SHOPPERS have been left perplexed by a mysterious tin of “Boris Beans” that was photographed in a supermarket.
A member of the public said the product, an apparent protest against the current cost-of-living crisis, was found in Tesco Express on Queens Road, Brighton.
The "Boris Beans" are said to come in a tasty “austerity sauce” with “misery guaranteed”.
It comes after a Tory minister said hard-up families should switch to supermarket value brands to survive.
The irony to me is the level of stupidity which still thinks that the vast of majority of branded products are not identical to the generic equivalents in all respects except price. The advice was eminently sensible.
I wonder how many Tory MPs use predominantly own brands themselves?
If they don't they're as thick as anyone else who does. Of coourse we know that woman of the people Angela Rayner loves her Apple air Buds - paid for by the taxdes of the .
I think it is worth trying the own brands, or cheaper brands, from time to time, sometimes they are fine and similar, other times, most of the time in my experience, they are clearly lower quality.
I don't think Tory MPs are thick for likely preferring pricier brands, just that at their income level they are not hit by the cost of living crisis in the same way that the poorest 10-20% are.
Oh dear - the power of advertising.... I respectfully think you are wrong but each to their own.
He isn't wrong. Having watched the production of fish fingers they are clearly different (I was providing consultancy). I watched the production of:
Different branded fish fingers Different own brand fish fingers Local authority ff for school Government ff for prisons
All coming out of the same factory, but all with very different contents.
Now I agree the branded might not taste better, in fact when it comes to fish fingers I prefer own brand because I'm not bothered about fish content. I also agree that some products might be identical, but you can't claim it is all down to advertising.
I will always try the cheaper stuff first before being suckered into the branded goods and generally find it fine but it isn't necessarily the same and usually isn't.
Some thickos posting here, it si much cheaper for a reason , you are getting less product , inferior quality and more sauce. I once saw own label beans , it was sauce with a few beans thrown in. Only own label I would buy is M&S.
3 common brands which I find are way superior to any cheaper competitor. Fairy liquid, HP sauce and Hellmann's mayonnaise. Apart from those, don't really insist on any. Of course Heinz make the best beans. But they aren't that much better.
Shares in Tesla or Amazon or Tesco are productive assets. Property is a productive asset.
Basically, you get paid to own them (most of the time).
Bitcoin is not a productive asset.
Bitcoin is a currency, plain and simple. It's something you can, in theory, exchange for goods and services (though not many people do, a bit like gold).
Its value derives from its hardness, a bit like gold. You can't just print more of it, therefore the supply is controlled and predictable.
A bet on bitcoin is effectively a bet against fiat currencies, against inflation, against central banks trying to maintain control.
Placing bitcoin in the same category as a tesla share is fundamentally mis-labelling it. What gives the dollar value? People believe it has value. What gives bitcoin value? People believe it has value.
The value of a $10 note is about .02 in paper and ink, backed by people's belief in it. The value of a bitcoin is the power used to generate it, backed by people's belief in it.
As Morpheus says, "you think that's air you're breathing?"
Well, as Mrs May was gleefully saying yesterday, they were warned!
I can see why she stayed on the backbenches. She is having a great time with the schadenfreude.
If she’d got her way, we’d be stuck indefinitely in the Backstop, eating yet another of Macron’s “Screw the British” pieces of EU legislation over which we had no say.
The issue with the Protocol was always the sequencing, it was destined to be revisited in light of the later trade agreement. That the EU have no intention of doing this, and refuse to implement the trusted trader scheme or the electronic border, is a show of bad faith on their part.
A16 is the mechanism by which they can be forced to actually negotiate on the stalled points, and a lack of agreement acceptable to all comunities in NI exacerbates political tensions there.
You are describing the situation from November last year. Since then the EU has published their trusted trader proposal, and the Northern Ireland Select Committee has reported significant progress.
Article 16 is the weapon to be used if and when the EU drags their feet again. It is not to be used when they are - thanks to the threat - actually moving.
Yes, but the DUP arent objecting to how the NIP is implemented in terms of electronic processing, they are objecting to its very existence.
Yep, and it’s the Protocol’s very existence the government is now threatening - no doubt in anticipation of needing DUP help after the next election.
Given Burnham has suggested he wants to be an MP again at the next general election then if Starmer survives until then and loses, Burnham certainly would be a contender.
However for the moment if say Starmer is fined and has to resign then I would make the second favourite, Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting, the favourite to succeed him
Streeting is such a non entity politically though. He's butter chicken.
Streeting comes across well, is telegenic, articulate and relatively centrist and also has much more charisma than Starmer.
As a Tory of the above he is the one I would most fear, I also fear Burnham but he is not in Parliament.
Streeting would also be our first Cambridge educated PM since Baldwin, as indeed would Burnham
FFS can't we look a little wider afield than oxbridge tossers?
Nah. They have "unattractive" accents. The Oxbridge ones are "too posh". Vote Tory. No one else is right and proper.
As OGH frequently reminds us the last non Oxbridge leader to win a general election against an Oxbridge educated leader was Churchill in 1951 v Attlee but then Churchill went to the superior public school, Harrow to Attlee's Haileybury, even if Churchill unlike Attlee did not go to Oxford.
Plus of course Attlee did beat Churchill in 1945 and 1950
I remember when looking for work after graduating in the 1980s reading one of the really small ads in the Thursday Telegraph jobs pages. It read "... only first class honours graduates OR those educated at a good Public School need apply" So two years to get good A levels, then three or four years to get a good 2:1 wasn't as good as a CSE in woodwork from Clifton College.
Did you write the ad?
And I am sure they would have taken a public school candidate over a first class degree graduate every time.
There was a case of a company which was exposed as marketing four different brands of the same beer at different prices - lots of people had sworn brand A was great, brand B was rats' piss.
In Pennsylvania, Tennants Lager is sold as a premium import brand...
Tennents is better than Fosters. And Carlsberg. And waaaaay better than Carling. So I can understand that.
Have you double blind tested then? Most mass market lagers are in fact very similar, if not identical.
On Crypto - and NFTs for that matter - I simply don't understand the supposed value held. Yes people apparently want to pay $30k for a bitcoin, but isn't that its only value - other loons?
At one time, I thought that Bitcoin would eventually trend towards the cost of electricity required to mine one. Not sure now though, I think it could collapse completely.
All the other coins and NFTs have very little tangible value beyond speculation and money laundering. They’re 21st century tulip bulbs.
(Did you manage to move your safe?).
Not yet - the guy is going to come and look this weekend and formulate a plan. It will be hoist onto a heavy-duty trolley job - I have step-free access from the road so the tricky bit is getting it off the plinth its on.
Is there no way you can lift it and the plinth. Assume too heavy to wiggle it onto the trolley. Likely to slide easier once you get a bit of it on the metal trolley. Once you moved it a bit you may b eable to get a crowbar under the back and get enough angle to help slide it onto trolley.
I asked for thoughts on coffee machines for a small cafe the other week.
We ended up going for a consumer bean-to-cup on the basis that it does make a nice coffee, but is also inexpensive enough that it will do the job whilst trade is low and starts to build, and we can either take it home and buy a larger machine if required, or just get another one to go next to it.
Simple, and makes a very nice cup off coffee, but is quite customisable. A slight annoyance is that it works in "low medium high" rather than grams of coffee per shot.
But DeLonghi need some serious attention to their incomprehensible model numbers.
I missed your original post - I would have suggested the Gaggia Velasca (£499 Caffe Italia). We have one and it is excellent.
Looking at the Velasca, it is a little more programmable via the front panel (eg the DeLonghi has a knob for qty of coffee beans), and a larger coffee hopper. Does it have a separate water filter cartridge?
I think either would probably do it. Thanks for the comment.
Well, as Mrs May was gleefully saying yesterday, they were warned!
I can see why she stayed on the backbenches. She is having a great time with the schadenfreude.
If she’d got her way, we’d be stuck indefinitely in the Backstop, eating yet another of Macron’s “Screw the British” pieces of EU legislation over which we had no say.
The issue with the Protocol was always the sequencing, it was destined to be revisited in light of the later trade agreement. That the EU have no intention of doing this, and refuse to implement the trusted trader scheme or the electronic border, is a show of bad faith on their part.
A16 is the mechanism by which they can be forced to actually negotiate on the stalled points, and a lack of agreement acceptable to all comunities in NI exacerbates political tensions there.
You are describing the situation from November last year. Since then the EU has published their trusted trader proposal, and the Northern Ireland Select Committee has reported significant progress.
Article 16 is the weapon to be used if and when the EU drags their feet again. It is not to be used when they are - thanks to the threat - actually moving.
The story from last week, was that they are very much dragging their feet.
Given Burnham has suggested he wants to be an MP again at the next general election then if Starmer survives until then and loses, Burnham certainly would be a contender.
However for the moment if say Starmer is fined and has to resign then I would make the second favourite, Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting, the favourite to succeed him
Streeting is such a non entity politically though. He's butter chicken.
Streeting comes across well, is telegenic, articulate and relatively centrist and also has much more charisma than Starmer.
As a Tory of the above he is the one I would most fear, I also fear Burnham but he is not in Parliament.
Streeting would also be our first Cambridge educated PM since Baldwin, as indeed would Burnham
Can't we have someone from Flint College or Grimsby Polytechnic for a change?
Shares in Tesla or Amazon or Tesco are productive assets. Property is a productive asset.
Basically, you get paid to own them (most of the time).
Bitcoin is not a productive asset.
Bitcoin is a currency, plain and simple. It's something you can, in theory, exchange for goods and services (though not many people do, a bit like gold).
Its value derives from its hardness, a bit like gold. You can't just print more of it, therefore the supply is controlled and predictable.
A bet on bitcoin is effectively a bet against fiat currencies, against inflation, against central banks trying to maintain control.
Placing bitcoin in the same category as a tesla share is fundamentally mis-labelling it. What gives the dollar value? People believe it has value. What gives bitcoin value? People believe it has value.
The value of a $10 note is about .02 in paper and ink, backed by people's belief in it. The value of a bitcoin is the power used to generate it, backed by people's belief in it.
As Morpheus says, "you think that's air you're breathing?"
The value of fiat currency is also backed up by the fact you can use it to pay your taxes. Buying into crypto means believing that governments will allow an alternative to their own currency to prosper. Given that this robs government's of seigniorage revenue while facilitating tax evasion and organised crime I don't think this is a plausible proposition. Personally I have no crypto in my portfolio.
There was a case of a company which was exposed as marketing four different brands of the same beer at different prices - lots of people had sworn brand A was great, brand B was rats' piss.
In Pennsylvania, Tennants Lager is sold as a premium import brand...
Tennents is better than Fosters. And Carlsberg. And waaaaay better than Carling. So I can understand that.
I asked for thoughts on coffee machines for a small cafe the other week.
We ended up going for a consumer bean-to-cup on the basis that it does make a nice coffee, but is also inexpensive enough that it will do the job whilst trade is low and starts to build, and we can either take it home and buy a larger machine if required, or just get another one to go next to it.
Simple, and makes a very nice cup off coffee, but is quite customisable. A slight annoyance is that it works in "low medium high" rather than grams of coffee per shot.
But DeLonghi need some serious attention to their incomprehensible model numbers.
I missed your original post - I would have suggested the Gaggia Velasca (£499 Caffe Italia). We have one and it is excellent.
