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Mortgage payments increasingly becoming a big issue – politicalbetting.com

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  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,247
    algarkirk said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    Javid says halve the number of MPs and double their salaries.

    "If people want to see your GPs or senior nurses or headteachers or an accountant give up their job to want to come into Parliament they have to take a massive fall in their lifestyle to do it.

    "A lot of people are not willing to do that. So you tend to get in Parliament either really rich people who don't need money and therefore they don't care if their salary is £88,000 or £28,000....
    Or you will get people that were earning sort of £30,000 - £80,000 is a big jump but they might not come with the skills that Parliament needs.

    "If I had my way I would halve the number of MPs and double the salaries. That wouldn't cost the taxpayer a penny and you would get a much higher quality of Parliament - and ministers.”
    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-millionaire-sajid-javid-says-30378243?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

    No - halve the number of unelected Lords, NOT the elected MPs!
    He's looking at the approach of how do you improve the quality of MPs without increasing costs.

    Personally I would just say we need to pay MPs more because heck I earn more than they do from my spare room...
    Personally I would say we need to pay MPs less because of supply and demand; there's no shortage of people applying to be MPs at the moment.

    An MPs salary is a big jump in pay for about 97% of the population.

    Based on these ONS figures I'd say about £40k is an appropriate income for MPs.

    image
    The problem with MPs pay is that what is needed is people who are vocational servants of the nation, highly intelligent and able to scrutinise legislation, morally magnificent and exemplary, both independent minded and loyal to their party, good at getting to know 60,000 people and good on the telly.


    This cannot be bought; and you are as likely to get the right mix by paying nothing at all as by paying £xtrillion.
    May be allow MPs to choose their own salary up to a maximum of £150,000

    But any outside earnings are deducted from the maximum on a pound for pound basis

  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647

    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    pigeon said:

    Phil said:

    Off-topic:

    During my run this morning in St Neots, I ran along a street that only had off-road parking. Two electric cars were on charge, the cables stretching from the homes across the pavement. Both had little mat-style ramps out over the cables, but IMO a whole street of these may cause accessibility problems for people in wheelchairs or people pushing prams. And pavements can be bad enough as they already are..

    An interesting problem.

    Oxford is trialling these things: https://gul-e.co.uk/
    Then that's one piece in the jigsaw puzzle.

    Now we just have to work out how to build enough extra electricity generating capacity to power the entire national car fleet, and how to complete a commensurate upgrade of the National Grid, and what to do about everyone who lives in a flat rather than a house, all in time for the prohibition of the purchase of ICE cars in... 6.5 years' time.

    That should be fun.
    You are dramatically overestimating the difficulty.

    Say the average age of a car in the UK is eight years. That means that the entire car fleet turns over every 16 years. Even if *every* car sold today was full on BEV, it would still only mean that an incremental 6% of vehicles would need to be electric powered each year.

    The reality, though, is that it is changing much less quickly than that because (a) only about a third of vehicles are electric today, and (b) the ones that are changing first are lower mileage ones. That means that this is a problem we have a quarter century to solve.

    The vast majority of electric car charging happens overnight. And there's still a 15 GW difference between peak electricity usage (which is late afternoon in winter and which is about 37GW) and average nightime usage (about 20GW).

    Electric cars mostly just fill that gap.

    Go look at Norway: even though it is by far the highest electric car penetration in the world (80% of new cars last year!), it has caused essentially no problems to their grid.
    The Norwegians don't have our politicians trying to implement it.
    The transition will happen fine, irrespective of politcians.
    It'll happen more fine for some than for others.

    For people with at-home charger capabilities everything will be fine.

    For those without though, they may struggle but may equally lack the political voice to be taken seriously enough.

    A bit like housing. Those who've got one and are doing fine and want house prices to keep going up have for too long been over-represented politically over those who are struggling to afford it.

