ride on here a few months back for telling you that misogynism was rife in the Parliamentary Conservative Party. It was partly my fault for telling you I had a source and because at the time some of you thought I was a troll.

    I think this latest incident about Angela Rayner indicates that my source was not wrong.
    https://news.sky.com/story/tory-whips-looking-at-whether-they-know-who-made-sexist-rayner-remarks-12598530

    What is heartening, and I mean this genuinely, is that a significant number of Conservatives have come out strongly in condemnation, including the PM. It gives me hope. There is still decency to be found in the Conservative Party, just as there was still decency to be found inside Corbyn's toxic Labour Party.

    I think it's this same decency which will help rebuild the Conservative brand. Labour have almost achieved this in two years, so it is possible.

    Is it possible that the story was made up by someone? As it happens it has taken off, but that is not entirely predictable, and someone somewhere may have wanted to fill some space in a way which may have been instantly forgettable but wasn't.

    Perhaps it was one of the 3 MPs who were about to defect to the Conservatives, that we were told about with such confidence?

    I am fairly convinced that about 50% of "anonymous sourced" stories in politics are made up. If nothing else, when they are proven false, why don't the journalists do the old fashioned thing and expose the liars (it's how they used to keep anonymous sources honest)?
    Don't think so, our PM is evidence that journalists making up stories are liable to the sack, even if the message from his overall career arc is a bit mixed

    I am fascinated by the GQ story that he reviewed cars without actually driving them, time and time again. Presented as a Good Old Boris what a card story but I think it ought to be damaging.
    One weird thing about that story is that, for many people, getting to drive a bunch of new cars around would be one of the attractions of such a job.
    It probably applies to plenty of pols but you get the impression that BJ entirely lacks a hinterland, and all visible activity relates to supporting the public persona. The most striking thing about the whole Boris and his bird get tanked up and have a screaming match brouhaha (how long ago that seems) was the revelations about guzzling cheap plonk and making models of London buses out of wine boxes appearing to be the home life of our dear future PM.

    Contra assertions about BJ being a great bloke to have a pint with, I suspect he’d be one of the most boring buggers on the planet, with long, uncomfortable silences ensuing if there were no cameras nearby. The suggestion that he doesn’t have real friends seems to support this.
    The model buses were (literally) a smokescreen to obscure Google etc hits on (a) Boris buses [sic] in London and (b) that promise of £350m pw for NHS on that bus.
    It appears that the FLSOJ couldn’t even be arsed to fabricate a humanising and interesting hobby.
  • Is rcs a software eng?

    Are you?
    I am.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 61,700
    Mr. B, that's alarming yet unsurprising to hear. Russia's intent on collecting the full set of war crimes, it seems.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,575
    felix said:

    Nigelb said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Heathener said:

    China is in such a mess over covid. This latest Beijing lockdown is awful.

    Even I am coming to see now that we have to learn to live with this thing and thanks to vaccines we can.

    (I still think we should be mask wearing indoors in public but that's moot).

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-61212757

    The critical thing with the Omicron outbreak was getting a very high level of vaccination for the elderly with high quality vaccines. Especially with boosters.

    While COVID is not harmless to the young, it is orders of magnitude more dangerous for the older groups.

    For the very oldest, it managed case->fatality number (pre vaccination) above 30%. Which puts it in the Black Death column, for them.

    Those countries that did vaccinate the elderly well, did well in this outbreak.
    My wife and I had our fourth yesterday (Moderna) and felt quite light headed and jaded for the rest of the day. Indeed my wife took paracetamol for the pain in her arm. We are still a bit jaded this morning but we are so grateful that we have received it
    Read your first 8 words and was going to congratulate you heartily on the late blessing. Well done getting the jab anyway.
    I mischievously text my children yesterday with the words ' we have just had our fourth' as we do have three children, though they are 57, 51 and 47
    Moderna is an unusual choice of name.
    Beats Pfizer and Zeneca but I wouldn't mind being called Astra!
    Astra after the car on whose backseat... :wink:
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,851

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,575
    MattW said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    algarkirk said:

    Heathener said:

    I was given a pretty rough ride on here a few months back for telling you that misogynism was rife in the Parliamentary Conservative Party. It was partly my fault for telling you I had a source and because at the time some of you thought I was a troll.

    I think this latest incident about Angela Rayner indicates that my source was not wrong.
    https://news.sky.com/story/tory-whips-looking-at-whether-they-know-who-made-sexist-rayner-remarks-12598530

    What is heartening, and I mean this genuinely, is that a significant number of Conservatives have come out strongly in condemnation, including the PM. It gives me hope. There is still decency to be found in the Conservative Party, just as there was still decency to be found inside Corbyn's toxic Labour Party.

    I think it's this same decency which will help rebuild the Conservative brand. Labour have almost achieved this in two years, so it is possible.

    Is it possible that the story was made up by someone? As it happens it has taken off, but that is not entirely predictable, and someone somewhere may have wanted to fill some space in a way which may have been instantly forgettable but wasn't.

    Perhaps it was one of the 3 MPs who were about to defect to the Conservatives, that we were told about with such confidence?

    I am fairly convinced that about 50% of "anonymous sourced" stories in politics are made up. If nothing else, when they are proven false, why don't the journalists do the old fashioned thing and expose the liars (it's how they used to keep anonymous sources honest)?
    Don't think so, our PM is evidence that journalists making up stories are liable to the sack, even if the message from his overall career arc is a bit mixed

    I am fascinated by the GQ story that he reviewed cars without actually driving them, time and time again. Presented as a Good Old Boris what a card story but I think it ought to be damaging.
    Didn’t the GQ editor essentially admit complicity with Boris’s deception on the undriven cars? He published the reviews knowing full well that Boris had at most just sat in them. I know he’s not our PM, but - on it’s own - it makes him look worse than Boris.
    Missed that one. No shortage of BS on both sides, I think.

    So the former editor of GQ is happy to admit he knowingly published reviews of cars where his reviewer had not driven the car? Hmmm. Perhaps a good editor would have hoofed BJ out quickly.

    £4000 of parking tickets over 10 years mainly in Islington. I make that one every 5-6 weeks or so at £40 per ticket. 'Building up on windscreens like a blizzard!" - Nah.
    It depends whether GQ is a car magazine. As the editor said:-

    "But then he'd also written more than a hundred incredibly funny motoring columns, so I figured it was worth it."
    https://uk.style.yahoo.com/boris-johnson-cost-gq-magazine-153600324.html
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,798

    felix said:

    Nigelb said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Heathener said:

    China is in such a mess over covid. This latest Beijing lockdown is awful.

    Even I am coming to see now that we have to learn to live with this thing and thanks to vaccines we can.

    (I still think we should be mask wearing indoors in public but that's moot).

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-61212757

    The critical thing with the Omicron outbreak was getting a very high level of vaccination for the elderly with high quality vaccines. Especially with boosters.

    While COVID is not harmless to the young, it is orders of magnitude more dangerous for the older groups.

    For the very oldest, it managed case->fatality number (pre vaccination) above 30%. Which puts it in the Black Death column, for them.

    Those countries that did vaccinate the elderly well, did well in this outbreak.
    My wife and I had our fourth yesterday (Moderna) and felt quite light headed and jaded for the rest of the day. Indeed my wife took paracetamol for the pain in her arm. We are still a bit jaded this morning but we are so grateful that we have received it
    Read your first 8 words and was going to congratulate you heartily on the late blessing. Well done getting the jab anyway.
    I mischievously text my children yesterday with the words ' we have just had our fourth' as we do have three children, though they are 57, 51 and 47
    Moderna is an unusual choice of name.
    Beats Pfizer and Zeneca but I wouldn't mind being called Astra!
    Astra after the car on whose backseat... :wink:
    Ahem, Oxford AstraZeneca if you don’t mind.

    So it could have been the Vauxhall or the Morris.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,798
    Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    I preferred his earlier cerveza and tapas work.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,477
    Heathener said:

    The BBC, a journey.

    Why Le Pen might win the presidency>why Le Pen might run Macron very close>why did Macron only win by 17% pts.

    The BBC, a journey.

    Why Le Pen might win the presidency>why Le Pen might run Macron very close>why did Macron only win by 17% pts.

    Yep you can add too the one last night 'How LePen ran Macron closer than last time'

    Bizarre
    Clearly the BBC employ the PB Le Pen Rampers as copywriters. Somebody has to, I guess.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Taz said:

    OllyT said:

    Taz said:

    OllyT said:

    MrEd said:

    FPT, thanks @CorrectHorseBattery for your comment re the bullying. TBH (1) it was confined to @Anabobazina (with a little help from a 'fact checker') and (2) I was laughing this morning at how many posts they spewed out late on a Sunday night. The reverse ferret on denying they had been mocking on Virginia and then, when presented with the post, turning round and saying they were right all along was also funny (I say 'they' because I have no idea whether it's a man or woman).