I have a jar of Kenco Smooth. A £5 jar lasts for a couple of months.
Job done.
That's like saying to someone who buys a PS5 that you have a crossword book and job done.
Not really. It's still coffee. It does the same job.
I wonder if there's a correlation between people who overpay for 'luxury' coffee and those who overpay by worshipping at the altar of Apple?
(Runs for cover...)
Its not the same coffee at all.
You need decent pressure to make coffee properly and get a decent crema on your espresso. That doesn't happen with any instant coffee I've ever seen.
Its like saying there's no difference between an old-fashioned landline and an iPhone. The branding doesn't matter, they're completely different products.
Indeed. I’m now filing Josias among the many PBers who really needs to learn more about food and drink. There really is a shocking proportion of people on here who have the gastronomic enthusiasm of a tadpole.
Well, as Mrs May was gleefully saying yesterday, they were warned!
I can see why she stayed on the backbenches. She is having a great time with the schadenfreude.
If she’d got her way, we’d be stuck indefinitely in the Backstop, eating yet another of Macron’s “Screw the British” pieces of EU legislation over which we had no say.
The issue with the Protocol was always the sequencing, it was destined to be revisited in light of the later trade agreement. That the EU have no intention of doing this, and refuse to implement the trusted trader scheme or the electronic border, is a show of bad faith on their part.
A16 is the mechanism by which they can be forced to actually negotiate on the stalled points, and a lack of agreement acceptable to all comunities in NI exacerbates political tensions there.
We've just indefinitely delayed the imposition of the inbound checks mandated by the oven-ready deal. Which means for an indefinite period the EU are responsible for safety standards of goods coming into the UK.
In theory we can set our own standards. But as we're unable to enforce them...
Its gone over your head it seems that the ability to drop EU-mandated checks or rules is precisely a benefit won by not being aligned to the EU.
We don't need to enforce them, we can recognise the EU as a safe region and recognise their standards are equivalent to our own.
What purpose do those "checks" serve other than protectionist self-harm.
We should abolish such checks with any other nations, blocs or regions that have equivalent standards too. Protectionism is self-harming.
On Crypto - and NFTs for that matter - I simply don't understand the supposed value held. Yes people apparently want to pay $30k for a bitcoin, but isn't that its only value - other loons?
At one time, I thought that Bitcoin would eventually trend towards the cost of electricity required to mine one. Not sure now though, I think it could collapse completely.
All the other coins and NFTs have very little tangible value beyond speculation and money laundering. They’re 21st century tulip bulbs.
(Did you manage to move your safe?).
Not yet - the guy is going to come and look this weekend and formulate a plan. It will be hoist onto a heavy-duty trolley job - I have step-free access from the road so the tricky bit is getting it off the plinth its on.
More to the point have you opened it? It might be crammed full of bitcoin.
I see the zerocovidians have doubled down in Shanghai. Don’t they think the Chinese have noticed that everyone else is pretty much getting on with their lives?
Well, as Mrs May was gleefully saying yesterday, they were warned!
I can see why she stayed on the backbenches. She is having a great time with the schadenfreude.
If she’d got her way, we’d be stuck indefinitely in the Backstop, eating yet another of Macron’s “Screw the British” pieces of EU legislation over which we had no say.
The issue with the Protocol was always the sequencing, it was destined to be revisited in light of the later trade agreement. That the EU have no intention of doing this, and refuse to implement the trusted trader scheme or the electronic border, is a show of bad faith on their part.
A16 is the mechanism by which they can be forced to actually negotiate on the stalled points, and a lack of agreement acceptable to all comunities in NI exacerbates political tensions there.
The point of the backstop was not to get into it in the first place.
Meanwhile, as DUP big cheese Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said in the Commons yesterday:-
I asked for thoughts on coffee machines for a small cafe the other week.
We ended up going for a consumer bean-to-cup on the basis that it does make a nice coffee, but is also inexpensive enough that it will do the job whilst trade is low and starts to build, and we can either take it home and buy a larger machine if required, or just get another one to go next to it.
Simple, and makes a very nice cup off coffee, but is quite customisable. A slight annoyance is that it works in "low medium high" rather than grams of coffee per shot.
But DeLonghi need some serious attention to their incomprehensible model numbers.
I missed your original post - I would have suggested the Gaggia Velasca (£499 Caffe Italia). We have one and it is excellent.
I have a jar of Kenco Smooth. A £5 jar lasts for a couple of months.
Job done.
That's like saying to someone who buys a PS5 that you have a crossword book and job done.
Not really. It's still coffee. It does the same job.
I wonder if there's a correlation between people who overpay for 'luxury' coffee and those who overpay by worshipping at the altar of Apple?
(Runs for cover...)
Its not the same coffee at all.
You need decent pressure to make coffee properly and get a decent crema on your espresso. That doesn't happen with any instant coffee I've ever seen.
Its like saying there's no difference between an old-fashioned landline and an iPhone. The branding doesn't matter, they're completely different products.
Espresso? What's that?
Instant coffee is coffee. The coffee you drink is coffee. I drink it to get a little caffeine hit and to quench my thirst. It does the job.
Why do you drink your very expensive coffee? The same reasons?
It's like someone drinking a £10 bottle of wine from Mozzies and someone else drinking a £100 bottle. Probably worse, in terms of cost...
There was a case of a company which was exposed as marketing four different brands of the same beer at different prices - lots of people had sworn brand A was great, brand B was rats' piss.
In Pennsylvania, Tennants Lager is sold as a premium import brand...
Tennents is better than Fosters. And Carlsberg. And waaaaay better than Carling. So I can understand that.
Have you double blind tested then? Most mass market lagers are in fact very similar, if not identical.
The Good Friday Agreement was about power sharing across communities and not about winner-takes-all majoritarianism.
At the Assembly election as far as I can see zero unionist MLAs were elected who support the NI Protocol.
So by the standards of the Good Friday Agreement (cross-community consensus is needed) the NI Protocol has failed.
And yet the government agreed to majoritarianism in the Protocol, which states that if a majority of NI voters back it it should remain in force.
A majority of NI voters would be happy to amend the protocol to remove the Irish Sea border as long as there was no border in Ireland.
Though I did note Theresa May telling Jeffrey Donaldson in the Commons yesterday that had he voted for her deal he would largely have avoided an Irish Sea border
Well, as Mrs May was gleefully saying yesterday, they were warned!
I can see why she stayed on the backbenches. She is having a great time with the schadenfreude.
If she’d got her way, we’d be stuck indefinitely in the Backstop, eating yet another of Macron’s “Screw the British” pieces of EU legislation over which we had no say.
The issue with the Protocol was always the sequencing, it was destined to be revisited in light of the later trade agreement. That the EU have no intention of doing this, and refuse to implement the trusted trader scheme or the electronic border, is a show of bad faith on their part.
A16 is the mechanism by which they can be forced to actually negotiate on the stalled points, and a lack of agreement acceptable to all comunities in NI exacerbates political tensions there.
We've just indefinitely delayed the imposition of the inbound checks mandated by the oven-ready deal. Which means for an indefinite period the EU are responsible for safety standards of goods coming into the UK.
In theory we can set our own standards. But as we're unable to enforce them...
Its gone over your head it seems that the ability to drop EU-mandated checks or rules is precisely a benefit won by not being aligned to the EU.
We don't need to enforce them, we can recognise the EU as a safe region and recognise their standards are equivalent to our own.
What purpose do those "checks" serve other than protectionist self-harm.
We should abolish such checks with any other nations, blocs or regions that have equivalent standards too. Protectionism is self-harming.
I wouldn’t say it quite the same way, but you’re right that the difference is between equivalence and alignment of standards.
The UK side wants equivalence as the basis for trade, and the EU side wants alignment.
Quick question to PB brains trust: can anyone recommend a green building forum?
I used to be on the Navitron forum when we were building our house but that's now closed. Looking for another forum now we're planning our next project. Thanks!
Given Burnham has suggested he wants to be an MP again at the next general election then if Starmer survives until then and loses, Burnham certainly would be a contender.
However for the moment if say Starmer is fined and has to resign then I would make the second favourite, Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting, the favourite to succeed him
Streeting is such a non entity politically though. He's butter chicken.
Streeting comes across well, is telegenic, articulate and relatively centrist and also has much more charisma than Starmer.
As a Tory of the above he is the one I would most fear, I also fear Burnham but he is not in Parliament.
Streeting would also be our first Cambridge educated PM since Baldwin, as indeed would Burnham
Can't we have someone from Flint College or Grimsby Polytechnic for a change?
Gordon Brown went to Edinburgh, Neville Chamberlain went to Birmingham, Starmer did his undergraduate degree at Leeds with a postgraduate degree at Oxford, John Major, Jim Callaghan and Churchill did not go to university at all
Shares in Tesla or Amazon or Tesco are productive assets. Property is a productive asset.
Basically, you get paid to own them (most of the time).
Bitcoin is not a productive asset.
Bitcoin is a currency, plain and simple. It's something you can, in theory, exchange for goods and services (though not many people do, a bit like gold).
Its value derives from its hardness, a bit like gold. You can't just print more of it, therefore the supply is controlled and predictable.
A bet on bitcoin is effectively a bet against fiat currencies, against inflation, against central banks trying to maintain control.
Placing bitcoin in the same category as a tesla share is fundamentally mis-labelling it. What gives the dollar value? People believe it has value. What gives bitcoin value? People believe it has value.
The value of a $10 note is about .02 in paper and ink, backed by people's belief in it. The value of a bitcoin is the power used to generate it, backed by people's belief in it.
As Morpheus says, "you think that's air you're breathing?"
Gold has been a currency because it cannot be replicated, does not tarnish and yet the overall volume of it can be mined to modestly increase the money supply each year. There’s a few other elements you might substitute but none as good as gold.
Conversely there are an unlimited amount of different cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is not even the most fit for purpose at the simple job of performing transactions. It just has the strongest brand.
3 common brands which I find are way superior to any cheaper competitor. Fairy liquid, HP sauce and Hellmann's mayonnaise. Apart from those, don't really insist on any. Of course Heinz make the best beans. But they aren't that much better.
Crosse & Blackwell baked beans have their own cult following. Of course, they are not own-brand.
3 common brands which I find are way superior to any cheaper competitor. Fairy liquid, HP sauce and Hellmann's mayonnaise. Apart from those, don't really insist on any. Of course Heinz make the best beans. But they aren't that much better.
Crosse & Blackwell baked beans have their own cult following. Of course, they are not own-brand.
There was a case of a company which was exposed as marketing four different brands of the same beer at different prices - lots of people had sworn brand A was great, brand B was rats' piss.
In Pennsylvania, Tennants Lager is sold as a premium import brand...
Tennents is better than Fosters. And Carlsberg. And waaaaay better than Carling. So I can understand that.
Anything is better than Carling
I went to a corporate dinner at St George's Football Hilton. Sponsored by Carling. All you could drink for free. Customers and contacts who were also there were very happy when I took them to the bar to expense some drinkable beers.
Many years ago, when I was a lad, I had a job loading 1cwt bags of fertilizer onto pallets. This was when the UK granulated nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium compounds to make fertilizer. They were bagged in situ, and the farmer came with their wagons to collect it.
