I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
Question is....OLED or QLED?
If you want to spend an extra 4 figures to ensure your blacks are 2% blacker than the neighbour's, yes. Otherwise, WGAF?
Talking about screen colours, for the avoidance of doubt. Or, for the pedants, screen absence-of-colours.
The issue is that public sector productivity is a disaster. It soaks up money and resources and outputs at a much lower rate than the private sector. I think in the UK public sector employees are a particular case of both useless and overpaid in a whole host of roles and they act to prevent front line roles from performing at higher productivity levels. It's a poisonous atmosphere as front line workers just want to get on with the job while those unproductive and overpaid types stifle any drive to, you know, do the actual job.
I said it on here the other day and the UK state sector defenders were out in force, the solution is to sack 50% of admin and other non front line roles, ban all consulting and hiring of day rate public sector consultants, put in place a hiring freeze and change job roles to cover whatever the 50% of people who got sacked were supposed to be doing, give the people who stick around a 30-40% pay rise, pump the rest of the money into front line recruitment.
It's almost a certainty that we wouldn't notice the difference and after a few years we'd see big improvements in output because there's more money for front line services and less being eaten up by the unproductive paper pushers.
You could probably repeat that process a few times and hollow out the DfE to give teachers a bigger slice of the education budget and start to chip away at the teacher shortage, do it at the NHS so that we get more capital investment, payrises and more recruitment among front line staff. Do it at the MoD and fund a proper military.
Osborne and Cameron had it right when they chipped away at the state sector, May and Boris has let the state grow to a completely out of control level and it is stifling output and the economy as these bureaucrats invent rules and processes to justify their continued employment.
Far be it from me to be another public sector "defender" (as though that's somehow a bad thing) but having worked in both public and private sectors, it's my experience they are much more alike than you suggest.
As to your specifics, the argument for banning all consultancy is an interesting one. I certainly think having to pay them up to £1500 per day is an obscene waste of public money but bringing in specialist knowledge to an organisation where it doesn't exist is hardly the monopoly of the public sector.
A local Council is an amalgam of businesses across a wide range of sectors, much less homogenous than most private companies. Yes, the average public sector authority doesn't have to worry about shareholders or a profit and can operate to margins most private firms cannot but the fact remains it's a lot of ground to cover and often in areas which private companies can't touch because there's no money in it for them.
I'd also add one of the biggest problems for local Government is central Government which ties the hands of Councils through capping and by imposing regulatory responsibilities on a whole range of areas driven by legislation (NOT EU legislation but good old fashioned UK state interventionism).
I'd argue devolving real financial authority and responsibility from Westminster would be a much better issue than your notion of culling "unproductive and overpaid types".
But the issue is that those day rate consultants helped to set up those systems and processes that require that specialised knowledge and ultimately if no one did those jobs no one would notice other than removing a tick box from a monthly form.
That general problem must stem from the New Labour approach of using legislation to solve delivery problems. If something doesn't work, you pass a law to say that it must work, but this just redirects people's energies into complying with the law rather than actual delivery.
I don’t think this is just a UK problem, but the Tories seem unaware of the issue, and Labour have no answers either.
The problem is not just money.
The issue is that public sector productivity is a disaster. It soaks up money and resources and outputs at a much lower rate than the private sector. I think in the UK public sector employees are a particular case of both useless and overpaid in a whole host of roles and they act to prevent front line roles from performing at higher productivity levels. It's a poisonous atmosphere as front line workers just want to get on with the job while those unproductive and overpaid types stifle any drive to, you know, do the actual job.
I said it on here the other day and the UK state sector defenders were out in force, the solution is to sack 50% of admin and other non front line roles, ban all consulting and hiring of day rate public sector consultants, put in place a hiring freeze and change job roles to cover whatever the 50% of people who got sacked were supposed to be doing, give the people who stick around a 30-40% pay rise, pump the rest of the money into front line recruitment.
It's almost a certainty that we wouldn't notice the difference and after a few years we'd see big improvements in output because there's more money for front line services and less being eaten up by the unproductive paper pushers.
You could probably repeat that process a few times and hollow out the DfE to give teachers a bigger slice of the education budget and start to chip away at the teacher shortage, do it at the NHS so that we get more capital investment, payrises and more recruitment among front line staff. Do it at the MoD and fund a proper military.
Osborne and Cameron had it right when they chipped away at the state sector, May and Boris has let the state grow to a completely out of control level and it is stifling output and the economy as these bureaucrats invent rules and processes to justify their continued employment.
I don’t agree with your prescription, for example the NHS has *less* administration staff than peer systems.
I think the problem is that Covid has basically fucked management efficiency. I know I sound like a Daily Mail reader, but the fact that Sheryl needs to take a dog for a walk is not a good reason for not turning up to the all staff.
I don’t blame Sheryl by the way, it’s a systemic issue, and not limited to the private sector. I also see it in the collapse of service from HSBC UK.
I suspect there's a Laffer curve type effect going on here. Too much admin is bad, but so is too little. Since certain admin functions have to be done, they end up being done by interestingly trained people as unpaid overtime or skimping on their actual role. That's cheaper but less efficient, since less medicine or teaching or whatever gets done.
I'm pretty sure, for example, that City types get way more admin support than schools manage with.
Our people and ops team is about 30 and they support about 2500 in this location. The key, and this is not just for the City or Tech, is to outline what bureaucracy can be automated and have people in roles to do that because it scales a lot better than just hiring people into the specific function. That's how you end up with box tickers and paper pushers.
I don’t think this is just a UK problem, but the Tories seem unaware of the issue, and Labour have no answers either.
The problem is not just money.
The issue is that public sector productivity is a disaster. It soaks up money and resources and outputs at a much lower rate than the private sector. I think in the UK public sector employees are a particular case of both useless and overpaid in a whole host of roles and they act to prevent front line roles from performing at higher productivity levels. It's a poisonous atmosphere as front line workers just want to get on with the job while those unproductive and overpaid types stifle any drive to, you know, do the actual job.
I said it on here the other day and the UK state sector defenders were out in force, the solution is to sack 50% of admin and other non front line roles, ban all consulting and hiring of day rate public sector consultants, put in place a hiring freeze and change job roles to cover whatever the 50% of people who got sacked were supposed to be doing, give the people who stick around a 30-40% pay rise, pump the rest of the money into front line recruitment.
It's almost a certainty that we wouldn't notice the difference and after a few years we'd see big improvements in output because there's more money for front line services and less being eaten up by the unproductive paper pushers.
You could probably repeat that process a few times and hollow out the DfE to give teachers a bigger slice of the education budget and start to chip away at the teacher shortage, do it at the NHS so that we get more capital investment, payrises and more recruitment among front line staff. Do it at the MoD and fund a proper military.
Osborne and Cameron had it right when they chipped away at the state sector, May and Boris has let the state grow to a completely out of control level and it is stifling output and the economy as these bureaucrats invent rules and processes to justify their continued employment.
I don’t agree with your prescription, for example the NHS has *less* administration staff than peer systems.
I think the problem is that Covid has basically fucked management efficiency. I know I sound like a Daily Mail reader, but the fact that Sheryl needs to take a dog for a walk is not a good reason for not turning up to the all staff.
I don’t blame Sheryl by the way, it’s a systemic issue, and not limited to the public sector. I also see it in the collapse of service from HSBC UK.
I don't get this - I'm just as busy when I work from home (on calls, or working, back to back 9am to 6pm) and never have time to mow the lawn or eat lunch; barely to take a piss. The difference is I'm far less exhausted because I'm only commuting 3 days a week not 5.
If people are fucking about at home in a way they wouldn't in the office then, obviously, they don't have enough to do and their management is shit.
It's a really old skool way of working when you need to be constantly (visually) supervised to be trusted to do anything, and suggests a really poor management culture.
I believe you and I’m not against home working per se, I’m riffing a bit on how on earth a systemic decline in public service could have taken place.
Regarding your last paragraph, yes, but in my experience, efficient knowledge work requires both planned and unplanned collaboration. Homeworking puts friction into the first and makes the second very difficult.
I had to apply for a second current account today, for various family reasons I won't go into. As part of it, I made the distinctly unpleasant discovery that Lloyds have no meaningful security measures in place on existing customers registering for online banking. In effect, somebody with my name, knowing my account details and phone number, could register for online banking and empty my account in 15 minutes without anyone noticing.
I've always set my face against online personal banking because I thought it was so insecure, but I never dreamed it would be so bad that I'd be vulnerable to being hacked even if I didn't have it.
Are there any banks out there that do have proper security on setting up online accounts so they can't be accessed by any spotty teenager with a laptop? Because if so, I would like to move to them.
(What was worse was Lloyd's, when I rang up to complain, tried to pretend that their systems were very secure because they were encrypted. Which may be true, but is also irrelevant if they're going to make personation so easy.)