    Still, my view of such people is that it is best to hope that they get the help they so obviously need with what seems like multiple issues.

    I sort of concur with your last sentence but the vile personal abuse I received from a poster last night crossed the line for me. Sometimes it's best to just walk away.
    Just ignore them, I do. They only seek to argue for the hell of it. In my case for the heinous crime of saying the police weren’t doing much to tackle the insulate Britain mob. They quickly resort to the sort of crap thrown at you yesterday. Ignore. Your experience here will be so much better for not engaging with them.
    I fully understand that Mike & Robert don't have the resources to moderate comments so I am not criticising them in any way but I'll be sticking to the moderated sites from now on. No doubt I will get a deluge of abuse from Ishmael for being a snowflake but I'm getting on a bit and can't be bothered putting up with it.
    I’m sorry to see that. They already drove @Charles off the site.

    It’s a shame to lose people who contribute and retain someone who just wants to pick arguments and get into online scraps.

    All the best.
    Terrible shame, but what is the appropriate response to a really stupid and offensive post on the lines of hur hur hur, I'm so clever I can winkle out all the crypto Le Pen fanciers on the site?

    You are probably right, though. Pass over in silence.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,477

    MrEd said:

    Roger said:

    According to Nick Robinson the BBC has had lots of callers telling them they are exaggerating the poor showing of Macron. I couldn't agree with the callers more. Why are the BBC putting this slant on a victory which however it is looked at is one of the best for many years.

    It is time for Starmer to go visiting. There are many in the UK who would like to see intent on the part of the leader of the opposition and a visit to our nearest and dearest would go down very well.

    Edit. NR has now changed it to 'IMPRESSIVE' victory

    42% for Le Pen, especially given the furore over Russia probably cost her several points at least, should be taken as a warning both that France is unhappy and that Macron has alienated large parts of the population.
    I remember the heady days when a 52% to 48% result was emphatic. And the 48% should suck it up.
    Indeed. Funny old world.
  • NemtynakhtNemtynakht Posts: 2,329
    OllyT said:

    Taz said:

    OllyT said:

    MrEd said:

    FPT, thanks @CorrectHorseBattery for your comment re the bullying. TBH (1) it was confined to @Anabobazina (with a little help from a 'fact checker') and (2) I was laughing this morning at how many posts they spewed out late on a Sunday night. The reverse ferret on denying they had been mocking on Virginia and then, when presented with the post, turning round and saying they were right all along was also funny (I say 'they' because I have no idea whether it's a man or woman).

    Still, my view of such people is that it is best to hope that they get the help they so obviously need with what seems like multiple issues.

    I sort of concur with your last sentence but the vile personal abuse I received from a poster last night crossed the line for me. Sometimes it's best to just walk away.
    Just ignore them, I do. They only seek to argue for the hell of it. In my case for the heinous crime of saying the police weren’t doing much to tackle the insulate Britain mob. They quickly resort to the sort of crap thrown at you yesterday. Ignore. Your experience here will be so much better for not engaging with them.
    I fully understand that Mike & Robert don't have the resources to moderate comments so I am not criticising them in any way but I'll be sticking to the moderated sites from now on. No doubt I will get a deluge of abuse from Ishmael for being a snowflake but I'm getting on a bit and can't be bothered putting up with it.
    You Could just stay and not say stuff about what people believe from their getting position
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,069

    MattW said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    algarkirk said:

    Heathener said:

    I was given a pretty rough ride on here a few months back for telling you that misogynism was rife in the Parliamentary Conservative Party. It was partly my fault for telling you I had a source and because at the time some of you thought I was a troll.

    I think this latest incident about Angela Rayner indicates that my source was not wrong.
    https://news.sky.com/story/tory-whips-looking-at-whether-they-know-who-made-sexist-rayner-remarks-12598530

    What is heartening, and I mean this genuinely, is that a significant number of Conservatives have come out strongly in condemnation, including the PM. It gives me hope. There is still decency to be found in the Conservative Party, just as there was still decency to be found inside Corbyn's toxic Labour Party.

    I think it's this same decency which will help rebuild the Conservative brand. Labour have almost achieved this in two years, so it is possible.

    Is it possible that the story was made up by someone? As it happens it has taken off, but that is not entirely predictable, and someone somewhere may have wanted to fill some space in a way which may have been instantly forgettable but wasn't.

    Perhaps it was one of the 3 MPs who were about to defect to the Conservatives, that we were told about with such confidence?

    I am fairly convinced that about 50% of "anonymous sourced" stories in politics are made up. If nothing else, when they are proven false, why don't the journalists do the old fashioned thing and expose the liars (it's how they used to keep anonymous sources honest)?
    Don't think so, our PM is evidence that journalists making up stories are liable to the sack, even if the message from his overall career arc is a bit mixed

    I am fascinated by the GQ story that he reviewed cars without actually driving them, time and time again. Presented as a Good Old Boris what a card story but I think it ought to be damaging.
    Didn’t the GQ editor essentially admit complicity with Boris’s deception on the undriven cars? He published the reviews knowing full well that Boris had at most just sat in them. I know he’s not our PM, but - on it’s own - it makes him look worse than Boris.
    Missed that one. No shortage of BS on both sides, I think.

    So the former editor of GQ is happy to admit he knowingly published reviews of cars where his reviewer had not driven the car? Hmmm. Perhaps a good editor would have hoofed BJ out quickly.

    £4000 of parking tickets over 10 years mainly in Islington. I make that one every 5-6 weeks or so at £40 per ticket. 'Building up on windscreens like a blizzard!" - Nah.
    It depends whether GQ is a car magazine. As the editor said:-

    "But then he'd also written more than a hundred incredibly funny motoring columns, so I figured it was worth it."
    https://uk.style.yahoo.com/boris-johnson-cost-gq-magazine-153600324.html
    Even if it were a car magazine, funny but fact-free might be fine- not everything in the glory years of Top Gear was a model of scientific integrity, after all. And if the aim is entertainment, no harm is done.

    The trouble is that there are bits of life where getting the facts right is really important. Medicine is an obvious, unambiguous one. One of the unmentioned fault lines in politics right now is between those who think getting the facts right is essential and those who think that feels and charisma are more important.

    Ideally, you would have both in the same package, but that doesn't seem to be on offer right now.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,695
    Nobody notice the problem with the GQ story about Boris. If he didn't drive the cars (the car was where they left it and the mileage hadn't changed) how could he be responsible for £4000 of parking fines?
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379

    MrEd said:

    Roger said:

    According to Nick Robinson the BBC has had lots of callers telling them they are exaggerating the poor showing of Macron. I couldn't agree with the callers more. Why are the BBC putting this slant on a victory which however it is looked at is one of the best for many years.

    It is time for Starmer to go visiting. There are many in the UK who would like to see intent on the part of the leader of the opposition and a visit to our nearest and dearest would go down very well.

    Edit. NR has now changed it to 'IMPRESSIVE' victory

    42% for Le Pen, especially given the furore over Russia probably cost her several points at least, should be taken as a warning both that France is unhappy and that Macron has alienated large parts of the population.
    I remember the heady days when a 52% to 48% result was emphatic. And the 48% should suck it up.
    Indeed. Funny old world.
    To be fair, I haven't heard (m)any MLP supporters demanding a re-vote.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,205
    Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    Dura_Ace is, I believe, of the opinion that we should just give Putin what he wants in eastern Europe (I hope I am not misrepresenting him). This, whilst also housing some Ukrainian migrants. The former is an interesting position, although one I don't agree with as it is both immoral and desperately short-sighted.
  • Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    I’m good thanks Rog. A little sad to be ending my holiday, and spending my last couple of hours drinking beer and eating nuts in a dog park by Girona station. But the “Ace” has been really pissing me off. He seems to be held in reverence here by some for his military “expertise” or his lunatic driving or his anarchism, but many of his posts are indistinguishable from those of a Russian shill. He doesn’t give a fuck about Ukraine (or the Baltics or Moldova). He may have Ukrainians living with him, but that’s clearly his wife’s decision.

    And I liked the fact that my abuse sounds similar to “fuck you russian warship”
  • Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    I preferred his earlier cerveza and tapas work.
    I preferred them too!
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677
    kjh said:

    Nobody notice the problem with the GQ story about Boris. If he didn't drive the cars (the car was where they left it and the mileage hadn't changed) how could he be responsible for £4000 of parking fines?

    The delivery driver takes it the designated London street and fucks off. It sits there for however long while GQ were responsible for it.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,205

    Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    I’m good thanks Rog. A little sad to be ending my holiday, and spending my last couple of hours drinking beer and eating nuts in a dog park by Girona station. But the “Ace” has been really pissing me off. He seems to be held in reverence here by some for his military “expertise” or his lunatic driving or his anarchism, but many of his posts are indistinguishable from those of a Russian shill. He doesn’t give a fuck about Ukraine (or the Baltics or Moldova). He may have Ukrainians living with him, but that’s clearly his wife’s decision.