I remember one old farmer being emphatic. "I don't want any of that Fisons rubbish boy, I want Hadfields." It was the work of seconds to exchange the Fisons bags for the Hadfields ones. He paid close to £2 a ton extra for the privilege. This was when £2 was a lot of money.
Some people never learn.
Yes N P and K can't really be anything else. Like buying nurofen when it is literally illegal for it to vary from unbranded ibuprofen. Then again, supermarket petrol and diesel are, as I understand it, crap - they skimp on the additives
I know the average age of PB-ers is quite high, but if @CD13 can remember when “£2 was a lot of money” then I estimate he must be about 320 years old. Which is impressive
I remember as an 18 year old when I used to borrow my dad's car I would occasionally top it up with petrol with a £1 worth.
My weekend/summer job when I was a teenager in the 1970s was as a petrol pump attendant. I remember the moans when the price went up from 72p to 74p - a gallon!
I see the zerocovidians have doubled down in Shanghai. Don’t they think the Chinese have noticed that everyone else is pretty much getting on with their lives?
I think it might have something to do with the leader of China wanting to assert his authority over the population, no matter what the cost. He's hosting a conference later this year where he intends to effectively appoint himself as leader for life.
Well, as Mrs May was gleefully saying yesterday, they were warned!
I can see why she stayed on the backbenches. She is having a great time with the schadenfreude.
If she’d got her way, we’d be stuck indefinitely in the Backstop, eating yet another of Macron’s “Screw the British” pieces of EU legislation over which we had no say.
The issue with the Protocol was always the sequencing, it was destined to be revisited in light of the later trade agreement. That the EU have no intention of doing this, and refuse to implement the trusted trader scheme or the electronic border, is a show of bad faith on their part.
A16 is the mechanism by which they can be forced to actually negotiate on the stalled points, and a lack of agreement acceptable to all comunities in NI exacerbates political tensions there.
The point of the backstop was not to get into it in the first place.
Meanwhile, as DUP big cheese Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said in the Commons yesterday:-
So the DUP are more important than anyone else? Damn stupid promise. They know they can throw their non-gay dinosaur stuffed toys out the pram and fill their nappies whenever they want and nanny will come running.
Many years ago, when I was a lad, I had a job loading 1cwt bags of fertilizer onto pallets. This was when the UK granulated nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium compounds to make fertilizer. They were bagged in situ, and the farmer came with their wagons to collect it.
I remember one old farmer being emphatic. "I don't want any of that Fisons rubbish boy, I want Hadfields." It was the work of seconds to exchange the Fisons bags for the Hadfields ones. He paid close to £2 a ton extra for the privilege. This was when £2 was a lot of money.
Some people never learn.
Yes N P and K can't really be anything else. Like buying nurofen when it is literally illegal for it to vary from unbranded ibuprofen. Then again, supermarket petrol and diesel are, as I understand it, crap - they skimp on the additives
I know the average age of PB-ers is quite high, but if @CD13 can remember when “£2 was a lot of money” then I estimate he must be about 320 years old. Which is impressive
I remember as an 18 year old when I used to borrow my dad's car I would occasionally top it up with petrol with a £1 worth.
My weekend/summer job when I was a teenager in the 1970s was as a petrol pump attendant. I remember the moans when the price went up from 72p to 74p - a gallon!
Petrol pump attendant. That was probably seen as a safe job once. People will always drive cars.
I asked for thoughts on coffee machines for a small cafe the other week.
We ended up going for a consumer bean-to-cup on the basis that it does make a nice coffee, but is also inexpensive enough that it will do the job whilst trade is low and starts to build, and we can either take it home and buy a larger machine if required, or just get another one to go next to it.
Simple, and makes a very nice cup off coffee, but is quite customisable. A slight annoyance is that it works in "low medium high" rather than grams of coffee per shot.
But DeLonghi need some serious attention to their incomprehensible model numbers.
I missed your original post - I would have suggested the Gaggia Velasca (£499 Caffe Italia). We have one and it is excellent.
I have a jar of Kenco Smooth. A £5 jar lasts for a couple of months.
Job done.
That's like saying to someone who buys a PS5 that you have a crossword book and job done.
Not really. It's still coffee. It does the same job.
I wonder if there's a correlation between people who overpay for 'luxury' coffee and those who overpay by worshipping at the altar of Apple?
(Runs for cover...)
Its not the same coffee at all.
You need decent pressure to make coffee properly and get a decent crema on your espresso. That doesn't happen with any instant coffee I've ever seen.
Its like saying there's no difference between an old-fashioned landline and an iPhone. The branding doesn't matter, they're completely different products.
Indeed. I’m now filing Josias among the many PBers who really needs to learn more about food and drink. There really is a shocking proportion of people on here who have the gastronomic enthusiasm of a tadpole.
No. Tadpoles have tongues. More like a sea anemone, some of us.
There was a case of a company which was exposed as marketing four different brands of the same beer at different prices - lots of people had sworn brand A was great, brand B was rats' piss.
In Pennsylvania, Tennants Lager is sold as a premium import brand...
Tennents is better than Fosters. And Carlsberg. And waaaaay better than Carling. So I can understand that.
Have you double blind tested then? Most mass market lagers are in fact very similar, if not identical.
He is very right, having done multiple tests
Same here. All pretty much the same. Tried with a friend with bottles and he choose his favourite against four others. When taken blind from a glass be placed his favourite fourth out of five. To his disgust he had a 0.5% alc lager and number one. People are influence by the brand and perhaps style of bottle they are holding in their hand.
WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said that he doesn't think a zero-covid policy is sustainable. This is what happens when you play a video of his comments on WeChat. Widely shared this morning but now censored...
Well, as Mrs May was gleefully saying yesterday, they were warned!
I can see why she stayed on the backbenches. She is having a great time with the schadenfreude.
If she’d got her way, we’d be stuck indefinitely in the Backstop, eating yet another of Macron’s “Screw the British” pieces of EU legislation over which we had no say.
The issue with the Protocol was always the sequencing, it was destined to be revisited in light of the later trade agreement. That the EU have no intention of doing this, and refuse to implement the trusted trader scheme or the electronic border, is a show of bad faith on their part.
A16 is the mechanism by which they can be forced to actually negotiate on the stalled points, and a lack of agreement acceptable to all comunities in NI exacerbates political tensions there.
We've just indefinitely delayed the imposition of the inbound checks mandated by the oven-ready deal. Which means for an indefinite period the EU are responsible for safety standards of goods coming into the UK.
In theory we can set our own standards. But as we're unable to enforce them...
Its gone over your head it seems that the ability to drop EU-mandated checks or rules is precisely a benefit won by not being aligned to the EU.
We don't need to enforce them, we can recognise the EU as a safe region and recognise their standards are equivalent to our own.
What purpose do those "checks" serve other than protectionist self-harm.
We should abolish such checks with any other nations, blocs or regions that have equivalent standards too. Protectionism is self-harming.
Good! So we recognise their standards as equivalent to our own. We should do as their standards are our standards. So we have maintained our alignment with EU standards - and have now made it clear we aren't changing those standards because we're functionally incapable of doing so.
You ask "what function do those checks serve" - a genuinely great question. Can I remind you though that said checks are a key component of the 3rd country status this government demanded as part of its oven-ready deal?
What we need now is the EU to also drop its checks. Our standards are their standards are our standards. As we've now abandoned the ability to set different standards that is not going to change. So even if it is informally we can agree with the EU that we can mutually dismantle the need for checks. And having done that we can take the next step and dismantle the reams of Mogg-imposed red tape needed to show that our zero VAT zero tariff zero quota products are as stated.
A bright future is ahead, and its all thanks to Rees-Mogg saying that his version of brexit was an act of self-harm. Good for him.
Well, as Mrs May was gleefully saying yesterday, they were warned!
I can see why she stayed on the backbenches. She is having a great time with the schadenfreude.
If she’d got her way, we’d be stuck indefinitely in the Backstop, eating yet another of Macron’s “Screw the British” pieces of EU legislation over which we had no say.
The issue with the Protocol was always the sequencing, it was destined to be revisited in light of the later trade agreement. That the EU have no intention of doing this, and refuse to implement the trusted trader scheme or the electronic border, is a show of bad faith on their part.
A16 is the mechanism by which they can be forced to actually negotiate on the stalled points, and a lack of agreement acceptable to all comunities in NI exacerbates political tensions there.
The point of the backstop was not to get into it in the first place.
Meanwhile, as DUP big cheese Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said in the Commons yesterday:-
So the DUP are more important than anyone else? Damn stupid promise. They know they can throw their non-gay dinosaur stuffed toys out the pram and fill their nappies whenever they want and nanny will come running.
Eh? Leaving aside the rant, Boris said there would be no Irish Sea border and then imposed an Irish Sea border. Is it unreasonable to complain that the Prime Minister either lied or went back on his word?
Shares in Tesla or Amazon or Tesco are productive assets. Property is a productive asset.
Basically, you get paid to own them (most of the time).
Bitcoin is not a productive asset.
Bitcoin is a currency, plain and simple. It's something you can, in theory, exchange for goods and services (though not many people do, a bit like gold).
Its value derives from its hardness, a bit like gold. You can't just print more of it, therefore the supply is controlled and predictable.
A bet on bitcoin is effectively a bet against fiat currencies, against inflation, against central banks trying to maintain control.
Placing bitcoin in the same category as a tesla share is fundamentally mis-labelling it. What gives the dollar value? People believe it has value. What gives bitcoin value? People believe it has value.
The value of a $10 note is about .02 in paper and ink, backed by people's belief in it. The value of a bitcoin is the power used to generate it, backed by people's belief in it.
As Morpheus says, "you think that's air you're breathing?"
Gold has been a currency because it cannot be replicated, does not tarnish and yet the overall volume of it can be mined to modestly increase the money supply each year. There’s a few other elements you might substitute but none as good as gold.
Conversely there are an unlimited amount of different cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is not even the most fit for purpose at the simple job of performing transactions. It just has the strongest brand.
Bitcoin is considered a currency by its advocates for precisely the reasons you list above (it can't be replicated mathematically, tarnished, and the supply is algorithmically controlled, with a hard cap at 21m).
Saying "there are an infinite amount of cryptocurrencies", well, yeah, but gold competes against diamonds, silver, rolex watches, etc, for whatever you want to describe as "currency" too. Gold isn't the "only" thing out there with the properties you describe. It's just the strongest brand.
Quick question to PB brains trust: can anyone recommend a green building forum?
I used to be on the Navitron forum when we were building our house but that's now closed. Looking for another forum now we're planning our next project. Thanks!
So why are you so infatuated with Oxbridge, public schools and grammar schools @HYUFD? You seem in awe of anyone who goes to these. You seem to treat these people as your betters. They aren't. You are just as worthy.
When we were in the EU there were no checks on food imports, so why is not having them now a problem? Has the EU dropped food standards?
Its only a problem because they are still checking our products at our request. We still have the TCA - Boris's oven-ready deal - in place but have abandoned our side of it. So our goods cost more to export to the EU than the goods being imported from the EU.
Well, as Mrs May was gleefully saying yesterday, they were warned!
I can see why she stayed on the backbenches. She is having a great time with the schadenfreude.
If she’d got her way, we’d be stuck indefinitely in the Backstop, eating yet another of Macron’s “Screw the British” pieces of EU legislation over which we had no say.