Starling is pretty strong. Video based identity check with passport and manual verification.
I have Starling for business banking already. I’m tempted to move to them altogether on that basis.
I just can’t understand how a large, established bank like Lloyds would not do simple checks like, e.g. write to the customer with a passcode or get an actual adviser to ring and check transactions rather than dial through an automated code to a number that you can add to an account just by knowing somebody’s date of birth.
I don’t think this is just a UK problem, but the Tories seem unaware of the issue, and Labour have no answers either.
The problem is not just money.
The issue is that public sector productivity is a disaster. It soaks up money and resources and outputs at a much lower rate than the private sector. I think in the UK public sector employees are a particular case of both useless and overpaid in a whole host of roles and they act to prevent front line roles from performing at higher productivity levels. It's a poisonous atmosphere as front line workers just want to get on with the job while those unproductive and overpaid types stifle any drive to, you know, do the actual job.
I said it on here the other day and the UK state sector defenders were out in force, the solution is to sack 50% of admin and other non front line roles, ban all consulting and hiring of day rate public sector consultants, put in place a hiring freeze and change job roles to cover whatever the 50% of people who got sacked were supposed to be doing, give the people who stick around a 30-40% pay rise, pump the rest of the money into front line recruitment.
It's almost a certainty that we wouldn't notice the difference and after a few years we'd see big improvements in output because there's more money for front line services and less being eaten up by the unproductive paper pushers.
You could probably repeat that process a few times and hollow out the DfE to give teachers a bigger slice of the education budget and start to chip away at the teacher shortage, do it at the NHS so that we get more capital investment, payrises and more recruitment among front line staff. Do it at the MoD and fund a proper military.
Osborne and Cameron had it right when they chipped away at the state sector, May and Boris has let the state grow to a completely out of control level and it is stifling output and the economy as these bureaucrats invent rules and processes to justify their continued employment.
There are a lot of IT consulting companies making very good money out of the public sector, mainly because the public sector isn't willing or able to pay the going rate for in house expertise.
I think I know why it is easier for HMG to pay >>£x00s per day for consultants rather than to employ staff directly, but it doesn't stop it from being daft. And even if they are lucky enough to get consultants who give a damn about documenting their work properly, it means the institutional knowledge suffers.
I don’t think this is just a UK problem, but the Tories seem unaware of the issue, and Labour have no answers either.
The problem is not just money.
The issue is that public sector productivity is a disaster. It soaks up money and resources and outputs at a much lower rate than the private sector. I think in the UK public sector employees are a particular case of both useless and overpaid in a whole host of roles and they act to prevent front line roles from performing at higher productivity levels. It's a poisonous atmosphere as front line workers just want to get on with the job while those unproductive and overpaid types stifle any drive to, you know, do the actual job.
I said it on here the other day and the UK state sector defenders were out in force, the solution is to sack 50% of admin and other non front line roles, ban all consulting and hiring of day rate public sector consultants, put in place a hiring freeze and change job roles to cover whatever the 50% of people who got sacked were supposed to be doing, give the people who stick around a 30-40% pay rise, pump the rest of the money into front line recruitment.
It's almost a certainty that we wouldn't notice the difference and after a few years we'd see big improvements in output because there's more money for front line services and less being eaten up by the unproductive paper pushers.
You could probably repeat that process a few times and hollow out the DfE to give teachers a bigger slice of the education budget and start to chip away at the teacher shortage, do it at the NHS so that we get more capital investment, payrises and more recruitment among front line staff. Do it at the MoD and fund a proper military.
Osborne and Cameron had it right when they chipped away at the state sector, May and Boris has let the state grow to a completely out of control level and it is stifling output and the economy as these bureaucrats invent rules and processes to justify their continued employment.
Totally agree and i have worked in all three sectors - private ,public and third sector- By far the worse for staff entitlement is the public sector and anyone saying it is efficient is living in cloud cuckoo land. To me the best model for a lot of services is the third sector however and surprised not more worker or consumer cooperatives are not around
One reason for lack of efficiency is people pursuing petty (and irrelevant) power-building agendas, refusing to cooperate or collaborate with others, poor performance management of decidedly below-average staff, with people passing the buck on them repeatedly, and lots of meetings that many attend where the time is filled beating about the bush but nothing is produced nor any decisions made that hold anyone accountable.
Lots of organisations have lots of activity but little output, and are seemingly rewarded for the former.
Some people pass their entire lives doing this and are perfectly happy so long as they can do their 9-5 and draw a regular salary.
I would say the British excel at this. The Office was a comedy but instructive at highlighting it.
I had to apply for a second current account today, for various family reasons I won't go into. As part of it, I made the distinctly unpleasant discovery that Lloyds have no meaningful security measures in place on existing customers registering for online banking. In effect, somebody with my name, knowing my account details and phone number, could register for online banking and empty my account in 15 minutes without anyone noticing.
I've always set my face against online personal banking because I thought it was so insecure, but I never dreamed it would be so bad that I'd be vulnerable to being hacked even if I didn't have it.
Are there any banks out there that do have proper security on setting up online accounts so they can't be accessed by any spotty teenager with a laptop? Because if so, I would like to move to them.
(What was worse was Lloyd's, when I rang up to complain, tried to pretend that their systems were very secure because they were encrypted. Which may be true, but is also irrelevant if they're going to make personation so easy.)
This may be better than nothing ... and FWIW, once it's set up is a different matter from the setup.
But that's actually missing the point. I'm not bothered about whether it's secure once it's set up. The issue is it's not secure in actually being set up. There is no meaningful check to ensure it's genuine.
Are you describing their process accurately? According to this they will ring you to authenticate the phone number when you register:
This might not be what you want to hear, but you're probably better off embracing internet banking than continuing to set your face against it. It's very mature technology now.
They will ring if they have the right phone number. Leaving aside that phone numbers themselves are quite vulnerable to hacking, they don’t do it if they are told not to. As I found out by doing it.
‘Mature technology’ is not a reason for doing anything. It may just mean they’ve been lucky for a long time. Chernobyl, the Titanic and the Hindenburg were all mature technology.
It all sounds sub optimal, BUT I find if I set up a payment to a new bank (chasing interest rates) for more than about 37p I get the bank's fraud prevention team on my ass asking if someone purporting to be a policeman rang me out of the blue and told me to make this transfer. I suspect it wouldn't be plain sailing to set up phone banking fraudulently on your account, and then request a payment of a squillion quid to an account you have not transacted with before.
I had to apply for a second current account today, for various family reasons I won't go into. As part of it, I made the distinctly unpleasant discovery that Lloyds have no meaningful security measures in place on existing customers registering for online banking. In effect, somebody with my name, knowing my account details and phone number, could register for online banking and empty my account in 15 minutes without anyone noticing.
I've always set my face against online personal banking because I thought it was so insecure, but I never dreamed it would be so bad that I'd be vulnerable to being hacked even if I didn't have it.
Are there any banks out there that do have proper security on setting up online accounts so they can't be accessed by any spotty teenager with a laptop? Because if so, I would like to move to them.
(What was worse was Lloyd's, when I rang up to complain, tried to pretend that their systems were very secure because they were encrypted. Which may be true, but is also irrelevant if they're going to make personation so easy.)
This may be better than nothing ... and FWIW, once it's set up is a different matter from the setup.
But that's actually missing the point. I'm not bothered about whether it's secure once it's set up. The issue is it's not secure in actually being set up. There is no meaningful check to ensure it's genuine.
Are you describing their process accurately? According to this they will ring you to authenticate the phone number when you register:
This might not be what you want to hear, but you're probably better off embracing internet banking than continuing to set your face against it. It's very mature technology now.
They will ring if they have the right phone number. Leaving aside that phone numbers themselves are quite vulnerable to hacking, they don’t do it if they are told not to. As I found out by doing it.
‘Mature technology’ is not a reason for doing anything. It may just mean they’ve been lucky for a long time. Chernobyl, the Titanic and the Hindenburg were all mature technology.
It all sounds sub optimal, BUT I find if I set up a payment to a new bank (chasing interest rates) for more than about 37p I get the bank's fraud prevention team on my ass asking if someone purporting to be a policeman rang me out of the blue and told me to make this transfer. I suspect it wouldn't be plain sailing to set up phone banking fraudulently on your account, and then request a payment of a squillion quid to an account you have not transacted with before.
The problem I have seen in both the private and public sectors is that admin people think that they are important. They send out lots of memos and demands for information from those actually doing the work to demonstrate their importance and reduce the amount of time workers spend on productive work by demanding information and data that once again shows how essential they are to the organisation. Good organisations recognise that the admin is the servant, designed to facilitate the work, not the master. They’re incredibly rare.
I don’t think this is just a UK problem, but the Tories seem unaware of the issue, and Labour have no answers either.
