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Remember Truss was 3rd place amongst CON MPs – politicalbetting.com

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  • I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Yes.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,863
    edited August 2022
    IshmaelZ said:

    OGH wanted a photo of a ballot paper...


    Seems a bit cheap to not pay for the return postage.

    Incidentally, when did postage suddenly get so expensive? Or was it all gradual boiling frog?
    Around the time we all stopped using it. Weirdly.
    They always knew - going back decades - that demand for non-commercial mail was highly inelastic and that therefore the price at which optimal revenue could be achieved was well above the historic level. But so long as they remained a nationalised industry needing government permission to raise prices, they were forced to charge well below optimum price.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    I am sure the courts will take that as good enough defence, if/when they take the government to court for favouritism.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    They do STEM degrees too but Oxford and Cambridge are the best universities in the country and thos will ensure all those with straight A*s at A level get a chance to go to them even if they don't get through the interview and go elsewhere
    "best" - chimpanzee bollocks. That is meaningless, because it is correlated with size. But a student only does one degree at a time in one department. And the rankings are much less stable when that is taken into account.
    Oxford 2nd and Cambridge 3rd in the QS world university rankings.

    Next best UK universities are Imperial at 7th and UCL at 8th

    https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2022
    Excellent. Can you describe the process where the QS rankings are generated?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,951
    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    biggles said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    It is past time Oxbridge was put in its place.

    Hence the two candidates for the Tory leadership, the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the LDs all have an Oxford degree.

    However we have had some sop to the masses, Starmer did his undergraduate degree at Leeds before his postgraduate degree at Oxford
    Doesn't Starmer have a diploma rather than a degree from Oxford?
    He has a Bachelor of Civil law from St Edmund Hall
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,397
    edited August 2022

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    They do STEM degrees too but Oxford and Cambridge are the best universities in the country and thos will ensure all those with straight A*s at A level get a chance to go to them even if they don't get through the interview and go elsewhere
    "best" - chimpanzee bollocks. That is meaningless, because it is correlated with size. But a student only does one degree at a time in one department. And the rankings are much less stable when that is taken into account.
    Oxford 2nd and Cambridge 3rd in the QS world university rankings.

    Next best UK universities are Imperial at 7th and UCL at 8th

    https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2022
    Excellent. Can you describe the process where the QS rankings are generated?
    First, a senior academic reaches into his arse. Second, he pulls...

    I have long thought that rather than ranking universities, which is as meaningless an exercise as trying to find an honest member of the DfE, we should rank the faculties within them.

    Not that even that's very accurate. Oxford's classics department has been a joke for years but it still scores highly on an individual basis.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,840
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    They do STEM degrees too but Oxford and Cambridge are the best universities in the country and thos will ensure all those with straight A*s at A level get a chance to go to them even if they don't get through the interview and go elsewhere
    "best" - chimpanzee bollocks. That is meaningless, because it is correlated with size. But a student only does one degree at a time in one department. And the rankings are much less stable when that is taken into account.
    Oxford 2nd and Cambridge 3rd in the QS world university rankings.

    Next best UK universities are Imperial at 7th and UCL at 8th

    https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2022
    You're missing the point that I made, as always - that is an artificial construct which no student enjoys. The picture based on actual courses is different.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    I can of do, but I find it fascinating that it still has not made it out, Ryan Giggs style, to the mainstream. Why is that?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    Alistair said:

    Cookie said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    DavidL said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    France drought: Parched towns left short of drinking water

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62436468

    USA: Half the country is in drought, and no region has been spared

    https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/04/weather/drought-map-northeast-texas-climate/index.html

    More than 75% of the world could face drought by 2050, UN report warns

    https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/05/drought-2050-un-report-climate-change/

    End Times. Seriously.

    I find these stories utterly ridiculous. Where do people think the water can go? If it goes up, it must come down.

    Mad greens (in line with EU policy) have been trying to stop new reservoirs being built for years precisely to stoke such ludicrous alarmism. If it's not drought, it's floods, with rivers that haven't been dredged for years (again, green blob) mysteriously bursting their banks.
    It could end up in the sea, salty and useless. The amount of fresh water in the world is collapsing with the ice sheets of Greenland and Antartica but much of the world that could rely on a steady flow from mountain tops is going to become more arid too. And of course there are far too many people.
    I don't agree that there are too many people - that is a deeply spurious shibboleth in my opinion. No other living thing shares that view of its own species. When we approach capacity in this planet (if that is possible) we will colonise space.

    The water in the sea still evaporates and falls again as rain. As for the ice sheets melting, that would add more water to the cycle, not take it away. We will perhaps revisit this conversation when facing the usual winter flooding alarm.
    Quality gibberish. No other living thing has a concept of its own species, let alone the ability to make value judgments about it. and aren't you usually on about how inorganic and empty modern food is? Because you would halve numbers automatically if you abolished non-rockdust fertilisers.

    The ridiculous stories aren't about what might in theory happen, they are about what is actually happening. Do you have any idea how dry the SW USA has been for how long?
    Any yet its population has continued to expand, dramatically.

    Fresh water availability - ultimately - is just an engineering challenge. If we, like the ancient Romans, want lots of people in places without lots of water, then we need to bring it in.

    And if that requires desalination, that requires desalination.
    Riyadh, a city of 8 million people in the middle of the desert, is supplied almost entirely from desalination plants on the coast.
    In the U.K. there is many times the rainfall required to supply water for the population, even if they are extravagant with it. The issue is storing it in the plentiful times. We need more reservoirs.

    I have never understood the issue with building reservoirs. Who objects to a nice lake?
    Typically the people whose homes will be flooded by it.
    All the proposed reservoir projects I’ve seen, for a long time, are things like flooding old gravel workings. The amounts of water required aren’t actually vast. The average person uses something like 50 tons of water a year. So a reservoir 2km x 2km and 12m deep would provide water for a million people for a year….
    A 4 sq km reservoir would be the 3rd largest reservoir in the country by surface area mind.
    Ach, actually just the 8th
    I make it the sixth largest in England. Vyrnwy and Trawsfynnydd (which I don't think is used for drinking water) are both in Wales.
    I wouldn't drink water from either of those. Too worried about the effect on my vowel movements.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,526
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    OGH wanted a photo of a ballot paper...


    Seems a bit cheap to not pay for the return postage.

    Incidentally, when did postage suddenly get so expensive? Or was it all gradual boiling frog?
    I got that too, plus a request for a donation for the party, in a range starting at £25 moving up to £5000.

    We certainly aren't getting the privilege of voting for the next PM free!
    I was emailed by the Tories this week (I'm on their list as a past exhibitor at the conference, which they have deemed to mean I' m a supporter) to ask if I had a question for the candidates. I asked one, and the party then said thanks very much, now can you give us some money? Not holding my breath for an answer to the question (about animal welfare, of course) - just a straight fund-raising wheeze, I reckon.
    You can also buy Rishi and Liz mugs and posters, a 2022 leadership election souvenir programme and a special hustings T shirt from the Conservative Party shop

    https://shop.conservatives.com/leadership-election.html
    Be still my beating heart!
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,397
    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    biggles said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    It is past time Oxbridge was put in its place.

    Hence the two candidates for the Tory leadership, the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the LDs all have an Oxford degree.

    However we have had some sop to the masses, Starmer did his undergraduate degree at Leeds before his postgraduate degree at Oxford
    Doesn't Starmer have a diploma rather than a degree from Oxford?
    He has a Bachelor of Civil law from St Edmund Hall
    Fair enough.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,397
    IshmaelZ said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    Alistair said:

    Cookie said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    DavidL said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    France drought: Parched towns left short of drinking water

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62436468

    USA: Half the country is in drought, and no region has been spared

    https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/04/weather/drought-map-northeast-texas-climate/index.html

    More than 75% of the world could face drought by 2050, UN report warns

    https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/05/drought-2050-un-report-climate-change/

    End Times. Seriously.

    I find these stories utterly ridiculous. Where do people think the water can go? If it goes up, it must come down.

    Mad greens (in line with EU policy) have been trying to stop new reservoirs being built for years precisely to stoke such ludicrous alarmism. If it's not drought, it's floods, with rivers that haven't been dredged for years (again, green blob) mysteriously bursting their banks.
    It could end up in the sea, salty and useless. The amount of fresh water in the world is collapsing with the ice sheets of Greenland and Antartica but much of the world that could rely on a steady flow from mountain tops is going to become more arid too. And of course there are far too many people.
    I don't agree that there are too many people - that is a deeply spurious shibboleth in my opinion. No other living thing shares that view of its own species. When we approach capacity in this planet (if that is possible) we will colonise space.

    The water in the sea still evaporates and falls again as rain. As for the ice sheets melting, that would add more water to the cycle, not take it away. We will perhaps revisit this conversation when facing the usual winter flooding alarm.
    Quality gibberish. No other living thing has a concept of its own species, let alone the ability to make value judgments about it. and aren't you usually on about how inorganic and empty modern food is? Because you would halve numbers automatically if you abolished non-rockdust fertilisers.

    The ridiculous stories aren't about what might in theory happen, they are about what is actually happening. Do you have any idea how dry the SW USA has been for how long?
    Any yet its population has continued to expand, dramatically.

    Fresh water availability - ultimately - is just an engineering challenge. If we, like the ancient Romans, want lots of people in places without lots of water, then we need to bring it in.

    And if that requires desalination, that requires desalination.
    Riyadh, a city of 8 million people in the middle of the desert, is supplied almost entirely from desalination plants on the coast.
    In the U.K. there is many times the rainfall required to supply water for the population, even if they are extravagant with it. The issue is storing it in the plentiful times. We need more reservoirs.