The issue with the Protocol was always the sequencing, it was destined to be revisited in light of the later trade agreement. That the EU have no intention of doing this, and refuse to implement the trusted trader scheme or the electronic border, is a show of bad faith on their part.
A16 is the mechanism by which they can be forced to actually negotiate on the stalled points, and a lack of agreement acceptable to all comunities in NI exacerbates political tensions there.
The point of the backstop was not to get into it in the first place.
Meanwhile, as DUP big cheese Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said in the Commons yesterday:-
So the DUP are more important than anyone else? Damn stupid promise. They know they can throw their non-gay dinosaur stuffed toys out the pram and fill their nappies whenever they want and nanny will come running.
Current polls suggest a hung parliament, in which case to have any chance of surviving as PM Johnson would need DUP support, hence the new urgency in UK government moves to change the NI Protocol
Well, as Mrs May was gleefully saying yesterday, they were warned!
I can see why she stayed on the backbenches. She is having a great time with the schadenfreude.
If she’d got her way, we’d be stuck indefinitely in the Backstop, eating yet another of Macron’s “Screw the British” pieces of EU legislation over which we had no say.
The issue with the Protocol was always the sequencing, it was destined to be revisited in light of the later trade agreement. That the EU have no intention of doing this, and refuse to implement the trusted trader scheme or the electronic border, is a show of bad faith on their part.
A16 is the mechanism by which they can be forced to actually negotiate on the stalled points, and a lack of agreement acceptable to all comunities in NI exacerbates political tensions there.
The point of the backstop was not to get into it in the first place.
Meanwhile, as DUP big cheese Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said in the Commons yesterday:-
So the DUP are more important than anyone else? Damn stupid promise. They know they can throw their non-gay dinosaur stuffed toys out the pram and fill their nappies whenever they want and nanny will come running.
Eh? Leaving aside the rant, Boris said there would be no Irish Sea border and then imposed an Irish Sea border. Is it unreasonable to complain that the Prime Minister either lied or went back on his word?
Irrespective of his mala fides more generally, it was damn stupid of them to believe Mr Johnson on that point given the situation.
Well, as Mrs May was gleefully saying yesterday, they were warned!
I can see why she stayed on the backbenches. She is having a great time with the schadenfreude.
If she’d got her way, we’d be stuck indefinitely in the Backstop, eating yet another of Macron’s “Screw the British” pieces of EU legislation over which we had no say.
The issue with the Protocol was always the sequencing, it was destined to be revisited in light of the later trade agreement. That the EU have no intention of doing this, and refuse to implement the trusted trader scheme or the electronic border, is a show of bad faith on their part.
A16 is the mechanism by which they can be forced to actually negotiate on the stalled points, and a lack of agreement acceptable to all comunities in NI exacerbates political tensions there.
The point of the backstop was not to get into it in the first place.
Meanwhile, as DUP big cheese Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said in the Commons yesterday:-
So the DUP are more important than anyone else? Damn stupid promise. They know they can throw their non-gay dinosaur stuffed toys out the pram and fill their nappies whenever they want and nanny will come running.
Current polls suggest a hung parliament, in which case to have any chance of surviving as PM Johnson would need DUP support, hence the new urgency in UK government moves to change the NI Protocol
In other words, the Tories will sell out every vestige of rational government to stay in power. So that's OK.
The Good Friday Agreement was about power sharing across communities and not about winner-takes-all majoritarianism.
At the Assembly election as far as I can see zero unionist MLAs were elected who support the NI Protocol.
So by the standards of the Good Friday Agreement (cross-community consensus is needed) the NI Protocol has failed.
And yet the government agreed to majoritarianism in the Protocol, which states that if a majority of NI voters back it it should remain in force.
A majority of NI voters would be happy to amend the protocol to remove the Irish Sea border as long as there was no border in Ireland.
Though I did note Theresa May telling Jeffrey Donaldson in the Commons yesterday that had he voted for her deal he would largely have avoided an Irish Sea border
Quick question to PB brains trust: can anyone recommend a green building forum?
I used to be on the Navitron forum when we were building our house but that's now closed. Looking for another forum now we're planning our next project. Thanks!
So why are you so infatuated with Oxbridge, public schools and grammar schools @HYUFD? You seem in awe of anyone who goes to these. You seem to treat these people as your betters. They aren't. You are just as worthy.
Quick question to PB brains trust: can anyone recommend a green building forum?
I used to be on the Navitron forum when we were building our house but that's now closed. Looking for another forum now we're planning our next project. Thanks!
So why are you so infatuated with Oxbridge, public schools and grammar schools @HYUFD? You seem in awe of anyone who goes to these. You seem to treat these people as your betters. They aren't. You are just as worthy.
Not to mention the aristocracy, royalty and squirearchy.
3 common brands which I find are way superior to any cheaper competitor. Fairy liquid, HP sauce and Hellmann's mayonnaise. Apart from those, don't really insist on any. Of course Heinz make the best beans. But they aren't that much better.
Crosse & Blackwell baked beans have their own cult following. Of course, they are not own-brand.
The revelation came to me from a chef (can't remember which one - maybe Nigel Slater) who cooked his tinned baked beans (with a little black pepper) on a really low heat for ages - I mean ages - on the hob in a heavy based pan. They go all thick and gloopy and crusty at the edges. But the taste! Seems to concentrate the sweetness.
Shares in Tesla or Amazon or Tesco are productive assets. Property is a productive asset.
Basically, you get paid to own them (most of the time).
Bitcoin is not a productive asset.
Bitcoin is a currency, plain and simple. It's something you can, in theory, exchange for goods and services (though not many people do, a bit like gold).
Its value derives from its hardness, a bit like gold. You can't just print more of it, therefore the supply is controlled and predictable.
A bet on bitcoin is effectively a bet against fiat currencies, against inflation, against central banks trying to maintain control.
Placing bitcoin in the same category as a tesla share is fundamentally mis-labelling it. What gives the dollar value? People believe it has value. What gives bitcoin value? People believe it has value.
The value of a $10 note is about .02 in paper and ink, backed by people's belief in it. The value of a bitcoin is the power used to generate it, backed by people's belief in it.
As Morpheus says, "you think that's air you're breathing?"
The value of fiat currency is also backed up by the fact you can use it to pay your taxes. Buying into crypto means believing that governments will allow an alternative to their own currency to prosper. Given that this robs government's of seigniorage revenue while facilitating tax evasion and organised crime I don't think this is a plausible proposition. Personally I have no crypto in my portfolio.
You are quite correct, in that governments are doing what they can to stop it. Hence why it has been banned in China, and is now being regulated to death in America. The question is, can you stop it entirely (probably not in America, as it would be unconstitutional) and can individual countries banning it prevent it from continuing to be used, either in other countries, or underground, as dollars were in the USSR. The experience of trying to regulate / censor the internet, which also works on a distributed, censorship-resistant by design basis, suggests not. But you have a good point, and IMO the reason bitcoin is *only* worth what it's worth right now is the efforts China has made to ban it.
On Crypto - and NFTs for that matter - I simply don't understand the supposed value held. Yes people apparently want to pay $30k for a bitcoin, but isn't that its only value - other loons?
At one time, I thought that Bitcoin would eventually trend towards the cost of electricity required to mine one. Not sure now though, I think it could collapse completely.
All the other coins and NFTs have very little tangible value beyond speculation and money laundering. They’re 21st century tulip bulbs.
(Did you manage to move your safe?).
Not yet - the guy is going to come and look this weekend and formulate a plan. It will be hoist onto a heavy-duty trolley job - I have step-free access from the road so the tricky bit is getting it off the plinth its on.
I had a mate with a safe so big it saved his house… during the war a bomb went through the windier and landed behind the safe… directed the blast outwards and meant he only lost a wall not his house…
Quick question to PB brains trust: can anyone recommend a green building forum?
I used to be on the Navitron forum when we were building our house but that's now closed. Looking for another forum now we're planning our next project. Thanks!
So why are you so infatuated with Oxbridge, public schools and grammar schools @HYUFD? You seem in awe of anyone who goes to these. You seem to treat these people as your betters. They aren't. You are just as worthy.
I went to private school, my sister went to grammar school, my wife has an Oxford degree.
I am not in awe of them, Churchill was a great PM despite being non Oxbridge, Hague would have been a good PM in my view and was comprehensive educated.
However it is no surprise the best schools and universities tend to produce the most PMs
Shares in Tesla or Amazon or Tesco are productive assets. Property is a productive asset.
Basically, you get paid to own them (most of the time).
Bitcoin is not a productive asset.
Bitcoin is a currency, plain and simple. It's something you can, in theory, exchange for goods and services (though not many people do, a bit like gold).
Its value derives from its hardness, a bit like gold. You can't just print more of it, therefore the supply is controlled and predictable.
A bet on bitcoin is effectively a bet against fiat currencies, against inflation, against central banks trying to maintain control.
Placing bitcoin in the same category as a tesla share is fundamentally mis-labelling it. What gives the dollar value? People believe it has value. What gives bitcoin value? People believe it has value.
The value of a $10 note is about .02 in paper and ink, backed by people's belief in it. The value of a bitcoin is the power used to generate it, backed by people's belief in it.
As Morpheus says, "you think that's air you're breathing?"
Gold has been a currency because it cannot be replicated, does not tarnish and yet the overall volume of it can be mined to modestly increase the money supply each year. There’s a few other elements you might substitute but none as good as gold.
Conversely there are an unlimited amount of different cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is not even the most fit for purpose at the simple job of performing transactions. It just has the strongest brand.
Bitcoin is considered a currency by its advocates for precisely the reasons you list above (it can't be replicated mathematically, tarnished, and the supply is algorithmically controlled, with a hard cap at 21m).
Saying "there are an infinite amount of cryptocurrencies", well, yeah, but gold competes against diamonds, silver, rolex watches, etc, for whatever you want to describe as "currency" too. Gold isn't the "only" thing out there with the properties you describe. It's just the strongest brand.
Knock yourself out then and ask for your salary / pension to be paid in btc using today’s exchange rate in perpetuity
Well, as Mrs May was gleefully saying yesterday, they were warned!
I can see why she stayed on the backbenches. She is having a great time with the schadenfreude.
If she’d got her way, we’d be stuck indefinitely in the Backstop, eating yet another of Macron’s “Screw the British” pieces of EU legislation over which we had no say.
The issue with the Protocol was always the sequencing, it was destined to be revisited in light of the later trade agreement. That the EU have no intention of doing this, and refuse to implement the trusted trader scheme or the electronic border, is a show of bad faith on their part.
A16 is the mechanism by which they can be forced to actually negotiate on the stalled points, and a lack of agreement acceptable to all comunities in NI exacerbates political tensions there.
We've just indefinitely delayed the imposition of the inbound checks mandated by the oven-ready deal. Which means for an indefinite period the EU are responsible for safety standards of goods coming into the UK.
In theory we can set our own standards. But as we're unable to enforce them...
Its gone over your head it seems that the ability to drop EU-mandated checks or rules is precisely a benefit won by not being aligned to the EU.
We don't need to enforce them, we can recognise the EU as a safe region and recognise their standards are equivalent to our own.
What purpose do those "checks" serve other than protectionist self-harm.
We should abolish such checks with any other nations, blocs or regions that have equivalent standards too. Protectionism is self-harming.