    And I liked the fact that my abuse sounds similar to “fuck you russian warship”
    Dura_Ace and Topping are possibly the most conspicuous ex-military people on here. Both repeatedly called the Ukraine war very wrong, perhaps for understandable reasons.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,451

    MattW said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    algarkirk said:

    Heathener said:

    I was given a pretty rough ride on here a few months back for telling you that misogynism was rife in the Parliamentary Conservative Party. It was partly my fault for telling you I had a source and because at the time some of you thought I was a troll.

    I think this latest incident about Angela Rayner indicates that my source was not wrong.
    https://news.sky.com/story/tory-whips-looking-at-whether-they-know-who-made-sexist-rayner-remarks-12598530

    What is heartening, and I mean this genuinely, is that a significant number of Conservatives have come out strongly in condemnation, including the PM. It gives me hope. There is still decency to be found in the Conservative Party, just as there was still decency to be found inside Corbyn's toxic Labour Party.

    I think it's this same decency which will help rebuild the Conservative brand. Labour have almost achieved this in two years, so it is possible.

    Is it possible that the story was made up by someone? As it happens it has taken off, but that is not entirely predictable, and someone somewhere may have wanted to fill some space in a way which may have been instantly forgettable but wasn't.

    Perhaps it was one of the 3 MPs who were about to defect to the Conservatives, that we were told about with such confidence?

    I am fairly convinced that about 50% of "anonymous sourced" stories in politics are made up. If nothing else, when they are proven false, why don't the journalists do the old fashioned thing and expose the liars (it's how they used to keep anonymous sources honest)?
    Don't think so, our PM is evidence that journalists making up stories are liable to the sack, even if the message from his overall career arc is a bit mixed

    I am fascinated by the GQ story that he reviewed cars without actually driving them, time and time again. Presented as a Good Old Boris what a card story but I think it ought to be damaging.
    Didn’t the GQ editor essentially admit complicity with Boris’s deception on the undriven cars? He published the reviews knowing full well that Boris had at most just sat in them. I know he’s not our PM, but - on it’s own - it makes him look worse than Boris.
    Missed that one. No shortage of BS on both sides, I think.

    So the former editor of GQ is happy to admit he knowingly published reviews of cars where his reviewer had not driven the car? Hmmm. Perhaps a good editor would have hoofed BJ out quickly.

    £4000 of parking tickets over 10 years mainly in Islington. I make that one every 5-6 weeks or so at £40 per ticket. 'Building up on windscreens like a blizzard!" - Nah.
    It depends whether GQ is a car magazine. As the editor said:-

    "But then he'd also written more than a hundred incredibly funny motoring columns, so I figured it was worth it."
    https://uk.style.yahoo.com/boris-johnson-cost-gq-magazine-153600324.html
    Even if it were a car magazine, funny but fact-free might be fine- not everything in the glory years of Top Gear was a model of scientific integrity, after all. And if the aim is entertainment, no harm is done.

    The trouble is that there are bits of life where getting the facts right is really important. Medicine is an obvious, unambiguous one. One of the unmentioned fault lines in politics right now is between those who think getting the facts right is essential and those who think that feels and charisma are more important.

    Ideally, you would have both in the same package, but that doesn't seem to be on offer right now.
    Doesn't seem to do Prof Peston career any harm....
  • NemtynakhtNemtynakht Posts: 2,329
    Scott_xP said:
    I don't know why Boris just doesn't accept the inevitable, and position some normal politicians who could be voted on for PM into the cabinet. Get rid of Raab Dorries and Rees Mogg et al and have some boring competency. No matter how long the above are ministers they will never win an election and that should be the priority. The famous back room Tory party structure could tell Boris this, set out the timelines and give the opportunity to move on of his own volition. Of course I am not ruling out Boris winning a further election particularly as a minority administration, but removing any rivals with potential, and surrounding yourself with loyalists seems a Gordon Brown type of thing to do.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,947
    My
    kjh said:

    Nobody notice the problem with the GQ story about Boris. If he didn't drive the cars (the car was where they left it and the mileage hadn't changed) how could he be responsible for £4000 of parking fines?

    I guess half the time he didn't drive them and the other half he did and parked them on double yellows in entitled fashion while doing something tacky and of no value. That's how I'd square that circle.
  • Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    I’m good thanks Rog. A little sad to be ending my holiday, and spending my last couple of hours drinking beer and eating nuts in a dog park by Girona station. But the “Ace” has been really pissing me off. He seems to be held in reverence here by some for his military “expertise” or his lunatic driving or his anarchism, but many of his posts are indistinguishable from those of a Russian shill. He doesn’t give a fuck about Ukraine (or the Baltics or Moldova). He may have Ukrainians living with him, but that’s clearly his wife’s decision.

    And I liked the fact that my abuse sounds similar to “fuck you russian warship”
    Dura_Ace and Topping are possibly the most conspicuous ex-military people on here. Both repeatedly called the Ukraine war very wrong, perhaps for understandable reasons.
    I haven’t seen Topping ask who would give a fuck if Russia invaded the Baltics and Moldova. “Ace” clearly doesn’t give a fuck.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,162

    Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    I’m good thanks Rog. A little sad to be ending my holiday, and spending my last couple of hours drinking beer and eating nuts in a dog park by Girona station. But the “Ace” has been really pissing me off. He seems to be held in reverence here by some for his military “expertise” or his lunatic driving or his anarchism, but many of his posts are indistinguishable from those of a Russian shill. He doesn’t give a fuck about Ukraine (or the Baltics or Moldova). He may have Ukrainians living with him, but that’s clearly his wife’s decision.

    And I liked the fact that my abuse sounds similar to “fuck you russian warship”
    Yup, got that. 😂

    His posts about military hardware are always worth reading and interesting.

  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,695
    Dura_Ace said:

    kjh said:

    Nobody notice the problem with the GQ story about Boris. If he didn't drive the cars (the car was where they left it and the mileage hadn't changed) how could he be responsible for £4000 of parking fines?

    The delivery driver takes it the designated London street and fucks off. It sits there for however long while GQ were responsible for it.
    Yes. It was the point I was making. Not that I want to defend Boris for anything, but they can't complain about both issues together. He was either responsible for one or the other but not both. I suspect it sat where it was dropped off collecting fines.

    But why wouldn't you test drive them? Maybe Boris has no interest in cars, but how did he get the gig. Bluster?
  • Taz said:

    Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    I’m good thanks Rog. A little sad to be ending my holiday, and spending my last couple of hours drinking beer and eating nuts in a dog park by Girona station. But the “Ace” has been really pissing me off. He seems to be held in reverence here by some for his military “expertise” or his lunatic driving or his anarchism, but many of his posts are indistinguishable from those of a Russian shill. He doesn’t give a fuck about Ukraine (or the Baltics or Moldova). He may have Ukrainians living with him, but that’s clearly his wife’s decision.

    And I liked the fact that my abuse sounds similar to “fuck you russian warship”
    Yup, got that. 😂

    His posts about military hardware are always worth reading and interesting.

    Especially the “NLAWs are fucking useless” one. That was certainly “interesting”.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,162

    Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    I’m good thanks Rog. A little sad to be ending my holiday, and spending my last couple of hours drinking beer and eating nuts in a dog park by Girona station. But the “Ace” has been really pissing me off. He seems to be held in reverence here by some for his military “expertise” or his lunatic driving or his anarchism, but many of his posts are indistinguishable from those of a Russian shill. He doesn’t give a fuck about Ukraine (or the Baltics or Moldova). He may have Ukrainians living with him, but that’s clearly his wife’s decision.

    And I liked the fact that my abuse sounds similar to “fuck you russian warship”
    Dura_Ace and Topping are possibly the most conspicuous ex-military people on here. Both repeatedly called the Ukraine war very wrong, perhaps for understandable reasons.
    Just goes to show people can be wrong with authority. Still doesn’t make their contributions any less interesting or thought provoking.
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379

    Scott_xP said:
    I don't know why Boris just doesn't accept the inevitable, and position some normal politicians who could be voted on for PM into the cabinet. Get rid of Raab Dorries and Rees Mogg et al and have some boring competency. No matter how long the above are ministers they will never win an election and that should be the priority. The famous back room Tory party structure could tell Boris this, set out the timelines and give the opportunity to move on of his own volition. Of course I am not ruling out Boris winning a further election particularly as a minority administration, but removing any rivals with potential, and surrounding yourself with loyalists seems a Gordon Brown type of thing to do.
    He couldn't do a reshuffle before the local elections, and if he does one afterwards it will be dismissed by the usual suspects as "panic" or "trying to avoid a VONC".
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,513

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Unacceptable abuse.
    And plain wrong, too, given he's hosting two refugees.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,851

    Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    I’m good thanks Rog. A little sad to be ending my holiday, and spending my last couple of hours drinking beer and eating nuts in a dog park by Girona station. But the “Ace” has been really pissing me off. He seems to be held in reverence here by some for his military “expertise” or his lunatic driving or his anarchism, but many of his posts are indistinguishable from those of a Russian shill. He doesn’t give a fuck about Ukraine (or the Baltics or Moldova). He may have Ukrainians living with him, but that’s clearly his wife’s decision.

