As we await results from today's Primary elections in Arkansas and Georgia (the Big Kahuna) plus some key Texas runoff primaries, note that in Pennsylvania Republican Primary for US Senate, as of this moment:
Mehmet Oz 418,741 31.2% Dave McCormick 417,759 31.1% Kathy Barnette 330,838 24.7% Total reported 1,341,292
Politico.com - McCormick takes Pa. Senate ballot fight to court As of Monday evening, Mehmet Oz was leading David McCormick by fewer than 1,000 votes — well within the margin for an automatic recount in the state.
. . . . David McCormick’s campaign filed a lawsuit Monday afternoon arguing that election officials must count mail-in and absentee ballots that lack a date on their envelope, citing a federal court order released on Friday.
Of course. Reminds me of two different counts in 2020, one being 'stop the count', the other being 'count the votes', both from the Trump campaign, depending on direction of travel.
No surprise . The extortionate prices levied may have had a captive audience last year but now people can travel and be guaranteed good weather so they’re voting with their feet .
Yep and, for once, I find myself in agreement with @Leon.
RipOff Britain is back. Far better to go abroad now.
As we await results from today's Primary elections in Arkansas and Georgia (the Big Kahuna) plus some key Texas runoff primaries, note that in Pennsylvania Republican Primary for US Senate, as of this moment:
Mehmet Oz 418,741 31.2% Dave McCormick 417,759 31.1% Kathy Barnette 330,838 24.7% Total reported 1,341,292
Politico.com - McCormick takes Pa. Senate ballot fight to court As of Monday evening, Mehmet Oz was leading David McCormick by fewer than 1,000 votes — well within the margin for an automatic recount in the state.
. . . . David McCormick’s campaign filed a lawsuit Monday afternoon arguing that election officials must count mail-in and absentee ballots that lack a date on their envelope, citing a federal court order released on Friday.
McCormick and his primary opponent, Mehmet Oz, have been squabbling over whether undated ballots should be counted. The fight began late last week, after a three-judge panel on the federal 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals issued a judgment that undated ballots in a 2021 county judgeship election should be counted. . . . .
McCormick’s lawsuit, filed in state court, sues the state’s chief election official and county election boards in order to compel them to count the undated ballots that were returned on time. . . .
The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Friday that the state’s laws requiring ballots be dated by the voter was “immaterial” under a federal statute that originated with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — meaning it should have no bearing over whether ballots are accepted or rejected.
But the court did not release its full formal opinion, so there has been uncertainty on how — or whether — to apply its finding to other elections aside from that 2021 judgeship contest.
The circuit court may not be the final say on the order. One of the parties in the case — David Ritter, a candidate in that judicial race — asked the court on Monday to stay its judgment, signaling that there would likely be an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Pennsylvania Department of State’s guidance to counties on these ballots, issued Tuesday morning, nods toward that legal uncertainty.
“. . .[O]ut of an abundance of caution the Department advises, that those ballots should be segregated and remain segregated from all other voted ballots during the process of canvassing and tabulation.”
The department added that it anticipated that any litigation around the ballots would be “undertaken on an expedited basis.” . . . .
Meanwhile. Australia seems to be managing with counts as close as 34 votes right now, with an overall majority at stake, without employing Learned Friends.
The state pension is a pittance, and it would be unfair that the poorest pensioners had a real term cut. Those living on cushy final salary pensions, however…
What is a cushy final salary pension anyway? My final salary teaching pension is barely 250 a week for 32 years in the scheme. I won't get my state pension for 6 years so that's my lot. Out of that I have to find 50 a week for energy, so we are hardly cushy.
Not by any means saying 250 a week is cushy however 13000 a year is equivalent to a DC scheme you would need a pension pot of around 556 k
I plugged in figures till I got to about 13k after 32 years
pension contributions from employer and employee had to be 6500 each per year to get a dc pension annuity value of 12877.
Other figures I used were age 24 retirement age 56 and annual salary 40k. That means both employee and employer would have to be putting in 16.25% of salary.
Yes 250 isnt much but it is a damn sight more than most private sector workers are going to get.
It's way over 16% of salary. Index-linked and with a residual pension to spouse until spouse dies. And lump sum of course. With no risk. It's a fiendishly complicated calculation; I tried to crunch the numbers years ago and concluded roughly at 40%. Middle-ranking public sector employees with 40 years service retiring now have DB entitlements which would cost over £1M for someone in the private sector to match. Worth pointing out that some public sector scheme require employee contribution towards this and that some schemes are not as good as they were (e.g. career average rather than final salary).
No but they still far exceed what your average private sector worker is going to retire on. I can totally get people looking at their 13k a year and thinking well that doesn't seem gold plated to me. However they don't seem to realise how much the rest of us need to save to a pension to get anywhere near that figure because though they make contributions there is either a huge employer contribution they dont see or a tax payer top up if unfunded.
Sure - it's a different world.
The best of all positions is to have worked in the private sector (e.g. one of the large banks) starting in, say, the 80s and stuck with that employer. (DB schemes in the private sector have all gone now of course.)
Someone lucky enough to be in that position would have a funded pot of hundreds of thousands (we've seen many over a million) who can literally lift (well not literally but you know what I mean) and place in a private pension plan.
The £1M is then in a flexible pot (technically a trust) which you can draw on as-and-when and then - if you don't need it all - can be passed down in entirety to spouse and then inter-generationally to children! All IHT free because a pension fund is a trust. Public sector employees are bloody lucky but even they don't get this.
When given this option 9 times out of 10 the retiree values the flexibility and inheritability of this approach (which was Osborne's reform) above their ex-employer's copper-bottomed DB scheme benefits.
Set for life. Lucky buggers. And I say "lucky" wisely because I'd bet money that they didn't appreciate the significance of the pension scheme when then took up employment all those years ago. "Oh, there's a pension scheme - that's nice".
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
Have just watched the Sam Coates Sky clip. People above criticising it - because they don't like the questions and tone? Don't you get it - he hasn't just decided to doorstep cabinet and shout abuse. There are production meetings several times a day where the editorial team agrees what is coming up and where various teams are going to be.
Sky are deliberately having him shout these questions knowing it will make the cabinet look stupid and shifty. That is now the news agenda for all news outlets bar the Heil (execute Starmer), The Maddie (Nothing to See Here! Bloody EU) and The S*N (we can't talk about Downing Street piss-ups because our political editor was there and we covered it up).
For everyone else there are gallons of blood in the water. Rival news outlets have been fed delicious exclusives and their own teams are being whipped to get their own. This will not die down of its own accord, not when Downing Street keeps making such spectacular own goals as sending out Simon No Brain Clarke on telly to lie for them.
The state pension is a pittance, and it would be unfair that the poorest pensioners had a real term cut. Those living on cushy final salary pensions, however…
What is a cushy final salary pension anyway? My final salary teaching pension is barely 250 a week for 32 years in the scheme. I won't get my state pension for 6 years so that's my lot. Out of that I have to find 50 a week for energy, so we are hardly cushy.
Not by any means saying 250 a week is cushy however 13000 a year is equivalent to a DC scheme you would need a pension pot of around 556 k
I plugged in figures till I got to about 13k after 32 years
pension contributions from employer and employee had to be 6500 each per year to get a dc pension annuity value of 12877.
Other figures I used were age 24 retirement age 56 and annual salary 40k. That means both employee and employer would have to be putting in 16.25% of salary.
Yes 250 isnt much but it is a damn sight more than most private sector workers are going to get.
It's way over 16% of salary. Index-linked and with a residual pension to spouse until spouse dies. And lump sum of course. With no risk. It's a fiendishly complicated calculation; I tried to crunch the numbers years ago and concluded roughly at 40%. Middle-ranking public sector employees with 40 years service retiring now have DB entitlements which would cost over £1M for someone in the private sector to match. Worth pointing out that some public sector scheme require employee contribution towards this and that some schemes are not as good as they were (e.g. career average rather than final salary).
And of course, for many professional and technical positions, the public sector pays below, sometimes far below, private sector rates.
I doubt that is true (at least not in large numbers) when the pension scheme is taken into account.
Turbo I often dislike bastardisations of the English language but Staycation is a good example of a valid new meaning.
It's staying in the UK and it's a vacation. Staycation. Seems okay to me?
And as the Daily Mail will tell you, if you stay at home it's called WFH.
or you could just say I am going to Brighton for a week . For some reason I cringe when people say they are off on a staycation. I am not offended just cringe given they just mean they are going on holiday in the uk
On the WFH debate, here's some input from the other side of the Atlantic AND also the Pacific:
Seattle Times ($) - Google Maps workers in WA say they can’t afford the trip back to the office
Google Maps contract employees who are required to return to their office in Washington state recently circulated a petition to keep working from home since some cannot afford their commutes, presenting another challenge to Google’s plan to refill offices and restore campus life.
The issue affects more than 200 workers who are employed by outsourcing firm Cognizant Technology Solutions, which mandated that they work in an office in Bothell five days a week starting June 6. The workers play an essential role updating routes and destinations on Google Maps, a service used by more than 1 billion people a month.
About 60% of the 200 workers signed the petition. They demanded that managers suspend the return-to-office timeline and first address employees’ financial, health and child care concerns.
“Gas is around $5 per gallon currently, and many of us in the office are not able to afford to live close to the office due to our low salaries and the high cost of housing in Bothell,” the Cognizant employees wrote. The petition was supported by the Alphabet Workers Union, which has more than 900 members employed by Google’s parent company, Alphabet, and its suppliers.
Full-time Google employees with office jobs have been told to come in three days a week. In interviews, the Cognizant employees called for the same flexibility. Starting June 6, they will no longer have access to work systems from home.
The policies highlight disparities between Google’s direct employees and contractors. Google is estimated to have well more than 100,000 temporary, vendor and contract workers who spend their time on Google projects but officially work for other companies. Google does not disclose the number. . . .
Turbo I often dislike bastardisations of the English language but Staycation is a good example of a valid new meaning.
It's staying in the UK and it's a vacation. Staycation. Seems okay to me?
And as the Daily Mail will tell you, if you stay at home it's called WFH.
or you could just say I am going to Brighton for a week . For some reason I cringe when people say they are off on a staycation. I am not offended just cringe given they just mean they are going on holiday in the uk
I thought it meant you're off work but not going anywhere.
The state pension is a pittance, and it would be unfair that the poorest pensioners had a real term cut. Those living on cushy final salary pensions, however…
What is a cushy final salary pension anyway? My final salary teaching pension is barely 250 a week for 32 years in the scheme. I won't get my state pension for 6 years so that's my lot. Out of that I have to find 50 a week for energy, so we are hardly cushy.
Not by any means saying 250 a week is cushy however 13000 a year is equivalent to a DC scheme you would need a pension pot of around 556 k
I plugged in figures till I got to about 13k after 32 years
pension contributions from employer and employee had to be 6500 each per year to get a dc pension annuity value of 12877.
Other figures I used were age 24 retirement age 56 and annual salary 40k. That means both employee and employer would have to be putting in 16.25% of salary.
Yes 250 isnt much but it is a damn sight more than most private sector workers are going to get.
It's way over 16% of salary. Index-linked and with a residual pension to spouse until spouse dies. And lump sum of course. With no risk. It's a fiendishly complicated calculation; I tried to crunch the numbers years ago and concluded roughly at 40%. Middle-ranking public sector employees with 40 years service retiring now have DB entitlements which would cost over £1M for someone in the private sector to match. Worth pointing out that some public sector scheme require employee contribution towards this and that some schemes are not as good as they were (e.g. career average rather than final salary).
I suppose I laid myself open by being too generous with the info there. I would say that in my final year teaching at age 60, my employer and me paid at least 25% into the scheme between us.
One thing to realise though was that money was not locked away in a savings scheme, it went straight back into government coffers to "re-spend" as it were on other things like VIM* and missiles and benefits etc. And also, to pay for teacher pensioners at the time.
I thought governments of all colours were trying to get us to invest in pensions to suppliment or even replace the state benefit, so slagging pensioners off for actually using/receiving them is a little rich.
* (Rumpole of the Bailey)
25% between you in the final year isn't anywhere near enough to what needs to go in between you are on a defined contribution scheme. I was also generous and assumed the defined contribution employee earnt the same as his final year for all the time. If he started off on 22k and over 32 years had worked himself up to 40k he wouldnt be getting anywhere near 13k a year now even with him and his employer combined putting in 33% a year
Have just watched the Sam Coates Sky clip. People above criticising it - because they don't like the questions and tone? Don't you get it - he hasn't just decided to doorstep cabinet and shout abuse. There are production meetings several times a day where the editorial team agrees what is coming up and where various teams are going to be.
Sky are deliberately having him shout these questions knowing it will make the cabinet look stupid and shifty. That is now the news agenda for all news outlets bar the Heil (execute Starmer), The Maddie (Nothing to See Here! Bloody EU) and The S*N (we can't talk about Downing Street piss-ups because our political editor was there and we covered it up).
For everyone else there are gallons of blood in the water. Rival news outlets have been fed delicious exclusives and their own teams are being whipped to get their own. This will not die down of its own accord, not when Downing Street keeps making such spectacular own goals as sending out Simon No Brain Clarke on telly to lie for them.
Simon No Brain Clarke - History at University College, Oxford
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
There are quite a few places in the Med/Southern Europe where you can find relative peace, even in August, especially if you are willing to go inland a bit
The inland Peloponnese is virtually deserted in August, and it is beautiful and historic up in the mountains. Yes it will be hot
Have just watched the Sam Coates Sky clip. People above criticising it - because they don't like the questions and tone? Don't you get it - he hasn't just decided to doorstep cabinet and shout abuse. There are production meetings several times a day where the editorial team agrees what is coming up and where various teams are going to be.
Sky are deliberately having him shout these questions knowing it will make the cabinet look stupid and shifty. That is now the news agenda for all news outlets bar the Heil (execute Starmer), The Maddie (Nothing to See Here! Bloody EU) and The S*N (we can't talk about Downing Street piss-ups because our political editor was there and we covered it up).