The problem is not just money.
The issue is that public sector productivity is a disaster. It soaks up money and resources and outputs at a much lower rate than the private sector. I think in the UK public sector employees are a particular case of both useless and overpaid in a whole host of roles and they act to prevent front line roles from performing at higher productivity levels. It's a poisonous atmosphere as front line workers just want to get on with the job while those unproductive and overpaid types stifle any drive to, you know, do the actual job.
I said it on here the other day and the UK state sector defenders were out in force, the solution is to sack 50% of admin and other non front line roles, ban all consulting and hiring of day rate public sector consultants, put in place a hiring freeze and change job roles to cover whatever the 50% of people who got sacked were supposed to be doing, give the people who stick around a 30-40% pay rise, pump the rest of the money into front line recruitment.
It's almost a certainty that we wouldn't notice the difference and after a few years we'd see big improvements in output because there's more money for front line services and less being eaten up by the unproductive paper pushers.
You could probably repeat that process a few times and hollow out the DfE to give teachers a bigger slice of the education budget and start to chip away at the teacher shortage, do it at the NHS so that we get more capital investment, payrises and more recruitment among front line staff. Do it at the MoD and fund a proper military.
Osborne and Cameron had it right when they chipped away at the state sector, May and Boris has let the state grow to a completely out of control level and it is stifling output and the economy as these bureaucrats invent rules and processes to justify their continued employment.
There are a lot of IT consulting companies making very good money out of the public sector, mainly because the public sector isn't willing or able to pay the going rate for in house expertise.
I think I know why it is easier for HMG to pay >>£x00s per day for consultants rather than to employ staff directly, but it doesn't stop it from being daft. And even if they are lucky enough to get consultants who give a damn about documenting their work properly, it means the institutional knowledge suffers.
And if we did what I suggest, the productive half would see big enough pay rises to get and retain quality people without needing expensive consultants. A ban on external consultants would be tough at first but that industry simply dies and those people go back to being salaried employees or they go and try to get those outrageous numbers from the private sector.
I don’t think this is just a UK problem, but the Tories seem unaware of the issue, and Labour have no answers either.
The problem is not just money.
The issue is that public sector productivity is a disaster. It soaks up money and resources and outputs at a much lower rate than the private sector. I think in the UK public sector employees are a particular case of both useless and overpaid in a whole host of roles and they act to prevent front line roles from performing at higher productivity levels. It's a poisonous atmosphere as front line workers just want to get on with the job while those unproductive and overpaid types stifle any drive to, you know, do the actual job.
I said it on here the other day and the UK state sector defenders were out in force, the solution is to sack 50% of admin and other non front line roles, ban all consulting and hiring of day rate public sector consultants, put in place a hiring freeze and change job roles to cover whatever the 50% of people who got sacked were supposed to be doing, give the people who stick around a 30-40% pay rise, pump the rest of the money into front line recruitment.
It's almost a certainty that we wouldn't notice the difference and after a few years we'd see big improvements in output because there's more money for front line services and less being eaten up by the unproductive paper pushers.
You could probably repeat that process a few times and hollow out the DfE to give teachers a bigger slice of the education budget and start to chip away at the teacher shortage, do it at the NHS so that we get more capital investment, payrises and more recruitment among front line staff. Do it at the MoD and fund a proper military.
Osborne and Cameron had it right when they chipped away at the state sector, May and Boris has let the state grow to a completely out of control level and it is stifling output and the economy as these bureaucrats invent rules and processes to justify their continued employment.
There are a lot of IT consulting companies making very good money out of the public sector, mainly because the public sector isn't willing or able to pay the going rate for in house expertise.
I think I know why it is easier for HMG to pay >>£x00s per day for consultants rather than to employ staff directly, but it doesn't stop it from being daft. And even if they are lucky enough to get consultants who give a damn about documenting their work properly, it means the institutional knowledge suffers.
I could get £950-£1,000 a day as an independent contractor, and probably work full-time 40 weeks a year.
I don't because I don't want to take the income risk, and I want a career of exciting jobs and challenges that stretch me, but it's tempting since I'd be pulling in 200k+ and probably paying less tax on it too.
They are promoting Meet the Fabelmans a lot near me, but I figure that’s because I live on the UWS which has the most “Meet the Fabelmans” friendly demographic in the United States.
I have two small kids, and literally went to the cinema two weekends ago. Never bloody heard of “Strange World” until that article.
The complete lack of advertising tells you how much work Disney put in into making it a successfully movie (none at all).
Rumour has it though that higher ups in Disney want to gut the film animation department.
"complete lack of advertising"? They spent US$250m.....
But the issue is that those day rate consultants helped to set up those systems and processes that require that specialised knowledge and ultimately if no one did those jobs no one would notice other than removing a tick box from a monthly form.
With respect, no they don't.
Consultants and consultancies are used where there is no specialist knowledge within the local authority. For example, if a Council wants to look at outsourcing its property maintenance activities, it will usually bring in an outside expert to help draft the ITT documents, the scoring criteria and manage the evaluation process .
Officers will use that to score the tenders from competing companies and make a recommendation to award (or not). In some cases, the consultant may remain to help set up the client end and maybe help HR with the TUPE of staff across to the new provider.
Now, it's my experience companies are keen to bid for public sector work often in the mistaken belief they can make the staff they take on more productive and while the Council contract will be a loss leader, they'll use the extra capacity for fee earning work.
It doesn't happen like that - the Council provides more work than the Contractor can manage and eventually the Contractor has to admit they can't make any money from the bid they submitted. The truth is the public sector isn't as much constrained by poor productivity as by poor financial management.
They are promoting Meet the Fabelmans a lot near me, but I figure that’s because I live on the UWS which has the most “Meet the Fabelmans” friendly demographic in the United States.
I have two small kids, and literally went to the cinema two weekends ago. Never bloody heard of “Strange World” until that article.
The complete lack of advertising tells you how much work Disney put in into making it a successfully movie (none at all).
Rumour has it though that higher ups in Disney want to gut the film animation department.
"complete lack of advertising"? They spent US$250m.....
I had to apply for a second current account today, for various family reasons I won't go into. As part of it, I made the distinctly unpleasant discovery that Lloyds have no meaningful security measures in place on existing customers registering for online banking. In effect, somebody with my name, knowing my account details and phone number, could register for online banking and empty my account in 15 minutes without anyone noticing.
I've always set my face against online personal banking because I thought it was so insecure, but I never dreamed it would be so bad that I'd be vulnerable to being hacked even if I didn't have it.
Are there any banks out there that do have proper security on setting up online accounts so they can't be accessed by any spotty teenager with a laptop? Because if so, I would like to move to them.
(What was worse was Lloyd's, when I rang up to complain, tried to pretend that their systems were very secure because they were encrypted. Which may be true, but is also irrelevant if they're going to make personation so easy.)
This may be better than nothing ... and FWIW, once it's set up is a different matter from the setup.
But that's actually missing the point. I'm not bothered about whether it's secure once it's set up. The issue is it's not secure in actually being set up. There is no meaningful check to ensure it's genuine.
Are you describing their process accurately? According to this they will ring you to authenticate the phone number when you register:
This might not be what you want to hear, but you're probably better off embracing internet banking than continuing to set your face against it. It's very mature technology now.
They will ring if they have the right phone number. Leaving aside that phone numbers themselves are quite vulnerable to hacking, they don’t do it if they are told not to. As I found out by doing it.
‘Mature technology’ is not a reason for doing anything. It may just mean they’ve been lucky for a long time. Chernobyl, the Titanic and the Hindenburg were all mature technology.
It all sounds sub optimal, BUT I find if I set up a payment to a new bank (chasing interest rates) for more than about 37p I get the bank's fraud prevention team on my ass asking if someone purporting to be a policeman rang me out of the blue and told me to make this transfer. I suspect it wouldn't be plain sailing to set up phone banking fraudulently on your account, and then request a payment of a squillion quid to an account you have not transacted with before.
Which bank are you with?
first direct.
joined them in 1990 and they sent me a PIN number on a bit of paper saying For God's sake memorise this and then immediately burn this bit of paper, eat the ashes and defecate in a random toilet. Found the bit of paper acting as a bookmark earlier this year. Still have the same PIN number.
They are promoting Meet the Fabelmans a lot near me, but I figure that’s because I live on the UWS which has the most “Meet the Fabelmans” friendly demographic in the United States.
I have two small kids, and literally went to the cinema two weekends ago. Never bloody heard of “Strange World” until that article.
The complete lack of advertising tells you how much work Disney put in into making it a successfully movie (none at all).
Rumour has it though that higher ups in Disney want to gut the film animation department.
"complete lack of advertising"? They spent US$250m.....