    The problem is that I don't see any political party especially interested in resolving the issues for those without at-home charging. The Tories and Lib Dems are predominantly represented by and for people who can have a drive at their own home. And Labour are overly-concerned with public transportation instead.
    Sounds about right.

    Of course, if I understand the electrification plans correctly, there's no time limit on the phasing out of ICE cars after their sale is banned. So we know where that will end: the haves with their driveways and their shiny, efficient electric cars; the have-nots engaged in an increasing desperate and expensive battle to keep their jalopies on the road as they start to dwindle in number, petrol becomes gradually harder to come by and desperately dear, and both repair bills and the price of second hand vehicles escalates.
    Yes and the have-nots will increasingly be told "why don't you just charge at home/get a train" when neither is a viable option.

    Hopefully people can come up with viable solutions, that gul-e system someone linked to before looks quite interesting, but I'm not holding my breath.

    When I got my home last year I made sure at off-road driveway was a priority. First time I've ever had one, but very grateful for it for the future; too many people don't have one and too many decision makers don't care about that.
    Other opportunities to charge a car will be (1) at the supermarket while doing the weekly shop or (2) at work or (3) at the station car park while commuting. We need to get away from the 'filling station' mindset.
    It really isn't that big of problem for most people, as modern EVs only need charging once a fortnight or so with typical mileage. Newer battery technology will last even longer and charge more quickly. Its going to be less hassle than petrol within the next few years.

  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,083

    algarkirk said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    Javid says halve the number of MPs and double their salaries.

    "If people want to see your GPs or senior nurses or headteachers or an accountant give up their job to want to come into Parliament they have to take a massive fall in their lifestyle to do it.

    "A lot of people are not willing to do that. So you tend to get in Parliament either really rich people who don't need money and therefore they don't care if their salary is £88,000 or £28,000....
    Or you will get people that were earning sort of £30,000 - £80,000 is a big jump but they might not come with the skills that Parliament needs.

    "If I had my way I would halve the number of MPs and double the salaries. That wouldn't cost the taxpayer a penny and you would get a much higher quality of Parliament - and ministers.”
    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-millionaire-sajid-javid-says-30378243?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

    No - halve the number of unelected Lords, NOT the elected MPs!
    He's looking at the approach of how do you improve the quality of MPs without increasing costs.

    Personally I would just say we need to pay MPs more because heck I earn more than they do from my spare room...
    Personally I would say we need to pay MPs less because of supply and demand; there's no shortage of people applying to be MPs at the moment.

    An MPs salary is a big jump in pay for about 97% of the population.

    Based on these ONS figures I'd say about £40k is an appropriate income for MPs.

    image
    The problem with MPs pay is that what is needed is people who are vocational servants of the nation, highly intelligent and able to scrutinise legislation, morally magnificent and exemplary, both independent minded and loyal to their party, good at getting to know 60,000 people and good on the telly.


    This cannot be bought; and you are as likely to get the right mix by paying nothing at all as by paying £xtrillion.
    May be allow MPs to choose their own salary up to a maximum of £150,000

    But any outside earnings are deducted from the maximum on a pound for pound basis

    So the Geoffrey's Cox's of the world end up being paid nothing for being an MP, but those who need to live on it are well paid. Interesting idea.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,893
    kle4 said:

    viewcode said:

    Phil said:

    Off-topic:

    During my run this morning in St Neots, I ran along a street that only had off-road parking. Two electric cars were on charge, the cables stretching from the homes across the pavement. Both had little mat-style ramps out over the cables, but IMO a whole street of these may cause accessibility problems for people in wheelchairs or people pushing prams. And pavements can be bad enough as they already are..

    An interesting problem.

    Oxford is trialling these things: https://gul-e.co.uk/
    What happens when the lithium ore runs out?
    Lithium is one of commonest elements.

    If anyone starts talking nonsense about “Proven Reserves”…. I have some Peak Oil to sell them.
    But Li isn't an infinite resource...
    No resource is infinite. Yet we also don't run out of resources. Funny that.