    And I liked the fact that my abuse sounds similar to “fuck you russian warship”
    I'd stay with travelogue writing. You're very good at it. Or try copywriting for a decent ad agency.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,162
    Dura_Ace said:

    kjh said:

    Nobody notice the problem with the GQ story about Boris. If he didn't drive the cars (the car was where they left it and the mileage hadn't changed) how could he be responsible for £4000 of parking fines?

    The delivery driver takes it the designated London street and fucks off. It sits there for however long while GQ were responsible for it.
    So I wonder if they are they just fines or fines plus other fees for non payment of the initial fines. These things can accumulate quite quickly.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,691
    Re: header. I'm currently pretty neutral as to the 2022 pricing. If I had my arm twisted I'd back the early exit at these prices though.

    Had a very small bet this morning on Alok Sharma for next pm. The 320/340s seemed quite generous for a well regarded cabinet minister with a good deal of goodwill and top level experience after cop26.
  • NemtynakhtNemtynakht Posts: 2,329
    Roger said:

    Roger said:

    Roger said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    But have you tried using the hospitality industry recently.? Now that so many Europeans have been replaced by English workers in cafes restaurants bars and hotels it's become across the board crap.

    One thing even the biggest eurosceptics will have appreciated with free movement was that the hospitality industry improved dramatically. Well it's now taken a nosedive.
    The majority of people working in hospitality in the UK were always UK born.

    The myth that all the people working at Pret were from the Czech Republic etc. comes from people who live in rather central London, where foreigners do dominate the low skilled, low pay jobs.

    The situation has not vastly changed in London, either, in terms of ratios of foreigners vs UK citizens in such jobs.

    The problem in the hospitality trade is a shortage of workers, meaning that those who are there are generally over worked.

    EDIT: There was an amusing piece on Radio 4 the other day. A chap running a gastro pub had lost all his staff in the lock down. They were all doing other jobs now. He described his workplace conditions - mainly his use of no-notice shifts. Literally ring people the day before to tell them they were/weren't working.....

    Short of actually flogging his employees.... it was astonishing to me that they hadn't all left before.
    I don't know the precise figures but in ALL major cities and large towns it's obvious to anyone who eats out and uses hotels a lot that many if not most of the staff were European. Even in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The only area I can think of where this doesn't SEEM to be the case is North Wales.
    https://www.london.gov.uk/about-us/londonassembly/meetings/documents/s67080/BHA KPMG Labour migration in the hospitality sector report.pdf

    2017 - "Between 12.3% and 23.7% of the UK hospitality sector workforce is currently made up of EU nationals."

    There is an effect, I've been told, where the staff up front are tailored to customers expectations - so in posh restaurants they make sure the sommelier has a foreign accent.

    A reverse example - a local butcher runs a massive commercial trade. He has all the pubs and restaurants for miles around using him as a supplier. All the English cheeky chaps work in the front shop, doing the banter with the customers. The crew at the back are nearly all Polish.....
    I'm happy for them getting an 11% rise but In the long run if they don't up their game to the standards that exist everywhere else in Europe-and existed in the UK pre Brexit in the cities and large towns- the whole industry will take a dive.
    I used to work in hospitality and the was absolutely no difference pre and post brexit. Why would there be? We didn't kick out a load of people in 2016. If you mean after all the agreements went through then you have a slight point but as per the above 80% of people in hospitality were british. I used to go in pubs from Swansea over to the home counties and From the South and South West coast up to Staffordshire. It was fairly rare to see non British peop!e either running the business of back of house. Those that did particularly own the business tended to be in a relationship with a Brit.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,695
    edited April 2022
    kinabalu said:

    My

    kjh said:

    Nobody notice the problem with the GQ story about Boris. If he didn't drive the cars (the car was where they left it and the mileage hadn't changed) how could he be responsible for £4000 of parking fines?

    I guess half the time he didn't drive them and the other half he did and parked them on double yellows in entitled fashion while doing something tacky and of no value. That's how I'd square that circle.
    You're being far too sensible. Stop it.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    Dura_Ace is, I believe, of the opinion that we should just give Putin what he wants in eastern Europe (I hope I am not misrepresenting him). This, whilst also housing some Ukrainian migrants. The former is an interesting position, although one I don't agree with as it is both immoral and desperately short-sighted.
    You've got dear old Vlad and those very, very close to him saying in terms that NATO arming Ukraine will lead in short order to tactical and then strategic nukes, and you've got NATO arming Ukraine. What is farsighted about that arrangement? Are we relying on a Dear old Vlad, bark worse than bite, just having his fun, sort of argument? because I'm not. I think it's about even money he celbrates 9 May with the first live-fire nuke detonation since 1945, and that worries me quite a lot.
  • Nigelb said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Unacceptable abuse.
    And plain wrong, too, given he's hosting two refugees.
    He dishes out plenty of abuse. I’m sure he can take worse than mine back. And I won’t cry if he responds in kind.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    kjh said:

    kinabalu said:

    My

    kjh said:

    Nobody notice the problem with the GQ story about Boris. If he didn't drive the cars (the car was where they left it and the mileage hadn't changed) how could he be responsible for £4000 of parking fines?

    I guess half the time he didn't drive them and the other half he did and parked them on double yellows in entitled fashion while doing something tacky and of no value. That's how I'd square that circle.
    You're being far too sensible. Stop it.
    At a guess the cars were left in stay here for an hour and then fuck off bays on the understanding that he would collect them, and he didn't. So they got ticketed every day for a week.

    Having said that you get clamped and impounded for that sort of shit in London.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,283

    Quite entertaining seeing the right-wing media trying to spin Le Pen's thumping defeat to a relatively unpopular incumbent as a victory. We'd have presumably been subject to the same nonsense had Remain won the EU referendum.

    If Remain had won by a similar margin to Leave, Faragists, much like the similarly hate-filled and divisive SNP would have been continuously agitating for another vote and claiming that some circumstance or other had changed, and "The People" (aka *their* people) deserve another go. This is the nature of the psychopathically undemocratic: a vote in favour of something they believe in is permanent and in perpetuity, whereas a vote against their pet project is something that ought to be reversed as soon as possible.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586

    Taz said:

    Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    I’m good thanks Rog. A little sad to be ending my holiday, and spending my last couple of hours drinking beer and eating nuts in a dog park by Girona station. But the “Ace” has been really pissing me off. He seems to be held in reverence here by some for his military “expertise” or his lunatic driving or his anarchism, but many of his posts are indistinguishable from those of a Russian shill. He doesn’t give a fuck about Ukraine (or the Baltics or Moldova). He may have Ukrainians living with him, but that’s clearly his wife’s decision.

    And I liked the fact that my abuse sounds similar to “fuck you russian warship”
    Yup, got that. 😂

    His posts about military hardware are always worth reading and interesting.

    Especially the “NLAWs are fucking useless” one. That was certainly “interesting”.
    That was based on recent British, American and Israeli experience with tanks vs advanced versions of various infantry anti-tank weapons.

    For example, during the second Gulf War, a Challenger II got stuck. The Iraqi spent quite a while shooting various weapons at it, including some tandem warhead weapons. I think they managed to injure one of the crew, but not put the tank out of action.

    Similarly the Israelis, in recent conflicts have had a record of it taking a zillion weapons fired to take out a single Merkava tank.

    The America M1Ax tanks have demonstrated similar survivability.

    The Ukaranin experience seems to be some combination of

    - Lots of weapons fired
    - The Russian tanks are shit. Old, and quite a few are visibly missing their ERA armour, for example
    - Russian designs pack lots of fuel and weapons into a small space. They don't "spend" lots of weight and space on putting ammunition in blow-out boxes. So when the ammunition does explode, it blows up the tank.
    - Lots of the losses are not MBTs, but varying forms of APC.
    - The Russian tactics are shit - the infantry doesn't seem to be screening the armour properly. At least from pro-Russian videos I have seen.
    - The newest weapons are not tandem warhead anymore - they are automatic top attack weapons.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677
    IshmaelZ said:


    You've got dear old Vlad and those very, very close to him saying in terms that NATO arming Ukraine will lead in short order to tactical and then strategic nukes, and you've got NATO arming Ukraine. What is farsighted about that arrangement? Are we relying on a Dear old Vlad, bark worse than bite, just having his fun, sort of argument? because I'm not. I think it's about even money he celbrates 9 May with the first live-fire nuke detonation since 1945, and that worries me quite a lot.