I don’t think this is just a UK problem, but the Tories seem unaware of the issue, and Labour have no answers either.
The problem is not just money.
The issue is that public sector productivity is a disaster. It soaks up money and resources and outputs at a much lower rate than the private sector. I think in the UK public sector employees are a particular case of both useless and overpaid in a whole host of roles and they act to prevent front line roles from performing at higher productivity levels. It's a poisonous atmosphere as front line workers just want to get on with the job while those unproductive and overpaid types stifle any drive to, you know, do the actual job.
I said it on here the other day and the UK state sector defenders were out in force, the solution is to sack 50% of admin and other non front line roles, ban all consulting and hiring of day rate public sector consultants, put in place a hiring freeze and change job roles to cover whatever the 50% of people who got sacked were supposed to be doing, give the people who stick around a 30-40% pay rise, pump the rest of the money into front line recruitment.
It's almost a certainty that we wouldn't notice the difference and after a few years we'd see big improvements in output because there's more money for front line services and less being eaten up by the unproductive paper pushers.
You could probably repeat that process a few times and hollow out the DfE to give teachers a bigger slice of the education budget and start to chip away at the teacher shortage, do it at the NHS so that we get more capital investment, payrises and more recruitment among front line staff. Do it at the MoD and fund a proper military.
Osborne and Cameron had it right when they chipped away at the state sector, May and Boris has let the state grow to a completely out of control level and it is stifling output and the economy as these bureaucrats invent rules and processes to justify their continued employment.
There are a lot of IT consulting companies making very good money out of the public sector, mainly because the public sector isn't willing or able to pay the going rate for in house expertise.
I think I know why it is easier for HMG to pay >>£x00s per day for consultants rather than to employ staff directly, but it doesn't stop it from being daft. And even if they are lucky enough to get consultants who give a damn about documenting their work properly, it means the institutional knowledge suffers.
I could get £950-£1,000 a day as an independent contractor, and probably work full-time 40 weeks a year.
I don't because I don't want to take the income risk, and I want a career of exciting jobs and challenges that stretch me, but it's tempting since I'd be pulling in 200k+ and probably paying less tax on it too.
Weirdly, I have just done the exact reverse. I have left my practice earning roughly 200k before tax for a job paying half as much in the public sector. The work I am going to do now just seems more meaningful and important. Money isn’t everything.
I had to apply for a second current account today, for various family reasons I won't go into. As part of it, I made the distinctly unpleasant discovery that Lloyds have no meaningful security measures in place on existing customers registering for online banking. In effect, somebody with my name, knowing my account details and phone number, could register for online banking and empty my account in 15 minutes without anyone noticing.
I've always set my face against online personal banking because I thought it was so insecure, but I never dreamed it would be so bad that I'd be vulnerable to being hacked even if I didn't have it.
Are there any banks out there that do have proper security on setting up online accounts so they can't be accessed by any spotty teenager with a laptop? Because if so, I would like to move to them.
(What was worse was Lloyd's, when I rang up to complain, tried to pretend that their systems were very secure because they were encrypted. Which may be true, but is also irrelevant if they're going to make personation so easy.)
This may be better than nothing ... and FWIW, once it's set up is a different matter from the setup.
But that's actually missing the point. I'm not bothered about whether it's secure once it's set up. The issue is it's not secure in actually being set up. There is no meaningful check to ensure it's genuine.
Are you describing their process accurately? According to this they will ring you to authenticate the phone number when you register:
This might not be what you want to hear, but you're probably better off embracing internet banking than continuing to set your face against it. It's very mature technology now.
They will ring if they have the right phone number. Leaving aside that phone numbers themselves are quite vulnerable to hacking, they don’t do it if they are told not to. As I found out by doing it.
‘Mature technology’ is not a reason for doing anything. It may just mean they’ve been lucky for a long time. Chernobyl, the Titanic and the Hindenburg were all mature technology.
Regardless of whether you're registered for internet banking or not, your account is still there on the same systems using the same databases.
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
There certainly is - I mentioned I've been over 25 times this year, with a variety of genres, and several of those included films I'd never heard of until they popped up at like 1-2 screenings a day.
It feels like a collective loss of nerve by the studios and distributors.
They need to figure out how to make movies less expensive - if you need hundreds of millions to break even its a huge gamble and of course studios are risk averse and some will bomb hard.
Low budget stuff like many horror movies by people like Blumhouse can be good or bad, but doing badly at the box office doesn't matter so much as you'll probably still make a profit, and the big successes will pay for another 15 movies, rather than banking it all on a franchise.
But you don't need to go that low, just more mid budget.
I have been to the cinema a lot this year (more than most years) and seen a mixture of good and bad - Good films include the recent "the Menu" and "Triangle of Sadness" , also a while back the " The fall" was great and better than I thought it would be . Ok films included "the lost King" which had a great subject of course but tried too hard to be "woke" when it was not needed (in the sense of all the males portrayed being patronising to Philippa Langley ) - Worst but most hyped movie seen this year has to be "Nope" which was turgid . Liked Elvis as well
Nope felt very confused to me - the director's previous movies were creepy, and it started out like it was going to be, then wasn't, but it also didn't really have any humour or much else to it. As a student of UoL I loyally stayed away from the Lost King after seeing they were not happy about it (ok, I forgot)
The Northman was a big disappointment, going for something bleak and dreamlike, but just being boring. Movies like Three Thousand Years of Longing and the Unbearable weight of massive talent felt like they should have been good but just fell short for me
The Lost City was a lot of fun, Moonfall was hilarious nonsense schlock, Everything Everywhere all at once was utter insanity and worth seeing just for that
I had to apply for a second current account today, for various family reasons I won't go into. As part of it, I made the distinctly unpleasant discovery that Lloyds have no meaningful security measures in place on existing customers registering for online banking. In effect, somebody with my name, knowing my account details and phone number, could register for online banking and empty my account in 15 minutes without anyone noticing.
I've always set my face against online personal banking because I thought it was so insecure, but I never dreamed it would be so bad that I'd be vulnerable to being hacked even if I didn't have it.
Are there any banks out there that do have proper security on setting up online accounts so they can't be accessed by any spotty teenager with a laptop? Because if so, I would like to move to them.
(What was worse was Lloyd's, when I rang up to complain, tried to pretend that their systems were very secure because they were encrypted. Which may be true, but is also irrelevant if they're going to make personation so easy.)
This may be better than nothing ... and FWIW, once it's set up is a different matter from the setup.
But that's actually missing the point. I'm not bothered about whether it's secure once it's set up. The issue is it's not secure in actually being set up. There is no meaningful check to ensure it's genuine.
Are you describing their process accurately? According to this they will ring you to authenticate the phone number when you register:
This might not be what you want to hear, but you're probably better off embracing internet banking than continuing to set your face against it. It's very mature technology now.
They will ring if they have the right phone number. Leaving aside that phone numbers themselves are quite vulnerable to hacking, they don’t do it if they are told not to. As I found out by doing it.
‘Mature technology’ is not a reason for doing anything. It may just mean they’ve been lucky for a long time. Chernobyl, the Titanic and the Hindenburg were all mature technology.
Regardless of whether you're registered for internet banking or not, your account is still there on the same systems using the same databases.
Which is what’s worrying me, and why I’m looking to switch.
Just started reading Under Every Leaf by William Beaver. It studies the development of military intelligence in the Victorian era with a particular interest in The Great Game. I was struck by this quote from Lord Salisbury: 'You should never trust experts. If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe.' So that is where Gove got his belief.
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
They are promoting Meet the Fabelmans a lot near me, but I figure that’s because I live on the UWS which has the most “Meet the Fabelmans” friendly demographic in the United States.
I have two small kids, and literally went to the cinema two weekends ago. Never bloody heard of “Strange World” until that article.
The complete lack of advertising tells you how much work Disney put in into making it a successfully movie (none at all).
Rumour has it though that higher ups in Disney want to gut the film animation department.
Well that sounds pretty dumb, they had a resurgence in their animated films such that they were both commercially and critically successful (mainly by copying Pixar movies, even though Pixar is also owned by Disney). Strange World notwithstanding, the poster for which makes me think of No Man's Sky or Outer Worlds every time I see it for some reason).
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
You obviously missed the dildo-knapping season at Swiss Cottage Odeon.
Court eunuchs could be pretty powerful, I still think it's a poor analogy.
The whole point of eunuchs was that they had power and access, because they couldn’t be corrupted by their libido (or, of course, pose a risk to the royal bloodline).
‘Harlot’ would be a better analogy. They get to look pretty for a bit while given a good screwing over, and then get remorselessly dumped.
I don’t think this is just a UK problem, but the Tories seem unaware of the issue, and Labour have no answers either.
The problem is not just money.