    I have never understood the issue with building reservoirs. Who objects to a nice lake?
    Typically the people whose homes will be flooded by it.
    All the proposed reservoir projects I’ve seen, for a long time, are things like flooding old gravel workings. The amounts of water required aren’t actually vast. The average person uses something like 50 tons of water a year. So a reservoir 2km x 2km and 12m deep would provide water for a million people for a year….
    A 4 sq km reservoir would be the 3rd largest reservoir in the country by surface area mind.
    Ach, actually just the 8th
    I make it the sixth largest in England. Vyrnwy and Trawsfynnydd (which I don't think is used for drinking water) are both in Wales.
    I wouldn't drink water from either of those. Too worried about the effect on my vowel movements.
    It's not consonant with good language skills.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,720
    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    biggles said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    It is past time Oxbridge was put in its place.

    Hence the two candidates for the Tory leadership, the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the LDs all have an Oxford degree.

    However we have had some sop to the masses, Starmer did his undergraduate degree at Leeds before his postgraduate degree at Oxford
    Doesn't Starmer have a diploma rather than a degree from Oxford?
    He has a Bachelor of Civil law from St Edmund Hall
    Before that though he went to the world's finest university.

  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,840
    ydoethur said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    Alistair said:

    Cookie said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    DavidL said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    France drought: Parched towns left short of drinking water

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62436468

    USA: Half the country is in drought, and no region has been spared

    https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/04/weather/drought-map-northeast-texas-climate/index.html

    More than 75% of the world could face drought by 2050, UN report warns

    https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/05/drought-2050-un-report-climate-change/

    End Times. Seriously.

    I find these stories utterly ridiculous. Where do people think the water can go? If it goes up, it must come down.

    Mad greens (in line with EU policy) have been trying to stop new reservoirs being built for years precisely to stoke such ludicrous alarmism. If it's not drought, it's floods, with rivers that haven't been dredged for years (again, green blob) mysteriously bursting their banks.
    It could end up in the sea, salty and useless. The amount of fresh water in the world is collapsing with the ice sheets of Greenland and Antartica but much of the world that could rely on a steady flow from mountain tops is going to become more arid too. And of course there are far too many people.
    I don't agree that there are too many people - that is a deeply spurious shibboleth in my opinion. No other living thing shares that view of its own species. When we approach capacity in this planet (if that is possible) we will colonise space.

    The water in the sea still evaporates and falls again as rain. As for the ice sheets melting, that would add more water to the cycle, not take it away. We will perhaps revisit this conversation when facing the usual winter flooding alarm.
    Quality gibberish. No other living thing has a concept of its own species, let alone the ability to make value judgments about it. and aren't you usually on about how inorganic and empty modern food is? Because you would halve numbers automatically if you abolished non-rockdust fertilisers.

    The ridiculous stories aren't about what might in theory happen, they are about what is actually happening. Do you have any idea how dry the SW USA has been for how long?
    Any yet its population has continued to expand, dramatically.

    Fresh water availability - ultimately - is just an engineering challenge. If we, like the ancient Romans, want lots of people in places without lots of water, then we need to bring it in.

    And if that requires desalination, that requires desalination.
    Riyadh, a city of 8 million people in the middle of the desert, is supplied almost entirely from desalination plants on the coast.
    In the U.K. there is many times the rainfall required to supply water for the population, even if they are extravagant with it. The issue is storing it in the plentiful times. We need more reservoirs.

    I have never understood the issue with building reservoirs. Who objects to a nice lake?
    Typically the people whose homes will be flooded by it.
    All the proposed reservoir projects I’ve seen, for a long time, are things like flooding old gravel workings. The amounts of water required aren’t actually vast. The average person uses something like 50 tons of water a year. So a reservoir 2km x 2km and 12m deep would provide water for a million people for a year….
    A 4 sq km reservoir would be the 3rd largest reservoir in the country by surface area mind.
    Ach, actually just the 8th
    I make it the sixth largest in England. Vyrnwy and Trawsfynnydd (which I don't think is used for drinking water) are both in Wales.
    I wouldn't drink water from either of those. Too worried about the effect on my vowel movements.
    It's not consonant with good language skills.
    Scousers don't speak proper?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,397

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    biggles said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    It is past time Oxbridge was put in its place.

    Hence the two candidates for the Tory leadership, the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the LDs all have an Oxford degree.

    However we have had some sop to the masses, Starmer did his undergraduate degree at Leeds before his postgraduate degree at Oxford
    Doesn't Starmer have a diploma rather than a degree from Oxford?
    He has a Bachelor of Civil law from St Edmund Hall
    Before that though he went to the world's finest university.

    He was at Aber? I never knew that!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,312

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    I can of do, but I find it fascinating that it still has not made it out, Ryan Giggs style, to the mainstream. Why is that?
    Once you hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR, you will understand. Mum's the word
  • Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    I can of do, but I find it fascinating that it still has not made it out, Ryan Giggs style, to the mainstream. Why is that?
    The best place to hide something is in plain sight.
  • In the great State of Washington, we have one key congressional August 2022 primary election result still undecided as of Friday night.

    Incumbent Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler with 22.6% is just +257 votes ahead of Republican Joe Kent with 22.5% for 2nd place in 3rd District Top Two primary for US House.

    In the lead and clearly advancing to general election ballot is Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez with 31.2%.

    Incumbent JHB is one of ten House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the January 2021 attack on US Capitol. Former Green Beret Kent is Trump's anointed, despite having supported Bernie Sanders for President in 2016 (a fact noted in super-PAC TV ads attacking Kent with conservative GOP voters).


    There are over 30k ballots yet to be counted. Good news for Herrera Beutler is that almost all of these are in Clark Co where she's leading Kent. But NOT by much, just little over 2% points as of Friday.

    So this is WAY to close to call.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,951
    edited August 2022
    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    biggles said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    It is past time Oxbridge was put in its place.

    Hence the two candidates for the Tory leadership, the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the LDs all have an Oxford degree.

    However we have had some sop to the masses, Starmer did his undergraduate degree at Leeds before his postgraduate degree at Oxford
    Doesn't Starmer have a diploma rather than a degree from Oxford?
    He has a Bachelor of Civil law from St Edmund Hall
    Fair enough.
    Interestingly the next general election will be only the second general election since 1992 when all the leaders of the 3 main UK parties have an Oxbridge degree.

    The other was 2015, though Clegg was Cambridge while Cameron and Ed Miliband were Oxford.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,397
    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    ydoethur said:

    Alistair said:

    Alistair said:

    Cookie said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    DavidL said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    France drought: Parched towns left short of drinking water

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62436468

    USA: Half the country is in drought, and no region has been spared

    https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/04/weather/drought-map-northeast-texas-climate/index.html

    More than 75% of the world could face drought by 2050, UN report warns

    https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/05/drought-2050-un-report-climate-change/

    End Times. Seriously.

    I find these stories utterly ridiculous. Where do people think the water can go? If it goes up, it must come down.

    Mad greens (in line with EU policy) have been trying to stop new reservoirs being built for years precisely to stoke such ludicrous alarmism. If it's not drought, it's floods, with rivers that haven't been dredged for years (again, green blob) mysteriously bursting their banks.
    It could end up in the sea, salty and useless. The amount of fresh water in the world is collapsing with the ice sheets of Greenland and Antartica but much of the world that could rely on a steady flow from mountain tops is going to become more arid too. And of course there are far too many people.
    I don't agree that there are too many people - that is a deeply spurious shibboleth in my opinion. No other living thing shares that view of its own species. When we approach capacity in this planet (if that is possible) we will colonise space.

    The water in the sea still evaporates and falls again as rain. As for the ice sheets melting, that would add more water to the cycle, not take it away. We will perhaps revisit this conversation when facing the usual winter flooding alarm.
    Quality gibberish. No other living thing has a concept of its own species, let alone the ability to make value judgments about it. and aren't you usually on about how inorganic and empty modern food is? Because you would halve numbers automatically if you abolished non-rockdust fertilisers.

    The ridiculous stories aren't about what might in theory happen, they are about what is actually happening. Do you have any idea how dry the SW USA has been for how long?
    Any yet its population has continued to expand, dramatically.

    Fresh water availability - ultimately - is just an engineering challenge. If we, like the ancient Romans, want lots of people in places without lots of water, then we need to bring it in.

    And if that requires desalination, that requires desalination.
    Riyadh, a city of 8 million people in the middle of the desert, is supplied almost entirely from desalination plants on the coast.
    In the U.K. there is many times the rainfall required to supply water for the population, even if they are extravagant with it. The issue is storing it in the plentiful times. We need more reservoirs.

    I have never understood the issue with building reservoirs. Who objects to a nice lake?
    Typically the people whose homes will be flooded by it.
    All the proposed reservoir projects I’ve seen, for a long time, are things like flooding old gravel workings. The amounts of water required aren’t actually vast. The average person uses something like 50 tons of water a year. So a reservoir 2km x 2km and 12m deep would provide water for a million people for a year….
    A 4 sq km reservoir would be the 3rd largest reservoir in the country by surface area mind.
    Ach, actually just the 8th
    I make it the sixth largest in England. Vyrnwy and Trawsfynnydd (which I don't think is used for drinking water) are both in Wales.
    I wouldn't drink water from either of those. Too worried about the effect on my vowel movements.
    It's not consonant with good language skills.
    Scousers don't speak proper?
    Course not. When they speaks proper, like what I does, we might be thinking they's English.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,312
    I personally know three people that know THE FINLAND RUMOUR. So it is genuinely surprising that it has not leaked wider

    And I'm not joking. Three people. All men
  • RichardrRichardr Posts: 95
    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Jesus.
    11.6 million people to be spending a quarter or more of net income on fuel come January.

    Net of what?
    Good point. I tried to find out but couldn't. It's in the Observer, and that's how they report it.
    It's rather more a pressing issue though than Oxbridge interviews imho.
    Are you sure the number isn't 4 million in the Observer?

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/06/gordon-brown-set-emergency-budget-or-risk-a-winter-of-dire-poverty
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,397
    edited August 2022
    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    biggles said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    It is past time Oxbridge was put in its place.