    Russia are already fighting NATO's logistics and C4ISR infrastructure. If this goes on then, sooner or later, they aren't going to just fight it inside Ukraine.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,095

    I don't understand why anyone thinks @Heathener is a troll? Is it because they post things some people don't agree with?

    Everything they've posted seems pretty sensible to me. This one has totally passed me by - just seems like a lot of unnecessary abuse and I am surprised the moderation team has not stepped in.

    It’s not “troll” in the sense of someone who is seeking to abuse so perhaps it’s the wrong word

    It’s because (a) many of her early morning posts seem reasonable and then end up assigning the blame on a controversial topic before walking away; they are designed to whip up division; (b) many of her positions were strangely aligned with the latest tactical position from St Petersburg; and (c) she is using a VPN with an IP address that is on a blacklist of compromised addresses

    Three strikes and you’re out…
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,477
    Is there a recent example, anywhere in the G7, of the centre/left beating the right by a margin greater than 17pts?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,265
    edited April 2022

    Is there a recent example, anywhere in the G7, of the centre/left beating the right by a margin greater than 17pts?

    Macron is a classical liberal not centre left and Le Pen is far right not centre right.

    Johnson beat Goldwater by 23pts in 1964.

    The Liberals led Reform by 23% in Canada in 1993 and the Progressive Conservatives by 25%
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,342

    Is there a recent example, anywhere in the G7, of the centre/left beating the right by a margin greater than 17pts?

    Canada.
    If it were a top two runoff like France.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,320
    A Russian Su-34 has hit the ground near Kharkiv.

    https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1518547096953044997
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,095
    dixiedean said:

    Well done CHB.
    Long term anti depressant use is not always great.

    Which is why it is contraindicated and an off label use
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677



    Your security is no security. Putin needs to lose, whatever the risks.

    What does Putin losing look like? Pushed back to the 2014 borders. Russia will use tac nukes before that happens.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586
    dixiedean said:

    Is there a recent example, anywhere in the G7, of the centre/left beating the right by a margin greater than 17pts?

    Canada.
    If it were a top two runoff like France.
    In an alternate universe, imagine a 2 way choice between

    Pre-coalition Nick Clegg vs Nigel Farage.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,205
    Dura_Ace said:

    IshmaelZ said:


    You've got dear old Vlad and those very, very close to him saying in terms that NATO arming Ukraine will lead in short order to tactical and then strategic nukes, and you've got NATO arming Ukraine. What is farsighted about that arrangement? Are we relying on a Dear old Vlad, bark worse than bite, just having his fun, sort of argument? because I'm not. I think it's about even money he celbrates 9 May with the first live-fire nuke detonation since 1945, and that worries me quite a lot.

    Russia are already fighting NATO's logistics and C4ISR infrastructure. If this goes on then, sooner or later, they aren't going to just fight it inside Ukraine.
    But your alternative is to have them fighting a much-weakened NATO on the borders of Germany.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,355

    A Russian Su-34 has hit the ground near Kharkiv.

    https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1518547096953044997

    No air supremacy yet then....
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Sandpit said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    Dura_Ace is, I believe, of the opinion that we should just give Putin what he wants in eastern Europe (I hope I am not misrepresenting him). This, whilst also housing some Ukrainian migrants. The former is an interesting position, although one I don't agree with as it is both immoral and desperately short-sighted.
    You've got dear old Vlad and those very, very close to him saying in terms that NATO arming Ukraine will lead in short order to tactical and then strategic nukes, and you've got NATO arming Ukraine. What is farsighted about that arrangement? Are we relying on a Dear old Vlad, bark worse than bite, just having his fun, sort of argument? because I'm not. I think it's about even money he celbrates 9 May with the first live-fire nuke detonation since 1945, and that worries me quite a lot.
    It worries a lot of us, but doesn’t mean we should be appeasing him or allowing him to claim anything that looks like a victory. He’s one of the most evil leaders we have seen since 1945, and the rest of the world needs to put him firmly back in his box.
    In principle that is obviously right, but metaphors aren't necessarily helpful. "Putting him back in his box" entails doing stuff which might in turn entail him nuking London. As you say He’s one of the most evil leaders we have seen since 1945, but he is also one of the best armed, and he occupies a position from which the holodomor was launched. Again,

    https://reaction.life/wartime-putins-russia-has-become-a-madhouse-threatening-the-world

    message as per url. Sounds hysterical, but it is alarmingly well sourced.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586

    Dura_Ace said:

    IshmaelZ said:


    You've got dear old Vlad and those very, very close to him saying in terms that NATO arming Ukraine will lead in short order to tactical and then strategic nukes, and you've got NATO arming Ukraine. What is farsighted about that arrangement? Are we relying on a Dear old Vlad, bark worse than bite, just having his fun, sort of argument? because I'm not. I think it's about even money he celbrates 9 May with the first live-fire nuke detonation since 1945, and that worries me quite a lot.

    Russia are already fighting NATO's logistics and C4ISR infrastructure. If this goes on then, sooner or later, they aren't going to just fight it inside Ukraine.
    But your alternative is to have them fighting a much-weakened NATO on the borders of Germany.
    I would give Russia a piece of each country that wants "some kind of compromise" on the Ukrainian situation.

    Why should the Ukrainians have to do all the compromising.

    We could give Vlad East Prussia..... no, wait....
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,095

    IshmaelZ said:

    algarkirk said:

    Heathener said:

    I was given a pretty rough ride on here a few months back for telling you that misogynism was rife in the Parliamentary Conservative Party. It was partly my fault for telling you I had a source and because at the time some of you thought I was a troll.

    I think this latest incident about Angela Rayner indicates that my source was not wrong.
    https://news.sky.com/story/tory-whips-looking-at-whether-they-know-who-made-sexist-rayner-remarks-12598530

    What is heartening, and I mean this genuinely, is that a significant number of Conservatives have come out strongly in condemnation, including the PM. It gives me hope. There is still decency to be found in the Conservative Party, just as there was still decency to be found inside Corbyn's toxic Labour Party.

    I think it's this same decency which will help rebuild the Conservative brand. Labour have almost achieved this in two years, so it is possible.

    Is it possible that the story was made up by someone? As it happens it has taken off, but that is not entirely predictable, and someone somewhere may have wanted to fill some space in a way which may have been instantly forgettable but wasn't.

    Perhaps it was one of the 3 MPs who were about to defect to the Conservatives, that we were told about with such confidence?

    I am fairly convinced that about 50% of "anonymous sourced" stories in politics are made up. If nothing else, when they are proven false, why don't the journalists do the old fashioned thing and expose the liars (it's how they used to keep anonymous sources honest)?
    Don't think so, our PM is evidence that journalists making up stories are liable to the sack, even if the message from his overall career arc is a bit mixed

    I am fascinated by the GQ story that he reviewed cars without actually driving them, time and time again. Presented as a Good Old Boris what a card story but I think it ought to be damaging.
    Didn’t the GQ editor essentially admit complicity with Boris’s deception on the undriven cars? He published the reviews knowing full well that Boris had at most just sat in them. I know he’s not our PM, but - on it’s own - it makes him look worse than Boris.
    Depends whether you are GQ as “news” or “entertainment”
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,205
    Dura_Ace said:



    Your security is no security. Putin needs to lose, whatever the risks.

    What does Putin losing look like? Pushed back to the 2014 borders. Russia will use tac nukes before that happens.
    That's an important question, and the answer is: I don't know. Enough of a loss to ensure he or his successors do not attempt anything like this again; enough of a loss that the Russian public know their country was the aggressor, with no 'we were cheated' delusions being spread. Certainly back to the 2022 borders. Without reparations, sanctions remain in place. That'd do me.

    But I'm also unsure your last assertion is correct, either.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,200
    I find it laughable how some right wing commentators are trying to spin the French result as good for the far right .

    Le Pen had many things in her favour , the cost of living crisis , an unpopular President and her new fluffy warm makeover and was still trounced .

    Turnout was not great for French standards but still higher than most UK elections.

    Clearly the right wing press are in mourning as their new poster girl failed !
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,320
    Dura_Ace said:



    Your security is no security. Putin needs to lose, whatever the risks.