For everyone else there are gallons of blood in the water. Rival news outlets have been fed delicious exclusives and their own teams are being whipped to get their own. This will not die down of its own accord, not when Downing Street keeps making such spectacular own goals as sending out Simon No Brain Clarke on telly to lie for them.
And yet Panorama is far more effective at destroying the conservative mps excuses for keeping Boris in place than journalists shouting at mps
To be fair to Kissinger, he built his career on negotiations telling ostensibly weaker powers they had to give up territory to make peace with larger ones. The Ukrainians will probably pay him as much attention as did the Vietnamese.
Kissinger is an idiot. On his idea, basically the US should invade Canada and when they resist, the world should tell the Canadians to just cede land to make them stop. In fact, on his idea, only nuclear armed states would exist. So from 200 odd countries to just 10 in the space of a week. It's an idea I suppose.
Have just watched the Sam Coates Sky clip. People above criticising it - because they don't like the questions and tone? Don't you get it - he hasn't just decided to doorstep cabinet and shout abuse. There are production meetings several times a day where the editorial team agrees what is coming up and where various teams are going to be.
Sky are deliberately having him shout these questions knowing it will make the cabinet look stupid and shifty. That is now the news agenda for all news outlets bar the Heil (execute Starmer), The Maddie (Nothing to See Here! Bloody EU) and The S*N (we can't talk about Downing Street piss-ups because our political editor was there and we covered it up).
For everyone else there are gallons of blood in the water. Rival news outlets have been fed delicious exclusives and their own teams are being whipped to get their own. This will not die down of its own accord, not when Downing Street keeps making such spectacular own goals as sending out Simon No Brain Clarke on telly to lie for them.
And yet Panorama is far more effective at destroying the conservative mps excuses for keeping Boris in place than journalists shouting at mps
I think you are in danger of over-egging the range of viewers of Panorama. I'm more of a politics geek than most and haven't watched Panorama once in the last ten years or more.
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
I booked a week in Lossiemouth last month in July and the hotels are all now showing no vacancies
It is rather strange that my wife's family home, her late brother 's home and the care home her father went to when her mother died suddenly are all now bed and breakfast or hotels in Lossiemouth
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
Serious question, what do you do if/when it rains?
Which it does, in Cornwall. A lot
I don’t understand people who go to Cornwall for their main summer holiday en famille. And I am a loyal Cornishman
It’s a rather sweet place, sublime in a few places, but it is really expensive and… the weather. If I was unlucky enough to have just one main holiday, and kids in tow, I would absolutely want guaranteed sun
Turbo I often dislike bastardisations of the English language but Staycation is a good example of a valid new meaning.
It's staying in the UK and it's a vacation. Staycation. Seems okay to me?
And as the Daily Mail will tell you, if you stay at home it's called WFH.
or you could just say I am going to Brighton for a week . For some reason I cringe when people say they are off on a staycation. I am not offended just cringe given they just mean they are going on holiday in the uk
I thought it meant you're off work but not going anywhere.
Language evolves. Some still use it that way, others use it as state_go_away suggests. Not a fan myself, purely because it is now unclear which interpretation people are using, rather than some issue with the word itself.
Have just watched the Sam Coates Sky clip. People above criticising it - because they don't like the questions and tone? Don't you get it - he hasn't just decided to doorstep cabinet and shout abuse. There are production meetings several times a day where the editorial team agrees what is coming up and where various teams are going to be.
Sky are deliberately having him shout these questions knowing it will make the cabinet look stupid and shifty. That is now the news agenda for all news outlets bar the Heil (execute Starmer), The Maddie (Nothing to See Here! Bloody EU) and The S*N (we can't talk about Downing Street piss-ups because our political editor was there and we covered it up).
For everyone else there are gallons of blood in the water. Rival news outlets have been fed delicious exclusives and their own teams are being whipped to get their own. This will not die down of its own accord, not when Downing Street keeps making such spectacular own goals as sending out Simon No Brain Clarke on telly to lie for them.
And yet Panorama is far more effective at destroying the conservative mps excuses for keeping Boris in place than journalists shouting at mps
I think you are in danger of over-egging the range of viewers of Panorama. I'm more of a politics geek than most and haven't watched Panorama once in the last ten years or more.
You should tonight as should all conservative mps cowering behind their settees
As we await results from today's Primary elections in Arkansas and Georgia (the Big Kahuna) plus some key Texas runoff primaries, note that in Pennsylvania Republican Primary for US Senate, as of this moment:
Mehmet Oz 418,741 31.2% Dave McCormick 417,759 31.1% Kathy Barnette 330,838 24.7% Total reported 1,341,292
Politico.com - McCormick takes Pa. Senate ballot fight to court As of Monday evening, Mehmet Oz was leading David McCormick by fewer than 1,000 votes — well within the margin for an automatic recount in the state.
. . . . David McCormick’s campaign filed a lawsuit Monday afternoon arguing that election officials must count mail-in and absentee ballots that lack a date on their envelope, citing a federal court order released on Friday.
McCormick and his primary opponent, Mehmet Oz, have been squabbling over whether undated ballots should be counted. The fight began late last week, after a three-judge panel on the federal 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals issued a judgment that undated ballots in a 2021 county judgeship election should be counted. . . . .
McCormick’s lawsuit, filed in state court, sues the state’s chief election official and county election boards in order to compel them to count the undated ballots that were returned on time. . . .
The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Friday that the state’s laws requiring ballots be dated by the voter was “immaterial” under a federal statute that originated with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — meaning it should have no bearing over whether ballots are accepted or rejected.
But the court did not release its full formal opinion, so there has been uncertainty on how — or whether — to apply its finding to other elections aside from that 2021 judgeship contest.
The circuit court may not be the final say on the order. One of the parties in the case — David Ritter, a candidate in that judicial race — asked the court on Monday to stay its judgment, signaling that there would likely be an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Pennsylvania Department of State’s guidance to counties on these ballots, issued Tuesday morning, nods toward that legal uncertainty.
“. . .[O]ut of an abundance of caution the Department advises, that those ballots should be segregated and remain segregated from all other voted ballots during the process of canvassing and tabulation.”
The department added that it anticipated that any litigation around the ballots would be “undertaken on an expedited basis.” . . . .
Meanwhile. Australia seems to be managing with counts as close as 34 votes right now, with an overall majority at stake, without employing Learned Friends.
Scott Morrison has already resigned, the Liberals got smashed and nothing will change that situation. As for Labor, having a bare majority also does not seem that relevant.
NOT akin to PA situation at all.
Plus may one hazard the guess, that Oz candidates & parties are NOT entirely bereft of legal counsel at this juncture. Just do not feel need (at least yet) to actually go to court. In the absence of say a legal opinion just handed down, in different case, that has bearing in actual vote counting?
The state pension is a pittance, and it would be unfair that the poorest pensioners had a real term cut. Those living on cushy final salary pensions, however…
What is a cushy final salary pension anyway? My final salary teaching pension is barely 250 a week for 32 years in the scheme. I won't get my state pension for 6 years so that's my lot. Out of that I have to find 50 a week for energy, so we are hardly cushy.
Not by any means saying 250 a week is cushy however 13000 a year is equivalent to a DC scheme you would need a pension pot of around 556 k
I plugged in figures till I got to about 13k after 32 years
pension contributions from employer and employee had to be 6500 each per year to get a dc pension annuity value of 12877.
Other figures I used were age 24 retirement age 56 and annual salary 40k. That means both employee and employer would have to be putting in 16.25% of salary.
Yes 250 isnt much but it is a damn sight more than most private sector workers are going to get.
It's way over 16% of salary. Index-linked and with a residual pension to spouse until spouse dies. And lump sum of course. With no risk. It's a fiendishly complicated calculation; I tried to crunch the numbers years ago and concluded roughly at 40%. Middle-ranking public sector employees with 40 years service retiring now have DB entitlements which would cost over £1M for someone in the private sector to match. Worth pointing out that some public sector scheme require employee contribution towards this and that some schemes are not as good as they were (e.g. career average rather than final salary).
No but they still far exceed what your average private sector worker is going to retire on. I can totally get people looking at their 13k a year and thinking well that doesn't seem gold plated to me. However they don't seem to realise how much the rest of us need to save to a pension to get anywhere near that figure because though they make contributions there is either a huge employer contribution they dont see or a tax payer top up if unfunded.
Sure - it's a different world.
The best of all positions is to have worked in the private sector (e.g. one of the large banks) starting in, say, the 80s and stuck with that employer. (DB schemes in the private sector have all gone now of course.)
Someone lucky enough to be in that position would have a funded pot of hundreds of thousands (we've seen many over a million) who can literally lift (well not literally but you know what I mean) and place in a private pension plan.
The £1M is then in a flexible pot (technically a trust) which you can draw on as-and-when and then - if you don't need it all - can be passed down in entirety to spouse and then inter-generationally to children! All IHT free because a pension fund is a trust. Public sector employees are bloody lucky but even they don't get this.
When given this option 9 times out of 10 the retiree values the flexibility and inheritability of this approach (which was Osborne's reform) above their ex-employer's copper-bottomed DB scheme benefits.
Set for life. Lucky buggers. And I say "lucky" wisely because I'd bet money that they didn't appreciate the significance of the pension scheme when then took up employment all those years ago. "Oh, there's a pension scheme - that's nice".
Indeed. I have a friend who worked for a big oil company on leaving Uni and has just retired aged 54. He is unusual, of my peers he is the only one with a large final salary pension scheme. A few of us are like me, with a few years (6 in my case) from early in our careers when we had low salaries - which is worth only slightly less than a DC scheme I paid into for 15 years on a much higher salary. I reckon to retire at 67 I now need to save about 80% of my net salary.
To be fair to Kissinger, he built his career on negotiations telling ostensibly weaker powers they had to give up territory to make peace with larger ones. The Ukrainians will probably pay him as much attention as did the Vietnamese.
Kissinger is an idiot. On his idea, basically the US should invade Canada and when they resist, the world should tell the Canadians to just cede land to make them stop. In fact, on his idea, only nuclear armed states would exist. So from 200 odd countries to just 10 in the space of a week. It's an idea I suppose.
Yep. His ideas as expressed are not profound realpolitik, they are just cover for international chaos and bullying, denying sovereignty to anyone not strong enough for their concerns to matter to him, as they should just be pawns in a game.
As we await results from today's Primary elections in Arkansas and Georgia (the Big Kahuna) plus some key Texas runoff primaries, note that in Pennsylvania Republican Primary for US Senate, as of this moment:
Mehmet Oz 418,741 31.2% Dave McCormick 417,759 31.1% Kathy Barnette 330,838 24.7% Total reported 1,341,292
Politico.com - McCormick takes Pa. Senate ballot fight to court As of Monday evening, Mehmet Oz was leading David McCormick by fewer than 1,000 votes — well within the margin for an automatic recount in the state.
. . . . David McCormick’s campaign filed a lawsuit Monday afternoon arguing that election officials must count mail-in and absentee ballots that lack a date on their envelope, citing a federal court order released on Friday.
McCormick and his primary opponent, Mehmet Oz, have been squabbling over whether undated ballots should be counted. The fight began late last week, after a three-judge panel on the federal 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals issued a judgment that undated ballots in a 2021 county judgeship election should be counted. . . . .
McCormick’s lawsuit, filed in state court, sues the state’s chief election official and county election boards in order to compel them to count the undated ballots that were returned on time. . . .
The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Friday that the state’s laws requiring ballots be dated by the voter was “immaterial” under a federal statute that originated with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — meaning it should have no bearing over whether ballots are accepted or rejected.
But the court did not release its full formal opinion, so there has been uncertainty on how — or whether — to apply its finding to other elections aside from that 2021 judgeship contest.
The circuit court may not be the final say on the order. One of the parties in the case — David Ritter, a candidate in that judicial race — asked the court on Monday to stay its judgment, signaling that there would likely be an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Pennsylvania Department of State’s guidance to counties on these ballots, issued Tuesday morning, nods toward that legal uncertainty.
“. . .[O]ut of an abundance of caution the Department advises, that those ballots should be segregated and remain segregated from all other voted ballots during the process of canvassing and tabulation.”
The department added that it anticipated that any litigation around the ballots would be “undertaken on an expedited basis.” . . . .
Meanwhile. Australia seems to be managing with counts as close as 34 votes right now, with an overall majority at stake, without employing Learned Friends.
Turbo I often dislike bastardisations of the English language but Staycation is a good example of a valid new meaning.
It's staying in the UK and it's a vacation. Staycation. Seems okay to me?
And as the Daily Mail will tell you, if you stay at home it's called WFH.
or you could just say I am going to Brighton for a week . For some reason I cringe when people say they are off on a staycation. I am not offended just cringe given they just mean they are going on holiday in the uk
I thought it meant you're off work but not going anywhere.
Language evolves. Some still use it that way, others use it as state_go_away suggests. Not a fan myself, purely because it is now unclear which interpretation people are using, rather than some issue with the word itself.
It has evolved to make the language less precise and coherent, which irritates me, as well. Staycation meant staying at home for your hols. ie your actual home. Sit in the garden, do some DIY, potter around local galleries and parks. A useful word
Now it just means “a domestic holiday”. Tut
The same happened to “troll” which, I think, originally meant a person who came on an Internet forum deliberately to stir things up with provocative and offensive opinions they might not even believe. Now it seems to have blurred into someone who might be a bot or someone with a fake ID or someone others simply don’t like
As we await results from today's Primary elections in Arkansas and Georgia (the Big Kahuna) plus some key Texas runoff primaries, note that in Pennsylvania Republican Primary for US Senate, as of this moment:
Mehmet Oz 418,741 31.2% Dave McCormick 417,759 31.1% Kathy Barnette 330,838 24.7% Total reported 1,341,292
Politico.com - McCormick takes Pa. Senate ballot fight to court As of Monday evening, Mehmet Oz was leading David McCormick by fewer than 1,000 votes — well within the margin for an automatic recount in the state.