    Hence the two candidates for the Tory leadership, the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the LDs all have an Oxford degree.

    However we have had some sop to the masses, Starmer did his undergraduate degree at Leeds before his postgraduate degree at Oxford
    Doesn't Starmer have a diploma rather than a degree from Oxford?
    He has a Bachelor of Civil law from St Edmund Hall
    Fair enough.
    Interestingly the next general election will be only the second general election since 1992 when all the leaders of the 3 main parties have an Oxbridge degree.

    The other was 2015, though Clegg was Cambridge while Cameron and Ed Miliband were Oxford.
    A quick think back would suggest it is in fact only the second or third since 1974, depending on whether you count Jenkins or Steel as leader of the Alliance in 1983.
  • RichardrRichardr Posts: 95
    Richardr said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Jesus.
    11.6 million people to be spending a quarter or more of net income on fuel come January.

    Net of what?
    Good point. I tried to find out but couldn't. It's in the Observer, and that's how they report it.
    It's rather more a pressing issue though than Oxbridge interviews imho.
    Are you sure the number isn't 4 million in the Observer?

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/06/gordon-brown-set-emergency-budget-or-risk-a-winter-of-dire-poverty
    actually to correct myself, that is households, which later gives 11.6 as the people in them.
  • Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,312
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    They do STEM degrees too but Oxford and Cambridge are the best universities in the country and thos will ensure all those with straight A*s at A level get a chance to go to them even if they don't get through the interview and go elsewhere
    "best" - chimpanzee bollocks. That is meaningless, because it is correlated with size. But a student only does one degree at a time in one department. And the rankings are much less stable when that is taken into account.
    Oxford 2nd and Cambridge 3rd in the QS world university rankings.

    Next best UK universities are Imperial at 7th and UCL at 8th

    https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2022
    You're missing the point that I made, as always - that is an artificial construct which no student enjoys. The picture based on actual courses is different.
    That QS university ranking is quite something. The highest EU university is a French one at 44. 44th! The highest ranked German university is 50. You can't find an Italian uni til you get to 141. The best uni in Spain is 168th. Shockingly bad
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,397

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
  • HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    biggles said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    It is past time Oxbridge was put in its place.

    Hence the two candidates for the Tory leadership, the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the LDs all have an Oxford degree.

    However we have had some sop to the masses, Starmer did his undergraduate degree at Leeds before his postgraduate degree at Oxford
    Doesn't Starmer have a diploma rather than a degree from Oxford?
    He has a Bachelor of Civil law from St Edmund Hall
    Fair enough.
    Interestingly the next general election will be only the second general election since 1992 when all the leaders of the 3 main parties have an Oxbridge degree.

    The other was 2015, though Clegg was Cambridge while Cameron and Ed Miliband were Oxford.
    Also the last time the LibDems were one of our three main parties.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,312
    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    I know a transsexual woman that used to fuck melons. In Leicester
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    They do STEM degrees too but Oxford and Cambridge are the best universities in the country and thos will ensure all those with straight A*s at A level get a chance to go to them even if they don't get through the interview and go elsewhere
    "best" - chimpanzee bollocks. That is meaningless, because it is correlated with size. But a student only does one degree at a time in one department. And the rankings are much less stable when that is taken into account.
    Oxford 2nd and Cambridge 3rd in the QS world university rankings.

    Next best UK universities are Imperial at 7th and UCL at 8th

    https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2022
    You're missing the point that I made, as always - that is an artificial construct which no student enjoys. The picture based on actual courses is different.
    That QS university ranking is quite something. The highest EU university is a French one at 44. 44th! The highest ranked German university is 50. You can't find an Italian uni til you get to 141. The best uni in Spain is 168th. Shockingly bad
    And do you know how the rankings are arrived at?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,951
    edited August 2022
    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    They do STEM degrees too but Oxford and Cambridge are the best universities in the country and thos will ensure all those with straight A*s at A level get a chance to go to them even if they don't get through the interview and go elsewhere
    "best" - chimpanzee bollocks. That is meaningless, because it is correlated with size. But a student only does one degree at a time in one department. And the rankings are much less stable when that is taken into account.
    Oxford 2nd and Cambridge 3rd in the QS world university rankings.

    Next best UK universities are Imperial at 7th and UCL at 8th

    https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2022
    You're missing the point that I made, as always - that is an artificial construct which no student enjoys. The picture based on actual courses is different.
    That QS university ranking is quite something. The highest EU university is a French one at 44. 44th! The highest ranked German university is 50. You can't find an Italian uni til you get to 141. The best uni in Spain is 168th. Shockingly bad
    Though Switzerland has 1 in the top 10 and 1 in the top 20.

    France's elite ENA (now INSP) finishing school for top civil servants and captains of industry where Macron and Chirac went would also likely make the top 10. However it is not technically a university
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,312

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    They do STEM degrees too but Oxford and Cambridge are the best universities in the country and thos will ensure all those with straight A*s at A level get a chance to go to them even if they don't get through the interview and go elsewhere
    "best" - chimpanzee bollocks. That is meaningless, because it is correlated with size. But a student only does one degree at a time in one department. And the rankings are much less stable when that is taken into account.
    Oxford 2nd and Cambridge 3rd in the QS world university rankings.

    Next best UK universities are Imperial at 7th and UCL at 8th

    https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2022
    You're missing the point that I made, as always - that is an artificial construct which no student enjoys. The picture based on actual courses is different.
    That QS university ranking is quite something. The highest EU university is a French one at 44. 44th! The highest ranked German university is 50. You can't find an Italian uni til you get to 141. The best uni in Spain is 168th. Shockingly bad
    And do you know how the rankings are arrived at?
    Yes. They tell you their methodology. Right there. On the website

    As do the other rankings, THE, etc
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,567
    Leon said:

    I personally know three people that know THE FINLAND RUMOUR. So it is genuinely surprising that it has not leaked wider

    And I'm not joking. Three people. All men

    Does it involve either of the next PM candidates?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Leon said:

    I personally know three people that know THE FINLAND RUMOUR. So it is genuinely surprising that it has not leaked wider

    And I'm not joking. Three people. All men

    I just don't believe this, because 1. if pegginggate got out there I can't see what else wouldn't 2. I don't see what you can't get away with these days anyway. {Tory contender} rimming a dachsund in 4K video = yawn. and 3. I have seen funkytown, so it's not like I can't find stuff on the net thang.
  • Leon said:

    I personally know three people that know THE FINLAND RUMOUR. So it is genuinely surprising that it has not leaked wider

    And I'm not joking. Three people. All men

    TOKEN: " ...And when the woman has four penises in her at the same time, then stands over the men and pees on them, is that part of being in love too? Five midgets, spanking a man... covered with Thousand Island dressing. Is that making love?"

    https://www.southparkstudios.co.uk/video-clips/81y5rv/south-park-when-a-man-a-woman-fall-in-love
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,840
    edited August 2022

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    biggles said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    It is past time Oxbridge was put in its place.

    Hence the two candidates for the Tory leadership, the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the LDs all have an Oxford degree.

    However we have had some sop to the masses, Starmer did his undergraduate degree at Leeds before his postgraduate degree at Oxford
    Doesn't Starmer have a diploma rather than a degree from Oxford?
    He has a Bachelor of Civil law from St Edmund Hall
    Before that though he went to the world's finest university.

    Interestiung place, Leeds - did serious research into wool (given the local industry) that combined with the basic work of William Bragg on X-ray crystallography - hence Astbury's on biomolecular crystallography. An object study for anyone who thinks like HYUFD that only Oxbridge counts; in this case the Oxbrsidge work on proteins and DNA very much stemmed from the Leeds foundations.
  • Betfair next prime minister
    1.11 Liz Truss 90%
    9.8 Rishi Sunak 10%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.1 Liz Truss 91%
    10.5 Rishi Sunak 10%

    No real change in the betting today but it might be worth keeping an eye on in the next few hours in case there is something in the Sunday papers.

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.11 Liz Truss 90%
    9.6 Rishi Sunak 10%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.11 Liz Truss 90%
    10 Rishi Sunak 10%
    The tiniest hint of movement to Rishi? Anything in the Sundays or a couple of punters cashing out?

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.12 Liz Truss 89%
    9 Rishi Sunak 11%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.11 Liz Truss 90%
    9.8 Rishi Sunak 10%
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,312
    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    They do STEM degrees too but Oxford and Cambridge are the best universities in the country and thos will ensure all those with straight A*s at A level get a chance to go to them even if they don't get through the interview and go elsewhere
    "best" - chimpanzee bollocks. That is meaningless, because it is correlated with size. But a student only does one degree at a time in one department. And the rankings are much less stable when that is taken into account.
    Oxford 2nd and Cambridge 3rd in the QS world university rankings.

    Next best UK universities are Imperial at 7th and UCL at 8th

    https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2022
    You're missing the point that I made, as always - that is an artificial construct which no student enjoys. The picture based on actual courses is different.
    That QS university ranking is quite something. The highest EU university is a French one at 44. 44th! The highest ranked German university is 50. You can't find an Italian uni til you get to 141. The best uni in Spain is 168th. Shockingly bad
    Though Switzerland has 1 in the top 10 and 1 in the top 20
    The rise of Asia is notable. China, Singapore, Korea: all surging up the table

    With the loss of the UK the EU's performance is lamentably bad. By pissing us off so much with their wankyness, the EU lost its best 7 universities (all British), and now it performs worse than Australia
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    They do STEM degrees too but Oxford and Cambridge are the best universities in the country and thos will ensure all those with straight A*s at A level get a chance to go to them even if they don't get through the interview and go elsewhere
    "best" - chimpanzee bollocks. That is meaningless, because it is correlated with size. But a student only does one degree at a time in one department. And the rankings are much less stable when that is taken into account.
    Oxford 2nd and Cambridge 3rd in the QS world university rankings.