    What do you think is going to happen when copper runs out? Or iron? Or coal? Or ...
    Unsarcastically, I believe helium is one of those things we may run out of. Happy to be contradicted if wrong.
    That is a bit funny, considering it's supposed to be one of the most plentiful substances in the universe. Not where we can get at it I suppose.
    Helium is needed for MRI scanners and party balloons.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,421
    stodge said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    So they're basically the right-wing equivalent of Militant from the 1980s.

    Basically a Party within a Party. Sunak and Hands should expel each and every one of them.

    It could be good for Sunak - imagine his Conference speech:

    “I’ll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far-fetched plans on migration. They are then pickled into a rigid anti-Woke dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, out-dated, mis-placed, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end in the grotesque chaos of a Conservative leader – a Conservative leader - standing on Brighton beach telling migrants they aren't welcome"
    Kinnock inspired wet dream aside, can anyone explain the cartoon?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647
    edited July 2023
    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I believe the short version of "technically out" is "out".

    The batsman shouldn't have left his crease until the ball was out of play. Its like when football defenders give up and appeal for offside. Play to the whistle.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,553
    HYUFD said:

    Javid says halve the number of MPs and double their salaries.

    "If people want to see your GPs or senior nurses or headteachers or an accountant give up their job to want to come into Parliament they have to take a massive fall in their lifestyle to do it.

    "A lot of people are not willing to do that. So you tend to get in Parliament either really rich people who don't need money and therefore they don't care if their salary is £88,000 or £28,000....
    Or you will get people that were earning sort of £30,000 - £80,000 is a big jump but they might not come with the skills that Parliament needs.

    "If I had my way I would halve the number of MPs and double the salaries. That wouldn't cost the taxpayer a penny and you would get a much higher quality of Parliament - and ministers.”
    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-millionaire-sajid-javid-says-30378243?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

    I don't think most people want 300 MPs.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,247
    pigeon said:

    So, we exchange ridiculous property prices and rock bottom interest rates for ridiculous property prices and high interest rates. That's going to screw a vast number of people, though I can tell you for a fact that the one person more likely to suffer from it than Mr Average Mortgage Payer is Mr Average Renter. With the more highly leveraged BTL landlords stampeding for the exits, the supply of property in the private rental market will end up so constricted, and with so many people bidding for the remaining properties, that the surviving landlords will be able to charge... well, up to the limit that the best paid and most desperate available tenant is willing to stump up. The effect is already obvious on the property websites: even up here, some forty miles north of London, one bedroom flats (the very few still available) are up to about £900pcm, and I reckon they'll be going for a grand or more by the end of the year.

    For anyone with a decent slab of money to put down on investing in a rental property, either through outright purchase or with a small mortgage, this is the dawn of the Diamond Age of Landlordism. If you can afford one flat, somebody else's wages will end up paying all those expensive utility bills for you. If you can buy two, the second tenant's wages will also pay your grocery bills and you can spend most of your own salary on jollies, perhaps cut your working hours down and semi-retire. After all, why waste your own time working to support yourself when somebody else can waste their time working to support you instead?

    Or you can invest in a balanced portfolio and make about a 6% return net of fees with much less stress

  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647

    kle4 said:

    viewcode said:

    Phil said:

    Off-topic:

    During my run this morning in St Neots, I ran along a street that only had off-road parking. Two electric cars were on charge, the cables stretching from the homes across the pavement. Both had little mat-style ramps out over the cables, but IMO a whole street of these may cause accessibility problems for people in wheelchairs or people pushing prams. And pavements can be bad enough as they already are..

    An interesting problem.

    Oxford is trialling these things: https://gul-e.co.uk/
    What happens when the lithium ore runs out?
    Lithium is one of commonest elements.

    If anyone starts talking nonsense about “Proven Reserves”…. I have some Peak Oil to sell them.
    But Li isn't an infinite resource...
    No resource is infinite. Yet we also don't run out of resources. Funny that.