. . . . David McCormick’s campaign filed a lawsuit Monday afternoon arguing that election officials must count mail-in and absentee ballots that lack a date on their envelope, citing a federal court order released on Friday.
Of course. Reminds me of two different counts in 2020, one being 'stop the count', the other being 'count the votes', both from the Trump campaign, depending on direction of travel.
Have no power over what reminds you of something or the other. In this instance, McCormick campaign is fully justified in going to the courts. And so is Oz campaign.
Idea that taking electoral matter before a judge is ipso facto illegitimate, is just the kind of chickenfeed that 45 and fellow Putinists WANT to sell you.
I'll be interested in Cyclefree's opinion on this and those of others too of course
I wonder if an outcome of this rather sorry saga will be a review of FPNs, and if it is proper that the police can decide if someone is guilty without them being prosecuted.
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
I booked a week in Lossiemouth last month in July and the hotels are all now showing no vacancies
It is rather strange that my wife's family home, her late brother 's home and the care home her father went to when her mother died suddenly are all now bed and breakfast or hotels in Lossiemouth
The new footbridge has been opened so at least you can get across to the beach now!
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
Serious question, what do you do if/when it rains?
Which it does, in Cornwall. A lot
I don’t understand people who go to Cornwall for their main summer holiday en famille. And I am a loyal Cornishman
It’s a rather sweet place, sublime in a few places, but it is really expensive and… the weather. If I was unlucky enough to have just one main holiday, and kids in tow, I would absolutely want guaranteed sun
Once again find myself agreeing with you.
Devon and Cornwall and most of the west side of Britain is okay if the weather is lovely. It frequently isn't. It's bloody hard work with a family if it's raining and the roads become clogged as everyone desperately finds something useful to do. Britain is also now extremely expensive.
Holidaying the UK is all very well during a pandemic but you're rolling the dice on the weather.
If it rains in Devon & Cornwall you're fooked. There's only so many times you can visit a Butterfly Farm and Gnome World.
As we await results from today's Primary elections in Arkansas and Georgia (the Big Kahuna) plus some key Texas runoff primaries, note that in Pennsylvania Republican Primary for US Senate, as of this moment:
Mehmet Oz 418,741 31.2% Dave McCormick 417,759 31.1% Kathy Barnette 330,838 24.7% Total reported 1,341,292
Politico.com - McCormick takes Pa. Senate ballot fight to court As of Monday evening, Mehmet Oz was leading David McCormick by fewer than 1,000 votes — well within the margin for an automatic recount in the state.
. . . . David McCormick’s campaign filed a lawsuit Monday afternoon arguing that election officials must count mail-in and absentee ballots that lack a date on their envelope, citing a federal court order released on Friday.
Of course. Reminds me of two different counts in 2020, one being 'stop the count', the other being 'count the votes', both from the Trump campaign, depending on direction of travel.
Have no power over what reminds you of something or the other. In this instance, McCormick campaign is fully justified in going to the courts. And so is Oz campaign.
Idea that taking electoral matter before a judge is ipso facto illegitimate, is just the kind of chickenfeed that 45 and fellow Putinists WANT to sell you.
The idea that the postmark on the envelope matters is quite preposterous anyway. Surely the British system - get your ballot in by close of poll or it won't be counted - is far more sensible.
The atmosphere on the Tory backbenches is "sulphurous" after photos emerged of Boris Johnson raising a toast at Downing Street on Monday evening.
While the majority of MPs on the fence about Mr Johnson's future are waiting until tomorrow to make a decision, the pictorial evidence published by ITV News does not appear to have helped matters.
"I'm going to be waiting until I see the report to make a final decision," a senior Conservative MP and former Cabinet minister tells the Telegraph this afternoon.
"But after those photos came out, the mood has been pretty sulphurous. People are pretty shocked."
torygraff
deja vu all over again
And tonight's Panorama is going to be toxic
Familiar pattern. Something comes out on a Monday or Tuesday. There are two or three days of swirling rumour and tales of angry backbenchers, MPs being flooded with livid emails and letters going to Brady. There is a torrid PMQs. Perhaps an Urgent Question. Anonymous sources tell journalists that this cannot go on and this time it is the end.
And then...
Nothing.
Johnson makes it to the weekend and it all dies down yet again.
Yep, but not the end of the world certainly for Labour. A slow chipping away at the Tory vote share and Johnson staying on as long as possible will maximise the chance of the Conservatives losing the next election. Last thing they need is some fresh face people haven't heard of.
Talking of which see Mark Harper today. Forthright in condemnation of Boris, but suitably right wing on the things backbenchers care about to stand a good chance. I still think he's the leadership dark horse.
As for Labour and the Lib Dems: one last round on partygate this week and then move on to the economy and cost of living and stay there, relentlessly, until the next election.
I agree, and my betting position would certainly be enhanced by his accession to the leadership.
I'll be interested in Cyclefree's opinion on this and those of others too of course
I wonder if an outcome of this rather sorry saga will be a review of FPNs, and if it is proper that the police can decide if someone is guilty without them being prosecuted.
Anyone issued an FPN can refuse to pay it and demand a day at the magistrates’ court. It’s quite astonishing that this hasn’t happened.
As we await results from today's Primary elections in Arkansas and Georgia (the Big Kahuna) plus some key Texas runoff primaries, note that in Pennsylvania Republican Primary for US Senate, as of this moment:
Mehmet Oz 418,741 31.2% Dave McCormick 417,759 31.1% Kathy Barnette 330,838 24.7% Total reported 1,341,292
Politico.com - McCormick takes Pa. Senate ballot fight to court As of Monday evening, Mehmet Oz was leading David McCormick by fewer than 1,000 votes — well within the margin for an automatic recount in the state.
. . . . David McCormick’s campaign filed a lawsuit Monday afternoon arguing that election officials must count mail-in and absentee ballots that lack a date on their envelope, citing a federal court order released on Friday.
Of course. Reminds me of two different counts in 2020, one being 'stop the count', the other being 'count the votes', both from the Trump campaign, depending on direction of travel.
Have no power over what reminds you of something or the other. In this instance, McCormick campaign is fully justified in going to the courts. And so is Oz campaign.
Idea that taking electoral matter before a judge is ipso facto illegitimate, is just the kind of chickenfeed that 45 and fellow Putinists WANT to sell you.
That's not what I said, and you're more of an idiot than I thought if you think that's what I said. I said nothing about it being justified or not in this instance, nor did I comment about it being illegimate, you have invented that.
What struck me was that in a Republican contest one of the contenders is arguing that it is entirely correct to count all mail-in ballots, when other Republicans, in a different context, would switch their support or opposition to counting ballots depending on how they thought they were doing.
If my comment was unclear, it isn't improved by you inventing additional meaning from it which is nowhere justified in anything I have ever said.
No, because they are manifestly incompetent and corrupt fuckwits. It is fairly clear that you have phatboilove wired directly into the limbic brain, bypassing any pretence of analytical thought. not everyone is like you.
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
I booked a week in Lossiemouth last month in July and the hotels are all now showing no vacancies
It is rather strange that my wife's family home, her late brother 's home and the care home her father went to when her mother died suddenly are all now bed and breakfast or hotels in Lossiemouth
The new footbridge has been opened so at least you can get across to the beach now!
My late mother in law really disliked the old one and the new one seems in a better location
To be fair to Kissinger, he built his career on negotiations telling ostensibly weaker powers they had to give up territory to make peace with larger ones. The Ukrainians will probably pay him as much attention as did the Vietnamese.
Kissinger is an idiot. On his idea, basically the US should invade Canada and when they resist, the world should tell the Canadians to just cede land to make them stop. In fact, on his idea, only nuclear armed states would exist. So from 200 odd countries to just 10 in the space of a week. It's an idea I suppose.
Yep. His ideas as expressed are not profound realpolitik, they are just cover for international chaos and bullying, denying sovereignty to anyone not strong enough for their concerns to matter to him, as they should just be pawns in a game.
And WTF is he doing being alive? Are we sure it's him?
Have just watched the Sam Coates Sky clip. People above criticising it - because they don't like the questions and tone? Don't you get it - he hasn't just decided to doorstep cabinet and shout abuse. There are production meetings several times a day where the editorial team agrees what is coming up and where various teams are going to be.
Sky are deliberately having him shout these questions knowing it will make the cabinet look stupid and shifty. That is now the news agenda for all news outlets bar the Heil (execute Starmer), The Maddie (Nothing to See Here! Bloody EU) and The S*N (we can't talk about Downing Street piss-ups because our political editor was there and we covered it up).
For everyone else there are gallons of blood in the water. Rival news outlets have been fed delicious exclusives and their own teams are being whipped to get their own. This will not die down of its own accord, not when Downing Street keeps making such spectacular own goals as sending out Simon No Brain Clarke on telly to lie for them.
Simon No Brain Clarke - History at University College, Oxford
And...?
Either he knew that what he was saying on TV was a pack of lies. In which case he thinks we are stupid. Or he just swallowed any old guff he was ordered to say. In which case he is stupid. And having seen his career pretty up close (he was my neighbouring MP until last year) I think it may be both.
Turbo I often dislike bastardisations of the English language but Staycation is a good example of a valid new meaning.
It's staying in the UK and it's a vacation. Staycation. Seems okay to me?
And as the Daily Mail will tell you, if you stay at home it's called WFH.
or you could just say I am going to Brighton for a week . For some reason I cringe when people say they are off on a staycation. I am not offended just cringe given they just mean they are going on holiday in the uk
That annoys me too, apparently I only had staycations until I was 21. It turns out all our family camping trips and visits to grandparents for the summer weren't holidays after all. What a deprived childhood I had!
Turbo I often dislike bastardisations of the English language but Staycation is a good example of a valid new meaning.
It's staying in the UK and it's a vacation. Staycation. Seems okay to me?
And as the Daily Mail will tell you, if you stay at home it's called WFH.
or you could just say I am going to Brighton for a week . For some reason I cringe when people say they are off on a staycation. I am not offended just cringe given they just mean they are going on holiday in the uk
I thought it meant you're off work but not going anywhere.
Language evolves. Some still use it that way, others use it as state_go_away suggests. Not a fan myself, purely because it is now unclear which interpretation people are using, rather than some issue with the word itself.
The same happened to “troll” which, I think, originally meant a person who came on an Internet forum deliberately to stir things up with provocative and offensive opinions they might not even believe. Now it seems to have blurred into someone who might be a bot or someone with a fake ID or someone others simply don’t like
Hate to be a pedant but a troll is "originally" a being in Scandinavian folklore, including Norse mythology. In English it goes back to at least the early C17th. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units. They came to be associated with being antisocial, quarrelsome and slow-witted.
The word came to be used for those on the internet because of their secretive, cloaked, and rather isolated character. For example, anyone who hides behind a VPN
My point is important because it's another example of a word whose meaning has evolved. And you have, presumably unwittingly, just fallen into the same.
I think Staycation is a good update in an age of international travel. Staying at home nowadays means staying in your own country. A global nomad like yourself should appreciate it.
I'll be interested in Cyclefree's opinion on this and those of others too of course
I wonder if an outcome of this rather sorry saga will be a review of FPNs, and if it is proper that the police can decide if someone is guilty without them being prosecuted.
Anyone issued an FPN can refuse to pay it and demand a day at the magistrates’ court. It’s quite astonishing that this hasn’t happened.
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
Serious question, what do you do if/when it rains?
Which it does, in Cornwall. A lot
I don’t understand people who go to Cornwall for their main summer holiday en famille. And I am a loyal Cornishman
It’s a rather sweet place, sublime in a few places, but it is really expensive and… the weather. If I was unlucky enough to have just one main holiday, and kids in tow, I would absolutely want guaranteed sun
Once again find myself agreeing with you.
Devon and Cornwall and most of the west side of Britain is okay if the weather is lovely. It frequently isn't. It's bloody hard work with a family if it's raining and the roads become clogged as everyone desperately finds something useful to do. Britain is also now extremely expensive.
Holidaying the UK is all very well during a pandemic but you're rolling the dice on the weather.
If it rains in Devon & Cornwall you're fooked. There's only so many times you can visit a Butterfly Farm and Gnome World.
I just don’t get it
If you’re in west Cornwall (St Ives, Penzance, Falmouth etc) then your rainy day options are… er…. The Tate, St Ives? How many kids will enjoy that? Maybe Poldark mine. Um. Um. A couple of second rate museums. A terrible amusement park. Or the pub, again.
It’s crap. And I love Cornwall.
Personally I’d be OK yomping around megalithic monuments (lots of those!), seeking out weird history, doing a bit of rough weather sea fishing (the danger!) but this is not most kids’ idea of heaven. And even then if this was my one and only holiday I’d want SUN, having spent the rest of the year in rainy Britain. And UK prices are high
I genuinely don’t understand why people make this choice
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared a wartime state of emergency immediately after his new government was installed.
The state of emergency, a new tool Parliament approved earlier on Tuesday, will take effect at midnight and will give the government “maneuvering room and the ability to react immediately” to the fallout from the war in neighboring Ukraine.
I'll be interested in Cyclefree's opinion on this and those of others too of course
I wonder if an outcome of this rather sorry saga will be a review of FPNs, and if it is proper that the police can decide if someone is guilty without them being prosecuted.
Anyone issued an FPN can refuse to pay it and demand a day at the magistrates’ court. It’s quite astonishing that this hasn’t happened.
Didn't Piers Corbyn get off some of his fines, even though he was arrested at events he organised to break the rules.
Have just watched the Sam Coates Sky clip. People above criticising it - because they don't like the questions and tone? Don't you get it - he hasn't just decided to doorstep cabinet and shout abuse. There are production meetings several times a day where the editorial team agrees what is coming up and where various teams are going to be.
Sky are deliberately having him shout these questions knowing it will make the cabinet look stupid and shifty. That is now the news agenda for all news outlets bar the Heil (execute Starmer), The Maddie (Nothing to See Here! Bloody EU) and The S*N (we can't talk about Downing Street piss-ups because our political editor was there and we covered it up).