    What does Putin losing look like? Pushed back to the 2014 borders. Russia will use tac nukes before that happens.
    Is the argument that the cost is too high, or that his wonder weapons mean that it's impossible for him to lose?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,513

    Nigelb said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Unacceptable abuse.
    And plain wrong, too, given he's hosting two refugees.
    He dishes out plenty of abuse. I’m sure he can take worse than mine back. And I won’t cry if he responds in kind.
    He's polite to other posters.
    There's no great bar to expressing opinions here, excepting libel and holocaust denial. Abuse of other posters is frowned on for obvious reasons. There is some leeway, obviously, but too much of it simply destroys the point of a comments section - and it convinces nobody.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677

    A Russian Su-34 has hit the ground near Kharkiv.

    https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1518547096953044997

    Not necessarily a Fullback. Could have been a Flanker-H.

    Even though the video was recorded on a potato it looked like it was in a flat spin. What larks!
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,753

    Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    I’m good thanks Rog. A little sad to be ending my holiday, and spending my last couple of hours drinking beer and eating nuts in a dog park by Girona station. But the “Ace” has been really pissing me off. He seems to be held in reverence here by some for his military “expertise” or his lunatic driving or his anarchism, but many of his posts are indistinguishable from those of a Russian shill. He doesn’t give a fuck about Ukraine (or the Baltics or Moldova). He may have Ukrainians living with him, but that’s clearly his wife’s decision.

    And I liked the fact that my abuse sounds similar to “fuck you russian warship”
    Dura_Ace and Topping are possibly the most conspicuous ex-military people on here. Both repeatedly called the Ukraine war very wrong, perhaps for understandable reasons.
    What did I call wrong?

    Signed Conspicuously Military TOPPING.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586
    IshmaelZ said:

    Sandpit said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    Dura_Ace is, I believe, of the opinion that we should just give Putin what he wants in eastern Europe (I hope I am not misrepresenting him). This, whilst also housing some Ukrainian migrants. The former is an interesting position, although one I don't agree with as it is both immoral and desperately short-sighted.
    You've got dear old Vlad and those very, very close to him saying in terms that NATO arming Ukraine will lead in short order to tactical and then strategic nukes, and you've got NATO arming Ukraine. What is farsighted about that arrangement? Are we relying on a Dear old Vlad, bark worse than bite, just having his fun, sort of argument? because I'm not. I think it's about even money he celbrates 9 May with the first live-fire nuke detonation since 1945, and that worries me quite a lot.
    It worries a lot of us, but doesn’t mean we should be appeasing him or allowing him to claim anything that looks like a victory. He’s one of the most evil leaders we have seen since 1945, and the rest of the world needs to put him firmly back in his box.
    In principle that is obviously right, but metaphors aren't necessarily helpful. "Putting him back in his box" entails doing stuff which might in turn entail him nuking London. As you say He’s one of the most evil leaders we have seen since 1945, but he is also one of the best armed, and he occupies a position from which the holodomor was launched. Again,

    https://reaction.life/wartime-putins-russia-has-become-a-madhouse-threatening-the-world

    message as per url. Sounds hysterical, but it is alarmingly well sourced.
    Yet Putin has just unveiled a new nuclear missile capable of devastating an area of 250,000 square miles.

    Hysterical indeed.

    https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,265
    nico679 said:

    I find it laughable how some right wing commentators are trying to spin the French result as good for the far right .

    Le Pen had many things in her favour , the cost of living crisis , an unpopular President and her new fluffy warm makeover and was still trounced .

    Turnout was not great for French standards but still higher than most UK elections.

    Clearly the right wing press are in mourning as their new poster girl failed !

    It was a rejection of Le Pen but 41% is still the highest vote for a far right party leader in any G7 nation since WW2 (Trump was in some respects far right but he was the candidate of the Republican Party, the main centre right party in the US).

    The legislative elections may also see En Marche lose its majority now Le Pen has been seen off
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,205
    TOPPING said:

    Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    I’m good thanks Rog. A little sad to be ending my holiday, and spending my last couple of hours drinking beer and eating nuts in a dog park by Girona station. But the “Ace” has been really pissing me off. He seems to be held in reverence here by some for his military “expertise” or his lunatic driving or his anarchism, but many of his posts are indistinguishable from those of a Russian shill. He doesn’t give a fuck about Ukraine (or the Baltics or Moldova). He may have Ukrainians living with him, but that’s clearly his wife’s decision.

    And I liked the fact that my abuse sounds similar to “fuck you russian warship”
    Dura_Ace and Topping are possibly the most conspicuous ex-military people on here. Both repeatedly called the Ukraine war very wrong, perhaps for understandable reasons.
    What did I call wrong?

    Signed Conspicuously Military TOPPING.
    Apologies if I am wrong, but back in February weren't you rather negative about Ukraine's chances of resisting the mighty Russian bear?
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379

    Quite entertaining seeing the right-wing media trying to spin Le Pen's thumping defeat to a relatively unpopular incumbent as a victory. We'd have presumably been subject to the same nonsense had Remain won the EU referendum.

    If Remain had won by a similar margin to Leave, Faragists, much like the similarly hate-filled and divisive SNP would have been continuously agitating for another vote and claiming that some circumstance or other had changed, and "The People" (aka *their* people) deserve another go. This is the nature of the psychopathically undemocratic: a vote in favour of something they believe in is permanent and in perpetuity, whereas a vote against their pet project is something that ought to be reversed as soon as possible.
    False equivalence. Had Remain won 52/48, Remain would have happened.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    dixiedean said:

    Well done CHB.
    Long term anti depressant use is not always great.

    Which is why it is contraindicated and an off label use
    It is a lot more complicated than that, current APA thinking is

    "If you have ongoing major depressive disorder, or you have had three or more depressive episodes, the APA recommends treatment for at least a few years. Doctors may also recommend longer treatment when the risk of relapse is high."

    https://www.webmd.com/depression/features/antidepressants

    There's a lorra people out there who face the lifetime choice of medication or inevitable relapse. So three cheers for CHB's current wellbeing, but this is preeminently not a subject to accept any advice from lay persons on the internet, me included
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,637

    Is there a recent example, anywhere in the G7, of the centre/left beating the right by a margin greater than 17pts?

    I believe Islington North fits the criteria
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594

    Scott_xP said:
    I don't know why Boris just doesn't accept the inevitable, and position some normal politicians who could be voted on for PM into the cabinet. Get rid of Raab Dorries and Rees Mogg et al and have some boring competency. No matter how long the above are ministers they will never win an election and that should be the priority. The famous back room Tory party structure could tell Boris this, set out the timelines and give the opportunity to move on of his own volition. Of course I am not ruling out Boris winning a further election particularly as a minority administration, but removing any rivals with potential, and surrounding yourself with loyalists seems a Gordon Brown type of thing to do.
    Right now, under the tories, ordinary people are getting poorer, because of a combination of rampant inflation and tax increases. And maybe not just at the margins.

    In democracies, what happens to governments that do this to their electorates? regardless of personnel?
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,205
    Dura_Ace said:

    A Russian Su-34 has hit the ground near Kharkiv.

    https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1518547096953044997

    Not necessarily a Fullback. Could have been a Flanker-H.

    Even though the video was recorded on a potato it looked like it was in a flat spin. What larks!
    I sometimes wonder how much of the smoke in some of these videos is actually brown matter coming out of the pilot's nappy... ;)

    (My dad used to say that if he was in the Red Arrows, he'd be in the plane trailing brown smoke...)
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,774
    edited April 2022
    A stirring rendition of an old partisan song 'bella ciao' by a group of female singers in Bologna's main square, at the spot where a group of partisans were shot during the war, was a fitting tribute on Italy's Liberation Day.

    https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/bella-ciao.html
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586

    Dura_Ace said:



    Your security is no security. Putin needs to lose, whatever the risks.

    What does Putin losing look like? Pushed back to the 2014 borders. Russia will use tac nukes before that happens.
    Is the argument that the cost is too high, or that his wonder weapons mean that it's impossible for him to lose?
    The argument is, I believe, that if Putin thinks he is "really losing", he will escalate to nuclear weapons.

    The discussion point is then on what Putin considers as "really losing". This may be

    - 2014 borders
    - An incursion into Crimea
    - The discovery that his vital bodily essence has been infected by fluoridation of tapster.
    - ?
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,851

    Roger said:

    Roger said:

    Roger said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    But have you tried using the hospitality industry recently.? Now that so many Europeans have been replaced by English workers in cafes restaurants bars and hotels it's become across the board crap.

    One thing even the biggest eurosceptics will have appreciated with free movement was that the hospitality industry improved dramatically. Well it's now taken a nosedive.
    The majority of people working in hospitality in the UK were always UK born.

    The myth that all the people working at Pret were from the Czech Republic etc. comes from people who live in rather central London, where foreigners do dominate the low skilled, low pay jobs.

    The situation has not vastly changed in London, either, in terms of ratios of foreigners vs UK citizens in such jobs.

    The problem in the hospitality trade is a shortage of workers, meaning that those who are there are generally over worked.

    EDIT: There was an amusing piece on Radio 4 the other day. A chap running a gastro pub had lost all his staff in the lock down. They were all doing other jobs now. He described his workplace conditions - mainly his use of no-notice shifts. Literally ring people the day before to tell them they were/weren't working.....