    Next best UK universities are Imperial at 7th and UCL at 8th

    https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2022
    You're missing the point that I made, as always - that is an artificial construct which no student enjoys. The picture based on actual courses is different.
    That QS university ranking is quite something. The highest EU university is a French one at 44. 44th! The highest ranked German university is 50. You can't find an Italian uni til you get to 141. The best uni in Spain is 168th. Shockingly bad
    And do you know how the rankings are arrived at?
    Yes. They tell you their methodology. Right there. On the website

    As do the other rankings, THE, etc
    All will be subjective, to an extent.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    I personally know three people that know THE FINLAND RUMOUR. So it is genuinely surprising that it has not leaked wider

    And I'm not joking. Three people. All men

    I just don't believe this, because 1. if pegginggate got out there I can't see what else wouldn't 2. I don't see what you can't get away with these days anyway. {Tory contender} rimming a dachsund in 4K video = yawn. and 3. I have seen funkytown, so it's not like I can't find stuff on the net thang.
    I don't know the Finland rumour. Its far more fun not knowing. Mistress Truss says she will be punish anyone who tells.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,840
    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    Hmm, the French keep saying amorously 'mon p'tit chou'.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,397
    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    I know a transsexual woman that used to fuck melons. In Leicester
    Why? Is there something particularly erotic about melons in Leicester compared to say, Nottingham?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,951

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    biggles said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    It is past time Oxbridge was put in its place.

    Hence the two candidates for the Tory leadership, the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the LDs all have an Oxford degree.

    However we have had some sop to the masses, Starmer did his undergraduate degree at Leeds before his postgraduate degree at Oxford
    Doesn't Starmer have a diploma rather than a degree from Oxford?
    He has a Bachelor of Civil law from St Edmund Hall
    Fair enough.
    Interestingly the next general election will be only the second general election since 1992 when all the leaders of the 3 main parties have an Oxbridge degree.

    The other was 2015, though Clegg was Cambridge while Cameron and Ed Miliband were Oxford.
    Also the last time the LibDems were one of our three main parties.
    UK wide they still are, certainly voteshare wise
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    I know a transsexual woman that used to fuck melons. In Leicester
    There was a young gaucho called Bruno
    Who said fucking is one thing I do know
    A melon is fine
    And a sheep is divine
    But a llama is numero uno
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,312
    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    I personally know three people that know THE FINLAND RUMOUR. So it is genuinely surprising that it has not leaked wider

    And I'm not joking. Three people. All men

    I just don't believe this, because 1. if pegginggate got out there I can't see what else wouldn't 2. I don't see what you can't get away with these days anyway. {Tory contender} rimming a dachsund in 4K video = yawn. and 3. I have seen funkytown, so it's not like I can't find stuff on the net thang.
    1. The FINLAND RUMOUR is a real thing

    2. I have heard it

    3. It has the potential to change politics

    4. It has not leaked, as far as I know: you have to try extremely hard to find any reference to it anywhere


    So something is up
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,840

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    They do STEM degrees too but Oxford and Cambridge are the best universities in the country and thos will ensure all those with straight A*s at A level get a chance to go to them even if they don't get through the interview and go elsewhere
    "best" - chimpanzee bollocks. That is meaningless, because it is correlated with size. But a student only does one degree at a time in one department. And the rankings are much less stable when that is taken into account.
    Oxford 2nd and Cambridge 3rd in the QS world university rankings.

    Next best UK universities are Imperial at 7th and UCL at 8th

    https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2022
    You're missing the point that I made, as always - that is an artificial construct which no student enjoys. The picture based on actual courses is different.
    That QS university ranking is quite something. The highest EU university is a French one at 44. 44th! The highest ranked German university is 50. You can't find an Italian uni til you get to 141. The best uni in Spain is 168th. Shockingly bad
    And do you know how the rankings are arrived at?
    Yes. They tell you their methodology. Right there. On the website

    As do the other rankings, THE, etc
    All will be subjective, to an extent.
    I also wonder about definitions of student numberts, ie. denominators.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,402
    edited August 2022
    Richardr said:

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Jesus.
    11.6 million people to be spending a quarter or more of net income on fuel come January.

    Net of what?
    Good point. I tried to find out but couldn't. It's in the Observer, and that's how they report it.
    It's rather more a pressing issue though than Oxbridge interviews imho.
    Are you sure the number isn't 4 million in the Observer?

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/06/gordon-brown-set-emergency-budget-or-risk-a-winter-of-dire-poverty
    Deleted.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,397
    edited August 2022
    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    They do STEM degrees too but Oxford and Cambridge are the best universities in the country and thos will ensure all those with straight A*s at A level get a chance to go to them even if they don't get through the interview and go elsewhere
    "best" - chimpanzee bollocks. That is meaningless, because it is correlated with size. But a student only does one degree at a time in one department. And the rankings are much less stable when that is taken into account.
    Oxford 2nd and Cambridge 3rd in the QS world university rankings.

    Next best UK universities are Imperial at 7th and UCL at 8th

    https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2022
    You're missing the point that I made, as always - that is an artificial construct which no student enjoys. The picture based on actual courses is different.
    That QS university ranking is quite something. The highest EU university is a French one at 44. 44th! The highest ranked German university is 50. You can't find an Italian uni til you get to 141. The best uni in Spain is 168th. Shockingly bad
    Though Switzerland has 1 in the top 10 and 1 in the top 20
    The rise of Asia is notable. China, Singapore, Korea: all surging up the table

    With the loss of the UK the EU's performance is lamentably bad. By pissing us off so much with their wankyness, the EU lost its best 7 universities (all British), and now it performs worse than Australia
    If you want to watch a nation really emerge as an educational superpower, bet on Vietnam. It's got a very large population, and they take education very seriously. Also, they have an advantage in that they use a Chinese-derived language but with the Latin alphabet.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,840
    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    I know a transsexual woman that used to fuck melons. In Leicester
    Why? Is there something particularly erotic about melons in Leicester compared to say, Nottingham?
    Very good covered market, as I recall. Hence better melon supply, perhaps.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,312
    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    I know a transsexual woman that used to fuck melons. In Leicester
    There was a young gaucho called Bruno
    Who said fucking is one thing I do know
    A melon is fine
    And a sheep is divine
    But a llama is numero uno
    That's very good

    Apparently - my trans woman friend tells me - if you fuck a watermelon it is quite like being inside a vagina. True story
  • Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    I personally know three people that know THE FINLAND RUMOUR. So it is genuinely surprising that it has not leaked wider

    And I'm not joking. Three people. All men

    I just don't believe this, because 1. if pegginggate got out there I can't see what else wouldn't 2. I don't see what you can't get away with these days anyway. {Tory contender} rimming a dachsund in 4K video = yawn. and 3. I have seen funkytown, so it's not like I can't find stuff on the net thang.
    1. The FINLAND RUMOUR is a real thing

    2. I have heard it

    3. It has the potential to change politics

    4. It has not leaked, as far as I know: you have to try extremely hard to find any reference to it anywhere


    So something is up
    Unless Mistress Truss has both Boris Johnson and Vladimir Putin chained up in baby nappies in the Lebedev mansion. With a melon. It won't change politics that much.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,994
    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    Depends on the cabbage, surely.

    The other unnerving thing about Corsica so far is the complete lack of insects. No crickets at night, no cicadas, not even any mosquitoes, nothing but the hum of air conditioners. It feels like we are, now, in the middle of that extinction crisis we had so long been warned about.

    The Med is, I think, an eco disaster on a par with the Aral Sea. No fish, no shellfish, but jellyfish swarms and algal blooms, very few birds, at least here, no insects. Soup-warm seawater too.

    A silent night on a Mediterranean island is a strange thing.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    They do STEM degrees too but Oxford and Cambridge are the best universities in the country and thos will ensure all those with straight A*s at A level get a chance to go to them even if they don't get through the interview and go elsewhere
    "best" - chimpanzee bollocks. That is meaningless, because it is correlated with size. But a student only does one degree at a time in one department. And the rankings are much less stable when that is taken into account.
    Oxford 2nd and Cambridge 3rd in the QS world university rankings.

    Next best UK universities are Imperial at 7th and UCL at 8th

    https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2022
    You're missing the point that I made, as always - that is an artificial construct which no student enjoys. The picture based on actual courses is different.
    That QS university ranking is quite something. The highest EU university is a French one at 44. 44th! The highest ranked German university is 50. You can't find an Italian uni til you get to 141. The best uni in Spain is 168th. Shockingly bad
    And do you know how the rankings are arrived at?
    Yes. They tell you their methodology. Right there. On the website

    As do the other rankings, THE, etc
    All will be subjective, to an extent.
    And I see that 40% is based on academic’s ranking of research and teaching. In other words, you ask academics which other universities do they rate as good and collate.
    I know this, as I’ve done it myself.
    So please don’t get the impression it’s all an accurate measure of anything other than academics own biases.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,397
    edited August 2022
    Anyway, my 70km bike ride today has left me rather weary.

    Good night, good night, parting is such sweet sorrow.
  • Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    Not saying it's necessarily daft. But what happens during the transition? Do second and third years have to kick their heels for six months?
    Third years presumably can still start jobs in September, second years just get an extra term
    Slight bit of information for you: the school year ends in the summer.

    You love it because it provides an instant bias in favour of posh rich parents' children, who can afford a whole half year off school and before uni.

    And how does that tie in with the academic year in the rest of the known galaxy?

    Your lot has already screwed up Brexit and wrecked academic collaboration - now having a different academic cycle will mean zero collaboration with non-English* universities


    *'English' because Ms T will have no remit in Wales, Scotland or NI, and still less the rest of the world. That's foreign language courses completely screwed. in terms of the 3rd year in the relevant foreign country. So much for world-wide commercial exploitation.
    You can still study abroad, just go from third term in first year to third term in second year
    But that wrecks the syllabus. And after the intermediate year? It's completely idiotic.
    One of the concerns I've seen flagged about Truss is that bees take up residence in her bonnet. The whole Oxbridge Interview thing sounds like one of these.