I wouldn’t say it quite the same way, but you’re right that the difference is between equivalence and alignment of standards.
The UK side wants equivalence as the basis for trade, and the EU side wants alignment.
The Good News is that the UK has abandoned the work needed to make any checks. So they can call it what they want - the EU can set any standards it wants and we won't be checking. So as we won't be able to set different standards and even when we claimed we would our standards would only increase, there is no longer any reason for any checks in either direction.
This also becomes the solution to the NI protocol. Get the EU to accept that the UK has accepted its primacy on standards. Which means there is no need to run checks on goods leaving the GB for the EU. Which means no need for checks on goods crossing the intra-Irish border or the North Sea. Job done. And whats more this is already the de facto position - Mogg scrapped plans for standards checks. We just need to get this formally recognised and accepted. A classic fudge solution.
The Good Friday Agreement was about power sharing across communities and not about winner-takes-all majoritarianism.
At the Assembly election as far as I can see zero unionist MLAs were elected who support the NI Protocol.
So by the standards of the Good Friday Agreement (cross-community consensus is needed) the NI Protocol has failed.
And yet the government agreed to majoritarianism in the Protocol, which states that if a majority of NI voters back it it should remain in force.
A majority of NI voters would be happy to amend the protocol to remove the Irish Sea border as long as there was no border in Ireland.
Though I did note Theresa May telling Jeffrey Donaldson in the Commons yesterday that had he voted for her deal he would largely have avoided an Irish Sea border
I asked for thoughts on coffee machines for a small cafe the other week.
We ended up going for a consumer bean-to-cup on the basis that it does make a nice coffee, but is also inexpensive enough that it will do the job whilst trade is low and starts to build, and we can either take it home and buy a larger machine if required, or just get another one to go next to it.
Simple, and makes a very nice cup off coffee, but is quite customisable. A slight annoyance is that it works in "low medium high" rather than grams of coffee per shot.
But DeLonghi need some serious attention to their incomprehensible model numbers.
I missed your original post - I would have suggested the Gaggia Velasca (£499 Caffe Italia). We have one and it is excellent.
I have a jar of Kenco Smooth. A £5 jar lasts for a couple of months.
Job done.
That's like saying to someone who buys a PS5 that you have a crossword book and job done.
Not really. It's still coffee. It does the same job.
I wonder if there's a correlation between people who overpay for 'luxury' coffee and those who overpay by worshipping at the altar of Apple?
(Runs for cover...)
Its not the same coffee at all.
You need decent pressure to make coffee properly and get a decent crema on your espresso. That doesn't happen with any instant coffee I've ever seen.
Its like saying there's no difference between an old-fashioned landline and an iPhone. The branding doesn't matter, they're completely different products.
Espresso? What's that?
Instant coffee is coffee. The coffee you drink is coffee. I drink it to get a little caffeine hit and to quench my thirst. It does the job.
Why do you drink your very expensive coffee? The same reasons?
It's like someone drinking a £10 bottle of wine from Mozzies and someone else drinking a £100 bottle. Probably worse, in terms of cost...
There's no hope for you. Go get a flat white from Starbucks and compare it with your instant coffee. Different product entirely.
The Good Friday Agreement was about power sharing across communities and not about winner-takes-all majoritarianism.
At the Assembly election as far as I can see zero unionist MLAs were elected who support the NI Protocol.
So by the standards of the Good Friday Agreement (cross-community consensus is needed) the NI Protocol has failed.
And yet the government agreed to majoritarianism in the Protocol, which states that if a majority of NI voters back it it should remain in force.
A majority of NI voters would be happy to amend the protocol to remove the Irish Sea border as long as there was no border in Ireland.
Though I did note Theresa May telling Jeffrey Donaldson in the Commons yesterday that had he voted for her deal he would largely have avoided an Irish Sea border
A majority of NI voters would be happy to amend the protocol to remove the Irish Sea border as long as there was no border in Ireland.
Link please to poll
Problem with that is it happens to be impossible, so it's a Brexiter unicorn with frilly rainbow ribbons anyway. So I'd be very surprised to see any responsible polling company asking that question, unless it's a spoof test like the Mr DAvey/hikergate one the other day.
SHOPPERS have been left perplexed by a mysterious tin of “Boris Beans” that was photographed in a supermarket.
A member of the public said the product, an apparent protest against the current cost-of-living crisis, was found in Tesco Express on Queens Road, Brighton.
The "Boris Beans" are said to come in a tasty “austerity sauce” with “misery guaranteed”.
It comes after a Tory minister said hard-up families should switch to supermarket value brands to survive.
The irony to me is the level of stupidity which still thinks that the vast of majority of branded products are not identical to the generic equivalents in all respects except price. The advice was eminently sensible.
The level of stupidity involved in thinking that stupidity is likely in issue in a dispute over verifiable facts, is disturbing.
You are just wrong: it varies by product. Tesco jaffa cakes are jaffa cakes (I know a bloke who drives the lorry from the jaffa cake factory to tescos); Tesco Dorito knock offs are seemingly offcuts from a North Korean cardboard factory (but own brand salsa is acceptable, so buy Doritos and dip them in that).
Bonus tip:Tesco's Finest wines are almost all excellent vfm.
Good morning One & All! Bro-in-law used to work for a big confectionary manufacturer. Made sweets for several big firms. The difference was frequently, although not always, the packaging. And years ago I knew a chap who was production manager at a firm which made the sort of vitamin products advertised as being 'finest'. Yes, you've guessed it. Often off the same production line as their 'competitors'.
25 or so years ago, the supermarkets had a 'bean war', where they all went mad trying to have the cheapest baked beans. Myself and some friends bought a load of cans and did a taste testing. The really cheap beans - I think one can was even a few pence - had water-like tomato sauce that was gritty and hard, tasteless beans. Almost literal sweepings off the factory floor ...
John Ruskin applies, of course.
Can you expand on that? I'm not aware of a specific quote?
Although the tasting occurred not a million miles away from the location of one of Ruskin's best-known quotes, involving fools. So it was an apt location for us ....
'There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.'
The Good Friday Agreement was about power sharing across communities and not about winner-takes-all majoritarianism.
At the Assembly election as far as I can see zero unionist MLAs were elected who support the NI Protocol.
So by the standards of the Good Friday Agreement (cross-community consensus is needed) the NI Protocol has failed.
And yet the government agreed to majoritarianism in the Protocol, which states that if a majority of NI voters back it it should remain in force.
A majority of NI voters would be happy to amend the protocol to remove the Irish Sea border as long as there was no border in Ireland.
Though I did note Theresa May telling Jeffrey Donaldson in the Commons yesterday that had he voted for her deal he would largely have avoided an Irish Sea border
The Good Friday Agreement was about power sharing across communities and not about winner-takes-all majoritarianism.
At the Assembly election as far as I can see zero unionist MLAs were elected who support the NI Protocol.
So by the standards of the Good Friday Agreement (cross-community consensus is needed) the NI Protocol has failed.
And yet the government agreed to majoritarianism in the Protocol, which states that if a majority of NI voters back it it should remain in force.
A majority of NI voters would be happy to amend the protocol to remove the Irish Sea border as long as there was no border in Ireland.
Though I did note Theresa May telling Jeffrey Donaldson in the Commons yesterday that had he voted for her deal he would largely have avoided an Irish Sea border
Well, as Mrs May was gleefully saying yesterday, they were warned!
I can see why she stayed on the backbenches. She is having a great time with the schadenfreude.
If she’d got her way, we’d be stuck indefinitely in the Backstop, eating yet another of Macron’s “Screw the British” pieces of EU legislation over which we had no say.
The issue with the Protocol was always the sequencing, it was destined to be revisited in light of the later trade agreement. That the EU have no intention of doing this, and refuse to implement the trusted trader scheme or the electronic border, is a show of bad faith on their part.
A16 is the mechanism by which they can be forced to actually negotiate on the stalled points, and a lack of agreement acceptable to all comunities in NI exacerbates political tensions there.
The point of the backstop was not to get into it in the first place.
Meanwhile, as DUP big cheese Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said in the Commons yesterday:-
So the DUP are more important than anyone else? Damn stupid promise. They know they can throw their non-gay dinosaur stuffed toys out the pram and fill their nappies whenever they want and nanny will come running.
Current polls suggest a hung parliament, in which case to have any chance of surviving as PM Johnson would need DUP support, hence the new urgency in UK government moves to change the NI Protocol
You really think putting electoral calculations before resolving issues to mutual benefit is more important
Quick question to PB brains trust: can anyone recommend a green building forum?
I used to be on the Navitron forum when we were building our house but that's now closed. Looking for another forum now we're planning our next project. Thanks!
Buildhub.org.uk.
Community owned via a Company Limited by Guarantee by the founder members, and strong policies on commercial self-promotion not allowed. We set it up back in 2016when E-Build closed down.
Strong emphasis on greenery amongst the core membership.
11k members (obvs some have moved on), about 400k posts.
I'll PM you.
There is also Green Building Forum, but that has been quieter for a few years.
Quick question to PB brains trust: can anyone recommend a green building forum?
I used to be on the Navitron forum when we were building our house but that's now closed. Looking for another forum now we're planning our next project. Thanks!
So why are you so infatuated with Oxbridge, public schools and grammar schools @HYUFD? You seem in awe of anyone who goes to these. You seem to treat these people as your betters. They aren't. You are just as worthy.
I went to private school, my sister went to grammar school, my wife has an Oxford degree.
I am not in awe of them, Churchill was a great PM despite being non Oxbridge, Hague would have been a good PM in my view and was comprehensive educated.
However it is no surprise the best schools and universities tend to produce the most PMs
When we were in the EU there were no checks on food imports, so why is not having them now a problem? Has the EU dropped food standards?
The great news for farmers and food manufacturers in the EU is that they no longer have to throw sub-standard produce away, they can send it to Britain.
Shares in Tesla or Amazon or Tesco are productive assets. Property is a productive asset.
Basically, you get paid to own them (most of the time).
Bitcoin is not a productive asset.
Bitcoin is a currency, plain and simple. It's something you can, in theory, exchange for goods and services (though not many people do, a bit like gold).
Its value derives from its hardness, a bit like gold. You can't just print more of it, therefore the supply is controlled and predictable.
A bet on bitcoin is effectively a bet against fiat currencies, against inflation, against central banks trying to maintain control.
Placing bitcoin in the same category as a tesla share is fundamentally mis-labelling it. What gives the dollar value? People believe it has value. What gives bitcoin value? People believe it has value.
The value of a $10 note is about .02 in paper and ink, backed by people's belief in it. The value of a bitcoin is the power used to generate it, backed by people's belief in it.
As Morpheus says, "you think that's air you're breathing?"
The value of fiat currency is also backed up by the fact you can use it to pay your taxes. Buying into crypto means believing that governments will allow an alternative to their own currency to prosper. Given that this robs government's of seigniorage revenue while facilitating tax evasion and organised crime I don't think this is a plausible proposition. Personally I have no crypto in my portfolio.
You are quite correct, in that governments are doing what they can to stop it. Hence why it has been banned in China, and is now being regulated to death in America. The question is, can you stop it entirely (probably not in America, as it would be unconstitutional) and can individual countries banning it prevent it from continuing to be used, either in other countries, or underground, as dollars were in the USSR. The experience of trying to regulate / censor the internet, which also works on a distributed, censorship-resistant by design basis, suggests not. But you have a good point, and IMO the reason bitcoin is *only* worth what it's worth right now is the efforts China has made to ban it.