    What do you think is going to happen when copper runs out? Or iron? Or coal? Or ...
    Unsarcastically, I believe helium is one of those things we may run out of. Happy to be contradicted if wrong.
    That is a bit funny, considering it's supposed to be one of the most plentiful substances in the universe. Not where we can get at it I suppose.
    Helium is needed for MRI scanners and party balloons.
    Those Americans will solve the problem with their fusion reactors. As much Helium as you want, albeit rather hot.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835
    edited July 2023

    stodge said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    So they're basically the right-wing equivalent of Militant from the 1980s.

    Basically a Party within a Party. Sunak and Hands should expel each and every one of them.

    It could be good for Sunak - imagine his Conference speech:

    “I’ll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far-fetched plans on migration. They are then pickled into a rigid anti-Woke dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, out-dated, mis-placed, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end in the grotesque chaos of a Conservative leader – a Conservative leader - standing on Brighton beach telling migrants they aren't welcome"
    Kinnock inspired wet dream aside, can anyone explain the cartoon?
    The Great Hate in the Long Room at Lords, permuted to show the hatred of the Tory red waller group at the immigrants who dare to keep the country running.

    Edit: compare this. https://www.skysports.com/cricket/news/12123/12913460/ashes-2023-australia-call-for-investigation-into-lords-long-room-altercation
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,998
    One factor in the gubernatorial race in Washington state: The failure -- so far -- of Democrats to deal with the fentanyl crisis. Life expectancy in the US had begun to decline in the last year of Obama's presidency (2016), but many of the party's leaders, Obama included, were so attached to old ideas -- and old problems -- that they have only begun to respond to the problem.

    (That's especially true in Seattle, as one would expect.)

    As of 2021, deaths in the US from drug overdoses outnumber the deaths from motor vehicle accidents and guns, combined: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,821

    murali_s said:

    Leon said:

    Can we please get back to the cricket?

    I don't mind the occasional foray into politics, or indeed folk dancing, aliens, AI, the fetid ugliness of Scots, and likeminded distractions, but ultimately we are here to talk about the cricket, and we should remember that

    Also, and this will come as a surprise to PB-ers, I was THERE yesterday, at Lord's. Yes

    The most utterly tedious, boring, snooze-fest "sport" in the world?

    Cruellest aspect of British rule in South Asia was teaching the forebears of today's Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans how to play sodding cricket instead of, say, football.
    As someone of Sri Lankan descent, I violently disagree. Cricket is probably the best sport in the World.
    Standing around in a field all day a sport doth not make!
    Bite your tongue! Seeing as how MY own sporting prowess as a school boy, playing dis-organized baseball, consisted at least 99.46% of the time, stationed somewhere on the FAR fringes of the outfield, waiting to dodge whatever balls might be hit in my direction.
    To your nation's great credit, when it comes to, er, "soccer" (what we call football!), the USA is ranked 11th in the world by FIFA, just one place behind Spain! England are in 4th place, with Argentina top.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,421
    Carnyx said:

    stodge said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    So they're basically the right-wing equivalent of Militant from the 1980s.

    Basically a Party within a Party. Sunak and Hands should expel each and every one of them.

    It could be good for Sunak - imagine his Conference speech:

    “I’ll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far-fetched plans on migration. They are then pickled into a rigid anti-Woke dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, out-dated, mis-placed, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end in the grotesque chaos of a Conservative leader – a Conservative leader - standing on Brighton beach telling migrants they aren't welcome"
    Kinnock inspired wet dream aside, can anyone explain the cartoon?
    The Great Hate in the Long Room at Lords, permuted to show the hatred of the Tory red waller group at the immigrants who dare to keep the country running.

    Edit: compare this. https://www.skysports.com/cricket/news/12123/12913460/ashes-2023-australia-call-for-investigation-into-lords-long-room-altercation
    Ah, I see.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647
    kle4 said:

    algarkirk said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    Javid says halve the number of MPs and double their salaries.