The issue is that public sector productivity is a disaster. It soaks up money and resources and outputs at a much lower rate than the private sector. I think in the UK public sector employees are a particular case of both useless and overpaid in a whole host of roles and they act to prevent front line roles from performing at higher productivity levels. It's a poisonous atmosphere as front line workers just want to get on with the job while those unproductive and overpaid types stifle any drive to, you know, do the actual job.
I said it on here the other day and the UK state sector defenders were out in force, the solution is to sack 50% of admin and other non front line roles, ban all consulting and hiring of day rate public sector consultants, put in place a hiring freeze and change job roles to cover whatever the 50% of people who got sacked were supposed to be doing, give the people who stick around a 30-40% pay rise, pump the rest of the money into front line recruitment.
It's almost a certainty that we wouldn't notice the difference and after a few years we'd see big improvements in output because there's more money for front line services and less being eaten up by the unproductive paper pushers.
You could probably repeat that process a few times and hollow out the DfE to give teachers a bigger slice of the education budget and start to chip away at the teacher shortage, do it at the NHS so that we get more capital investment, payrises and more recruitment among front line staff. Do it at the MoD and fund a proper military.
Osborne and Cameron had it right when they chipped away at the state sector, May and Boris has let the state grow to a completely out of control level and it is stifling output and the economy as these bureaucrats invent rules and processes to justify their continued employment.
I don’t agree with your prescription, for example the NHS has *less* administration staff than peer systems.
I think the problem is that Covid has basically fucked management efficiency. I know I sound like a Daily Mail reader, but the fact that Sheryl needs to take a dog for a walk is not a good reason for not turning up to the all staff.
I don’t blame Sheryl by the way, it’s a systemic issue, and not limited to the public sector. I also see it in the collapse of service from HSBC UK.
I don't get this - I'm just as busy when I work from home (on calls, or working, back to back 9am to 6pm) and never have time to mow the lawn or eat lunch; barely to take a piss. The difference is I'm far less exhausted because I'm only commuting 3 days a week not 5.
If people are fucking about at home in a way they wouldn't in the office then, obviously, they don't have enough to do and their management is shit.
It's a really old skool way of working when you need to be constantly (visually) supervised to be trusted to do anything, and suggests a really poor management culture.
Here's the thing as well, having a job without anything to do is not fun anyway. I've had periods like that, and it is irritating and exhausting.
I don't agree with all his conclusions, but David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs explored the various types of bullshit jobs at length, and the disconnect people can have where they might be well paid but, for whatever reason, without much actual work needed, and feeling as though they should be ok with it, but actually just feeling shitty.
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
You obviously missed the dildo-knapping season at Swiss Cottage Odeon.
Genuine LOL
That explains why I got a few weird looks at the Waitrose on Finchley Road....
I had to apply for a second current account today, for various family reasons I won't go into. As part of it, I made the distinctly unpleasant discovery that Lloyds have no meaningful security measures in place on existing customers registering for online banking. In effect, somebody with my name, knowing my account details and phone number, could register for online banking and empty my account in 15 minutes without anyone noticing.
I've always set my face against online personal banking because I thought it was so insecure, but I never dreamed it would be so bad that I'd be vulnerable to being hacked even if I didn't have it.
Are there any banks out there that do have proper security on setting up online accounts so they can't be accessed by any spotty teenager with a laptop? Because if so, I would like to move to them.
(What was worse was Lloyd's, when I rang up to complain, tried to pretend that their systems were very secure because they were encrypted. Which may be true, but is also irrelevant if they're going to make personation so easy.)
This may be better than nothing ... and FWIW, once it's set up is a different matter from the setup.
But that's actually missing the point. I'm not bothered about whether it's secure once it's set up. The issue is it's not secure in actually being set up. There is no meaningful check to ensure it's genuine.
Are you describing their process accurately? According to this they will ring you to authenticate the phone number when you register:
This might not be what you want to hear, but you're probably better off embracing internet banking than continuing to set your face against it. It's very mature technology now.
They will ring if they have the right phone number. Leaving aside that phone numbers themselves are quite vulnerable to hacking, they don’t do it if they are told not to. As I found out by doing it.
‘Mature technology’ is not a reason for doing anything. It may just mean they’ve been lucky for a long time. Chernobyl, the Titanic and the Hindenburg were all mature technology.
Regardless of whether you're registered for internet banking or not, your account is still there on the same systems using the same databases.
Which is what’s worrying me, and why I’m looking to switch.
All banks work like that don’t they? Are you a time traveller from the autumn of 1950?
Quite a good piece, to my surprise. Rishi is a total non-entity. Maybe this is inexperience, maybe he’s just fundamentally incurious about the world.
It's very hard, in advance, to identify a politician with actual substance. Nothing about the promotion path, be it opposition or government, will lend itself to being able to demonstrate that. So we rely on what we can get, like media performance and managing a department without self imposed screwups so massive the civil service cannot rescue things (they aren't without fault themselves after all, but are supposed to prevent total disaster).
Rishi rose quickly and oddly once you get very senior you rarely have to tax yourself in the job, until you get to the very top and the buck stops with you.
Quite a good piece, to my surprise. Rishi is a total non-entity. Maybe this is inexperience, maybe he’s just fundamentally incurious about the world.
I've got him down as 'early John Major' in my head. A little of of 'Who? Oh - that guy. He's PM now?'. He's not quite as unknown as Major was to me at the time due to covid, but it's slipping into the same funnel in my thoughts.
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
Oh Leon I thought you had SOUL! - I agree with you on so much but the cinema gets you out there , a lot more than watching something in your flat.
"Through seven lively case studies, he illustrates how geometry was used in metallic mines by practitioners using esoteric manuscripts. He describes how an original culture of accuracy and measurement paved the way for technical and scientific innovations, and fruitfully brought together the world of artisans, scholars and courts. He describes how an original culture of accuracy and measurement paved the way for technical and scientific innovations, and fruitfully brought together the world of artisans, scholars and courts. Based on a variety of original manuscripts, maps and archive material, Morel recounts how knowledge was crafted and circulated among practitioners in the Holy Roman Empire and beyond."
Surely this has to be verboten as racist, ableist, colonialist...
The problem I have seen in both the private and public sectors is that admin people think that they are important. They send out lots of memos and demands for information from those actually doing the work to demonstrate their importance and reduce the amount of time workers spend on productive work by demanding information and data that once again shows how essential they are to the organisation. Good organisations recognise that the admin is the servant, designed to facilitate the work, not the master. They’re incredibly rare.
That isn't what all admin people think. I've seen admin staff make suggestions which would reduce pointless busywork, since they can see better than others that there is no need for them to be involved in X or Y, but some senior person who hasn't given themselves enough time to actually think about a process just ignores it and either fobs them off, or instructs it to continue. If that is what the role requires, the staff member may have no choice, not that they actually believe it to be important.
As your second point notes it is about the organisational culture, which can be hard to change, but people don't often enjoy pointless box ticker roles, and it's not that people are self justifying their jobs, but that the system is set up to require them to do it, even if it makes no sense.
Just started reading Under Every Leaf by William Beaver. It studies the development of military intelligence in the Victorian era with a particular interest in The Great Game. I was struck by this quote from Lord Salisbury: 'You should never trust experts. If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe.' So that is where Gove got his belief.
If you're digging about in that neck of the woods - 'The Riddle of the Sands' is worth a read (fiction - but very much of it's time). Radio 4 also did a quite good dramatisation of it a few years ago.
I don’t think this is just a UK problem, but the Tories seem unaware of the issue, and Labour have no answers either.
The problem is not just money.
The issue is that public sector productivity is a disaster. It soaks up money and resources and outputs at a much lower rate than the private sector. I think in the UK public sector employees are a particular case of both useless and overpaid in a whole host of roles and they act to prevent front line roles from performing at higher productivity levels. It's a poisonous atmosphere as front line workers just want to get on with the job while those unproductive and overpaid types stifle any drive to, you know, do the actual job.
I said it on here the other day and the UK state sector defenders were out in force, the solution is to sack 50% of admin and other non front line roles, ban all consulting and hiring of day rate public sector consultants, put in place a hiring freeze and change job roles to cover whatever the 50% of people who got sacked were supposed to be doing, give the people who stick around a 30-40% pay rise, pump the rest of the money into front line recruitment.
It's almost a certainty that we wouldn't notice the difference and after a few years we'd see big improvements in output because there's more money for front line services and less being eaten up by the unproductive paper pushers.
You could probably repeat that process a few times and hollow out the DfE to give teachers a bigger slice of the education budget and start to chip away at the teacher shortage, do it at the NHS so that we get more capital investment, payrises and more recruitment among front line staff. Do it at the MoD and fund a proper military.
Osborne and Cameron had it right when they chipped away at the state sector, May and Boris has let the state grow to a completely out of control level and it is stifling output and the economy as these bureaucrats invent rules and processes to justify their continued employment.