One might argue that Bitcoin is worth what it is worth, until it runs out of mugs to buy it at whatever rate it eventually reaches. Like any non-productive pyramid scheme, we know exactly where it ends up, sooner or later.
And that is leaving aside the gross immorality of burning real (scarce) resources to generate the "asset".
Well, as Mrs May was gleefully saying yesterday, they were warned!
I can see why she stayed on the backbenches. She is having a great time with the schadenfreude.
If she’d got her way, we’d be stuck indefinitely in the Backstop, eating yet another of Macron’s “Screw the British” pieces of EU legislation over which we had no say.
The issue with the Protocol was always the sequencing, it was destined to be revisited in light of the later trade agreement. That the EU have no intention of doing this, and refuse to implement the trusted trader scheme or the electronic border, is a show of bad faith on their part.
A16 is the mechanism by which they can be forced to actually negotiate on the stalled points, and a lack of agreement acceptable to all comunities in NI exacerbates political tensions there.
The point of the backstop was not to get into it in the first place.
Meanwhile, as DUP big cheese Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said in the Commons yesterday:-
So the DUP are more important than anyone else? Damn stupid promise. They know they can throw their non-gay dinosaur stuffed toys out the pram and fill their nappies whenever they want and nanny will come running.
Current polls suggest a hung parliament, in which case to have any chance of surviving as PM Johnson would need DUP support, hence the new urgency in UK government moves to change the NI Protocol
You really think putting electoral calculations before resolving issues to mutual benefit is more important
Of course. All is to be sacrificed to the survival of the Tory Party.
Quick question to PB brains trust: can anyone recommend a green building forum?
I used to be on the Navitron forum when we were building our house but that's now closed. Looking for another forum now we're planning our next project. Thanks!
So why are you so infatuated with Oxbridge, public schools and grammar schools @HYUFD? You seem in awe of anyone who goes to these. You seem to treat these people as your betters. They aren't. You are just as worthy.
I went to private school, my sister went to grammar school, my wife has an Oxford degree.
I am not in awe of them, Churchill was a great PM despite being non Oxbridge, Hague would have been a good PM in my view and was comprehensive educated.
However it is no surprise the best schools and universities tend to produce the most PMs
"best" = "most expensive and socially exclusive".
They all give each other jobs. Britain is a closed shop run by well-bred nonentities.
Well, as Mrs May was gleefully saying yesterday, they were warned!
I can see why she stayed on the backbenches. She is having a great time with the schadenfreude.
If she’d got her way, we’d be stuck indefinitely in the Backstop, eating yet another of Macron’s “Screw the British” pieces of EU legislation over which we had no say.
The issue with the Protocol was always the sequencing, it was destined to be revisited in light of the later trade agreement. That the EU have no intention of doing this, and refuse to implement the trusted trader scheme or the electronic border, is a show of bad faith on their part.
A16 is the mechanism by which they can be forced to actually negotiate on the stalled points, and a lack of agreement acceptable to all comunities in NI exacerbates political tensions there.
The point of the backstop was not to get into it in the first place.
Meanwhile, as DUP big cheese Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said in the Commons yesterday:-
So the DUP are more important than anyone else? Damn stupid promise. They know they can throw their non-gay dinosaur stuffed toys out the pram and fill their nappies whenever they want and nanny will come running.
Current polls suggest a hung parliament, in which case to have any chance of surviving as PM Johnson would need DUP support, hence the new urgency in UK government moves to change the NI Protocol
You really think putting electoral calculations before resolving issues to mutual benefit is more important
Of course a government that has no strong attachment to democracy and the rule of law is going to act in that way. What else would you expect?
Quick question to PB brains trust: can anyone recommend a green building forum?
I used to be on the Navitron forum when we were building our house but that's now closed. Looking for another forum now we're planning our next project. Thanks!
Buildhub.org.uk.
Community owned via a Company Limited by Guarantee by the founder members, and strong policies on commercial self-promotion not allowed. We set it up back in 2016when E-Build closed down.
Strong emphasis on greenery amongst the core membership.
11k members (obvs some have moved on), about 400k posts.
I'll PM you.
There is also Green Building Forum, but that has been quieter for a few years.
Quick question to PB brains trust: can anyone recommend a green building forum?
I used to be on the Navitron forum when we were building our house but that's now closed. Looking for another forum now we're planning our next project. Thanks!
So why are you so infatuated with Oxbridge, public schools and grammar schools @HYUFD? You seem in awe of anyone who goes to these. You seem to treat these people as your betters. They aren't. You are just as worthy.
I went to private school, my sister went to grammar school, my wife has an Oxford degree.
I am not in awe of them, Churchill was a great PM despite being non Oxbridge, Hague would have been a good PM in my view and was comprehensive educated.
However it is no surprise the best schools and universities tend to produce the most PMs
"best" = "most expensive and socially exclusive".
Eton and Fettes, the Heinz and Crosse & Blackwell of secondary education.
Shares in Tesla or Amazon or Tesco are productive assets. Property is a productive asset.
Basically, you get paid to own them (most of the time).
Bitcoin is not a productive asset.
Bitcoin is a currency, plain and simple. It's something you can, in theory, exchange for goods and services (though not many people do, a bit like gold).
Its value derives from its hardness, a bit like gold. You can't just print more of it, therefore the supply is controlled and predictable.
A bet on bitcoin is effectively a bet against fiat currencies, against inflation, against central banks trying to maintain control.
Placing bitcoin in the same category as a tesla share is fundamentally mis-labelling it. What gives the dollar value? People believe it has value. What gives bitcoin value? People believe it has value.
The value of a $10 note is about .02 in paper and ink, backed by people's belief in it. The value of a bitcoin is the power used to generate it, backed by people's belief in it.
As Morpheus says, "you think that's air you're breathing?"
The value of fiat currency is also backed up by the fact you can use it to pay your taxes. Buying into crypto means believing that governments will allow an alternative to their own currency to prosper. Given that this robs government's of seigniorage revenue while facilitating tax evasion and organised crime I don't think this is a plausible proposition. Personally I have no crypto in my portfolio.
You are quite correct, in that governments are doing what they can to stop it. Hence why it has been banned in China, and is now being regulated to death in America. The question is, can you stop it entirely (probably not in America, as it would be unconstitutional) and can individual countries banning it prevent it from continuing to be used, either in other countries, or underground, as dollars were in the USSR. The experience of trying to regulate / censor the internet, which also works on a distributed, censorship-resistant by design basis, suggests not. But you have a good point, and IMO the reason bitcoin is *only* worth what it's worth right now is the efforts China has made to ban it.
One might argue that Bitcoin is worth what it is worth, until it runs out of mugs to buy it at whatever rate it eventually reaches. Like any non-productive pyramid scheme, we know exactly where it ends up, sooner or later.
And that is leaving aside the gross immorality of burning real (scarce) resources to generate the "asset".
Agree - now substitute the word "bitcoin" for "dollar".
I asked for thoughts on coffee machines for a small cafe the other week.
We ended up going for a consumer bean-to-cup on the basis that it does make a nice coffee, but is also inexpensive enough that it will do the job whilst trade is low and starts to build, and we can either take it home and buy a larger machine if required, or just get another one to go next to it.
Simple, and makes a very nice cup off coffee, but is quite customisable. A slight annoyance is that it works in "low medium high" rather than grams of coffee per shot.
But DeLonghi need some serious attention to their incomprehensible model numbers.
I missed your original post - I would have suggested the Gaggia Velasca (£499 Caffe Italia). We have one and it is excellent.
I have a jar of Kenco Smooth. A £5 jar lasts for a couple of months.
Job done.
That's like saying to someone who buys a PS5 that you have a crossword book and job done.
Not really. It's still coffee. It does the same job.
I wonder if there's a correlation between people who overpay for 'luxury' coffee and those who overpay by worshipping at the altar of Apple?
(Runs for cover...)
Its not the same coffee at all.
You need decent pressure to make coffee properly and get a decent crema on your espresso. That doesn't happen with any instant coffee I've ever seen.
Its like saying there's no difference between an old-fashioned landline and an iPhone. The branding doesn't matter, they're completely different products.
Espresso? What's that?
Instant coffee is coffee. The coffee you drink is coffee. I drink it to get a little caffeine hit and to quench my thirst. It does the job.
Why do you drink your very expensive coffee? The same reasons?
It's like someone drinking a £10 bottle of wine from Mozzies and someone else drinking a £100 bottle. Probably worse, in terms of cost...
There's no hope for you. Go get a flat white from Starbucks and compare it with your instant coffee. Different product entirely.
PB is full of people who have no discernible taste or interest in food. It really is quite a depressing place to be at times.
Quick question to PB brains trust: can anyone recommend a green building forum?
I used to be on the Navitron forum when we were building our house but that's now closed. Looking for another forum now we're planning our next project. Thanks!
So why are you so infatuated with Oxbridge, public schools and grammar schools @HYUFD? You seem in awe of anyone who goes to these. You seem to treat these people as your betters. They aren't. You are just as worthy.
I went to private school, my sister went to grammar school, my wife has an Oxford degree.
I am not in awe of them, Churchill was a great PM despite being non Oxbridge, Hague would have been a good PM in my view and was comprehensive educated.
However it is no surprise the best schools and universities tend to produce the most PMs
Shares in Tesla or Amazon or Tesco are productive assets. Property is a productive asset.
Basically, you get paid to own them (most of the time).
Bitcoin is not a productive asset.
Bitcoin is a currency, plain and simple. It's something you can, in theory, exchange for goods and services (though not many people do, a bit like gold).
Its value derives from its hardness, a bit like gold. You can't just print more of it, therefore the supply is controlled and predictable.
A bet on bitcoin is effectively a bet against fiat currencies, against inflation, against central banks trying to maintain control.
Placing bitcoin in the same category as a tesla share is fundamentally mis-labelling it. What gives the dollar value? People believe it has value. What gives bitcoin value? People believe it has value.
The value of a $10 note is about .02 in paper and ink, backed by people's belief in it. The value of a bitcoin is the power used to generate it, backed by people's belief in it.
As Morpheus says, "you think that's air you're breathing?"
Gold has been a currency because it cannot be replicated, does not tarnish and yet the overall volume of it can be mined to modestly increase the money supply each year. There’s a few other elements you might substitute but none as good as gold.
Conversely there are an unlimited amount of different cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is not even the most fit for purpose at the simple job of performing transactions. It just has the strongest brand.
Bitcoin is considered a currency by its advocates for precisely the reasons you list above (it can't be replicated mathematically, tarnished, and the supply is algorithmically controlled, with a hard cap at 21m).
Saying "there are an infinite amount of cryptocurrencies", well, yeah, but gold competes against diamonds, silver, rolex watches, etc, for whatever you want to describe as "currency" too. Gold isn't the "only" thing out there with the properties you describe. It's just the strongest brand.
Knock yourself out then and ask for your salary / pension to be paid in btc using today’s exchange rate in perpetuity
Why would I want to be paid in _any_ currency using today's exchange rate in perpetuity?