    "If people want to see your GPs or senior nurses or headteachers or an accountant give up their job to want to come into Parliament they have to take a massive fall in their lifestyle to do it.

    "A lot of people are not willing to do that. So you tend to get in Parliament either really rich people who don't need money and therefore they don't care if their salary is £88,000 or £28,000....
    Or you will get people that were earning sort of £30,000 - £80,000 is a big jump but they might not come with the skills that Parliament needs.

    "If I had my way I would halve the number of MPs and double the salaries. That wouldn't cost the taxpayer a penny and you would get a much higher quality of Parliament - and ministers.”
    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-millionaire-sajid-javid-says-30378243?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

    No - halve the number of unelected Lords, NOT the elected MPs!
    He's looking at the approach of how do you improve the quality of MPs without increasing costs.

    Personally I would just say we need to pay MPs more because heck I earn more than they do from my spare room...
    Personally I would say we need to pay MPs less because of supply and demand; there's no shortage of people applying to be MPs at the moment.

    An MPs salary is a big jump in pay for about 97% of the population.

    Based on these ONS figures I'd say about £40k is an appropriate income for MPs.

    image
    The problem with MPs pay is that what is needed is people who are vocational servants of the nation, highly intelligent and able to scrutinise legislation, morally magnificent and exemplary, both independent minded and loyal to their party, good at getting to know 60,000 people and good on the telly.


    This cannot be bought; and you are as likely to get the right mix by paying nothing at all as by paying £xtrillion.
    May be allow MPs to choose their own salary up to a maximum of £150,000

    But any outside earnings are deducted from the maximum on a pound for pound basis

    So the Geoffrey's Cox's of the world end up being paid nothing for being an MP, but those who need to live on it are well paid. Interesting idea.
    Those earning more than £150 000 should be paying the government. Could be a useful source of new revenue.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,083
    I feel like once your internal factions start coalescing into given themselves names, organise their own meetings, even release their reports, manifestoes, and at times even try to encourage their own internal whip, then you are in a very very bad place.

    There will always be factions, maybe they even have some loose groupings that are known, but if they feel the need or have the desire to truly organise then you're well beyond knowing the internal factions to talk generally to, you have the MPs publicly trying to undermine leadership and play direct to the base and the media.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647

    One factor in the gubernatorial race in Washington state: The failure -- so far -- of Democrats to deal with the fentanyl crisis. Life expectancy in the US had begun to decline in the last year of Obama's presidency (2016), but many of the party's leaders, Obama included, were so attached to old ideas -- and old problems -- that they have only begun to respond to the problem.

    (That's especially true in Seattle, as one would expect.)

    As of 2021, deaths in the US from drug overdoses outnumber the deaths from motor vehicle accidents and guns, combined: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm

    Are the Red states doing any better? Isn't the characteristic of the American opiod crisis that it unlike previous drug epidemics, as bad in small town and rural areas, and in the white population as much as the inner city?

    The problem is that the demand is there, so the supply finds its way.

  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    Regarding mortgage interest, it is only a particularly big issue if you have a large mortgage, and this is a limited group of people. Whilst they historically voted conservative, I don't think they really do any more. I just don't think the government are very interested. They will just help the people at risk of homelessness. I don't know how much it will affect house prices. House prices will get caught up in general inflation - larger mortgage payments could be regarded as a symptom of this. What I think is that you will find more and more flats having a near zero value, being unmortgageable, and this actually being reflected in transactions. This is because the regulation associated with flats means that many require so much work it exceeds the actual market value, and they can't be rented out either. Ultimately it will create new homeowners amongst the poor.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,821
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I don't know what's more tedious:

    Actual snooze-fest test cricket, or @Leon wittering on and on about it...
    If you prefer, I have opinions on: aliens, AI, Covid, slavery, Lab Leak, England's rugby coach, myself, my virility, Liz Truss's upside surprisingness, What3Words, "it was a bomb on a truck", Nordstream, travelling to the Solovetsky Islands, Brexit, Brexit being like having a baby, Georgian architecture, Gareth Southgate, neo-Caroline urbanism, and the exact number of women you need to sleep with to achieve mortal wisdom, but I suspect you won't be interested in these opinions either, especially the last
    I've visited every single station in London AND I've been on every National Rail line in Britain with a daily service! All of them!