There are a lot of IT consulting companies making very good money out of the public sector, mainly because the public sector isn't willing or able to pay the going rate for in house expertise.
I think I know why it is easier for HMG to pay >>£x00s per day for consultants rather than to employ staff directly, but it doesn't stop it from being daft. And even if they are lucky enough to get consultants who give a damn about documenting their work properly, it means the institutional knowledge suffers.
I could get £950-£1,000 a day as an independent contractor, and probably work full-time 40 weeks a year.
I don't because I don't want to take the income risk, and I want a career of exciting jobs and challenges that stretch me, but it's tempting since I'd be pulling in 200k+ and probably paying less tax on it too.
Weirdly, I have just done the exact reverse. I have left my practice earning roughly 200k before tax for a job paying half as much in the public sector. The work I am going to do now just seems more meaningful and important. Money isn’t everything.
How will you ever survive on a mere £100k?
Asks a man who gave up a secure job paying 42k for the uncertainty of freelancing…
Just started reading Under Every Leaf by William Beaver. It studies the development of military intelligence in the Victorian era with a particular interest in The Great Game. I was struck by this quote from Lord Salisbury: 'You should never trust experts. If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe.' So that is where Gove got his belief.
One of the first things Gove did that made him famous was the "edgy" "satirical" show A Stab In The Dark.
There's an important role in public life for people who say that other people are awful and hypocritical, because most of us are.
I don’t think this is just a UK problem, but the Tories seem unaware of the issue, and Labour have no answers either.
The problem is not just money.
The issue is that public sector productivity is a disaster. It soaks up money and resources and outputs at a much lower rate than the private sector. I think in the UK public sector employees are a particular case of both useless and overpaid in a whole host of roles and they act to prevent front line roles from performing at higher productivity levels. It's a poisonous atmosphere as front line workers just want to get on with the job while those unproductive and overpaid types stifle any drive to, you know, do the actual job.
I said it on here the other day and the UK state sector defenders were out in force, the solution is to sack 50% of admin and other non front line roles, ban all consulting and hiring of day rate public sector consultants, put in place a hiring freeze and change job roles to cover whatever the 50% of people who got sacked were supposed to be doing, give the people who stick around a 30-40% pay rise, pump the rest of the money into front line recruitment.
It's almost a certainty that we wouldn't notice the difference and after a few years we'd see big improvements in output because there's more money for front line services and less being eaten up by the unproductive paper pushers.
You could probably repeat that process a few times and hollow out the DfE to give teachers a bigger slice of the education budget and start to chip away at the teacher shortage, do it at the NHS so that we get more capital investment, payrises and more recruitment among front line staff. Do it at the MoD and fund a proper military.
Osborne and Cameron had it right when they chipped away at the state sector, May and Boris has let the state grow to a completely out of control level and it is stifling output and the economy as these bureaucrats invent rules and processes to justify their continued employment.
There are a lot of IT consulting companies making very good money out of the public sector, mainly because the public sector isn't willing or able to pay the going rate for in house expertise.
I think I know why it is easier for HMG to pay >>£x00s per day for consultants rather than to employ staff directly, but it doesn't stop it from being daft. And even if they are lucky enough to get consultants who give a damn about documenting their work properly, it means the institutional knowledge suffers.
I could get £950-£1,000 a day as an independent contractor, and probably work full-time 40 weeks a year.
I don't because I don't want to take the income risk, and I want a career of exciting jobs and challenges that stretch me, but it's tempting since I'd be pulling in 200k+ and probably paying less tax on it too.
Weirdly, I have just done the exact reverse. I have left my practice earning roughly 200k before tax for a job paying half as much in the public sector. The work I am going to do now just seems more meaningful and important. Money isn’t everything.
Ah, I hadn't seen you had got the gig, excellent.
Make sure you have decent admin - quality over quantity, it's worth paying for.
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
Oh Leon I thought you had SOUL! - I agree with you on so much but the cinema gets you out there , a lot more than watching something in your flat.
Well, it doesn't help that the quality of movies has declined drastically in comparison to the rising quality of streamed drama, documentaries
And, as others have said, movies seem to have just dropped off the cultural radar. I don't even HEAR about them - and I am not someone that avoids social media etc!
I did see one brilliant movie on a recent long haul flight. The last Jurassic World: Dominion
My expectations were minimal but it is BRILLIANT, a superb, witty, non-stop-action drama with phenomenal stunts, like the first Jurassic Park meets the first Indiana Jones meets a really good James Bond. And yet the reviews were lukewarm?!
Fie on them
Happily, the few people who still go to the movies did not agree with the silly reviewers:
As of October 7, 2022, Jurassic World Dominion has grossed $376 million in the United States and Canada, and $625.1 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $1.001 billion.[8][6] It is the second-highest-grossing film of 2022,[248]
Re the Article 8 court case mentioned earlier, it's worth noting that the Supreme Court gave a similar ruling some months back in relation to publishing details about criminal investigations. Not good news.
Quite a good piece, to my surprise. Rishi is a total non-entity. Maybe this is inexperience, maybe he’s just fundamentally incurious about the world.
It's very hard, in advance, to identify a politician with actual substance. Nothing about the promotion path, be it opposition or government, will lend itself to being able to demonstrate that. So we rely on what we can get, like media performance and managing a department without self imposed screwups so massive the civil service cannot rescue things (they aren't without fault themselves after all, but are supposed to prevent total disaster).
Rishi rose quickly and oddly once you get very senior you rarely have to tax yourself in the job, until you get to the very top and the buck stops with you.
That's why the rungs he jumped over bother me. He went from a junior Minister at local government (where I think his role was stopping councils spending money) to Chief Secretary (stopping ministers spending money) to Chancellor to PM.
He really needed a few years running a spending department.
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
Oh Leon I thought you had SOUL! - I agree with you on so much but the cinema gets you out there , a lot more than watching something in your flat.
Well, it doesn't help that the quality of movies has declined drastically in comparison to the rising quality of streamed drama, documentaries
And, as others have said, movies seem to have just dropped off the cultural radar. I don't even HEAR about them - and I am not someone that avoids social media etc!
I did see one brilliant movie on a recent long haul flight. The last Jurassic World: Dominion
My expectations were minimal but it is BRILLIANT, a superb, witty, non-stop-action drama with phenomenal stunts, like the first Jurassic Park meets the first Indiana Jones meets a really good James Bond. And yet the reviews were lukewarm?!
Fie on them
Happily, the few people who still go to the movies did not agree with the silly reviewers:
As of October 7, 2022, Jurassic World Dominion has grossed $376 million in the United States and Canada, and $625.1 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $1.001 billion.[8][6] It is the second-highest-grossing film of 2022,[248]
I liked all the Jurassic World trilogy. Not sure I'd say they were all good, necessarily, but I don't understand the hate they get from some people. It's not like Jurassic Park 2 or 3 were stellar. Dominion at least incorporated the fan bait inclusion of original cast members well enough.
But then it's not as though commercial success ever required critical success.
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
Oh Leon I thought you had SOUL! - I agree with you on so much but the cinema gets you out there , a lot more than watching something in your flat.
Well, it doesn't help that the quality of movies has declined drastically in comparison to the rising quality of streamed drama, documentaries
And, as others have said, movies seem to have just dropped off the cultural radar. I don't even HEAR about them - and I am not someone that avoids social media etc!
I did see one brilliant movie on a recent long haul flight. The last Jurassic World: Dominion
My expectations were minimal but it is BRILLIANT, a superb, witty, non-stop-action drama with phenomenal stunts, like the first Jurassic Park meets the first Indiana Jones meets a really good James Bond. And yet the reviews were lukewarm?!
Fie on them
Happily, the few people who still go to the movies did not agree with the silly reviewers:
As of October 7, 2022, Jurassic World Dominion has grossed $376 million in the United States and Canada, and $625.1 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $1.001 billion.[8][6] It is the second-highest-grossing film of 2022,[248]
I liked all the Jurassic World trilogy. Not sure I'd say they were all good, necessarily, but I don't understand the hate they get from some people. It's not like Jurassic Park 2 or 3 were stellar. Dominion at least incorporated the fan bait inclusion of original cast members well enough.
But then it's not as though commercial success ever required critical success.
I thought Dominion was genuinely superb, within the genre of popular, commercial, high-octane action-movie making, It was also really funny
It was as good (but different) as the very first Jurassic Park, which was s stone-cold classic, of course
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
Plus streaming means that someone with a good idea has a decent chance of finding enough eyeballs to pay to turn it into reality. So who needs the movie studios?
A shame to think that bit of culture has been atomised, and we might not get another shared movie phenomenon.
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
The only reason to go to the cinema is to be with other people, which I predict may come back into fashion again in a few years' time.