For everyone else there are gallons of blood in the water. Rival news outlets have been fed delicious exclusives and their own teams are being whipped to get their own. This will not die down of its own accord, not when Downing Street keeps making such spectacular own goals as sending out Simon No Brain Clarke on telly to lie for them.
And yet Panorama is far more effective at destroying the conservative mps excuses for keeping Boris in place than journalists shouting at mps
I think you are in danger of over-egging the range of viewers of Panorama. I'm more of a politics geek than most and haven't watched Panorama once in the last ten years or more.
You should tonight as should all conservative mps cowering behind their settees
Exterminate! Exterminate! (We should be so lucky.)
Turbo I often dislike bastardisations of the English language but Staycation is a good example of a valid new meaning.
It's staying in the UK and it's a vacation. Staycation. Seems okay to me?
And as the Daily Mail will tell you, if you stay at home it's called WFH.
or you could just say I am going to Brighton for a week . For some reason I cringe when people say they are off on a staycation. I am not offended just cringe given they just mean they are going on holiday in the uk
I thought it meant you're off work but not going anywhere.
Language evolves. Some still use it that way, others use it as state_go_away suggests. Not a fan myself, purely because it is now unclear which interpretation people are using, rather than some issue with the word itself.
The same happened to “troll” which, I think, originally meant a person who came on an Internet forum deliberately to stir things up with provocative and offensive opinions they might not even believe. Now it seems to have blurred into someone who might be a bot or someone with a fake ID or someone others simply don’t like
Hate to be a pedant but a troll is "originally" a being in Scandinavian folklore, including Norse mythology. In English it goes back to at least the early C17th. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units. They came to be associated with being antisocial, quarrelsome and slow-witted.
The word came to be used for those on the internet because of their secretive, cloaked, and rather isolated character. For example, anyone who hides behind a VPN
My point is important because it's another example of a word whose meaning has evolved. And you have, presumably unwittingly, just fallen into the same.
I think Staycation is a good update in an age of international travel. Staying at home nowadays means staying in your own country. A global nomad like yourself should appreciate it.
That's a negative, sir. It derives from trolling = towing a lure behind a boat to catch fish. So, I might run a glittering lure past barty Rob on the lines of "I think wew can all agree that stable and gently rising house prices are essential to the well being of the nation and that our preco=ious rural heritage must remain sacrosanct," to see whether he would rise to the bait.
Turbo I often dislike bastardisations of the English language but Staycation is a good example of a valid new meaning.
It's staying in the UK and it's a vacation. Staycation. Seems okay to me?
And as the Daily Mail will tell you, if you stay at home it's called WFH.
or you could just say I am going to Brighton for a week . For some reason I cringe when people say they are off on a staycation. I am not offended just cringe given they just mean they are going on holiday in the uk
I thought it meant you're off work but not going anywhere.
Language evolves. Some still use it that way, others use it as state_go_away suggests. Not a fan myself, purely because it is now unclear which interpretation people are using, rather than some issue with the word itself.
The same happened to “troll” which, I think, originally meant a person who came on an Internet forum deliberately to stir things up with provocative and offensive opinions they might not even believe. Now it seems to have blurred into someone who might be a bot or someone with a fake ID or someone others simply don’t like
Hate to be a pedant but a troll is "originally" a being in Scandinavian folklore, including Norse mythology. In English it goes back to at least the early C17th. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units. They came to be associated with being antisocial, quarrelsome and slow-witted.
The word came to be used for those on the internet because of their secretive, cloaked, and rather isolated character. For example, anyone who hides behind a VPN
My point is important because it's another example of a word whose meaning has evolved. And you have, presumably unwittingly, just fallen into the same.
I think Staycation is a good update in an age of international travel. Staying at home nowadays means staying in your own country. A global nomad like yourself should appreciate it.
Er, I did know that troll has even older antecedents. I’ve been to Iceland (in fact I am right now proposing to my oldest daughter (just turned 16)) that we go to Iceland, me and her, to do the round the island roadtrip. Last year me and her went to John O Groats and Orkney and far north /Scotland and it was a triumph (apart from Wick). We had good weather but still, she and /i share quirky tastes. We like odd things. It will always be one of my favourite memories of fatherhood, that holiday. Orkney is wonderful.. in the sun…
Er, yeah, where was I. TROLL! It had a definite meaning on the internet, which has now been blurred. Same goes for staycation. That was a brilliant word for a holiday taken in your own home and garden. Now it just means a holiday where you don’t need a passport, which is not anywhere as useful
Yes, Sam Coates looks like an incredible tw@t doing that.
Johnson Fanbois lining up with likes there....
And blithering Johnson haters arguing Coates looks untwatlike. And making themselves twats in the process.
Bellowing gotcha questions is stupid. But demonstrates that all of the news organisations can smell the blood and are after their own kill. Its not called the press "pack" for nothing, they will savage anyone they catch.
Anyway, I did enjoy the "did you deliberately lie" question thrown at Simon Clarke. Because I assume he was briefed by the No10 Press Office. Who knew the truth about what he was told to lie about. Because they were there and confessed so by lunchtime.
So ok, bellowed isn't great. But a valid question asked.
The state pension is a pittance, and it would be unfair that the poorest pensioners had a real term cut. Those living on cushy final salary pensions, however…
What is a cushy final salary pension anyway? My final salary teaching pension is barely 250 a week for 32 years in the scheme. I won't get my state pension for 6 years so that's my lot. Out of that I have to find 50 a week for energy, so we are hardly cushy.
Not by any means saying 250 a week is cushy however 13000 a year is equivalent to a DC scheme you would need a pension pot of around 556 k
I plugged in figures till I got to about 13k after 32 years
pension contributions from employer and employee had to be 6500 each per year to get a dc pension annuity value of 12877.
Other figures I used were age 24 retirement age 56 and annual salary 40k. That means both employee and employer would have to be putting in 16.25% of salary.
Yes 250 isnt much but it is a damn sight more than most private sector workers are going to get.
It's way over 16% of salary. Index-linked and with a residual pension to spouse until spouse dies. And lump sum of course. With no risk. It's a fiendishly complicated calculation; I tried to crunch the numbers years ago and concluded roughly at 40%. Middle-ranking public sector employees with 40 years service retiring now have DB entitlements which would cost over £1M for someone in the private sector to match. Worth pointing out that some public sector scheme require employee contribution towards this and that some schemes are not as good as they were (e.g. career average rather than final salary).
And of course, for many professional and technical positions, the public sector pays below, sometimes far below, private sector rates.
I doubt that is true (at least not in large numbers) when the pension scheme is taken into account.
The salaries of the public sector, certainly in the civil service, were specifically and actuarially very significantly reduced to take the pension scheme into account, certainly when I moved into it in the early 1990s and looked very carefully at the matter. (We also had to pay contribs to the scheme. I forget the sum but it was a non-trivial one, about 8%.) The salaries never really grew enough to outdo this and in recent decades were increased well below inflation. The pension scheme was also signidficantly downgraded ca 2000 and again ca 2010 "becayse it had to be comparable with the private sector etc etc).
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
Serious question, what do you do if/when it rains?
Which it does, in Cornwall. A lot
I don’t understand people who go to Cornwall for their main summer holiday en famille. And I am a loyal Cornishman
It’s a rather sweet place, sublime in a few places, but it is really expensive and… the weather. If I was unlucky enough to have just one main holiday, and kids in tow, I would absolutely want guaranteed sun
Once again find myself agreeing with you.
Devon and Cornwall and most of the west side of Britain is okay if the weather is lovely. It frequently isn't. It's bloody hard work with a family if it's raining and the roads become clogged as everyone desperately finds something useful to do. Britain is also now extremely expensive.
Holidaying the UK is all very well during a pandemic but you're rolling the dice on the weather.
If it rains in Devon & Cornwall you're fooked. There's only so many times you can visit a Butterfly Farm and Gnome World.
Bonfire of the labradoodles incoming when all the new pet lurvers discover the cost of garaging the things for 2 weeks in holiday season.
I'll be interested in Cyclefree's opinion on this and those of others too of course
I wonder if an outcome of this rather sorry saga will be a review of FPNs, and if it is proper that the police can decide if someone is guilty without them being prosecuted.
Anyone issued an FPN can refuse to pay it and demand a day at the magistrates’ court. It’s quite astonishing that this hasn’t happened.
£100 fine or a risk of a criminal record. I know which I would choose instantaneously even if I was 100% innocent.
Politically two people who could have gambled on that approach are Sunak and Starmer. Sunak only if he wanted to sink the PM, which events suggest he has not wanted or at least was not ready for. Starmer to give himself a bit of a wider safe landing spot from his investigation.
Even for those two, the sensible decision was to accept the fine (hypothetical in case of Starmer, of course).
For all the other politicos, spads and civil servants a no brainer to accept the fine.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared a wartime state of emergency immediately after his new government was installed.
The state of emergency, a new tool Parliament approved earlier on Tuesday, will take effect at midnight and will give the government “maneuvering room and the ability to react immediately” to the fallout from the war in neighboring Ukraine.
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
Serious question, what do you do if/when it rains?
Which it does, in Cornwall. A lot
I don’t understand people who go to Cornwall for their main summer holiday en famille. And I am a loyal Cornishman
It’s a rather sweet place, sublime in a few places, but it is really expensive and… the weather. If I was unlucky enough to have just one main holiday, and kids in tow, I would absolutely want guaranteed sun
Once again find myself agreeing with you.
Devon and Cornwall and most of the west side of Britain is okay if the weather is lovely. It frequently isn't. It's bloody hard work with a family if it's raining and the roads become clogged as everyone desperately finds something useful to do. Britain is also now extremely expensive.
Holidaying the UK is all very well during a pandemic but you're rolling the dice on the weather.
If it rains in Devon & Cornwall you're fooked. There's only so many times you can visit a Butterfly Farm and Gnome World.
I just don’t get it
If you’re in west Cornwall (St Ives, Penzance, Falmouth etc) then your rainy day options are… er…. The Tate, St Ives? How many kids will enjoy that? Maybe Poldark mine. Um. Um. A couple of second rate museums. A terrible amusement park. Or the pub, again.
It’s crap. And I love Cornwall.
Personally I’d be OK yomping around megalithic monuments (lots of those!), seeking out weird history, doing a bit of rough weather sea fishing (the danger!) but this is not most kids’ idea of heaven. And even then if this was my one and only holiday I’d want SUN, having spent the rest of the year in rainy Britain. And UK prices are high
I genuinely don’t understand why people make this choice
Yeah I don't get it either. It's such a gamble on the weather and it really isn't a cheaper option even for a family.
I've driven many times en famille to the south of France, Spain and several times to Italy. Yep it's a long drive but if you stop off you can make it fun.
And with budget airlines you can also still snap up cheap fares, even in the holidays and even with a large family.
Loads of places around Europe which aren't crazily busy, even in August. Try Galicia (Spain) as just one example of a cheap alternative with better weather than Britain.
As we await results from today's Primary elections in Arkansas and Georgia (the Big Kahuna) plus some key Texas runoff primaries, note that in Pennsylvania Republican Primary for US Senate, as of this moment:
Mehmet Oz 418,741 31.2% Dave McCormick 417,759 31.1% Kathy Barnette 330,838 24.7% Total reported 1,341,292
Politico.com - McCormick takes Pa. Senate ballot fight to court As of Monday evening, Mehmet Oz was leading David McCormick by fewer than 1,000 votes — well within the margin for an automatic recount in the state.
. . . . David McCormick’s campaign filed a lawsuit Monday afternoon arguing that election officials must count mail-in and absentee ballots that lack a date on their envelope, citing a federal court order released on Friday.
Of course. Reminds me of two different counts in 2020, one being 'stop the count', the other being 'count the votes', both from the Trump campaign, depending on direction of travel.
Have no power over what reminds you of something or the other. In this instance, McCormick campaign is fully justified in going to the courts. And so is Oz campaign.
Idea that taking electoral matter before a judge is ipso facto illegitimate, is just the kind of chickenfeed that 45 and fellow Putinists WANT to sell you.
That's not what I said, and you're more of an idiot than I thought if you think that's what I said. I said nothing about it being justified or not in this instance, nor did I comment about it being illegimate, you have invented that.
What struck me was that in a Republican contest one of the contenders is arguing that it is entirely correct to count all mail-in ballots, when other Republicans, in a different context, would switch their support or opposition to counting ballots depending on how they thought they were doing.
If my comment was unclear, it isn't improved by you inventing additional meaning from it which is nowhere justified in anything I have ever said.
So up yours.
"What struck me was that in a Republican contest one of the contenders is arguing that it is entirely correct to count all mail-in ballots, when other Republicans, in a different context, would switch their support or opposition to counting ballots depending on how they thought they were doing."
Clearly candidates and their lawyers are gonna make claims & counter-claims in the heat of battle. Which their supporters may (or may not) support in varying degrees.
You are taking what 45 and his fellow Putinst did as the norm. It is the abnorm.
And while the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo is hollering from the peanut gallery re: PA Primary 2022, both McCormick & Oz are acting appropriately under the circumstances, in referring critical issues that could well affect the election outcome, to the courts for adjudication.
Without the aid (I'm prognosticating) of legal bottom-feeders like Rudy Giuliani & etc.
Turbo I often dislike bastardisations of the English language but Staycation is a good example of a valid new meaning.
It's staying in the UK and it's a vacation. Staycation. Seems okay to me?
And as the Daily Mail will tell you, if you stay at home it's called WFH.
or you could just say I am going to Brighton for a week . For some reason I cringe when people say they are off on a staycation. I am not offended just cringe given they just mean they are going on holiday in the uk
I thought it meant you're off work but not going anywhere.
Language evolves. Some still use it that way, others use it as state_go_away suggests. Not a fan myself, purely because it is now unclear which interpretation people are using, rather than some issue with the word itself.