    I'm sure that there are Oxbridge-capable students who don't make an application because their schools discourage them. I'm not sure that there are many, and I'm not entirely sure that post-results admissions will solve the big problem- basically, some schools and colleges are better set up to shepherd an Oxbridge cohort and others rely on one member of staff doing the best they can in odd gaps in their day.

    I'm more sure that schools, colleges and Universities have got much bigger problems at the moment, mostly under the heading "costs are going up massively but funding isn't".

    But Liz has a bee in her bonnet. So we can look forward to many iterations of this plan, each chasing round the problems with the previous one. Because everyone agrees that pre-results applications aren't ideal, and has for decades. The system has stuck with them because the alternative creates another set of problems. Either you move Uni terms to January (messing up alignment with the rest of the world), or you make A Level courses shorter (meaning the kids know less). Either way, it creates an awkward gap between school and University, which some will find tricky to fill.

    It's all very well having a can-do attitude. But sometimes, you just can't. And dealing with the boss's obsession may distract from bigger problems that might actually be easier to solve.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    I personally know three people that know THE FINLAND RUMOUR. So it is genuinely surprising that it has not leaked wider

    And I'm not joking. Three people. All men

    I just don't believe this, because 1. if pegginggate got out there I can't see what else wouldn't 2. I don't see what you can't get away with these days anyway. {Tory contender} rimming a dachsund in 4K video = yawn. and 3. I have seen funkytown, so it's not like I can't find stuff on the net thang.
    1. The FINLAND RUMOUR is a real thing

    2. I have heard it

    3. It has the potential to change politics

    4. It has not leaked, as far as I know: you have to try extremely hard to find any reference to it anywhere


    So something is up
    I’m guessing UFO landings in Finland.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,840
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    biggles said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    It is past time Oxbridge was put in its place.

    Hence the two candidates for the Tory leadership, the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the LDs all have an Oxford degree.

    However we have had some sop to the masses, Starmer did his undergraduate degree at Leeds before his postgraduate degree at Oxford
    Doesn't Starmer have a diploma rather than a degree from Oxford?
    He has a Bachelor of Civil law from St Edmund Hall
    Fair enough.
    Interestingly the next general election will be only the second general election since 1992 when all the leaders of the 3 main parties have an Oxbridge degree.

    The other was 2015, though Clegg was Cambridge while Cameron and Ed Miliband were Oxford.
    Also the last time the LibDems were one of our three main parties.
    UK wide they still are, certainly voteshare wise
    But that doesn't count in the Westminster system. Only MP numbers count. How odd of you to try and subvert the glorious constitution.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,312
    TimS said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    Depends on the cabbage, surely.

    The other unnerving thing about Corsica so far is the complete lack of insects. No crickets at night, no cicadas, not even any mosquitoes, nothing but the hum of air conditioners. It feels like we are, now, in the middle of that extinction crisis we had so long been warned about.

    The Med is, I think, an eco disaster on a par with the Aral Sea. No fish, no shellfish, but jellyfish swarms and algal blooms, very few birds, at least here, no insects. Soup-warm seawater too.

    A silent night on a Mediterranean island is a strange thing.
    That's interesting and disturbing. Do you remember me going on about the lack of mosquitoes in Montenegro?

    At the time I ascribed it to the dry karst landscape. No standing water = no mosquitoes. But I could not find any reference to this phenomenon online. And there were plenty of WARNINGS about mosquitoes being the usual problem, on the coast

    Are the mosquitoes dying out? On the Med? You've got me wondering
  • Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    I personally know three people that know THE FINLAND RUMOUR. So it is genuinely surprising that it has not leaked wider

    And I'm not joking. Three people. All men

    I just don't believe this, because 1. if pegginggate got out there I can't see what else wouldn't 2. I don't see what you can't get away with these days anyway. {Tory contender} rimming a dachsund in 4K video = yawn. and 3. I have seen funkytown, so it's not like I can't find stuff on the net thang.
    1. The FINLAND RUMOUR is a real thing

    2. I have heard it

    3. It has the potential to change politics

    4. It has not leaked, as far as I know: you have to try extremely hard to find any reference to it anywhere


    So something is up
    Don't be such a fucking tease!
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,402
    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    I know a transsexual woman that used to fuck melons. In Leicester
    There was a young gaucho called Bruno
    Who said fucking is one thing I do know
    A melon is fine
    And a sheep is divine
    But a llama is numero uno
    That's very good

    Apparently - my trans woman friend tells me - if you fuck a watermelon it is quite like being inside a vagina. True story
    Except. Presumably you have to cut the opening to the requisite size with a knife first?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    I know a transsexual woman that used to fuck melons. In Leicester
    There was a young gaucho called Bruno
    Who said fucking is one thing I do know
    A melon is fine
    And a sheep is divine
    But a llama is numero uno
    That's very good

    Apparently - my trans woman friend tells me - if you fuck a watermelon it is quite like being inside a vagina. True story
    Except. Presumably you have to cut the opening to the requisite size with a knife first?
    Well, and take the watermelon out to dinner first, obv.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,840

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    Not saying it's necessarily daft. But what happens during the transition? Do second and third years have to kick their heels for six months?
    Third years presumably can still start jobs in September, second years just get an extra term
    Slight bit of information for you: the school year ends in the summer.

    You love it because it provides an instant bias in favour of posh rich parents' children, who can afford a whole half year off school and before uni.

    And how does that tie in with the academic year in the rest of the known galaxy?

    Your lot has already screwed up Brexit and wrecked academic collaboration - now having a different academic cycle will mean zero collaboration with non-English* universities


    *'English' because Ms T will have no remit in Wales, Scotland or NI, and still less the rest of the world. That's foreign language courses completely screwed. in terms of the 3rd year in the relevant foreign country. So much for world-wide commercial exploitation.
    You can still study abroad, just go from third term in first year to third term in second year
    But that wrecks the syllabus. And after the intermediate year? It's completely idiotic.
    One of the concerns I've seen flagged about Truss is that bees take up residence in her bonnet. The whole Oxbridge Interview thing sounds like one of these.

    I'm sure that there are Oxbridge-capable students who don't make an application because their schools discourage them. I'm not sure that there are many, and I'm not entirely sure that post-results admissions will solve the big problem- basically, some schools and colleges are better set up to shepherd an Oxbridge cohort and others rely on one member of staff doing the best they can in odd gaps in their day.

    I'm more sure that schools, colleges and Universities have got much bigger problems at the moment, mostly under the heading "costs are going up massively but funding isn't".

    But Liz has a bee in her bonnet. So we can look forward to many iterations of this plan, each chasing round the problems with the previous one. Because everyone agrees that pre-results applications aren't ideal, and has for decades. The system has stuck with them because the alternative creates another set of problems. Either you move Uni terms to January (messing up alignment with the rest of the world), or you make A Level courses shorter (meaning the kids know less). Either way, it creates an awkward gap between school and University, which some will find tricky to fill.

    It's all very well having a can-do attitude. But sometimes, you just can't. And dealing with the boss's obsession may distract from bigger problems that might actually be easier to solve.
    The very idea that everyone else has to shift to suit Ms Truss's memories of Oxford U is also disturbing. Imagine having to spend an extra year off - 6 months before and 6 months after - to take an undergraduate degree at Oxford and then a postgrad somewhere else. Or, indeed, an extra 6 months to do it the other way round.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,312
    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    I know a transsexual woman that used to fuck melons. In Leicester
    There was a young gaucho called Bruno
    Who said fucking is one thing I do know
    A melon is fine
    And a sheep is divine
    But a llama is numero uno
    That's very good

    Apparently - my trans woman friend tells me - if you fuck a watermelon it is quite like being inside a vagina. True story
    Except. Presumably you have to cut the opening to the requisite size with a knife first?
    Yes. She did this when she was a he, and a teenager, in Leicester. She said the rumour went round all of Leicester that fucking a watermelon was a bit like actual fucking, and every teenage boy went out and bought a watermelon and fucked it, til Leicester ran out of watermelons to fuck

    Perhaps @foxy could confirm is this is still an issue, the infamous fucking watermelon shortage of Leicester
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,402
    IshmaelZ said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    I know a transsexual woman that used to fuck melons. In Leicester
    There was a young gaucho called Bruno
    Who said fucking is one thing I do know
    A melon is fine
    And a sheep is divine
    But a llama is numero uno
    That's very good

    Apparently - my trans woman friend tells me - if you fuck a watermelon it is quite like being inside a vagina. True story
    Except. Presumably you have to cut the opening to the requisite size with a knife first?
    Well, and take the watermelon out to dinner first, obv.
    You old romantic.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,312
    And so PB continues
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,994
    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    Depends on the cabbage, surely.

    The other unnerving thing about Corsica so far is the complete lack of insects. No crickets at night, no cicadas, not even any mosquitoes, nothing but the hum of air conditioners. It feels like we are, now, in the middle of that extinction crisis we had so long been warned about.

    The Med is, I think, an eco disaster on a par with the Aral Sea. No fish, no shellfish, but jellyfish swarms and algal blooms, very few birds, at least here, no insects. Soup-warm seawater too.

    A silent night on a Mediterranean island is a strange thing.
    That's interesting and disturbing. Do you remember me going on about the lack of mosquitoes in Montenegro?

    At the time I ascribed it to the dry karst landscape. No standing water = no mosquitoes. But I could not find any reference to this phenomenon online. And there were plenty of WARNINGS about mosquitoes being the usual problem, on the coast


    Are the mosquitoes dying out? On the Med? You've got me wondering
    Something is going on. It seems the so called insect Armageddon is almost everywhere and nobody can quite explain it. We’re not more polluted than in the 80s or 90s, our land use isn’t that different, pesticide use is too high but it was too high decades ago. A mystery.