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
The only reason to go to the cinema is to be with other people, which I predict may come back into fashion again in a few years' time.
You can have people round your place for a movie night you know.
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
Oh Leon I thought you had SOUL! - I agree with you on so much but the cinema gets you out there , a lot more than watching something in your flat.
Yeah, but I don't want him 'out there' doing that.
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
Oh Leon I thought you had SOUL! - I agree with you on so much but the cinema gets you out there , a lot more than watching something in your flat.
Well, it doesn't help that the quality of movies has declined drastically in comparison to the rising quality of streamed drama, documentaries
And, as others have said, movies seem to have just dropped off the cultural radar. I don't even HEAR about them - and I am not someone that avoids social media etc!
I did see one brilliant movie on a recent long haul flight. The last Jurassic World: Dominion
My expectations were minimal but it is BRILLIANT, a superb, witty, non-stop-action drama with phenomenal stunts, like the first Jurassic Park meets the first Indiana Jones meets a really good James Bond. And yet the reviews were lukewarm?!
Fie on them
Happily, the few people who still go to the movies did not agree with the silly reviewers:
As of October 7, 2022, Jurassic World Dominion has grossed $376 million in the United States and Canada, and $625.1 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $1.001 billion.[8][6] It is the second-highest-grossing film of 2022,[248]
Reviewers thought The Last Jedi was brilliant as well. Their credibility is not all it might be.
I had to apply for a second current account today, for various family reasons I won't go into. As part of it, I made the distinctly unpleasant discovery that Lloyds have no meaningful security measures in place on existing customers registering for online banking. In effect, somebody with my name, knowing my account details and phone number, could register for online banking and empty my account in 15 minutes without anyone noticing.
I've always set my face against online personal banking because I thought it was so insecure, but I never dreamed it would be so bad that I'd be vulnerable to being hacked even if I didn't have it.
Are there any banks out there that do have proper security on setting up online accounts so they can't be accessed by any spotty teenager with a laptop? Because if so, I would like to move to them.
(What was worse was Lloyd's, when I rang up to complain, tried to pretend that their systems were very secure because they were encrypted. Which may be true, but is also irrelevant if they're going to make personation so easy.)
Starling is pretty strong. Video based identity check with passport and manual verification.
I have a Starling account. You get a notification whenever the card is used, and also no foreign currency charges, so great for travelling. Can freeze the account via the app if you lose the card etc.
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
Oh Leon I thought you had SOUL! - I agree with you on so much but the cinema gets you out there , a lot more than watching something in your flat.
Well, it doesn't help that the quality of movies has declined drastically in comparison to the rising quality of streamed drama, documentaries
And, as others have said, movies seem to have just dropped off the cultural radar. I don't even HEAR about them - and I am not someone that avoids social media etc!
I did see one brilliant movie on a recent long haul flight. The last Jurassic World: Dominion
My expectations were minimal but it is BRILLIANT, a superb, witty, non-stop-action drama with phenomenal stunts, like the first Jurassic Park meets the first Indiana Jones meets a really good James Bond. And yet the reviews were lukewarm?!
Fie on them
Happily, the few people who still go to the movies did not agree with the silly reviewers:
As of October 7, 2022, Jurassic World Dominion has grossed $376 million in the United States and Canada, and $625.1 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $1.001 billion.[8][6] It is the second-highest-grossing film of 2022,[248]
Reviewers thought The Last Jedi was brilliant as well. Their credibility is not all it might be.
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
Oh Leon I thought you had SOUL! - I agree with you on so much but the cinema gets you out there , a lot more than watching something in your flat.
Well, it doesn't help that the quality of movies has declined drastically in comparison to the rising quality of streamed drama, documentaries
And, as others have said, movies seem to have just dropped off the cultural radar. I don't even HEAR about them - and I am not someone that avoids social media etc!
I did see one brilliant movie on a recent long haul flight. The last Jurassic World: Dominion
My expectations were minimal but it is BRILLIANT, a superb, witty, non-stop-action drama with phenomenal stunts, like the first Jurassic Park meets the first Indiana Jones meets a really good James Bond. And yet the reviews were lukewarm?!
Fie on them
Happily, the few people who still go to the movies did not agree with the silly reviewers:
As of October 7, 2022, Jurassic World Dominion has grossed $376 million in the United States and Canada, and $625.1 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $1.001 billion.[8][6] It is the second-highest-grossing film of 2022,[248]
Reviewers thought The Last Jedi was brilliant as well. Their credibility is not all it might be.
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
The only reason to go to the cinema is to be with other people, which I predict may come back into fashion again in a few years' time.
To sit with people and not talk to them for two hours? Hardly a social occasion
If a hand stops a ball, and thereby stops a clear goal scoring chance, then it is a penalty even if you didn't mean to touch it?
But I could be wrong
It should be the rule if it isn't (I think there used to be something about 'natural' arm position, so you'd be forgiven if your arm was by your side and it hit, but not if your arm was outstretched). If you gained a clear advantage from it, regardless of intention, it matters.
If you hack someone down by accident it's still a foul.
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
The only reason to go to the cinema is to be with other people, which I predict may come back into fashion again in a few years' time.
To sit with people and not talk to them for two hours? Hardly a social occasion
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
The only reason to go to the cinema is to be with other people, which I predict may come back into fashion again in a few years' time.
To sit with people and not talk to them for two hours? Hardly a social occasion
You talk to them either side of the event, as well as the odd whispered comment, perhaps eating or drinking.
Or it's a way for awkward people to be around other people without needing to interact with other people.
Well, it seems like Elon Musk is going after Apple in his latest Twitterehea
Can it be a battle where neither wins?
He appears to be a complete flaming idiot who doesn't realise that Apple choosing not to advertise on Twitter, as it fills up with garbage, is the exercising of their free speech.
Incidentally I've noticed that Twitter advertising seems to be way off-target recently, previously I've mainly seen adverts for tech, finance, and politics. Which is more or less the sort of stuff I follow. I now seem to be getting a lot wider range of adverts, and for stuff that I genuinely can't fathom why I'm getting. It makes me wonder if Twitter is having some sort of fire-sale on advert impressions.
Re the Article 8 court case mentioned earlier, it's worth noting that the Supreme Court gave a similar ruling some months back in relation to publishing details about criminal investigations. Not good news.
Not sure it is fair to say this is 'not good news'. In the case you link to the person under investigation had been neither charged nor arrested. We choose to say that people are innocent until proven guilty and it is not even the case that one could make a public interest claim on the basis that other victims might come forward as is the case with various crimes against the person - particularly sexual crimes.
I am reminded of several high profile cases in the past where the press found out particular individuals were suspects in a crime and effectively ruined their lives when, as it turned out, they were entirely innocent.
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
The only reason to go to the cinema is to be with other people, which I predict may come back into fashion again in a few years' time.
To sit with people and not talk to them for two hours? Hardly a social occasion
You talk to them either side of the event, as well as the odd whispered comment, perhaps eating or drinking.
Or it's a way for awkward people to be around other people without needing to interact with other people.
So the best part of going to the cinema is all the stuff other than watching the film.
Staying in the pub cuts out the boring bit in the middle.
Well, it seems like Elon Musk is going after Apple in his latest Twitterehea
Can it be a battle where neither wins?
He appears to be a complete flaming idiot who doesn't realise that Apple choosing not to advertise on Twitter, as it fills up with garbage, is the exercising of their free speech.
Incidentally I've noticed that Twitter advertising seems to be way off-target recently, previously I've mainly seen adverts for tech, finance, and politics. Which is more or less the sort of stuff I follow. I now seem to be getting a lot wider range of adverts, and for stuff that I genuinely can't fathom why I'm getting. It makes me wonder if Twitter is having some sort of fire-sale on advert impressions.
The most interesting Twitter event for me is that I have picked up lots of new followers recently.
Obviously some algorithm has flagged me to them.
The curious part is all of them appear to be strippers.
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
The only reason to go to the cinema is to be with other people, which I predict may come back into fashion again in a few years' time.
Cinema is miles different to watching at home regardless of how many are there.
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
Oh Leon I thought you had SOUL! - I agree with you on so much but the cinema gets you out there , a lot more than watching something in your flat.
Well, it doesn't help that the quality of movies has declined drastically in comparison to the rising quality of streamed drama, documentaries
And, as others have said, movies seem to have just dropped off the cultural radar. I don't even HEAR about them - and I am not someone that avoids social media etc!
I did see one brilliant movie on a recent long haul flight. The last Jurassic World: Dominion
My expectations were minimal but it is BRILLIANT, a superb, witty, non-stop-action drama with phenomenal stunts, like the first Jurassic Park meets the first Indiana Jones meets a really good James Bond. And yet the reviews were lukewarm?!