    Short of actually flogging his employees.... it was astonishing to me that they hadn't all left before.
    I don't know the precise figures but in ALL major cities and large towns it's obvious to anyone who eats out and uses hotels a lot that many if not most of the staff were European. Even in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The only area I can think of where this doesn't SEEM to be the case is North Wales.
    https://www.london.gov.uk/about-us/londonassembly/meetings/documents/s67080/BHA KPMG Labour migration in the hospitality sector report.pdf

    2017 - "Between 12.3% and 23.7% of the UK hospitality sector workforce is currently made up of EU nationals."

    There is an effect, I've been told, where the staff up front are tailored to customers expectations - so in posh restaurants they make sure the sommelier has a foreign accent.

    A reverse example - a local butcher runs a massive commercial trade. He has all the pubs and restaurants for miles around using him as a supplier. All the English cheeky chaps work in the front shop, doing the banter with the customers. The crew at the back are nearly all Polish.....
    I'm happy for them getting an 11% rise but In the long run if they don't up their game to the standards that exist everywhere else in Europe-and existed in the UK pre Brexit in the cities and large towns- the whole industry will take a dive.
    I used to work in hospitality and the was absolutely no difference pre and post brexit. Why would there be? We didn't kick out a load of people in 2016. If you mean after all the agreements went through then you have a slight point but as per the above 80% of people in hospitality were british. I used to go in pubs from Swansea over to the home counties and From the South and South West coast up to Staffordshire. It was fairly rare to see non British peop!e either running the business of back of house. Those that did particularly own the business tended to be in a relationship with a Brit.
    Why it's happened I don't know. Probably it's just trickier for them to come as they now need a permit to work and the UK is generally less welcoming. But there's no doubt that there are now visibly less European workers in hospitality. That most pub and small towns and villages used mainly British staff and Cities and larger towns largely European staff seems to be born out by the report

    https://www.london.gov.uk/about-us/londonassembly/meetings/documents/s67080/BHA KPMG Labour migration in the hospitality sector report.pdf
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,753

    TOPPING said:

    Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    I’m good thanks Rog. A little sad to be ending my holiday, and spending my last couple of hours drinking beer and eating nuts in a dog park by Girona station. But the “Ace” has been really pissing me off. He seems to be held in reverence here by some for his military “expertise” or his lunatic driving or his anarchism, but many of his posts are indistinguishable from those of a Russian shill. He doesn’t give a fuck about Ukraine (or the Baltics or Moldova). He may have Ukrainians living with him, but that’s clearly his wife’s decision.

    And I liked the fact that my abuse sounds similar to “fuck you russian warship”
    Dura_Ace and Topping are possibly the most conspicuous ex-military people on here. Both repeatedly called the Ukraine war very wrong, perhaps for understandable reasons.
    What did I call wrong?

    Signed Conspicuously Military TOPPING.
    Apologies if I am wrong, but back in February weren't you rather negative about Ukraine's chances of resisting the mighty Russian bear?
    Back in February I was wary of people pronouncing on how it was "obviously" going (ie using pictures from Twitter) on Day 2 of the invasion.

    I still am; I'm not sure anyone, not an apparently well-regarded twitter user, nor PJHQ, knows what is going on.

    Frustrating for all of us who want to comment conclusively but probably a more sensible approach.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586
    IanB2 said:

    A stirring rendition of an old partisan song, by a group of female singers in Bologna's main square, at the spot where a group of partisans were shot during the war, was a fitting tribute on Italy's Liberation Day.

    I remember a quite low key, but effective memorial there.... ah

    https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/monument-to-fallen-partisans
  • Nigelb said:



    He's polite to other posters.
    There's no great bar to expressing opinions here, excepting libel and holocaust denial. Abuse of other posters is frowned on for obvious reasons. There is some leeway, obviously, but too much of it simply destroys the point of a comments section - and it convinces nobody.

    “Who gives a fuck if Russia invades the Baltics” might just seem a little less than polite to any posters living in the Baltics. They might think it’s all good natured joshing; if they do, they need someone else to stand up for them.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,753

    Sandpit said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    Dura_Ace is, I believe, of the opinion that we should just give Putin what he wants in eastern Europe (I hope I am not misrepresenting him). This, whilst also housing some Ukrainian migrants. The former is an interesting position, although one I don't agree with as it is both immoral and desperately short-sighted.
    You've got dear old Vlad and those very, very close to him saying in terms that NATO arming Ukraine will lead in short order to tactical and then strategic nukes, and you've got NATO arming Ukraine. What is farsighted about that arrangement? Are we relying on a Dear old Vlad, bark worse than bite, just having his fun, sort of argument? because I'm not. I think it's about even money he celebrates 9 May with the first live-fire nuke detonation since 1945, and that worries me quite a lot.
    It worries a lot of us, but doesn’t mean we should be appeasing him or allowing him to claim anything that looks like a victory. He’s one of the most evil leaders we have seen since 1945, and the rest of the world needs to put him firmly back in his box.
    Pretty much everyone agrees Russia had no legitimate reason for invading Ukraine. To then say we have to let them win Ukraine because they will be The World's Worst Losers means that in fact, they could not lose. We would be consigning the Ukrainian population to God knows what depravities in the process.

    That would set a horrific precedent for the 21st century.

    And as I have also pointed out, to much opprobrium, that precedent was set in 2003 in Iraq.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,513

    TOPPING said:

    Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    I’m good thanks Rog. A little sad to be ending my holiday, and spending my last couple of hours drinking beer and eating nuts in a dog park by Girona station. But the “Ace” has been really pissing me off. He seems to be held in reverence here by some for his military “expertise” or his lunatic driving or his anarchism, but many of his posts are indistinguishable from those of a Russian shill. He doesn’t give a fuck about Ukraine (or the Baltics or Moldova). He may have Ukrainians living with him, but that’s clearly his wife’s decision.

    And I liked the fact that my abuse sounds similar to “fuck you russian warship”
    Dura_Ace and Topping are possibly the most conspicuous ex-military people on here. Both repeatedly called the Ukraine war very wrong, perhaps for understandable reasons.
    What did I call wrong?

    Signed Conspicuously Military TOPPING.
    Apologies if I am wrong, but back in February weren't you rather negative about Ukraine's chances of resisting the mighty Russian bear?
    So were most people - including most of our leaders and military analysts.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677


    That would set a horrific precedent for the 21st century.

    That's the entirety of human history. The people with the weapons and the resolve to use them get what they want. Romans, Mongols, British, Americans, Birmingham City fans, etc.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,355
    edited April 2022

    Dura_Ace said:



    Your security is no security. Putin needs to lose, whatever the risks.

    What does Putin losing look like? Pushed back to the 2014 borders. Russia will use tac nukes before that happens.
    Is the argument that the cost is too high, or that his wonder weapons mean that it's impossible for him to lose?
    The argument is, I believe, that if Putin thinks he is "really losing", he will escalate to nuclear weapons.

    The discussion point is then on what Putin considers as "really losing". This may be

    - 2014 borders
    - An incursion into Crimea
    - The discovery that his vital bodily essence has been infected by fluoridation of tapster.
    - ?
    The spontaneous combustion of Russian infrastructure? "Nice hydrocarbons set up you got there, Vlad. Be a shame if anything should happen to it...." I can imagine reports of recent explosions within Russia setting him off. How long before his talking shitheads in the Russian media start claiming "only American stealth bombers could do such damage to Russia. This is Biden's help for Ukraine. We must fight back - see Texas and Louisiana blazing in revenge...."
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,205
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    I’m good thanks Rog. A little sad to be ending my holiday, and spending my last couple of hours drinking beer and eating nuts in a dog park by Girona station. But the “Ace” has been really pissing me off. He seems to be held in reverence here by some for his military “expertise” or his lunatic driving or his anarchism, but many of his posts are indistinguishable from those of a Russian shill. He doesn’t give a fuck about Ukraine (or the Baltics or Moldova). He may have Ukrainians living with him, but that’s clearly his wife’s decision.

    And I liked the fact that my abuse sounds similar to “fuck you russian warship”
    Dura_Ace and Topping are possibly the most conspicuous ex-military people on here. Both repeatedly called the Ukraine war very wrong, perhaps for understandable reasons.
    What did I call wrong?

    Signed Conspicuously Military TOPPING.
    Apologies if I am wrong, but back in February weren't you rather negative about Ukraine's chances of resisting the mighty Russian bear?
    Back in February I was wary of people pronouncing on how it was "obviously" going (ie using pictures from Twitter) on Day 2 of the invasion.

    I still am; I'm not sure anyone, not an apparently well-regarded twitter user, nor PJHQ, knows what is going on.