I'd be happy to be paid in bitcoin, I'd be happy to be paid in gold, I'd be happy to be paid in yen, etc. But I wouldn't want to be paid in any of them at an exchange rate for perpetuity.
I'll take all the tesla stock off your hands at $300 a share in perpetuity if you like? Or do you see how ridiculous that sounds?
The Good Friday Agreement was about power sharing across communities and not about winner-takes-all majoritarianism.
At the Assembly election as far as I can see zero unionist MLAs were elected who support the NI Protocol.
So by the standards of the Good Friday Agreement (cross-community consensus is needed) the NI Protocol has failed.
And yet the government agreed to majoritarianism in the Protocol, which states that if a majority of NI voters back it it should remain in force.
A majority of NI voters would be happy to amend the protocol to remove the Irish Sea border as long as there was no border in Ireland.
Though I did note Theresa May telling Jeffrey Donaldson in the Commons yesterday that had he voted for her deal he would largely have avoided an Irish Sea border
Really interesting, thanks. Personally have been wondering about swings to the Tories in the Kingdom of Mercia.
I was driving through some of the villages on the karst above Trieste yesterday, and it was striking how many of them had red flags hung out for May Day. Not just from individual windows or balconies, but some of them on large poles high above houses, so they could be seen from a distance on approaching the village, or hung above the main road from trees. A lot of trouble has been gone to hanging all those flags, and there must be a good degree of support given the number of buildings involved.
Most of them were the plain red workers’ flag but one or two carried a symbol on them, which a bit of research later found to be the flag of Trieste when it was briefly an independent free republic (if non functioning) in the late 40s and early 50s.
An interesting hangover from the past.
I think he perhaps underplays forced people movements.
It reminds me of when I was working for a large engineering combine.
Like local areas, the project or product groups stayed intact, and everything between the tectonic plates would be swept away at each organisation. So the key if you planned to stay employed there was to avoid reaching non-specialist management or moving into a general service function, as those were the cost-savings each time it was bought or sold.
Quick question to PB brains trust: can anyone recommend a green building forum?
I used to be on the Navitron forum when we were building our house but that's now closed. Looking for another forum now we're planning our next project. Thanks!
So why are you so infatuated with Oxbridge, public schools and grammar schools @HYUFD? You seem in awe of anyone who goes to these. You seem to treat these people as your betters. They aren't. You are just as worthy.
I went to private school, my sister went to grammar school, my wife has an Oxford degree.
I am not in awe of them, Churchill was a great PM despite being non Oxbridge, Hague would have been a good PM in my view and was comprehensive educated.
However it is no surprise the best schools and universities tend to produce the most PMs
Many years ago, when I was a lad, I had a job loading 1cwt bags of fertilizer onto pallets. This was when the UK granulated nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium compounds to make fertilizer. They were bagged in situ, and the farmer came with their wagons to collect it.
I remember one old farmer being emphatic. "I don't want any of that Fisons rubbish boy, I want Hadfields." It was the work of seconds to exchange the Fisons bags for the Hadfields ones. He paid close to £2 a ton extra for the privilege. This was when £2 was a lot of money.
Some people never learn.
Yes N P and K can't really be anything else. Like buying nurofen when it is literally illegal for it to vary from unbranded ibuprofen. Then again, supermarket petrol and diesel are, as I understand it, crap - they skimp on the additives
On generic pain killers vs branded, there is science behind rates of release from pills etc. The active ingredient is identical, but it is possible to produce products that release the active faster. Whether they are absorbed any faster is a different question.
Quick question to PB brains trust: can anyone recommend a green building forum?
I used to be on the Navitron forum when we were building our house but that's now closed. Looking for another forum now we're planning our next project. Thanks!
So why are you so infatuated with Oxbridge, public schools and grammar schools @HYUFD? You seem in awe of anyone who goes to these. You seem to treat these people as your betters. They aren't. You are just as worthy.
I went to private school, my sister went to grammar school, my wife has an Oxford degree.
I am not in awe of them, Churchill was a great PM despite being non Oxbridge, Hague would have been a good PM in my view and was comprehensive educated.
However it is no surprise the best schools and universities tend to produce the most PMs
I don't disagree with any of that (although we may disagree on the reason for the last para) and in particular I think Hague would have been a very interesting PM, but you definitely come over as in awe of your 'betters'. And the reason for the ' ' is that they definitely aren't better than you. And this isn't just education, but also with regard to class. You seem to look up to those who are better bred.
The reason I find it strange is I treat everyone equally. It might just be me, I don't know, but I express no deference to anyone and don't expect any myself.
Quick question to PB brains trust: can anyone recommend a green building forum?
I used to be on the Navitron forum when we were building our house but that's now closed. Looking for another forum now we're planning our next project. Thanks!
So why are you so infatuated with Oxbridge, public schools and grammar schools @HYUFD? You seem in awe of anyone who goes to these. You seem to treat these people as your betters. They aren't. You are just as worthy.
I went to private school, my sister went to grammar school, my wife has an Oxford degree.
I am not in awe of them, Churchill was a great PM despite being non Oxbridge, Hague would have been a good PM in my view and was comprehensive educated.
However it is no surprise the best schools and universities tend to produce the most PMs
"best" = "most expensive and socially exclusive".
Not grammars
And how do parents get into the catchment areas for them, and for C of E schools? Buying houses, coaching for entrance, fiddling the C of E game ("Education Christians") and so on. They don't do it with milkbottle tops.
Quick question to PB brains trust: can anyone recommend a green building forum?
I used to be on the Navitron forum when we were building our house but that's now closed. Looking for another forum now we're planning our next project. Thanks!
So why are you so infatuated with Oxbridge, public schools and grammar schools @HYUFD? You seem in awe of anyone who goes to these. You seem to treat these people as your betters. They aren't. You are just as worthy.
I went to private school, my sister went to grammar school, my wife has an Oxford degree.
I am not in awe of them, Churchill was a great PM despite being non Oxbridge, Hague would have been a good PM in my view and was comprehensive educated.
However it is no surprise the best schools and universities tend to produce the most PMs
I don't disagree with any of that (although we may disagree on the reason for the last para) and in particular I think Hague would have been a very interesting PM, but you definitely come over as in awe of your 'betters'. And the reason for the ' ' is that they definitely aren't better than you. And this isn't just education, but also with regard to class. You seem to look up to those who are better bred.
The reason I find it strange is I treat everyone equally. It might just be me, I don't know, but I express no deference to anyone and don't expect any myself.
Quite. When I want a surgeon I want a competent one. HYUFD wants a posh one from Clifton who might be sort of better educated and therefore perhaps better trained. Rather different logic.
Quick question to PB brains trust: can anyone recommend a green building forum?
I used to be on the Navitron forum when we were building our house but that's now closed. Looking for another forum now we're planning our next project. Thanks!
So why are you so infatuated with Oxbridge, public schools and grammar schools @HYUFD? You seem in awe of anyone who goes to these. You seem to treat these people as your betters. They aren't. You are just as worthy.
I went to private school, my sister went to grammar school, my wife has an Oxford degree.
I am not in awe of them, Churchill was a great PM despite being non Oxbridge, Hague would have been a good PM in my view and was comprehensive educated.
However it is no surprise the best schools and universities tend to produce the most PMs
Eton and Oxford are overrepresented. Kuper's book Chums has a go at explaining why in terms of early debate training at both establishments, and of course Oxford's PPE course is a magnet for political types.
OT from that book — I'd already known that Theresa May and Philip were introduced by Benazir Bhutto but not that Philip was encouraged to propose by Malcolm Turnbull. And that is the trouble with the book: more anecdotes than analysis.
I asked for thoughts on coffee machines for a small cafe the other week.
We ended up going for a consumer bean-to-cup on the basis that it does make a nice coffee, but is also inexpensive enough that it will do the job whilst trade is low and starts to build, and we can either take it home and buy a larger machine if required, or just get another one to go next to it.
Simple, and makes a very nice cup off coffee, but is quite customisable. A slight annoyance is that it works in "low medium high" rather than grams of coffee per shot.
But DeLonghi need some serious attention to their incomprehensible model numbers.
I missed your original post - I would have suggested the Gaggia Velasca (£499 Caffe Italia). We have one and it is excellent.
I have a jar of Kenco Smooth. A £5 jar lasts for a couple of months.
Job done.
That's like saying to someone who buys a PS5 that you have a crossword book and job done.
Not really. It's still coffee. It does the same job.
I wonder if there's a correlation between people who overpay for 'luxury' coffee and those who overpay by worshipping at the altar of Apple?
(Runs for cover...)
Its not the same coffee at all.
You need decent pressure to make coffee properly and get a decent crema on your espresso. That doesn't happen with any instant coffee I've ever seen.
Its like saying there's no difference between an old-fashioned landline and an iPhone. The branding doesn't matter, they're completely different products.
Espresso? What's that?
Instant coffee is coffee. The coffee you drink is coffee. I drink it to get a little caffeine hit and to quench my thirst. It does the job.
Why do you drink your very expensive coffee? The same reasons?
It's like someone drinking a £10 bottle of wine from Mozzies and someone else drinking a £100 bottle. Probably worse, in terms of cost...
There's no hope for you. Go get a flat white from Starbucks and compare it with your instant coffee. Different product entirely.
Have I said it isn't? But when I get up at four in the morning, the instant coffee does the job. Boil kettle. Put a spoon of granules in the cup. Add sweetener and milk. Drink. Wash up. Job done.
It's a pleasant little ritual, a little like washing the dishes (which I actually quite like doing, especially as I can watch the birds in our square metre of 'garden').
Many years ago, when I was a lad, I had a job loading 1cwt bags of fertilizer onto pallets. This was when the UK granulated nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium compounds to make fertilizer. They were bagged in situ, and the farmer came with their wagons to collect it.
I remember one old farmer being emphatic. "I don't want any of that Fisons rubbish boy, I want Hadfields." It was the work of seconds to exchange the Fisons bags for the Hadfields ones. He paid close to £2 a ton extra for the privilege. This was when £2 was a lot of money.
Some people never learn.
Yes N P and K can't really be anything else. Like buying nurofen when it is literally illegal for it to vary from unbranded ibuprofen. Then again, supermarket petrol and diesel are, as I understand it, crap - they skimp on the additives
I know the average age of PB-ers is quite high, but if @CD13 can remember when “£2 was a lot of money” then I estimate he must be about 320 years old. Which is impressive
I remember as an 18 year old when I used to borrow my dad's car I would occasionally top it up with petrol with a £1 worth.
My weekend/summer job when I was a teenager in the 1970s was as a petrol pump attendant. I remember the moans when the price went up from 72p to 74p - a gallon!
Petrol pump attendant. That was probably seen as a safe job once. People will always drive cars.
Still have them out here. I sometimes forget when back in the UK, and spend a minute waiting for the attendant before realising I need to get out and pump my own!
Quick question to PB brains trust: can anyone recommend a green building forum?
I used to be on the Navitron forum when we were building our house but that's now closed. Looking for another forum now we're planning our next project. Thanks!
So why are you so infatuated with Oxbridge, public schools and grammar schools @HYUFD? You seem in awe of anyone who goes to these. You seem to treat these people as your betters. They aren't. You are just as worthy.
I went to private school, my sister went to grammar school, my wife has an Oxford degree.