Fie on them
Happily, the few people who still go to the movies did not agree with the silly reviewers:
As of October 7, 2022, Jurassic World Dominion has grossed $376 million in the United States and Canada, and $625.1 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $1.001 billion.[8][6] It is the second-highest-grossing film of 2022,[248]
Reviewers thought The Last Jedi was brilliant as well. Their credibility is not all it might be.
Exhibit A:
Dearie dearie me. I’d no idea anyone could even think that.
He didn't. And should have been booked for claiming it.
It’s a pretty low down dirty act to put on that performance and claim that off your team mate if you know you didn’t touch it. Ronaldo’s a bit of a snake though so who knows?
I haven’t even heard of some of these, there’s a massive marketing failure here somewhere, among other issues.
I've pretty much given up on the cinema - seems to me that nearly all "big" films are either DC/MCU or some sequel trotted out because it's an easy money maker.
I think the only film I've seen in the cinema this year is Elvis.
That's my observation.
They are crap films.
Also, the window of opportunity to see them is sometimes too short - like 2-3 weeks. Not enough for word to get around and diaries to be rejigged with babysitters if it's good and worth seeing.
Buy a fuck off sized wall mountable telly, 55' or upwards. Hitch it to £150 worth of stereo speakers. Never go to the cinema again.
I just got a massive big telly. HD and all that. Great sound
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
The only reason to go to the cinema is to be with other people, which I predict may come back into fashion again in a few years' time.
To sit with people and not talk to them for two hours? Hardly a social occasion
Perfect date for introverts!
When I was dating, I loved a cinema date. Drink first for a chat, two hours in silence, then if it’s going we’ll post movie drink and chat, or more ((if it’s gone very, very well). If the date is not good, at least the movie might be ok.
Comments
Talking about screen colours, for the avoidance of doubt. Or, for the pedants, screen absence-of-colours.
Regarding your last paragraph, yes, but in my experience, efficient knowledge work requires both planned and unplanned collaboration. Homeworking puts friction into the first and makes the second very difficult.
I just can’t understand how a large, established bank like Lloyds would not do simple checks like, e.g. write to the customer with a passcode or get an actual adviser to ring and check transactions rather than dial through an automated code to a number that you can add to an account just by knowing somebody’s date of birth.
It’s actually frightening.
I think I know why it is easier for HMG to pay >>£x00s per day for consultants rather than to employ staff directly, but it doesn't stop it from being daft. And even if they are lucky enough to get consultants who give a damn about documenting their work properly, it means the institutional knowledge suffers.
Lots of organisations have lots of activity but little output, and are seemingly rewarded for the former.
Some people pass their entire lives doing this and are perfectly happy so long as they can do their 9-5 and draw a regular salary.
I would say the British excel at this. The Office was a comedy but instructive at highlighting it.
Good organisations recognise that the admin is the servant, designed to facilitate the work, not the master. They’re incredibly rare.
I don't because I don't want to take the income risk, and I want a career of exciting jobs and challenges that stretch me, but it's tempting since I'd be pulling in 200k+ and probably paying less tax on it too.
Consultants and consultancies are used where there is no specialist knowledge within the local authority. For example, if a Council wants to look at outsourcing its property maintenance activities, it will usually bring in an outside expert to help draft the ITT documents, the scoring criteria and manage the evaluation process .
Officers will use that to score the tenders from competing companies and make a recommendation to award (or not). In some cases, the consultant may remain to help set up the client end and maybe help HR with the TUPE of staff across to the new provider.
Now, it's my experience companies are keen to bid for public sector work often in the mistaken belief they can make the staff they take on more productive and while the Council contract will be a loss leader, they'll use the extra capacity for fee earning work.
It doesn't happen like that - the Council provides more work than the Contractor can manage and eventually the Contractor has to admit they can't make any money from the bid they submitted. The truth is the public sector isn't as much constrained by poor productivity as by poor financial management.
Frustrating thing is I was sort of there from very early on, but persistently had them on the wrong side of the arts/sciences divide.
https://twitter.com/tauriqmoosa/status/1597298602661273601?s=46&t=kIx7ITW3UXYaGg-ixUfZ2w
What the hell is Strange World??
My literal job involves knowing when even small companies like … *squints* Disney (?!) release a film like this and I have never heard of it. What?!
joined them in 1990 and they sent me a PIN number on a bit of paper saying For God's sake memorise this and then immediately burn this bit of paper, eat the ashes and defecate in a random toilet. Found the bit of paper acting as a bookmark earlier this year. Still have the same PIN number.
The work I am going to do now just seems more meaningful and important. Money isn’t everything.
The Northman was a big disappointment, going for something bleak and dreamlike, but just being boring. Movies like Three Thousand Years of Longing and the Unbearable weight of massive talent felt like they should have been good but just fell short for me
The Lost City was a lot of fun, Moonfall was hilarious nonsense schlock, Everything Everywhere all at once was utter insanity and worth seeing just for that
Can it be a battle where neither wins?
Why would I ever go to the cinema again?
Also this screen can play my, er, *personal videos*, and you don't get that down the Vue. I hope
‘Harlot’ would be a better analogy. They get to look pretty for a bit while given a good screwing over, and then get remorselessly dumped.
I don't agree with all his conclusions, but David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs explored the various types of bullshit jobs at length, and the disconnect people can have where they might be well paid but, for whatever reason, without much actual work needed, and feeling as though they should be ok with it, but actually just feeling shitty.
That explains why I got a few weird looks at the Waitrose on Finchley Road....
Rishi is a total non-entity. Maybe this is inexperience, maybe he’s just fundamentally incurious about the world.
Rishi rose quickly and oddly once you get very senior you rarely have to tax yourself in the job, until you get to the very top and the buck stops with you.
https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/history/history-science-and-technology/underground-mathematics-craft-culture-and-knowledge-production-early-modern-europe?format=HB
But the price. Ouch.
Surely this has to be verboten as racist, ableist, colonialist...
As your second point notes it is about the organisational culture, which can be hard to change, but people don't often enjoy pointless box ticker roles, and it's not that people are self justifying their jobs, but that the system is set up to require them to do it, even if it makes no sense.
Asks a man who gave up a secure job paying 42k for the uncertainty of freelancing…
There's an important role in public life for people who say that other people are awful and hypocritical, because most of us are.
But it's not a good basis to run a government.
Make sure you have decent admin - quality over quantity, it's worth paying for.
And, as others have said, movies seem to have just dropped off the cultural radar. I don't even HEAR about them - and I am not someone that avoids social media etc!
I did see one brilliant movie on a recent long haul flight. The last Jurassic World: Dominion
My expectations were minimal but it is BRILLIANT, a superb, witty, non-stop-action drama with phenomenal stunts, like the first Jurassic Park meets the first Indiana Jones meets a really good James Bond. And yet the reviews were lukewarm?!
Fie on them
Happily, the few people who still go to the movies did not agree with the silly reviewers:
As of October 7, 2022, Jurassic World Dominion has grossed $376 million in the United States and Canada, and $625.1 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $1.001 billion.[8][6] It is the second-highest-grossing film of 2022,[248]
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/feb/16/bloomberg-loses-uk-supreme-court-case-on-privacy
He really needed a few years running a spending department.
But then it's not as though commercial success ever required critical success.
It was as good (but different) as the very first Jurassic Park, which was s stone-cold classic, of course
A shame to think that bit of culture has been atomised, and we might not get another shared movie phenomenon.
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup/pitch-invader-rainbow-flag-portugal-uruguay-b2234767.html
The government need lessons from this guy on efficiency and delivery
If a hand stops a ball, and thereby stops a clear goal scoring chance, then it is a penalty even if you didn't mean to touch it?
But I could be wrong
If you hack someone down by accident it's still a foul.
First time for me: 21 guesses. 85.71% accuracy.
Or it's a way for awkward people to be around other people without needing to interact with other people.
It can only be a penalty if it's a deliberate act.
This image is from the IFAB. https://twitter.com/DaleJohnsonESPN/status/1597332269709918208/photo/1
Incidentally I've noticed that Twitter advertising seems to be way off-target recently, previously I've mainly seen adverts for tech, finance, and politics. Which is more or less the sort of stuff I follow. I now seem to be getting a lot wider range of adverts, and for stuff that I genuinely can't fathom why I'm getting. It makes me wonder if Twitter is having some sort of fire-sale on advert impressions.
I am reminded of several high profile cases in the past where the press found out particular individuals were suspects in a crime and effectively ruined their lives when, as it turned out, they were entirely innocent.
And only 3 through.
Some tasty final games coming up.
Staying in the pub cuts out the boring bit in the middle.
Obviously some algorithm has flagged me to them.
The curious part is all of them appear to be strippers.
- Samuel Johnson
https://twitter.com/darkedinburgh/status/1597310317352353792/photo/1
What should I say? ‘Me give up!’