The same happened to “troll” which, I think, originally meant a person who came on an Internet forum deliberately to stir things up with provocative and offensive opinions they might not even believe. Now it seems to have blurred into someone who might be a bot or someone with a fake ID or someone others simply don’t like
Hate to be a pedant but a troll is "originally" a being in Scandinavian folklore, including Norse mythology. In English it goes back to at least the early C17th. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units. They came to be associated with being antisocial, quarrelsome and slow-witted.
The word came to be used for those on the internet because of their secretive, cloaked, and rather isolated character. For example, anyone who hides behind a VPN
My point is important because it's another example of a word whose meaning has evolved. And you have, presumably unwittingly, just fallen into the same.
I think Staycation is a good update in an age of international travel. Staying at home nowadays means staying in your own country. A global nomad like yourself should appreciate it.
Er, I did know that troll has even older antecedents. I’ve been to Iceland (in fact I am right now proposing to my oldest daughter (just turned 16)) that we go to Iceland, me and her, to do the round the island roadtrip. Last year me and her went to John O Groats and Orkney and far north /Scotland and it was a triumph (apart from Wick). We had good weather but still, she and /i share quirky tastes. We like odd things. It will always be one of my favourite memories of fatherhood, that holiday. Orkney is wonderful.. in the sun…
Er, yeah, where was I. TROLL! It had a definite meaning on the internet, which has now been blurred. Same goes for staycation. That was a brilliant word for a holiday taken in your own home and garden. Now it just means a holiday where you don’t need a passport, which is not anywhere as useful
And the traveller hopes: “Let me be far from any Physician”; and the ports have names for the sea; The citiless, the corroding, the sorrow; And North means to all: “Reject”.
And the great plains are for ever where cold creatures are hunted, And everywhere; the light birds flicker and flaunt; Under a scolding flag the lover Of islands may see at last,
Faintly, his limited hope; as he nears the glitter Of glaciers; the sterile immature mountains intense In the abnormal day of this world, and a river’s Fan-like polyp of sand.
Then let the good citizen here find natural marvels: The horse-shoe ravine, the issue of steam from a cleft In the rock, and rocks, and waterfalls brushing the Rocks, and among the rock birds.
And the student of prose and conduct, places to visit; The site of a church where a bishop was put in a bag, The bath of a great historian, the rock where An outlaw dreaded the dark.
Remember the doomed man thrown by his horse and crying: “Beautiful is the hillside, I will not go”; The old woman “He that I loved the Best, to him I was worst,”
For Europe is absent. This is an island and therefore Unreal. And the steadfast affections of its dead may be bought By those whose dreams accuse them of being Spitefully alive, and the pale
From too much passion of kissing feel pure in its deserts. Can they? For the world is, and the present, and the lie. And the narrow bridge over a torrent, And the small farm under a crag
Are natural settings for the jealousies of a province; And the weak vow of fidelity is formed by the cairn; And within the indigenous figure on horseback On the bridle-path down by the lake
The blood moves also by crooked and furtive inches, Asks all our questions: “Where is the homage? When Shall justice be done? Who is against me? Why am I always alone?”
Present then the world to the world with its mendicant shadow; Let the suits be flash, the Minister of Commerce insane; Let jazz be bestowed on the huts, and the beauty's Set cosmopolitan smile.
For our time has no favourite suburb; no local features Are those of the young for whom all wish to care; The promise is only a promise, the fabulous Country impartially far.
Tears fall in all the rivers. Again some driver Pulls on his gloves and in a blinding snowstorm starts Upon his deadly journey; and again some writer Runs howling to his art.
The atmosphere on the Tory backbenches is "sulphurous" after photos emerged of Boris Johnson raising a toast at Downing Street on Monday evening.
While the majority of MPs on the fence about Mr Johnson's future are waiting until tomorrow to make a decision, the pictorial evidence published by ITV News does not appear to have helped matters.
"I'm going to be waiting until I see the report to make a final decision," a senior Conservative MP and former Cabinet minister tells the Telegraph this afternoon.
"But after those photos came out, the mood has been pretty sulphurous. People are pretty shocked."
torygraff
deja vu all over again
And tonight's Panorama is going to be toxic
Familiar pattern. Something comes out on a Monday or Tuesday. There are two or three days of swirling rumour and tales of angry backbenchers, MPs being flooded with livid emails and letters going to Brady. There is a torrid PMQs. Perhaps an Urgent Question. Anonymous sources tell journalists that this cannot go on and this time it is the end.
And then...
Nothing.
Johnson makes it to the weekend and it all dies down yet again.
The atmosphere on the Tory backbenches is "sulphurous" after photos emerged of Boris Johnson raising a toast at Downing Street on Monday evening.
While the majority of MPs on the fence about Mr Johnson's future are waiting until tomorrow to make a decision, the pictorial evidence published by ITV News does not appear to have helped matters.
"I'm going to be waiting until I see the report to make a final decision," a senior Conservative MP and former Cabinet minister tells the Telegraph this afternoon.
"But after those photos came out, the mood has been pretty sulphurous. People are pretty shocked."
torygraff
deja vu all over again
And tonight's Panorama is going to be toxic
Familiar pattern. Something comes out on a Monday or Tuesday. There are two or three days of swirling rumour and tales of angry backbenchers, MPs being flooded with livid emails and letters going to Brady. There is a torrid PMQs. Perhaps an Urgent Question. Anonymous sources tell journalists that this cannot go on and this time it is the end.
And then...
Nothing.
Johnson makes it to the weekend and it all dies down yet again.
That's because of reasons. Only Tory MPs can do the process needed and it requires this:
54 MPs who believe that
+50% of all Tory MPs
will vote Boris out
and
that there is a candidate or candidates who are a clear winners who will do better in the task of keeping them in their seats.
You won't get 54 letters until the other conditions are fulfilled. They are not.
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
Serious question, what do you do if/when it rains?
Which it does, in Cornwall. A lot
I don’t understand people who go to Cornwall for their main summer holiday en famille. And I am a loyal Cornishman
It’s a rather sweet place, sublime in a few places, but it is really expensive and… the weather. If I was unlucky enough to have just one main holiday, and kids in tow, I would absolutely want guaranteed sun
Once again find myself agreeing with you.
Devon and Cornwall and most of the west side of Britain is okay if the weather is lovely. It frequently isn't. It's bloody hard work with a family if it's raining and the roads become clogged as everyone desperately finds something useful to do. Britain is also now extremely expensive.
Holidaying the UK is all very well during a pandemic but you're rolling the dice on the weather.
If it rains in Devon & Cornwall you're fooked. There's only so many times you can visit a Butterfly Farm and Gnome World.
Tintagel castle, tin mines, the seal sanctuary, Penzance, Truro Cathedral, Flambards,The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Tate Gallery St Ives, St Michael's Mount, Minack Theatre, The Eden Project etc. Plenty to do in Cornwall even if the weather is not blazing sunshine or if it is raining. I remember as I spent half my childhood summers there and it was not always sunny enough for the beach
The atmosphere on the Tory backbenches is "sulphurous" after photos emerged of Boris Johnson raising a toast at Downing Street on Monday evening.
While the majority of MPs on the fence about Mr Johnson's future are waiting until tomorrow to make a decision, the pictorial evidence published by ITV News does not appear to have helped matters.
"I'm going to be waiting until I see the report to make a final decision," a senior Conservative MP and former Cabinet minister tells the Telegraph this afternoon.
"But after those photos came out, the mood has been pretty sulphurous. People are pretty shocked."
torygraff
deja vu all over again
Anonymous outrage on the part of Tory MPs is, of course, quite meaningless.
The state pension is a pittance, and it would be unfair that the poorest pensioners had a real term cut. Those living on cushy final salary pensions, however…
What is a cushy final salary pension anyway? My final salary teaching pension is barely 250 a week for 32 years in the scheme. I won't get my state pension for 6 years so that's my lot. Out of that I have to find 50 a week for energy, so we are hardly cushy.
Not by any means saying 250 a week is cushy however 13000 a year is equivalent to a DC scheme you would need a pension pot of around 556 k
I plugged in figures till I got to about 13k after 32 years
pension contributions from employer and employee had to be 6500 each per year to get a dc pension annuity value of 12877.
Other figures I used were age 24 retirement age 56 and annual salary 40k. That means both employee and employer would have to be putting in 16.25% of salary.
Yes 250 isnt much but it is a damn sight more than most private sector workers are going to get.
It's way over 16% of salary. Index-linked and with a residual pension to spouse until spouse dies. And lump sum of course. With no risk. It's a fiendishly complicated calculation; I tried to crunch the numbers years ago and concluded roughly at 40%. Middle-ranking public sector employees with 40 years service retiring now have DB entitlements which would cost over £1M for someone in the private sector to match. Worth pointing out that some public sector scheme require employee contribution towards this and that some schemes are not as good as they were (e.g. career average rather than final salary).
And of course, for many professional and technical positions, the public sector pays below, sometimes far below, private sector rates.
I doubt that is true (at least not in large numbers) when the pension scheme is taken into account.
The salaries of the public sector, certainly in the civil service, were specifically and actuarially very significantly reduced to take the pension scheme into account, certainly when I moved into it in the early 1990s and looked very carefully at the matter. (We also had to pay contribs to the scheme. I forget the sum but it was a non-trivial one, about 8%.) The salaries never really grew enough to outdo this and in recent decades were increased well below inflation. The pension scheme was also signidficantly downgraded ca 2000 and again ca 2010 "becayse it had to be comparable with the private sector etc etc).
For accounting purposes the civil service use a notional employer contribution of around 30% which seems about right for the slightly less generous alpha scheme in place now- Before with final salary schemes being accrued then it was a lot higher . For comparison the minimum legal employer contribution in the private sector is 3% and most pay less than 10%
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared a wartime state of emergency immediately after his new government was installed.
The state of emergency, a new tool Parliament approved earlier on Tuesday, will take effect at midnight and will give the government “maneuvering room and the ability to react immediately” to the fallout from the war in neighboring Ukraine.
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
Serious question, what do you do if/when it rains?
Which it does, in Cornwall. A lot
I don’t understand people who go to Cornwall for their main summer holiday en famille. And I am a loyal Cornishman
It’s a rather sweet place, sublime in a few places, but it is really expensive and… the weather. If I was unlucky enough to have just one main holiday, and kids in tow, I would absolutely want guaranteed sun
Once again find myself agreeing with you.
Devon and Cornwall and most of the west side of Britain is okay if the weather is lovely. It frequently isn't. It's bloody hard work with a family if it's raining and the roads become clogged as everyone desperately finds something useful to do. Britain is also now extremely expensive.
Holidaying the UK is all very well during a pandemic but you're rolling the dice on the weather.
If it rains in Devon & Cornwall you're fooked. There's only so many times you can visit a Butterfly Farm and Gnome World.
Tintagel castle, tin mines, the seal sanctuary, Penzance, Truro Cathedral, Flambards,The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Tate Gallery St Ives, St Michael's Mount, Minack Theatre, The Eden Project etc. Plenty to do in Cornwall even if the weather is not blazing sunshine or if it is raining. I remember as I spent half my childhood summers there and it was not always sunny enough for the beach
2/3rds of those I wouldn't touch with a proverbial in the rain ... they're bloody miserable when it sets in.
I mean Tintagel Castle, the Minack, St Michael's? They're bloody isolated coastal outcrops with bugger all shelter.
I doubt the Gray report makes the slightest difference, most Tory voters remaining have already decided they could not care less about partygate.
Far more significant would be a poll showing a Hunt or Sunak or Truss or Wallace led Tories leading Starmer Labour while Johnson's Tories continue to trail. It was polls in 1990 showing a Heseltine or Major led Tories leading Kinnock Labour while a Thatcher led Tories trailed that did for Maggie. Similarly in 2019 it was polls showing a Johnson led Tories leading Corbyn Labour while the May led Tories trailed that did for Theresa. Equally polls in 2007 showing a Brown led Labour briefly doing better than Blair led Labour led to Labour MPs pressure to push Blair to name a resignation date.
At the end of the day a majority of Tory MPs will only care about removing Johnson if they think it will save their seats, whatever Gray says.
Where there polls showing that a Thatcher lead Tory party would get a better result than a Heath-led one before his political demise?
Like most Tory leaders, Mrs Thatcher was elected — by the self-styled most sophisticated electorate in the world — by mistake. She was, arguably, the Jeremy Corbyn of her day.
She was very much sponsored by Airey Neave. But my point was, she wasn't seen as a front runner till she challenged Ted Heath.
To be fair to Kissinger, he built his career on negotiations telling ostensibly weaker powers they had to give up territory to make peace with larger ones. The Ukrainians will probably pay him as much attention as did the Vietnamese.
Kissinger is an idiot. On his idea, basically the US should invade Canada and when they resist, the world should tell the Canadians to just cede land to make them stop. In fact, on his idea, only nuclear armed states would exist. So from 200 odd countries to just 10 in the space of a week. It's an idea I suppose.
The Americans don't need to invade Canada because it is firmly within their sphere of influence. You only get invasions by bigger powers when the sphere of influence is contested. When Canada was part of Britain's Empire, America did indeed have plans to invade it.
The atmosphere on the Tory backbenches is "sulphurous" after photos emerged of Boris Johnson raising a toast at Downing Street on Monday evening.
While the majority of MPs on the fence about Mr Johnson's future are waiting until tomorrow to make a decision, the pictorial evidence published by ITV News does not appear to have helped matters.
"I'm going to be waiting until I see the report to make a final decision," a senior Conservative MP and former Cabinet minister tells the Telegraph this afternoon.
"But after those photos came out, the mood has been pretty sulphurous. People are pretty shocked."
torygraff
deja vu all over again
Anonymous outrage on the part of Tory MPs is, of course, quite meaningless.
Not meaningless at all, necessary to keep Tory waverers in the fold or bring them back later on as we get closer to the next election.
I love the way that Bozo apologists are claiming that the leaving drinks was not against the rules, even though some of the attendees were fined for being there.
Try again.
Who was fined for being there? And when was that announced.