I am not in awe of them, Churchill was a great PM despite being non Oxbridge, Hague would have been a good PM in my view and was comprehensive educated.
However it is no surprise the best schools and universities tend to produce the most PMs
"best" = "most expensive and socially exclusive".
Eton and Fettes, the Heinz and Crosse & Blackwell of secondary education.
I asked for thoughts on coffee machines for a small cafe the other week.
We ended up going for a consumer bean-to-cup on the basis that it does make a nice coffee, but is also inexpensive enough that it will do the job whilst trade is low and starts to build, and we can either take it home and buy a larger machine if required, or just get another one to go next to it.
Simple, and makes a very nice cup off coffee, but is quite customisable. A slight annoyance is that it works in "low medium high" rather than grams of coffee per shot.
But DeLonghi need some serious attention to their incomprehensible model numbers.
I missed your original post - I would have suggested the Gaggia Velasca (£499 Caffe Italia). We have one and it is excellent.
I have a jar of Kenco Smooth. A £5 jar lasts for a couple of months.
Job done.
That's like saying to someone who buys a PS5 that you have a crossword book and job done.
Not really. It's still coffee. It does the same job.
I wonder if there's a correlation between people who overpay for 'luxury' coffee and those who overpay by worshipping at the altar of Apple?
(Runs for cover...)
Its not the same coffee at all.
You need decent pressure to make coffee properly and get a decent crema on your espresso. That doesn't happen with any instant coffee I've ever seen.
Its like saying there's no difference between an old-fashioned landline and an iPhone. The branding doesn't matter, they're completely different products.
Espresso? What's that?
Instant coffee is coffee. The coffee you drink is coffee. I drink it to get a little caffeine hit and to quench my thirst. It does the job.
Why do you drink your very expensive coffee? The same reasons?
It's like someone drinking a £10 bottle of wine from Mozzies and someone else drinking a £100 bottle. Probably worse, in terms of cost...
I no more drink coffee to get a caffeine hit than I would eat chocolate to get a calorie hit.
I drink coffee because I enjoy it and I enjoy a good coffee more than a crap one, just as I enjoy chocolate more than Brussel Sprouts.
A good coffee has a different texture and taste to a bad one, and you can't get the texture of a proper espresso from instant coffee. Even if it's "the same beans" you can't bottle the pressure needed to make it properly in a jar, you need a machine for that.
Shares in Tesla or Amazon or Tesco are productive assets. Property is a productive asset.
Basically, you get paid to own them (most of the time).
Bitcoin is not a productive asset.
Bitcoin is a currency, plain and simple. It's something you can, in theory, exchange for goods and services (though not many people do, a bit like gold).
Its value derives from its hardness, a bit like gold. You can't just print more of it, therefore the supply is controlled and predictable.
A bet on bitcoin is effectively a bet against fiat currencies, against inflation, against central banks trying to maintain control.
Placing bitcoin in the same category as a tesla share is fundamentally mis-labelling it. What gives the dollar value? People believe it has value. What gives bitcoin value? People believe it has value.
The value of a $10 note is about .02 in paper and ink, backed by people's belief in it. The value of a bitcoin is the power used to generate it, backed by people's belief in it.
As Morpheus says, "you think that's air you're breathing?"
The value of fiat currency is also backed up by the fact you can use it to pay your taxes. Buying into crypto means believing that governments will allow an alternative to their own currency to prosper. Given that this robs government's of seigniorage revenue while facilitating tax evasion and organised crime I don't think this is a plausible proposition. Personally I have no crypto in my portfolio.
You are quite correct, in that governments are doing what they can to stop it. Hence why it has been banned in China, and is now being regulated to death in America. The question is, can you stop it entirely (probably not in America, as it would be unconstitutional) and can individual countries banning it prevent it from continuing to be used, either in other countries, or underground, as dollars were in the USSR. The experience of trying to regulate / censor the internet, which also works on a distributed, censorship-resistant by design basis, suggests not. But you have a good point, and IMO the reason bitcoin is *only* worth what it's worth right now is the efforts China has made to ban it.
One might argue that Bitcoin is worth what it is worth, until it runs out of mugs to buy it at whatever rate it eventually reaches. Like any non-productive pyramid scheme, we know exactly where it ends up, sooner or later.
And that is leaving aside the gross immorality of burning real (scarce) resources to generate the "asset".
Agree - now substitute the word "bitcoin" for "dollar".
The difference between a bitcoin and a dollar, is that the US government stands behind one of them, and insists on the use of it to pay taxes and debts.
Comments
Fairy liquid, HP sauce and Hellmann's mayonnaise.
Apart from those, don't really insist on any. Of course Heinz make the best beans. But they aren't that much better.
Its value derives from its hardness, a bit like gold. You can't just print more of it, therefore the supply is controlled and predictable.
A bet on bitcoin is effectively a bet against fiat currencies, against inflation, against central banks trying to maintain control.
Placing bitcoin in the same category as a tesla share is fundamentally mis-labelling it. What gives the dollar value? People believe it has value. What gives bitcoin value? People believe it has value.
The value of a $10 note is about .02 in paper and ink, backed by people's belief in it. The value of a bitcoin is the power used to generate it, backed by people's belief in it.
As Morpheus says, "you think that's air you're breathing?"
Tulip bulbs produce flowers, anyway.
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1524292036379168768
I think either would probably do it. Thanks for the comment.
I'm about to go to bed, but I've posted links in the last month or so to the NI Select Committee minutes, and to the EU's specific proposals.
We don't need to enforce them, we can recognise the EU as a safe region and recognise their standards are equivalent to our own.
What purpose do those "checks" serve other than protectionist self-harm.
We should abolish such checks with any other nations, blocs or regions that have equivalent standards too. Protectionism is self-harming.
https://www.ft.com/content/35f54034-6551-49d9-bf36-ed463477cbca
What do vets and farmers know about biosecurity?
They should read he PB brain trust instead...
Meanwhile, as DUP big cheese Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said in the Commons yesterday:-
the Prime Minister came to our party conference and told us that there would be an Irish sea border “over his dead body”. That is what he told us, and unfortunately the protocol created an Irish sea border and it is harming our economy. I am only asking the Prime Minister to honour the commitments that he made to us. I am not asking him to do anything more than that.
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2022-05-10/debates/CBAB1589-5432-4E81-B923-4AC59B611F67/DebateOnTheAddress#contribution-0F58818C-CFC7-4522-A685-BFAB1865E214
Instant coffee is coffee. The coffee you drink is coffee. I drink it to get a little caffeine hit and to quench my thirst. It does the job.
Why do you drink your very expensive coffee? The same reasons?
It's like someone drinking a £10 bottle of wine from Mozzies and someone else drinking a £100 bottle. Probably worse, in terms of cost...
Though I did note Theresa May telling Jeffrey Donaldson in the Commons yesterday that had he voted for her deal he would largely have avoided an Irish Sea border
https://twitter.com/DarranMarshall/status/1524065734132965378?s=20&t=6rA2Rr0ExJJSY8XoRCtIXg
So EU food is so very dangerous it should be checked, is that your claim? What checks were we doing pre-Brexit? 🤔
The UK side wants equivalence as the basis for trade, and the EU side wants alignment.
I used to be on the Navitron forum when we were building our house but that's now closed. Looking for another forum now we're planning our next project. Thanks!
Conversely there are an unlimited amount of different cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is not even the most fit for purpose at the simple job of performing transactions. It just has the strongest brand.
I remember the moans when the price went up from 72p to 74p - a gallon!
Not difficult, but too many mistakes.
Wordle 326 6/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜
⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
🟨🟩⬜🟨🟩
🟨🟩🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said that he doesn't think a zero-covid policy is sustainable. This is what happens when you play a video of his comments on WeChat. Widely shared this morning but now censored...
https://twitter.com/EP_Lawrence/status/1524252823650664449
You ask "what function do those checks serve" - a genuinely great question. Can I remind you though that said checks are a key component of the 3rd country status this government demanded as part of its oven-ready deal?
What we need now is the EU to also drop its checks. Our standards are their standards are our standards. As we've now abandoned the ability to set different standards that is not going to change. So even if it is informally we can agree with the EU that we can mutually dismantle the need for checks. And having done that we can take the next step and dismantle the reams of Mogg-imposed red tape needed to show that our zero VAT zero tariff zero quota products are as stated.
A bright future is ahead, and its all thanks to Rees-Mogg saying that his version of brexit was an act of self-harm. Good for him.
News at 11...
Saying "there are an infinite amount of cryptocurrencies", well, yeah, but gold competes against diamonds, silver, rolex watches, etc, for whatever you want to describe as "currency" too. Gold isn't the "only" thing out there with the properties you describe. It's just the strongest brand.
Link please to poll
UK rejects EU proposals to resolve http://N.Irish trade row http://reut.rs/3sqFgFE https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1524295808161562624/photo/1
I am not in awe of them, Churchill was a great PM despite being non Oxbridge, Hague would have been a good PM in my view and was comprehensive educated.
However it is no surprise the best schools and universities tend to produce the most PMs
This also becomes the solution to the NI protocol. Get the EU to accept that the UK has accepted its primacy on standards. Which means there is no need to run checks on goods leaving the GB for the EU. Which means no need for checks on goods crossing the intra-Irish border or the North Sea. Job done. And whats more this is already the de facto position - Mogg scrapped plans for standards checks. We just need to get this formally recognised and accepted. A classic fudge solution.
'There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.'
Remain 56%
Leave 44%
Community owned via a Company Limited by Guarantee by the founder members, and strong policies on commercial self-promotion not allowed. We set it up back in 2016when E-Build closed down.
Strong emphasis on greenery amongst the core membership.
11k members (obvs some have moved on), about 400k posts.
I'll PM you.
There is also Green Building Forum, but that has been quieter for a few years.
Fell perfect with my regular first guess of course.
And that is leaving aside the gross immorality of burning real (scarce) resources to generate the "asset".
Anyway, off to brew a decent coffee.
I'd be happy to be paid in bitcoin, I'd be happy to be paid in gold, I'd be happy to be paid in yen, etc. But I wouldn't want to be paid in any of them at an exchange rate for perpetuity.
I'll take all the tesla stock off your hands at $300 a share in perpetuity if you like? Or do you see how ridiculous that sounds?
It reminds me of when I was working for a large engineering combine.
Like local areas, the project or product groups stayed intact, and everything between the tectonic plates would be swept away at each organisation. So the key if you planned to stay employed there was to avoid reaching non-specialist management or moving into a general service function, as those were the cost-savings each time it was bought or sold.
I only buy generic.
The reason I find it strange is I treat everyone equally. It might just be me, I don't know, but I express no deference to anyone and don't expect any myself.
OT from that book — I'd already known that Theresa May and Philip were introduced by Benazir Bhutto but not that Philip was encouraged to propose by Malcolm Turnbull. And that is the trouble with the book: more anecdotes than analysis.
It's a pleasant little ritual, a little like washing the dishes (which I actually quite like doing, especially as I can watch the birds in our square metre of 'garden').
I drink coffee because I enjoy it and I enjoy a good coffee more than a crap one, just as I enjoy chocolate more than Brussel Sprouts.
A good coffee has a different texture and taste to a bad one, and you can't get the texture of a proper espresso from instant coffee. Even if it's "the same beans" you can't bottle the pressure needed to make it properly in a jar, you need a machine for that.