    I am “happy” to report that Yellowjacket wasps are very much alive and well in Southern Germany and central France though. Ruined several attempted outdoor lunches this summer.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    Not saying it's necessarily daft. But what happens during the transition? Do second and third years have to kick their heels for six months?
    Third years presumably can still start jobs in September, second years just get an extra term
    Slight bit of information for you: the school year ends in the summer.

    You love it because it provides an instant bias in favour of posh rich parents' children, who can afford a whole half year off school and before uni.

    And how does that tie in with the academic year in the rest of the known galaxy?

    Your lot has already screwed up Brexit and wrecked academic collaboration - now having a different academic cycle will mean zero collaboration with non-English* universities


    *'English' because Ms T will have no remit in Wales, Scotland or NI, and still less the rest of the world. That's foreign language courses completely screwed. in terms of the 3rd year in the relevant foreign country. So much for world-wide commercial exploitation.
    You can still study abroad, just go from third term in first year to third term in second year
    But that wrecks the syllabus. And after the intermediate year? It's completely idiotic.
    One of the concerns I've seen flagged about Truss is that bees take up residence in her bonnet. The whole Oxbridge Interview thing sounds like one of these.

    I'm sure that there are Oxbridge-capable students who don't make an application because their schools discourage them. I'm not sure that there are many, and I'm not entirely sure that post-results admissions will solve the big problem- basically, some schools and colleges are better set up to shepherd an Oxbridge cohort and others rely on one member of staff doing the best they can in odd gaps in their day.

    I'm more sure that schools, colleges and Universities have got much bigger problems at the moment, mostly under the heading "costs are going up massively but funding isn't".

    But Liz has a bee in her bonnet. So we can look forward to many iterations of this plan, each chasing round the problems with the previous one. Because everyone agrees that pre-results applications aren't ideal, and has for decades. The system has stuck with them because the alternative creates another set of problems. Either you move Uni terms to January (messing up alignment with the rest of the world), or you make A Level courses shorter (meaning the kids know less). Either way, it creates an awkward gap between school and University, which some will find tricky to fill.

    It's all very well having a can-do attitude. But sometimes, you just can't. And dealing with the boss's obsession may distract from bigger problems that might actually be easier to solve.
    The very idea that everyone else has to shift to suit Ms Truss's memories of Oxford U is also disturbing. Imagine having to spend an extra year off - 6 months before and 6 months after - to take an undergraduate degree at Oxford and then a postgrad somewhere else. Or, indeed, an extra 6 months to do it the other way round.
    Entry after receipt of a level grades is coming anyway. It’s not a big deal.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,840
    dixiedean said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    I know a transsexual woman that used to fuck melons. In Leicester
    There was a young gaucho called Bruno
    Who said fucking is one thing I do know
    A melon is fine
    And a sheep is divine
    But a llama is numero uno
    That's very good

    Apparently - my trans woman friend tells me - if you fuck a watermelon it is quite like being inside a vagina. True story
    Except. Presumably you have to cut the opening to the requisite size with a knife first?
    Well, and take the watermelon out to dinner first, obv.
    You old romantic.
    At least Leicester has some very fine places up the Belgrave Road - I had an excellent Tamil (?) meal there once. Not with a watermelon, though.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,914
    A fun article by Alastair Campbell's daughter about sex in Las Vegas (and elsewhere)

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/06/sex-positive-comedy-las-vegas-rape?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    I know a transsexual woman that used to fuck melons. In Leicester
    There was a young gaucho called Bruno
    Who said fucking is one thing I do know
    A melon is fine
    And a sheep is divine
    But a llama is numero uno
    That's very good

    Apparently - my trans woman friend tells me - if you fuck a watermelon it is quite like being inside a vagina. True story
    Except. Presumably you have to cut the opening to the requisite size with a knife first?
    Yes. She did this when she was a he, and a teenager, in Leicester. She said the rumour went round all of Leicester that fucking a watermelon was a bit like actual fucking, and every teenage boy went out and bought a watermelon and fucked it, til Leicester ran out of watermelons to fuck

    Perhaps @foxy could confirm is this is still an issue, the infamous fucking watermelon shortage of Leicester
    So just the U.K. version of apple pie? Or as an acquaintance I had in Wakefield, raw chicken fillets.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,312
    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    Depends on the cabbage, surely.

    The other unnerving thing about Corsica so far is the complete lack of insects. No crickets at night, no cicadas, not even any mosquitoes, nothing but the hum of air conditioners. It feels like we are, now, in the middle of that extinction crisis we had so long been warned about.

    The Med is, I think, an eco disaster on a par with the Aral Sea. No fish, no shellfish, but jellyfish swarms and algal blooms, very few birds, at least here, no insects. Soup-warm seawater too.

    A silent night on a Mediterranean island is a strange thing.
    That's interesting and disturbing. Do you remember me going on about the lack of mosquitoes in Montenegro?

    At the time I ascribed it to the dry karst landscape. No standing water = no mosquitoes. But I could not find any reference to this phenomenon online. And there were plenty of WARNINGS about mosquitoes being the usual problem, on the coast


    Are the mosquitoes dying out? On the Med? You've got me wondering
    Something is going on. It seems the so called insect Armageddon is almost everywhere and nobody can quite explain it. We’re not more polluted than in the 80s or 90s, our land use isn’t that different, pesticide use is too high but it was too high decades ago. A mystery.

    I am “happy” to report that Yellowjacket wasps are very much alive and well in Southern Germany and central France though. Ruined several attempted outdoor lunches this summer.
    Yes, the wasps seem to be worse? Same in Montenegro. Aggressive and numerous. Locals were perplexed
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,994
    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    Not saying it's necessarily daft. But what happens during the transition? Do second and third years have to kick their heels for six months?
    Third years presumably can still start jobs in September, second years just get an extra term
    Slight bit of information for you: the school year ends in the summer.

    You love it because it provides an instant bias in favour of posh rich parents' children, who can afford a whole half year off school and before uni.

    And how does that tie in with the academic year in the rest of the known galaxy?

    Your lot has already screwed up Brexit and wrecked academic collaboration - now having a different academic cycle will mean zero collaboration with non-English* universities


    *'English' because Ms T will have no remit in Wales, Scotland or NI, and still less the rest of the world. That's foreign language courses completely screwed. in terms of the 3rd year in the relevant foreign country. So much for world-wide commercial exploitation.
    You can still study abroad, just go from third term in first year to third term in second year
    But that wrecks the syllabus. And after the intermediate year? It's completely idiotic.
    One of the concerns I've seen flagged about Truss is that bees take up residence in her bonnet. The whole Oxbridge Interview thing sounds like one of these.

    I'm sure that there are Oxbridge-capable students who don't make an application because their schools discourage them. I'm not sure that there are many, and I'm not entirely sure that post-results admissions will solve the big problem- basically, some schools and colleges are better set up to shepherd an Oxbridge cohort and others rely on one member of staff doing the best they can in odd gaps in their day.

    I'm more sure that schools, colleges and Universities have got much bigger problems at the moment, mostly under the heading "costs are going up massively but funding isn't".

    But Liz has a bee in her bonnet. So we can look forward to many iterations of this plan, each chasing round the problems with the previous one. Because everyone agrees that pre-results applications aren't ideal, and has for decades. The system has stuck with them because the alternative creates another set of problems. Either you move Uni terms to January (messing up alignment with the rest of the world), or you make A Level courses shorter (meaning the kids know less). Either way, it creates an awkward gap between school and University, which some will find tricky to fill.

    It's all very well having a can-do attitude. But sometimes, you just can't. And dealing with the boss's obsession may distract from bigger problems that might actually be easier to solve.
    The very idea that everyone else has to shift
    to suit Ms Truss's memories of Oxford U is also disturbing. Imagine having to spend an extra year off - 6 months before and 6 months after - to take an undergraduate degree at Oxford and then a postgrad somewhere else. Or, indeed, an extra 6 months to do it the other way round.
    She’s a complete lightweight. This is the outer limit of her political imagination. But I suppose she is at least not Boris Johnson.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,951
    edited August 2022
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    biggles said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Liz Truss to move the start of the university year from September to January to ensure all top students get Oxbridge interviews

    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556002448178831360?s=20&t=GoHgb_k4e4jGQrTqE14EuQ

    I would be interested to know what all the other universities in the country think about this.
    They know their place
    https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1556004424325242881

    Of course, you are stuck in the idea that only classics or history of art or PPE degrees from Cowley Poly count.
    It is past time Oxbridge was put in its place.

    Hence the two candidates for the Tory leadership, the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the LDs all have an Oxford degree.

    However we have had some sop to the masses, Starmer did his undergraduate degree at Leeds before his postgraduate degree at Oxford
    Doesn't Starmer have a diploma rather than a degree from Oxford?
    He has a Bachelor of Civil law from St Edmund Hall
    Fair enough.
    Interestingly the next general election will be only the second general election since 1992 when all the leaders of the 3 main parties have an Oxbridge degree.

    The other was 2015, though Clegg was Cambridge while Cameron and Ed Miliband were Oxford.
    Also the last time the LibDems were one of our three main parties.
    UK wide they still are, certainly voteshare wise
    But that doesn't count in the Westminster system. Only MP numbers count. How odd of you to try and subvert the glorious constitution.
    OK then, Sturgeon went to Glasgow. Though given it was founded in 1451 it is older than half the Oxbridge colleges anyway
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,802
    edited August 2022
    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    I personally know three people that know THE FINLAND RUMOUR. So it is genuinely surprising that it has not leaked wider

    And I'm not joking. Three people. All men

    I just don't believe this, because 1. if pegginggate got out there I can't see what else wouldn't 2. I don't see what you can't get away with these days anyway. {Tory contender} rimming a dachsund in 4K video = yawn. and 3. I have seen funkytown, so it's not like I can't find stuff on the net thang.
    I don't think pegginggate 'got out there', I think it was made up by a team of hardcore Meghanites. The point of it was to get it into circulation.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,312
    A man cannot count himself a man, until he's fucked the shit out of a large piece of fruit. I have always thought this, and I will not be dissuaded from this ancestral belief by any nonsense about pies and chicken fillets
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,994
    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    Depends on the cabbage, surely.