Being fined while at an event is not the same as being fined for being there. If I go to a concert and someone there is fined for taking drugs, does that mean that the concert itself was unlawful? Or that the actions of the individual fined were?
Sky have said just one person was fined at that event
All seems very strange
That does make me wonder what stupid thing they said that no one else did that meant the police felt their behaviour, and only theirs, had crossed the line.
Presumably they were foolish enough to be honest when answering the police questionnaire.
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
Serious question, what do you do if/when it rains?
Which it does, in Cornwall. A lot
I don’t understand people who go to Cornwall for their main summer holiday en famille. And I am a loyal Cornishman
It’s a rather sweet place, sublime in a few places, but it is really expensive and… the weather. If I was unlucky enough to have just one main holiday, and kids in tow, I would absolutely want guaranteed sun
Once again find myself agreeing with you.
Devon and Cornwall and most of the west side of Britain is okay if the weather is lovely. It frequently isn't. It's bloody hard work with a family if it's raining and the roads become clogged as everyone desperately finds something useful to do. Britain is also now extremely expensive.
Holidaying the UK is all very well during a pandemic but you're rolling the dice on the weather.
If it rains in Devon & Cornwall you're fooked. There's only so many times you can visit a Butterfly Farm and Gnome World.
Tintagel castle, tin mines, the seal sanctuary, Penzance, Truro Cathedral, Flambards,The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Tate Gallery St Ives, St Michael's Mount, Minack Theatre, The Eden Project etc. Plenty to do in Cornwall even if the weather is not blazing sunshine or if it is raining. I remember as I spent half my childhood summers there and it was not always sunny enough for the beach
2/3rds of those I wouldn't touch with a proverbial in the rain ... they're bloody miserable when it sets in.
I mean Tintagel Castle, the Minack, St Michael's? They're bloody isolated coastal outcrops with bugger all shelter.
Plus with the minack it rather depends what's on and whether you booked 6 months ago before it sold out
saw Show of Hands there a couple of years back. V good.
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
Serious question, what do you do if/when it rains?
Which it does, in Cornwall. A lot
I don’t understand people who go to Cornwall for their main summer holiday en famille. And I am a loyal Cornishman
It’s a rather sweet place, sublime in a few places, but it is really expensive and… the weather. If I was unlucky enough to have just one main holiday, and kids in tow, I would absolutely want guaranteed sun
Once again find myself agreeing with you.
Devon and Cornwall and most of the west side of Britain is okay if the weather is lovely. It frequently isn't. It's bloody hard work with a family if it's raining and the roads become clogged as everyone desperately finds something useful to do. Britain is also now extremely expensive.
Holidaying the UK is all very well during a pandemic but you're rolling the dice on the weather.
If it rains in Devon & Cornwall you're fooked. There's only so many times you can visit a Butterfly Farm and Gnome World.
Tintagel castle, tin mines, the seal sanctuary, Penzance, Truro Cathedral, Flambards,The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Tate Gallery St Ives, St Michael's Mount, Minack Theatre, The Eden Project etc. Plenty to do in Cornwall even if the weather is not blazing sunshine or if it is raining. I remember as I spent half my childhood summers there and it was not always sunny enough for the beach
2/3rds of those I wouldn't touch with a proverbial in the rain ... they're bloody miserable when it sets in.
I mean Tintagel Castle, the Minack, St Michael's? They're bloody isolated coastal outcrops with bugger all shelter.
St Michael's Mount is actually partly a castle/stately home, fine in the rain, Tintagel castle is fine if it is grey as long as not heavy downpours. Or go down a tin mine like Geevor, ideal in the rain, followed by a pasty in the pub
far be it from me to advise TV schedulers but who the hell watches serious political programmes at 7pm - 9pm is the right time with a stiff drink but 7pm is fun after work time
Turbo I often dislike bastardisations of the English language but Staycation is a good example of a valid new meaning.
It's staying in the UK and it's a vacation. Staycation. Seems okay to me?
And as the Daily Mail will tell you, if you stay at home it's called WFH.
or you could just say I am going to Brighton for a week . For some reason I cringe when people say they are off on a staycation. I am not offended just cringe given they just mean they are going on holiday in the uk
I thought it meant you're off work but not going anywhere.
Language evolves. Some still use it that way, others use it as state_go_away suggests. Not a fan myself, purely because it is now unclear which interpretation people are using, rather than some issue with the word itself.
The same happened to “troll” which, I think, originally meant a person who came on an Internet forum deliberately to stir things up with provocative and offensive opinions they might not even believe. Now it seems to have blurred into someone who might be a bot or someone with a fake ID or someone others simply don’t like
Hate to be a pedant but a troll is "originally" a being in Scandinavian folklore, including Norse mythology. In English it goes back to at least the early C17th. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units. They came to be associated with being antisocial, quarrelsome and slow-witted.
The word came to be used for those on the internet because of their secretive, cloaked, and rather isolated character. For example, anyone who hides behind a VPN
My point is important because it's another example of a word whose meaning has evolved. And you have, presumably unwittingly, just fallen into the same.
I think Staycation is a good update in an age of international travel. Staying at home nowadays means staying in your own country. A global nomad like yourself should appreciate it.
Er, I did know that troll has even older antecedents. I’ve been to Iceland (in fact I am right now proposing to my oldest daughter (just turned 16)) that we go to Iceland, me and her, to do the round the island roadtrip. Last year me and her went to John O Groats and Orkney and far north /Scotland and it was a triumph (apart from Wick). We had good weather but still, she and /i share quirky tastes. We like odd things. It will always be one of my favourite memories of fatherhood, that holiday. Orkney is wonderful.. in the sun…
Er, yeah, where was I. TROLL! It had a definite meaning on the internet, which has now been blurred. Same goes for staycation. That was a brilliant word for a holiday taken in your own home and garden. Now it just means a holiday where you don’t need a passport, which is not anywhere as useful
And the traveller hopes: “Let me be far from any Physician”; and the ports have names for the sea; The citiless, the corroding, the sorrow; And North means to all: “Reject”.
And the great plains are for ever where cold creatures are hunted, And everywhere; the light birds flicker and flaunt; Under a scolding flag the lover Of islands may see at last,
Faintly, his limited hope; as he nears the glitter Of glaciers; the sterile immature mountains intense In the abnormal day of this world, and a river’s Fan-like polyp of sand.
Then let the good citizen here find natural marvels: The horse-shoe ravine, the issue of steam from a cleft In the rock, and rocks, and waterfalls brushing the Rocks, and among the rock birds.
And the student of prose and conduct, places to visit; The site of a church where a bishop was put in a bag, The bath of a great historian, the rock where An outlaw dreaded the dark.
Remember the doomed man thrown by his horse and crying: “Beautiful is the hillside, I will not go”; The old woman “He that I loved the Best, to him I was worst,”
For Europe is absent. This is an island and therefore Unreal. And the steadfast affections of its dead may be bought By those whose dreams accuse them of being Spitefully alive, and the pale
From too much passion of kissing feel pure in its deserts. Can they? For the world is, and the present, and the lie. And the narrow bridge over a torrent, And the small farm under a crag
Are natural settings for the jealousies of a province; And the weak vow of fidelity is formed by the cairn; And within the indigenous figure on horseback On the bridle-path down by the lake
The blood moves also by crooked and furtive inches, Asks all our questions: “Where is the homage? When Shall justice be done? Who is against me? Why am I always alone?”
Present then the world to the world with its mendicant shadow; Let the suits be flash, the Minister of Commerce insane; Let jazz be bestowed on the huts, and the beauty's Set cosmopolitan smile.
For our time has no favourite suburb; no local features Are those of the young for whom all wish to care; The promise is only a promise, the fabulous Country impartially far.
Tears fall in all the rivers. Again some driver Pulls on his gloves and in a blinding snowstorm starts Upon his deadly journey; and again some writer Runs howling to his art.
Never read that before. So I googled it. I am proud to say I guessed it might be Auden - the rhythm and the rhyming - it’s so Auden - and I knew he went to Iceland - but that particular poem is new to me
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared a wartime state of emergency immediately after his new government was installed.
The state of emergency, a new tool Parliament approved earlier on Tuesday, will take effect at midnight and will give the government “maneuvering room and the ability to react immediately” to the fallout from the war in neighboring Ukraine.
Turbo I often dislike bastardisations of the English language but Staycation is a good example of a valid new meaning.
It's staying in the UK and it's a vacation. Staycation. Seems okay to me?
And as the Daily Mail will tell you, if you stay at home it's called WFH.
or you could just say I am going to Brighton for a week . For some reason I cringe when people say they are off on a staycation. I am not offended just cringe given they just mean they are going on holiday in the uk
I thought it meant you're off work but not going anywhere.
Language evolves. Some still use it that way, others use it as state_go_away suggests. Not a fan myself, purely because it is now unclear which interpretation people are using, rather than some issue with the word itself.
The same happened to “troll” which, I think, originally meant a person who came on an Internet forum deliberately to stir things up with provocative and offensive opinions they might not even believe. Now it seems to have blurred into someone who might be a bot or someone with a fake ID or someone others simply don’t like
Hate to be a pedant but a troll is "originally" a being in Scandinavian folklore, including Norse mythology. In English it goes back to at least the early C17th. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units. They came to be associated with being antisocial, quarrelsome and slow-witted.
The word came to be used for those on the internet because of their secretive, cloaked, and rather isolated character. For example, anyone who hides behind a VPN
My point is important because it's another example of a word whose meaning has evolved. And you have, presumably unwittingly, just fallen into the same.
I think Staycation is a good update in an age of international travel. Staying at home nowadays means staying in your own country. A global nomad like yourself should appreciate it.
Er, I did know that troll has even older antecedents. I’ve been to Iceland (in fact I am right now proposing to my oldest daughter (just turned 16)) that we go to Iceland, me and her, to do the round the island roadtrip. Last year me and her went to John O Groats and Orkney and far north /Scotland and it was a triumph (apart from Wick). We had good weather but still, she and /i share quirky tastes. We like odd things. It will always be one of my favourite memories of fatherhood, that holiday. Orkney is wonderful.. in the sun…
Er, yeah, where was I. TROLL! It had a definite meaning on the internet, which has now been blurred. Same goes for staycation. That was a brilliant word for a holiday taken in your own home and garden. Now it just means a holiday where you don’t need a passport, which is not anywhere as useful
And the traveller hopes: “Let me be far from any Physician”; and the ports have names for the sea; The citiless, the corroding, the sorrow; And North means to all: “Reject”.
And the great plains are for ever where cold creatures are hunted, And everywhere; the light birds flicker and flaunt; Under a scolding flag the lover Of islands may see at last,
Faintly, his limited hope; as he nears the glitter Of glaciers; the sterile immature mountains intense In the abnormal day of this world, and a river’s Fan-like polyp of sand.
Then let the good citizen here find natural marvels: The horse-shoe ravine, the issue of steam from a cleft In the rock, and rocks, and waterfalls brushing the Rocks, and among the rock birds.
And the student of prose and conduct, places to visit; The site of a church where a bishop was put in a bag, The bath of a great historian, the rock where An outlaw dreaded the dark.
Remember the doomed man thrown by his horse and crying: “Beautiful is the hillside, I will not go”; The old woman “He that I loved the Best, to him I was worst,”
For Europe is absent. This is an island and therefore Unreal. And the steadfast affections of its dead may be bought By those whose dreams accuse them of being Spitefully alive, and the pale
From too much passion of kissing feel pure in its deserts. Can they? For the world is, and the present, and the lie. And the narrow bridge over a torrent, And the small farm under a crag
Are natural settings for the jealousies of a province; And the weak vow of fidelity is formed by the cairn; And within the indigenous figure on horseback On the bridle-path down by the lake
The blood moves also by crooked and furtive inches, Asks all our questions: “Where is the homage? When Shall justice be done? Who is against me? Why am I always alone?”
Present then the world to the world with its mendicant shadow; Let the suits be flash, the Minister of Commerce insane; Let jazz be bestowed on the huts, and the beauty's Set cosmopolitan smile.
For our time has no favourite suburb; no local features Are those of the young for whom all wish to care; The promise is only a promise, the fabulous Country impartially far.
Tears fall in all the rivers. Again some driver Pulls on his gloves and in a blinding snowstorm starts Upon his deadly journey; and again some writer Runs howling to his art.
Never read that before. So I googled it. I am proud to say I guessed it might be Auden - the rhythm and the rhyming - it’s so Auden - and I knew he went to Iceland - but that particular poem is new to me
What a poet he is. His lustre grows, over time
its a bit of a standard guess though for anything norse and poetry isnt it? A bit like everyone guessing Oscar Wilde when a "who said this quote" is asked
Turbo I often dislike bastardisations of the English language but Staycation is a good example of a valid new meaning.
It's staying in the UK and it's a vacation. Staycation. Seems okay to me?
And as the Daily Mail will tell you, if you stay at home it's called WFH.
or you could just say I am going to Brighton for a week . For some reason I cringe when people say they are off on a staycation. I am not offended just cringe given they just mean they are going on holiday in the uk
I thought it meant you're off work but not going anywhere.
Language evolves. Some still use it that way, others use it as state_go_away suggests. Not a fan myself, purely because it is now unclear which interpretation people are using, rather than some issue with the word itself.
The same happened to “troll” which, I think, originally meant a person who came on an Internet forum deliberately to stir things up with provocative and offensive opinions they might not even believe. Now it seems to have blurred into someone who might be a bot or someone with a fake ID or someone others simply don’t like
Hate to be a pedant but a troll is "originally" a being in Scandinavian folklore, including Norse mythology. In English it goes back to at least the early C17th. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units. They came to be associated with being antisocial, quarrelsome and slow-witted.
The word came to be used for those on the internet because of their secretive, cloaked, and rather isolated character. For example, anyone who hides behind a VPN
My point is important because it's another example of a word whose meaning has evolved. And you have, presumably unwittingly, just fallen into the same.
I think Staycation is a good update in an age of international travel. Staying at home nowadays means staying in your own country. A global nomad like yourself should appreciate it.