    Frustrating for all of us who want to comment conclusively but probably a more sensible approach.
    My *impression* was that you were rather more negative than that.

    However, I have no problem with stating categorically that the whole adventure so far has gone disastrously for Russia. They lost a vast amount of treasure on their abandoned northern attack towards Kiev, and the sanctions will be increasingly hurting them. Worse, their military's poor performance is an embarrassment for them. They can hide that from their population for some time, but not from external eyes.

    With more uncertainty; whilst the eastern and southern fronts are still active and could give them a 'win', I wouldn't bet on it given their recent performance.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    Sandpit said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Roger said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.

    Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
    Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
    Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.

    Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
    Like this, you mean?

    Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H

    Or, as the article we started with concludes,

    But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.

    "Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
    Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
    You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.

    They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....

    The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
    My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España :smiley:
    Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.

    The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.

    How much are you paying per capsule :-)

    I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
    Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
    Beans actually stay quite fresh if you don't leave them in the open air - even the hopper in a coffee grinder is fine. I grind on demand....

    The other nice thing is that with a stainless mocha maker you can stick it in the dish washer from time to time to nuke all the accumulated stuff out. People using aluminium with coffee....
    Hmmm. Morning all.

    The "fraction of a penny" for the coffee (typically 10g) in a shot is a bit optimistic; at a trade level coffee beans cost £7-15 per kilo for good quality. So more like 7-10p, which is still low enough to allow purchase of top quality coffee. My local tonne-a-week bean roaster start their beans at £11 per kilo wholesale.

    Nespresso will end up (correctly) as a green pariah; there are excellent alternatives available to capsules which don't have to be thrown away or recycled via a special infrastructure which only catches a % of the Nespresso cartridges, such as E.S.E paper capsules. Nespresso fails by Ockham. Enjoy it whilst it lasts :smile: .

    Nespresso will at some time be selected as 'hate of the month' by one of the green groups.

    Being in the process of helping open a cafe with a trade bean to cup machine, I can say that they are expensive but are treated as a craft product. A new one for 100-150 cups a day might be £4-5k at the lower end plus a £40 a month maintenance agreement plus (round here) water filters. Quite durprised to find that Franks, who made my sink, make them.
    You can tell we're all losing interest in Ukraine when coffee dick measuring economics is making the running.
    Like you ever had any interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians, Mr “ who would give a fuck if they did?”.

    Fuck you Russian whore shit.
    Are you OK?
    Dura_Ace is, I believe, of the opinion that we should just give Putin what he wants in eastern Europe (I hope I am not misrepresenting him). This, whilst also housing some Ukrainian migrants. The former is an interesting position, although one I don't agree with as it is both immoral and desperately short-sighted.
    You've got dear old Vlad and those very, very close to him saying in terms that NATO arming Ukraine will lead in short order to tactical and then strategic nukes, and you've got NATO arming Ukraine. What is farsighted about that arrangement? Are we relying on a Dear old Vlad, bark worse than bite, just having his fun, sort of argument? because I'm not. I think it's about even money he celbrates 9 May with the first live-fire nuke detonation since 1945, and that worries me quite a lot.
    It worries a lot of us, but doesn’t mean we should be appeasing him or allowing him to claim anything that looks like a victory. He’s one of the most evil leaders we have seen since 1945, and the rest of the world needs to put him firmly back in his box.
    In principle that is obviously right, but metaphors aren't necessarily helpful. "Putting him back in his box" entails doing stuff which might in turn entail him nuking London. As you say He’s one of the most evil leaders we have seen since 1945, but he is also one of the best armed, and he occupies a position from which the holodomor was launched. Again,

    https://reaction.life/wartime-putins-russia-has-become-a-madhouse-threatening-the-world

    message as per url. Sounds hysterical, but it is alarmingly well sourced.
    Yet Putin has just unveiled a new nuclear missile capable of devastating an area of 250,000 square miles.

    Hysterical indeed.

    https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
    That is per warhead. This mf carries 15 of the things, and even if the true figure is let's say 2,500 square miles for the whole lot, Greater London is about 600 sq m.

    Nice deadpan

    "This is a superweapon that can calm any aggressor or a group of aggressors wherever they are," said Mr Rogozin. Like Terminator "You know your weapons buddy, these are all good for home defence."
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586
    Roger said:

    Roger said:

    Roger said:

    Roger said:

    Good morning

    We hear almost on a daily basis that brexit has brought no benefits, but this report this morning does counter that argument

    What's the impact of Brexit?

    Brexit is another key reason for hiring squeezes in sectors like hospitality and driving.

    Jobs that relied heavily on EU workers have seen wages increase by 11.7% since the start of 2019, around twice as much as jobs that did not.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-jobs-giving-inflation-busting-pay-rises-but-cost-of-living-will-likely-erode-wage-gains-12595667

    But have you tried using the hospitality industry recently.? Now that so many Europeans have been replaced by English workers in cafes restaurants bars and hotels it's become across the board crap.

    One thing even the biggest eurosceptics will have appreciated with free movement was that the hospitality industry improved dramatically. Well it's now taken a nosedive.
    The majority of people working in hospitality in the UK were always UK born.

    The myth that all the people working at Pret were from the Czech Republic etc. comes from people who live in rather central London, where foreigners do dominate the low skilled, low pay jobs.

    The situation has not vastly changed in London, either, in terms of ratios of foreigners vs UK citizens in such jobs.

    The problem in the hospitality trade is a shortage of workers, meaning that those who are there are generally over worked.

    EDIT: There was an amusing piece on Radio 4 the other day. A chap running a gastro pub had lost all his staff in the lock down. They were all doing other jobs now. He described his workplace conditions - mainly his use of no-notice shifts. Literally ring people the day before to tell them they were/weren't working.....

    Short of actually flogging his employees.... it was astonishing to me that they hadn't all left before.
    I don't know the precise figures but in ALL major cities and large towns it's obvious to anyone who eats out and uses hotels a lot that many if not most of the staff were European. Even in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The only area I can think of where this doesn't SEEM to be the case is North Wales.
    https://www.london.gov.uk/about-us/londonassembly/meetings/documents/s67080/BHA KPMG Labour migration in the hospitality sector report.pdf

    2017 - "Between 12.3% and 23.7% of the UK hospitality sector workforce is currently made up of EU nationals."

    There is an effect, I've been told, where the staff up front are tailored to customers expectations - so in posh restaurants they make sure the sommelier has a foreign accent.

    A reverse example - a local butcher runs a massive commercial trade. He has all the pubs and restaurants for miles around using him as a supplier. All the English cheeky chaps work in the front shop, doing the banter with the customers. The crew at the back are nearly all Polish.....
    I'm happy for them getting an 11% rise but In the long run if they don't up their game to the standards that exist everywhere else in Europe-and existed in the UK pre Brexit in the cities and large towns- the whole industry will take a dive.
    I used to work in hospitality and the was absolutely no difference pre and post brexit. Why would there be? We didn't kick out a load of people in 2016. If you mean after all the agreements went through then you have a slight point but as per the above 80% of people in hospitality were british. I used to go in pubs from Swansea over to the home counties and From the South and South West coast up to Staffordshire. It was fairly rare to see non British peop!e either running the business of back of house. Those that did particularly own the business tended to be in a relationship with a Brit.
    Why it's happened I don't know. Probably it's just trickier for them to come as they now need a permit to work and the UK is generally less welcoming. But there's no doubt that there are now visibly less European workers in hospitality. That most pub and small towns and villages used mainly British staff and Cities and larger towns largely European staff seems to be born out by the report

    https://www.london.gov.uk/about-us/londonassembly/meetings/documents/s67080/BHA KPMG Labour migration in the hospitality sector report.pdf
    According to that report, the highest estimate of EU nationals in the workforce in hospitality was 38% in Central London, using the higher KPMG numbers.

    Personal perceptions and experience are often contrary to the wider facts.

    "This varies significantly across businesses and service lines, with one respondent based in Greater London reporting that 100% of their employees are EU nationals, and a number reporting figures of around 80-90%."
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379

    I don't understand why anyone thinks @Heathener is a troll? Is it because they post things some people don't agree with?

    Everything they've posted seems pretty sensible to me. This one has totally passed me by - just seems like a lot of unnecessary abuse and I am surprised the moderation team has not stepped in.

    It’s not “troll” in the sense of someone who is seeking to abuse so perhaps it’s the wrong word

    It’s because (a) many of her early morning posts seem reasonable and then end up assigning the blame on a controversial topic before walking away; they are designed to whip up division; (b) many of her positions were strangely aligned with the latest tactical position from St Petersburg; and (c) she is using a VPN with an IP address that is on a blacklist of compromised addresses

    Three strikes and you’re out…
    Indeed. As shown by your point (a), s/he is a troll in the traditional sense, from before the word got misused by news reporters.
This discussion has been closed.