    The other unnerving thing about Corsica so far is the complete lack of insects. No crickets at night, no cicadas, not even any mosquitoes, nothing but the hum of air conditioners. It feels like we are, now, in the middle of that extinction crisis we had so long been warned about.

    The Med is, I think, an eco disaster on a par with the Aral Sea. No fish, no shellfish, but jellyfish swarms and algal blooms, very few birds, at least here, no insects. Soup-warm seawater too.

    A silent night on a Mediterranean island is a strange thing.
    That's interesting and disturbing. Do you remember me going on about the lack of mosquitoes in Montenegro?

    At the time I ascribed it to the dry karst landscape. No standing water = no mosquitoes. But I could not find any reference to this phenomenon online. And there were plenty of WARNINGS about mosquitoes being the usual problem, on the coast


    Are the mosquitoes dying out? On the Med? You've got me wondering
    Something is going on. It seems the so called insect Armageddon is almost everywhere and nobody can quite explain it. We’re not more polluted than in the 80s or 90s, our land use isn’t that different, pesticide use is too high but it was too high decades ago. A mystery.

    I am “happy” to report that Yellowjacket wasps are very much alive and well in Southern Germany and central France though. Ruined several attempted outdoor lunches this summer.
    Yes, the wasps seem to be worse? Same in
    Montenegro. Aggressive and numerous. Locals were perplexed
    They are the jellyfish of the land. Once the biodiversity is gone all that’s left is the pointless stingy thing.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,052
    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    I know a transsexual woman that used to fuck melons. In Leicester
    There was a young gaucho called Bruno
    Who said fucking is one thing I do know
    A melon is fine
    And a sheep is divine
    But a llama is numero uno
    That's very good

    Apparently - my trans woman friend tells me - if you fuck a watermelon it is quite like being inside a vagina. True story
    Except. Presumably you have to cut the opening to the requisite size with a knife first?
    Yes. She did this when she was a he, and a teenager, in Leicester. She said the rumour went round all of Leicester that fucking a watermelon was a bit like actual fucking, and every teenage boy went out and bought a watermelon and fucked it, til Leicester ran out of watermelons to fuck

    Perhaps @foxy could confirm is this is still an issue, the infamous fucking watermelon shortage of Leicester
    Surely the artistry is in sculpting the hole into said melon?

  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Cookie said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    I personally know three people that know THE FINLAND RUMOUR. So it is genuinely surprising that it has not leaked wider

    And I'm not joking. Three people. All men

    I just don't believe this, because 1. if pegginggate got out there I can't see what else wouldn't 2. I don't see what you can't get away with these days anyway. {Tory contender} rimming a dachsund in 4K video = yawn. and 3. I have seen funkytown, so it's not like I can't find stuff on the net thang.
    I don't think pegginggate 'got out there', I think it was made up by a team of hardcore Meghanites. The point of it was to get it into circulation.
    Conversely, I think the truth has a weight and momentum of its own. There was absolutely no attempt to refute it.
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 3,058
    Roger said:

    A fun article by Alastair Campbell's daughter about sex in Las Vegas (and elsewhere)

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/06/sex-positive-comedy-las-vegas-rape?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

    Fun? She got raped
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,362

    Pulpstar said:

    Cookie said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Cookie said:

    rcs1000 said:

    I don't agree that there are too many people - that is a deeply spurious shibboleth in my opinion. No other living thing shares that view of its own species. When we approach capacity in this planet (if that is possible) we will colonise space.

    The water in the sea still evaporates and falls again as rain. As for the ice sheets melting, that would add more water to the cycle, not take it away. We will perhaps revisit this conversation when facing the usual winter flooding alarm.

    The earth could easily support 50 or 100 bn people, and quite possibly a lot more, albeit there would need to be some fairly substantial lifestyle changes to achieve this.

    With that said, given reproduction is now in the easy control of humans (almost anywhere), birth rates have absolutely collapsed.

    So the likelihood of the world population exploding (or even growing particularly quickly), seems pretty remote.

    ISTR something posted a few years back (possibly by you) showing the world has already reached peak child. There will never be more children in the world than there are now. There will be more people, as that peak moves up the age ranges, but it will stabilise at around 11bn, before gently declining.
    Now 11bn is not without its challenges; and nor is a population decline. But I am moderately optimistic about our ability to meet those challenges.
    Median world household income is about $10,000. your optimism has to include optimism that the poor are going to be happy staying poor, because in terms of resource consumtion bringing them all up to the living standards of very very poor westerners is equivalent to doubling (at a guess) the population.
    I'm also genuinely optimistic that the future will see the average individual have a better standard of living while consuming less.
    Less proper meat. Through wind, solar and batteries there's no need to drop anyones standard of living long term
    Everyone should have meat. And livestock are a valid part of good rotational farming and stewardship of the land.
    I will do virtually everything and anything else but meat is the one thing I won't compromise on (as my profile suggests).

    I think its climate "impact" is massively exaggerated, usually by those with other ideological PETA agendas, and no-one should be taken in by it. The only bit I can agree with is that clearing rainforest for beef grazing is stupid.

    Fundamentally, we have a problem because we burn billions of tons of fossil fuels each year; not because a few cows are farting.
    The climate impact of methane is exaggerated because there was a desire to convert the impact of all the different greenhouse gases into Carbon Dioxide equivalents, so that people could set targets for a single number, and countries could meet that target with whatever mix of cuts to the different GHGs they wanted.

    You'd think this would be simple. One can simply measure how much more effective each GHG is at trapping LW radiation at the wavelengths emitted by the Earth. But there's a complication. Different gases persist in the atmosphere for different lengths of time, and so their relative impact on temperature depends strongly on the time horizon considered.

    Methane only spends about ~decade in the atmosphere, whereas carbon dioxide will spend hundreds of times longer in the atmosphere. Consequently the choice of a short time horizon will exaggerate the impact of methane, while the choice of a long time horizon will emphasise the impact of carbon dioxide (and similar considerations for the impacts of halogen gases, which are even more long-lived in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide). I think the time horizon used is too short, which means not enough emphasis is placed on CO2, compared to CH4, particularly when the most certain impact of global warming is sea level rise, which will tend to happen over longer timescales.

    The other important consequence of methane's shorter residence lifetime is that it means you can stabilise atmospheric concentrations simply by stabilising emissions. However, to prevent carbon dioxide concentrations increasing inexorably, you really do have to cut fossil fuel emissions of carbon to zero (or be very confident about the long-term sequestration you are using to reach net zero).

    Furthermore, roughly the same amount of emissions of methane (about one-third) come from fossil fuel leakages, as from animal agriculture, so you can actually cut methane emissions as a by-product of cutting fossil fuel production as carbon dioxide emissions are cut, and this should see Megan concentrations decline, without changing anything to do with agriculture.

    As it happens we tend to eat a bit less meat, but higher quality when we do, as there are lots of reasons to prefer outdoor-reared meat over intensive industrial production of meat, and this will have a beneficial climate impact too, but I would emphasise that zero fossil fuel emissions is a much more important target than reducing agricultural methane emissions.

    It looks like Ireland is going to cause itself some unnecessary anguish over this, and damage its successful beef and dairy industry, when they haven't even managed to ban peat-burning, which is a barmy order of priorities.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,312
    edited August 2022
    IshmaelZ said:

    Cookie said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    I personally know three people that know THE FINLAND RUMOUR. So it is genuinely surprising that it has not leaked wider

    And I'm not joking. Three people. All men

    I just don't believe this, because 1. if pegginggate got out there I can't see what else wouldn't 2. I don't see what you can't get away with these days anyway. {Tory contender} rimming a dachsund in 4K video = yawn. and 3. I have seen funkytown, so it's not like I can't find stuff on the net thang.
    I don't think pegginggate 'got out there', I think it was made up by a team of hardcore Meghanites. The point of it was to get it into circulation.
    Conversely, I think the truth has a weight and momentum of its own. There was absolutely no attempt to refute it.
    Nah, it was obvious nonsense. The royal gossip equivalent of an urban myth: things you WANT to believe are true. I'm quite surprised that you have fallen for it
  • DynamoDynamo Posts: 651
    BBC radio news coverage of the Archie Battersbee case a few minutes ago completely avoided mentioning Tiktok. They preferred to have an "expert" call for less adversarial legal procedures.

    Repeat: they didn't mention Tiktok.
    We seriously need some glasnost and we aren't going to get any.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    CatMan said:

    Roger said:

    A fun article by Alastair Campbell's daughter about sex in Las Vegas (and elsewhere)

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/06/sex-positive-comedy-las-vegas-rape?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

    Fun? She got raped
    I have never heard of Grace Campbell.
    She seems quite fucked up.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,951
    IshmaelZ said:

    Cookie said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    I personally know three people that know THE FINLAND RUMOUR. So it is genuinely surprising that it has not leaked wider

    And I'm not joking. Three people. All men

    I just don't believe this, because 1. if pegginggate got out there I can't see what else wouldn't 2. I don't see what you can't get away with these days anyway. {Tory contender} rimming a dachsund in 4K video = yawn. and 3. I have seen funkytown, so it's not like I can't find stuff on the net thang.
    I don't think pegginggate 'got out there', I think it was made up by a team of hardcore Meghanites. The point of it was to get it into circulation.
    Conversely, I think the truth has a weight and momentum of its own. There was absolutely no attempt to refute it.
    Why should there be. The royal family's private life is their own as long as it is consensual and legal.