Er, I did know that troll has even older antecedents. I’ve been to Iceland (in fact I am right now proposing to my oldest daughter (just turned 16)) that we go to Iceland, me and her, to do the round the island roadtrip. Last year me and her went to John O Groats and Orkney and far north /Scotland and it was a triumph (apart from Wick). We had good weather but still, she and /i share quirky tastes. We like odd things. It will always be one of my favourite memories of fatherhood, that holiday. Orkney is wonderful.. in the sun…
Er, yeah, where was I. TROLL! It had a definite meaning on the internet, which has now been blurred. Same goes for staycation. That was a brilliant word for a holiday taken in your own home and garden. Now it just means a holiday where you don’t need a passport, which is not anywhere as useful
And the traveller hopes: “Let me be far from any Physician”; and the ports have names for the sea; The citiless, the corroding, the sorrow; And North means to all: “Reject”.
And the great plains are for ever where cold creatures are hunted, And everywhere; the light birds flicker and flaunt; Under a scolding flag the lover Of islands may see at last,
Faintly, his limited hope; as he nears the glitter Of glaciers; the sterile immature mountains intense In the abnormal day of this world, and a river’s Fan-like polyp of sand.
Then let the good citizen here find natural marvels: The horse-shoe ravine, the issue of steam from a cleft In the rock, and rocks, and waterfalls brushing the Rocks, and among the rock birds.
And the student of prose and conduct, places to visit; The site of a church where a bishop was put in a bag, The bath of a great historian, the rock where An outlaw dreaded the dark.
Remember the doomed man thrown by his horse and crying: “Beautiful is the hillside, I will not go”; The old woman “He that I loved the Best, to him I was worst,”
For Europe is absent. This is an island and therefore Unreal. And the steadfast affections of its dead may be bought By those whose dreams accuse them of being Spitefully alive, and the pale
From too much passion of kissing feel pure in its deserts. Can they? For the world is, and the present, and the lie. And the narrow bridge over a torrent, And the small farm under a crag
Are natural settings for the jealousies of a province; And the weak vow of fidelity is formed by the cairn; And within the indigenous figure on horseback On the bridle-path down by the lake
The blood moves also by crooked and furtive inches, Asks all our questions: “Where is the homage? When Shall justice be done? Who is against me? Why am I always alone?”
Present then the world to the world with its mendicant shadow; Let the suits be flash, the Minister of Commerce insane; Let jazz be bestowed on the huts, and the beauty's Set cosmopolitan smile.
For our time has no favourite suburb; no local features Are those of the young for whom all wish to care; The promise is only a promise, the fabulous Country impartially far.
Tears fall in all the rivers. Again some driver Pulls on his gloves and in a blinding snowstorm starts Upon his deadly journey; and again some writer Runs howling to his art.
Never read that before. So I googled it. I am proud to say I guessed it might be Auden - the rhythm and the rhyming - it’s so Auden - and I knew he went to Iceland - but that particular poem is new to me
What a poet he is. His lustre grows, over time
if I were his editor I'd have a word about the last couple of lines. Otherwise, love it, and as you say distinctively Auden.
This is so silly. One mans arrogance and narcistic personality have created it. Any one else would, should or been made to go in November, December 2021. Thisa would have been forgotten after Christmas, instead ............ How can anyone support suich a man?
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
Serious question, what do you do if/when it rains?
Which it does, in Cornwall. A lot
I don’t understand people who go to Cornwall for their main summer holiday en famille. And I am a loyal Cornishman
It’s a rather sweet place, sublime in a few places, but it is really expensive and… the weather. If I was unlucky enough to have just one main holiday, and kids in tow, I would absolutely want guaranteed sun
Once again find myself agreeing with you.
Devon and Cornwall and most of the west side of Britain is okay if the weather is lovely. It frequently isn't. It's bloody hard work with a family if it's raining and the roads become clogged as everyone desperately finds something useful to do. Britain is also now extremely expensive.
Holidaying the UK is all very well during a pandemic but you're rolling the dice on the weather.
If it rains in Devon & Cornwall you're fooked. There's only so many times you can visit a Butterfly Farm and Gnome World.
I just don’t get it
If you’re in west Cornwall (St Ives, Penzance, Falmouth etc) then your rainy day options are… er…. The Tate, St Ives? How many kids will enjoy that? Maybe Poldark mine. Um. Um. A couple of second rate museums. A terrible amusement park. Or the pub, again.
It’s crap. And I love Cornwall.
Personally I’d be OK yomping around megalithic monuments (lots of those!), seeking out weird history, doing a bit of rough weather sea fishing (the danger!) but this is not most kids’ idea of heaven. And even then if this was my one and only holiday I’d want SUN, having spent the rest of the year in rainy Britain. And UK prices are high
I genuinely don’t understand why people make this choice
Yeah I don't get it either. It's such a gamble on the weather and it really isn't a cheaper option even for a family.
I've driven many times en famille to the south of France, Spain and several times to Italy. Yep it's a long drive but if you stop off you can make it fun.
And with budget airlines you can also still snap up cheap fares, even in the holidays and even with a large family.
Loads of places around Europe which aren't crazily busy, even in August. Try Galicia (Spain) as just one example of a cheap alternative with better weather than Britain.
Likewise Calabria, Epirus, Alentejo, Izmir…. And several others. All places where you can get cheap ish direct flights and the sun is guaranteed so even if the family bickers you can always go to the beach and eat grilled sardines for five people plus bread and wine for about £7 or whatever
Not always the most beautiful parts of Europe (tho all have marvels), but all full of fun and interest. And cheap. Oh so much cheaper than Britain
This is so silly. One mans arrogance and narcistic personality have created it. Any one else would, should or been made to go in November, December 2021. Thisa would have been forgotten after Christmas, instead ............ How can anyone support suich a man?
This is so silly. One mans arrogance and narcistic personality have created it. Any one else would, should or been made to go in November, December 2021. Thisa would have been forgotten after Christmas, instead ............ How can anyone support suich a man?
Making up for his sexual inadequacies by showing his ability to keep a tantric scandal going for months?
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared a wartime state of emergency immediately after his new government was installed.
The state of emergency, a new tool Parliament approved earlier on Tuesday, will take effect at midnight and will give the government “maneuvering room and the ability to react immediately” to the fallout from the war in neighboring Ukraine.
So a "new tool" for that old tool Orban. As 45 and Boris look on enviously.
Do you seriously believe that Boris is a would be dictator?
Your Prime Minister is the kind that takes what he can grab . . . then looks to grab some more.
So impossible to say where his current trajectory re: lawbreaking & etc. could lead. Except that HE is unlikely to be his own governor in this respect.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared a wartime state of emergency immediately after his new government was installed.
The state of emergency, a new tool Parliament approved earlier on Tuesday, will take effect at midnight and will give the government “maneuvering room and the ability to react immediately” to the fallout from the war in neighboring Ukraine.
This is so silly. One mans arrogance and narcistic personality have created it. Any one else would, should or been made to go in November, December 2021. Thisa would have been forgotten after Christmas, instead ............ How can anyone support suich a man?
far be it from me to advise TV schedulers but who the hell watches serious political programmes at 7pm - 9pm is the right time with a stiff drink but 7pm is fun after work time
The Panorama programme would only be worth watching if it had the inside story about the police investigation - which is the definitive version of events.
Turbo I often dislike bastardisations of the English language but Staycation is a good example of a valid new meaning.
It's staying in the UK and it's a vacation. Staycation. Seems okay to me?
And as the Daily Mail will tell you, if you stay at home it's called WFH.
or you could just say I am going to Brighton for a week . For some reason I cringe when people say they are off on a staycation. I am not offended just cringe given they just mean they are going on holiday in the uk
I thought it meant you're off work but not going anywhere.
Language evolves. Some still use it that way, others use it as state_go_away suggests. Not a fan myself, purely because it is now unclear which interpretation people are using, rather than some issue with the word itself.
The same happened to “troll” which, I think, originally meant a person who came on an Internet forum deliberately to stir things up with provocative and offensive opinions they might not even believe. Now it seems to have blurred into someone who might be a bot or someone with a fake ID or someone others simply don’t like
Hate to be a pedant but a troll is "originally" a being in Scandinavian folklore, including Norse mythology. In English it goes back to at least the early C17th. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units. They came to be associated with being antisocial, quarrelsome and slow-witted.
The word came to be used for those on the internet because of their secretive, cloaked, and rather isolated character. For example, anyone who hides behind a VPN
My point is important because it's another example of a word whose meaning has evolved. And you have, presumably unwittingly, just fallen into the same.
I think Staycation is a good update in an age of international travel. Staying at home nowadays means staying in your own country. A global nomad like yourself should appreciate it.
Er, I did know that troll has even older antecedents. I’ve been to Iceland (in fact I am right now proposing to my oldest daughter (just turned 16)) that we go to Iceland, me and her, to do the round the island roadtrip. Last year me and her went to John O Groats and Orkney and far north /Scotland and it was a triumph (apart from Wick). We had good weather but still, she and /i share quirky tastes. We like odd things. It will always be one of my favourite memories of fatherhood, that holiday. Orkney is wonderful.. in the sun…
Er, yeah, where was I. TROLL! It had a definite meaning on the internet, which has now been blurred. Same goes for staycation. That was a brilliant word for a holiday taken in your own home and garden. Now it just means a holiday where you don’t need a passport, which is not anywhere as useful
And the traveller hopes: “Let me be far from any Physician”; and the ports have names for the sea; The citiless, the corroding, the sorrow; And North means to all: “Reject”.
And the great plains are for ever where cold creatures are hunted, And everywhere; the light birds flicker and flaunt; Under a scolding flag the lover Of islands may see at last,
Faintly, his limited hope; as he nears the glitter Of glaciers; the sterile immature mountains intense In the abnormal day of this world, and a river’s Fan-like polyp of sand.
Then let the good citizen here find natural marvels: The horse-shoe ravine, the issue of steam from a cleft In the rock, and rocks, and waterfalls brushing the Rocks, and among the rock birds.
And the student of prose and conduct, places to visit; The site of a church where a bishop was put in a bag, The bath of a great historian, the rock where An outlaw dreaded the dark.
Remember the doomed man thrown by his horse and crying: “Beautiful is the hillside, I will not go”; The old woman “He that I loved the Best, to him I was worst,”
For Europe is absent. This is an island and therefore Unreal. And the steadfast affections of its dead may be bought By those whose dreams accuse them of being Spitefully alive, and the pale
From too much passion of kissing feel pure in its deserts. Can they? For the world is, and the present, and the lie. And the narrow bridge over a torrent, And the small farm under a crag
Are natural settings for the jealousies of a province; And the weak vow of fidelity is formed by the cairn; And within the indigenous figure on horseback On the bridle-path down by the lake
The blood moves also by crooked and furtive inches, Asks all our questions: “Where is the homage? When Shall justice be done? Who is against me? Why am I always alone?”
Present then the world to the world with its mendicant shadow; Let the suits be flash, the Minister of Commerce insane; Let jazz be bestowed on the huts, and the beauty's Set cosmopolitan smile.
For our time has no favourite suburb; no local features Are those of the young for whom all wish to care; The promise is only a promise, the fabulous Country impartially far.
Tears fall in all the rivers. Again some driver Pulls on his gloves and in a blinding snowstorm starts Upon his deadly journey; and again some writer Runs howling to his art.
Never read that before. So I googled it. I am proud to say I guessed it might be Auden - the rhythm and the rhyming - it’s so Auden - and I knew he went to Iceland - but that particular poem is new to me
What a poet he is. His lustre grows, over time
its a bit of a standard guess though for anything norse and poetry isnt it? A bit like everyone guessing Oscar Wilde when a "who said this quote" is asked
No. He has a distinct, distantly humourous cadence, at times
“The site of a church where a bishop was put in a bag”
Classic Auden. That’s the line where I thought Ah this is Auden - reminiscent of Musee des Beaux Arts
Yes, Sam Coates looks like an incredible tw@t doing that.
Johnson Fanbois lining up with likes there....
And blithering Johnson haters arguing Coates looks untwatlike. And making themselves twats in the process.
only one supporter there....
what's not to hate btw?, a serial liar, a conspirator with Darius Guppy to get someone assaulted?, someone sacked from newspaper jobs twice for lying?, a person who cheated on wives, one with cancer, someone who doesn't even know how many children he has? Talk about an Eton Mess...
Not noticeably so when I was booking our fortnight in Cornwall... Not much availability and way more expensive than three years ago. Still cheaper and easier than flying a family of five out to the Med somewhere in July/August. IMHO going on a foreign holiday in the summer is just as mad as going on a UK holiday any other time of the year.
Serious question, what do you do if/when it rains?
Which it does, in Cornwall. A lot
I don’t understand people who go to Cornwall for their main summer holiday en famille. And I am a loyal Cornishman
It’s a rather sweet place, sublime in a few places, but it is really expensive and… the weather. If I was unlucky enough to have just one main holiday, and kids in tow, I would absolutely want guaranteed sun
Once again find myself agreeing with you.
Devon and Cornwall and most of the west side of Britain is okay if the weather is lovely. It frequently isn't. It's bloody hard work with a family if it's raining and the roads become clogged as everyone desperately finds something useful to do. Britain is also now extremely expensive.
Holidaying the UK is all very well during a pandemic but you're rolling the dice on the weather.
If it rains in Devon & Cornwall you're fooked. There's only so many times you can visit a Butterfly Farm and Gnome World.
Tintagel castle, tin mines, the seal sanctuary, Penzance, Truro Cathedral, Flambards,The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Tate Gallery St Ives, St Michael's Mount, Minack Theatre, The Eden Project etc. Plenty to do in Cornwall even if the weather is not blazing sunshine or if it is raining. I remember as I spent half my childhood summers there and it was not always sunny enough for the beach
As @Heathener says, many of those are shite in rain. And Truro Cathedral is probably the most boring Anglican cathedral in Britain, after Guildford. Moreover, if you get a wet week (or, god forbid, fortnight) you would rock through those pretty quickly, you wouldn’t want to go back
Yet families return to Cornwall, year after year. I’m glad they do, for the sake of the Cornish tourist industry, but it still mystifies me
far be it from me to advise TV schedulers but who the hell watches serious political programmes at 7pm - 9pm is the right time with a stiff drink but 7pm is fun after work time
The Fun Show?