    In any case it is rumoured Harry enjoyed the same favours in Las Vegas and Meghan was hardly a nun before she married him
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,312
    CatMan said:

    Roger said:

    A fun article by Alastair Campbell's daughter about sex in Las Vegas (and elsewhere)

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/06/sex-positive-comedy-las-vegas-rape?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

    Fun? She got raped
    Hmm. She'd have a very hard time getting a jury to convict, with that story
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,312

    CatMan said:

    Roger said:

    A fun article by Alastair Campbell's daughter about sex in Las Vegas (and elsewhere)

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/06/sex-positive-comedy-las-vegas-rape?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

    Fun? She got raped
    I have never heard of Grace Campbell.
    She seems quite fucked up.
    Her father is an alcoholic depressive, who obviously hates himself because of Iraq. Not an easy Dad
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,015
    Started reading the comments...

    ...I think I'll stop now.

    Full disclosure: I have half a watermelon in the fridge.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,664
    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Cookie said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    I personally know three people that know THE FINLAND RUMOUR. So it is genuinely surprising that it has not leaked wider

    And I'm not joking. Three people. All men

    I just don't believe this, because 1. if pegginggate got out there I can't see what else wouldn't 2. I don't see what you can't get away with these days anyway. {Tory contender} rimming a dachsund in 4K video = yawn. and 3. I have seen funkytown, so it's not like I can't find stuff on the net thang.
    I don't think pegginggate 'got out there', I think it was made up by a team of hardcore Meghanites. The point of it was to get it into circulation.
    Conversely, I think the truth has a weight and momentum of its own. There was absolutely no attempt to refute it.
    Nah, it was obvious nonsense. The royal gossip equivalent of an urban myth: things you WANT to believe are true. I'm quite surprised that you have fallen for it
    How do you know you haven't fallen for the 'Finland Rumour' ?
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275
    Instead of targeting help to those in dire straits over the winter Truss is dishing out a tax cut which some don’t need .

    Given how high energy bills are expected to be things are going to be horrific for some people .
  • A tape has emerged of the Finland scandal (from 21:10) https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5ve9ln
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,717
     
    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    Depends on the cabbage, surely.

    The other unnerving thing about Corsica so far is the complete lack of insects. No crickets at night, no cicadas, not even any mosquitoes, nothing but the hum of air conditioners. It feels like we are, now, in the middle of that extinction crisis we had so long been warned about.

    The Med is, I think, an eco disaster on a par with the Aral Sea. No fish, no shellfish, but jellyfish swarms and algal blooms, very few birds, at least here, no insects. Soup-warm seawater too.

    A silent night on a Mediterranean island is a strange thing.
    That's interesting and disturbing. Do you remember me going on about the lack of mosquitoes in Montenegro?

    At the time I ascribed it to the dry karst landscape. No standing water = no mosquitoes. But I could not find any reference to this phenomenon online. And there were plenty of WARNINGS about mosquitoes being the usual problem, on the coast

    Are the mosquitoes dying out? On the Med? You've got me wondering
    Very few in Finland this year. Loads in a normal year.

  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,312

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Cookie said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    I personally know three people that know THE FINLAND RUMOUR. So it is genuinely surprising that it has not leaked wider

    And I'm not joking. Three people. All men

    I just don't believe this, because 1. if pegginggate got out there I can't see what else wouldn't 2. I don't see what you can't get away with these days anyway. {Tory contender} rimming a dachsund in 4K video = yawn. and 3. I have seen funkytown, so it's not like I can't find stuff on the net thang.
    I don't think pegginggate 'got out there', I think it was made up by a team of hardcore Meghanites. The point of it was to get it into circulation.
    Conversely, I think the truth has a weight and momentum of its own. There was absolutely no attempt to refute it.
    Nah, it was obvious nonsense. The royal gossip equivalent of an urban myth: things you WANT to believe are true. I'm quite surprised that you have fallen for it
    How do you know you haven't fallen for the 'Finland Rumour' ?
    I have considered that possibility....


    ..... and dismissed it. Because I am the guy that spotted Truss's necklace and dress 90 seconds into her first debate, when the rest of you were laughably clueless throughout. I'm good at this shit. I know kinky sex. I know who likes kinky sex. I can tell if a woman is sub or dom within three minutes of meeting her, and I can even hazard a good guess as to her fetishes. And I really can. It's like a party trick. I have a highly sexed kinky friend who can do the same. We've tested each other

    I don't believe Pegging-gate

    And as I am good on kinky sex I believe I am good on wider non-sexual yet still crazy bullshit. So I am instinctively tempted to believe THE FINLAND RUMOUR, and I trust my instincts

    If I am proved to be a credulous twit then I will eat seventeen dill pickles
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Dynamo said:

    BBC radio news coverage of the Archie Battersbee case a few minutes ago completely avoided mentioning Tiktok. They preferred to have an "expert" call for less adversarial legal procedures.

    Repeat: they didn't mention Tiktok.
    We seriously need some glasnost and we aren't going to get any.

    What in God's name are you on about? The world and his wife know that the TikTok thing was a complete red herring. Why do you think the press has been reporting the mother's suggestion for weeks, deadpan and without cries for Tiktok's head on a platter?

    Give up?

    The child was attempting suicide. The tiktok thing is a cover up and a red herring. That is what this is all about.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,312
    geoffw said:

     

    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    Depends on the cabbage, surely.

    The other unnerving thing about Corsica so far is the complete lack of insects. No crickets at night, no cicadas, not even any mosquitoes, nothing but the hum of air conditioners. It feels like we are, now, in the middle of that extinction crisis we had so long been warned about.

    The Med is, I think, an eco disaster on a par with the Aral Sea. No fish, no shellfish, but jellyfish swarms and algal blooms, very few birds, at least here, no insects. Soup-warm seawater too.

    A silent night on a Mediterranean island is a strange thing.
    That's interesting and disturbing. Do you remember me going on about the lack of mosquitoes in Montenegro?

    At the time I ascribed it to the dry karst landscape. No standing water = no mosquitoes. But I could not find any reference to this phenomenon online. And there were plenty of WARNINGS about mosquitoes being the usual problem, on the coast

    Are the mosquitoes dying out? On the Med? You've got me wondering
    Very few in Finland this year. Loads in a normal year.

    BUT THE HORNETS ARE BAD IN LAPEENRANTA
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,717
    Leon said:

    geoffw said:

     

    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    I may have just come up with the greatest ever intro for a PB thread header.

    Possibly the greatest every opening in the history of literature.

    It'll be published overnight.

    It will inevitably overtaken by revelations about one of the leadership candidates in the Sunday papers. At least, I am hoping that something will come along to enliven this dull, repetitive process. Has anyone heard from the Helsinki branch of pop bitch?
    Trust me, you do not want to hear THE FINLAND RUMOUR
    "With a Melon?"
    I was once asked, by a Year 9, what would happen if a human and a cabbage had sex.

    When I related this conversation to a colleague, he thought for a moment and then said, 'chafing.'
    Depends on the cabbage, surely.

    The other unnerving thing about Corsica so far is the complete lack of insects. No crickets at night, no cicadas, not even any mosquitoes, nothing but the hum of air conditioners. It feels like we are, now, in the middle of that extinction crisis we had so long been warned about.

    The Med is, I think, an eco disaster on a par with the Aral Sea. No fish, no shellfish, but jellyfish swarms and algal blooms, very few birds, at least here, no insects. Soup-warm seawater too.

    A silent night on a Mediterranean island is a strange thing.
    That's interesting and disturbing. Do you remember me going on about the lack of mosquitoes in Montenegro?

    At the time I ascribed it to the dry karst landscape. No standing water = no mosquitoes. But I could not find any reference to this phenomenon online. And there were plenty of WARNINGS about mosquitoes being the usual problem, on the coast

    Are the mosquitoes dying out? On the Med? You've got me wondering
    Very few in Finland this year. Loads in a normal year.

    BUT THE HORNETS ARE BAD IN LAPEENRANTA
    Natural border defence against the pesky Russkies.

  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,362
    Leon said:

    CatMan said:

    Roger said:

    A fun article by Alastair Campbell's daughter about sex in Las Vegas (and elsewhere)

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/06/sex-positive-comedy-las-vegas-rape?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

    Fun? She got raped
    Hmm. She'd have a very hard time getting a jury to convict, with that story
    She knows that, as she writes, yet it seems pretty obvious that she was, in fact, raped.

    Bill Gates is a famous philanthropist, known for his intention to give the vast majority of his fortune away. Yet, if he were to report a mugging no-one would use his philanthropy against him, and all whether he'd simply given his possessions away.

    Why can't we trust a woman to know when she has, or has not, consented to sex?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Cookie said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    I personally know three people that know THE FINLAND RUMOUR. So it is genuinely surprising that it has not leaked wider

    And I'm not joking. Three people. All men

    I just don't believe this, because 1. if pegginggate got out there I can't see what else wouldn't 2. I don't see what you can't get away with these days anyway. {Tory contender} rimming a dachsund in 4K video = yawn. and 3. I have seen funkytown, so it's not like I can't find stuff on the net thang.
    I don't think pegginggate 'got out there', I think it was made up by a team of hardcore Meghanites. The point of it was to get it into circulation.
    Conversely, I think the truth has a weight and momentum of its own. There was absolutely no attempt to refute it.
    Why should there be. The royal family's private life is their own as long as it is consensual and legal.

    In any case it is rumoured Harry enjoyed the same favours in Las Vegas and Meghan was hardly a nun before she married him
    Well yes, but Harry is out of the running. Whereas the claim that the future Defender Of The Faith can take about an hour on the tower of power has ramifications, I would have thought, for passionate Anglicans.
  • Leon said:

    A man cannot count himself a man, until he's fucked the shit out of a large piece of fruit. I have always thought this, and I will not be dissuaded from this ancestral belief by any nonsense about pies and chicken fillets

    Is even a Christmas goose safe (let alone sacred) in your presence? Not to mention a Thanksgiving turkey!
This discussion has been closed.