7 means Emmerdale good luck to anything up against it.
Anyway, yesterdays photo has gained no traction then, 24hrs later slipped right down the news bulletins and right off the online pages. Partygate fatigue now?
Comments
RipOff Britain is back. Far better to go abroad now.
The best of all positions is to have worked in the private sector (e.g. one of the large banks) starting in, say, the 80s and stuck with that employer. (DB schemes in the private sector have all gone now of course.)
Someone lucky enough to be in that position would have a funded pot of hundreds of thousands (we've seen many over a million) who can literally lift (well not literally but you know what I mean) and place in a private pension plan.
The £1M is then in a flexible pot (technically a trust) which you can draw on as-and-when and then - if you don't need it all - can be passed down in entirety to spouse and then inter-generationally to children! All IHT free because a pension fund is a trust. Public sector employees are bloody lucky but even they don't get this.
When given this option 9 times out of 10 the retiree values the flexibility and inheritability of this approach (which was Osborne's reform) above their ex-employer's copper-bottomed DB scheme benefits.
Set for life. Lucky buggers. And I say "lucky" wisely because I'd bet money that they didn't appreciate the significance of the pension scheme when then took up employment all those years ago. "Oh, there's a pension scheme - that's nice".
Sky are deliberately having him shout these questions knowing it will make the cabinet look stupid and shifty. That is now the news agenda for all news outlets bar the Heil (execute Starmer), The Maddie (Nothing to See Here! Bloody EU) and The S*N (we can't talk about Downing Street piss-ups because our political editor was there and we covered it up).
For everyone else there are gallons of blood in the water. Rival news outlets have been fed delicious exclusives and their own teams are being whipped to get their own. This will not die down of its own accord, not when Downing Street keeps making such spectacular own goals as sending out Simon No Brain Clarke on telly to lie for them.
It's staying in the UK and it's a vacation. Staycation. Seems okay to me?
And as the Daily Mail will tell you, if you stay at home it's called WFH.
The police have investigated.
Now the Mayor of London and others want the police to be investigated because they did not give the result those opposed to Boris Johnson wanted.
Seattle Times ($) - Google Maps workers in WA say they can’t afford the trip back to the office
Google Maps contract employees who are required to return to their office in Washington state recently circulated a petition to keep working from home since some cannot afford their commutes, presenting another challenge to Google’s plan to refill offices and restore campus life.
The issue affects more than 200 workers who are employed by outsourcing firm Cognizant Technology Solutions, which mandated that they work in an office in Bothell five days a week starting June 6. The workers play an essential role updating routes and destinations on Google Maps, a service used by more than 1 billion people a month.
About 60% of the 200 workers signed the petition. They demanded that managers suspend the return-to-office timeline and first address employees’ financial, health and child care concerns.
“Gas is around $5 per gallon currently, and many of us in the office are not able to afford to live close to the office due to our low salaries and the high cost of housing in Bothell,” the Cognizant employees wrote. The petition was supported by the Alphabet Workers Union, which has more than 900 members employed by Google’s parent company, Alphabet, and its suppliers.
Full-time Google employees with office jobs have been told to come in three days a week. In interviews, the Cognizant employees called for the same flexibility. Starting June 6, they will no longer have access to work systems from home.
The policies highlight disparities between Google’s direct employees and contractors. Google is estimated to have well more than 100,000 temporary, vendor and contract workers who spend their time on Google projects but officially work for other companies. Google does not disclose the number. . . .
The inland Peloponnese is virtually deserted in August, and it is beautiful and historic up in the mountains. Yes it will be hot
On his idea, basically the US should invade Canada and when they resist, the world should tell the Canadians to just cede land to make them stop.
In fact, on his idea, only nuclear armed states would exist. So from 200 odd countries to just 10 in the space of a week. It's an idea I suppose.
Some local sides?
It is rather strange that my wife's family home, her late brother 's home and the care home her father went to when her mother died suddenly are all now bed and breakfast or hotels in Lossiemouth
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/24/mets-outrageous-handling-partygate-undermines-entire-legal-system/
I'll be interested in Cyclefree's opinion on this and those of others too of course
Which it does, in Cornwall. A lot
I don’t understand people who go to Cornwall for their main summer holiday en famille. And I am a loyal Cornishman
It’s a rather sweet place, sublime in a few places, but it is really expensive and… the weather. If I was unlucky enough to have just one main holiday, and kids in tow, I would absolutely want guaranteed sun
NOT akin to PA situation at all.
Plus may one hazard the guess, that Oz candidates & parties are NOT entirely bereft of legal counsel at this juncture. Just do not feel need (at least yet) to actually go to court. In the absence of say a legal opinion just handed down, in different case, that has bearing in actual vote counting?
Now it just means “a domestic holiday”. Tut
The same happened to “troll” which, I think, originally meant a person who came on an Internet forum deliberately to stir things up with provocative and offensive opinions they might not even believe. Now it seems to have blurred into someone who might be a bot or someone with a fake ID or someone others simply don’t like
Idea that taking electoral matter before a judge is ipso facto illegitimate, is just the kind of chickenfeed that 45 and fellow Putinists WANT to sell you.
Devon and Cornwall and most of the west side of Britain is okay if the weather is lovely. It frequently isn't. It's bloody hard work with a family if it's raining and the roads become clogged as everyone desperately finds something useful to do. Britain is also now extremely expensive.
Holidaying the UK is all very well during a pandemic but you're rolling the dice on the weather.
If it rains in Devon & Cornwall you're fooked. There's only so many times you can visit a Butterfly Farm and Gnome World.
What struck me was that in a Republican contest one of the contenders is arguing that it is entirely correct to count all mail-in ballots, when other Republicans, in a different context, would switch their support or opposition to counting ballots depending on how they thought they were doing.
If my comment was unclear, it isn't improved by you inventing additional meaning from it which is nowhere justified in anything I have ever said.
So up yours.
Either he knew that what he was saying on TV was a pack of lies. In which case he thinks we are stupid.
Or he just swallowed any old guff he was ordered to say. In which case he is stupid. And having seen his career pretty up close (he was my neighbouring MP until last year) I think it may be both.
The word came to be used for those on the internet because of their secretive, cloaked, and rather isolated character. For example, anyone who hides behind a VPN
My point is important because it's another example of a word whose meaning has evolved. And you have, presumably unwittingly, just fallen into the same.
I think Staycation is a good update in an age of international travel. Staying at home nowadays means staying in your own country. A global nomad like yourself should appreciate it.
If you’re in west Cornwall (St Ives, Penzance, Falmouth etc) then your rainy day options are… er…. The Tate, St Ives? How many kids will enjoy that? Maybe Poldark mine. Um. Um. A couple of second rate museums. A terrible amusement park. Or the pub, again.
It’s crap. And I love Cornwall.
Personally I’d be OK yomping around megalithic monuments (lots of those!), seeking out weird history, doing a bit of rough weather sea fishing (the danger!) but this is not most kids’ idea of heaven. And even then if this was my one and only holiday I’d want SUN, having spent the rest of the year in rainy Britain. And UK prices are high
I genuinely don’t understand why people make this choice
The state of emergency, a new tool Parliament approved earlier on Tuesday, will take effect at midnight and will give the government “maneuvering room and the ability to react immediately” to the fallout from the war in neighboring Ukraine.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-24/hungary-s-orban-declares-state-of-emergency-over-war-economy
I retract.
Er, yeah, where was I. TROLL! It had a definite meaning on the internet, which has now been blurred. Same goes for staycation. That was a brilliant word for a holiday taken in your own home and garden. Now it just means a holiday where you don’t need a passport, which is not anywhere as useful
Anyway, I did enjoy the "did you deliberately lie" question thrown at Simon Clarke. Because I assume he was briefed by the No10 Press Office. Who knew the truth about what he was told to lie about. Because they were there and confessed so by lunchtime.
So ok, bellowed isn't great. But a valid question asked.
Politically two people who could have gambled on that approach are Sunak and Starmer. Sunak only if he wanted to sink the PM, which events suggest he has not wanted or at least was not ready for. Starmer to give himself a bit of a wider safe landing spot from his investigation.
Even for those two, the sensible decision was to accept the fine (hypothetical in case of Starmer, of course).
For all the other politicos, spads and civil servants a no brainer to accept the fine.
I've driven many times en famille to the south of France, Spain and several times to Italy. Yep it's a long drive but if you stop off you can make it fun.
And with budget airlines you can also still snap up cheap fares, even in the holidays and even with a large family.
Loads of places around Europe which aren't crazily busy, even in August. Try Galicia (Spain) as just one example of a cheap alternative with better weather than Britain.
Clearly candidates and their lawyers are gonna make claims & counter-claims in the heat of battle. Which their supporters may (or may not) support in varying degrees.
You are taking what 45 and his fellow Putinst did as the norm. It is the abnorm.
And while the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo is hollering from the peanut gallery re: PA Primary 2022, both McCormick & Oz are acting appropriately under the circumstances, in referring critical issues that could well affect the election outcome, to the courts for adjudication.
Without the aid (I'm prognosticating) of legal bottom-feeders like Rudy Giuliani & etc.
Physician”; and the ports have names for the sea;
The citiless, the corroding, the sorrow;
And North means to all: “Reject”.
And the great plains are for ever where cold creatures are hunted,
And everywhere; the light birds flicker and flaunt;
Under a scolding flag the lover
Of islands may see at last,
Faintly, his limited hope; as he nears the glitter
Of glaciers; the sterile immature mountains intense
In the abnormal day of this world, and a river’s
Fan-like polyp of sand.
Then let the good citizen here find natural marvels:
The horse-shoe ravine, the issue of steam from a cleft
In the rock, and rocks, and waterfalls brushing the
Rocks, and among the rock birds.
And the student of prose and conduct, places to visit;
The site of a church where a bishop was put in a bag,
The bath of a great historian, the rock where
An outlaw dreaded the dark.
Remember the doomed man thrown by his horse and crying:
“Beautiful is the hillside, I will not go”;
The old woman “He that I loved the
Best, to him I was worst,”
For Europe is absent. This is an island and therefore
Unreal. And the steadfast affections of its dead may be bought
By those whose dreams accuse them of being
Spitefully alive, and the pale
From too much passion of kissing feel pure in its deserts.
Can they? For the world is, and the present, and the lie.
And the narrow bridge over a torrent,
And the small farm under a crag
Are natural settings for the jealousies of a province;
And the weak vow of fidelity is formed by the cairn;
And within the indigenous figure on horseback
On the bridle-path down by the lake
The blood moves also by crooked and furtive inches,
Asks all our questions: “Where is the homage? When
Shall justice be done? Who is against me?
Why am I always alone?”
Present then the world to the world with its mendicant shadow;
Let the suits be flash, the Minister of Commerce insane;
Let jazz be bestowed on the huts, and the beauty's
Set cosmopolitan smile.
For our time has no favourite suburb; no local features
Are those of the young for whom all wish to care;
The promise is only a promise, the fabulous
Country impartially far.
Tears fall in all the rivers. Again some driver
Pulls on his gloves and in a blinding snowstorm starts
Upon his deadly journey; and again some writer
Runs howling to his art.
#GreatPoliticalSlogansOfOurTime
54 MPs who believe that
+50% of all Tory MPs
will vote Boris out
and
that there is a candidate or candidates who are a clear winners who will do better in the task of keeping them in their seats.
You won't get 54 letters until the other conditions are fulfilled. They are not.
For comparison the minimum legal employer contribution in the private sector is 3% and most pay less than 10%
I mean Tintagel Castle, the Minack, St Michael's? They're bloody isolated coastal outcrops with bugger all shelter.
Good job I checked. I thought it was 9pm.
saw Show of Hands there a couple of years back. V good.
What a poet he is. His lustre grows, over time
Yesterday, Russian TV reporter filmed showing off a huge mortar cannon in Donetsk Region of Ukraine, after they had moved it from Mariopol.
Today, Ukranian military saw the Russian TV footage, worked out where the mortar was hiding, and blew it to bits.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10850089/Pro-Putin-journalist-accidentally-reveals-position-Russian-mega-mortar-Ukraine-blows-up.html
How can anyone support suich a man?
Minack in nice weather
Likewise Calabria, Epirus, Alentejo, Izmir…. And several others. All places where you can get cheap ish direct flights and the sun is guaranteed so even if the family bickers you can always go to the beach and eat grilled sardines for five people plus bread and wine for about £7 or whatever
Not always the most beautiful parts of Europe (tho all have marvels), but all full of fun and interest. And cheap. Oh so much cheaper than Britain
So impossible to say where his current trajectory re: lawbreaking & etc. could lead. Except that HE is unlikely to be his own governor in this respect.
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1529150381489803265
“The site of a church where a bishop was put in a bag”
Classic Auden. That’s the line where I thought Ah this is Auden - reminiscent of Musee des Beaux Arts
what's not to hate btw?, a serial liar, a conspirator with Darius Guppy to get someone assaulted?, someone sacked from newspaper jobs twice for lying?, a person who cheated on wives, one with cancer, someone who doesn't even know how many children he has? Talk about an Eton Mess...
As @Heathener says, many of those are shite in rain. And Truro Cathedral is probably the most boring Anglican cathedral in Britain, after Guildford. Moreover, if you get a wet week (or, god forbid, fortnight) you would rock through those pretty quickly, you wouldn’t want to go back
Yet families return to Cornwall, year after year. I’m glad they do, for the sake of the Cornish tourist industry, but it still mystifies me
7 means Emmerdale good luck to anything up against it.
Anyway, yesterdays photo has gained no traction then, 24hrs later slipped right down the news bulletins and right off the online pages. Partygate fatigue now?