    What have you done, Leon?

    You've done nothing!

    [Shrieking] NOTHING!
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,083
    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I believe the short version of "technically out" is "out".

    The batsman shouldn't have left his crease until the ball was out of play. Its like when football defenders give up and appeal for offside. Play to the whistle.
    Bluntly, don't put yourself into the hands of your opponents in the first place by relying on their honour.
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,998
    Foxy - For several years now, my local King County library has had a charging station in its basement parking garage. And recently I have seen cars actually being charged there. (For a while, I was beginning to wonder if anyone ever used it.)

    A local Fred Meyer supermarket also has a charging station, and has had one for at least a couple of years.

    So there are solutions, even for those who don't have off street parking.

    (Note: Thanks to hydro power, electricity here is cheaper than the average in the rest of the US. There's a lot of local variation, with some places getting real bargains.)
  • MiklosvarMiklosvar Posts: 1,855

    Phil said:

    Off-topic:

    During my run this morning in St Neots, I ran along a street that only had off-road parking. Two electric cars were on charge, the cables stretching from the homes across the pavement. Both had little mat-style ramps out over the cables, but IMO a whole street of these may cause accessibility problems for people in wheelchairs or people pushing prams. And pavements can be bad enough as they already are..

    An interesting problem.

    Oxford is trialling these things: https://gul-e.co.uk/
    What happens when the lithium ore runs out?
    Lithium is one of commonest elements.

    If anyone starts talking nonsense about “Proven Reserves”…. I have some Peak Oil to sell them.
    But Li isn't an infinite resource...
    No resource is infinite. Yet we also don't run out of resources. Funny that.

    What do you think is going to happen when copper runs out? Or iron? Or coal? Or ...
    We are knee deep in bloody dodos, for sure.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,421
    kle4 said:

    I feel like once your internal factions start coalescing into given themselves names, organise their own meetings, even release their reports, manifestoes, and at times even try to encourage their own internal whip, then you are in a very very bad place.

    There will always be factions, maybe they even have some loose groupings that are known, but if they feel the need or have the desire to truly organise then you're well beyond knowing the internal factions to talk generally to, you have the MPs publicly trying to undermine leadership and play direct to the base and the media.

    But what happened first, them undermining the leadership, or the leadership undermining their chances of being re-elected? Sunak is weak on this issue, despite Braverman's best efforts, and frankly seems quite content to keep the seat warm for Starmer whilst his MPs face electoral oblivion; whereupon he'll have another crack at being a silicon valley 'tech bro'. That's democracy not functioning as it should. Nature abhors a vacuum, and the PCP is filling that vacuum.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,083
    edited July 2023

    kle4 said:

    I feel like once your internal factions start coalescing into given themselves names, organise their own meetings, even release their reports, manifestoes, and at times even try to encourage their own internal whip, then you are in a very very bad place.

    There will always be factions, maybe they even have some loose groupings that are known, but if they feel the need or have the desire to truly organise then you're well beyond knowing the internal factions to talk generally to, you have the MPs publicly trying to undermine leadership and play direct to the base and the media.

    But what happened first, them undermining the leadership, or the leadership undermining their chances of being re-elected? Sunak is weak on this issue, despite Braverman's best efforts, and frankly seems quite content to keep the seat warm for Starmer whilst his MPs face electoral oblivion; whereupon he'll have another crack at being a silicon valley 'tech bro'. That's democracy not functioning as it should. Nature abhors a vacuum, and the PCP is filling that vacuum.
    It wasn't a specific criticism of the New Conservatives or their proposals, I was speaking generically - groups like these have proliferated and puffed themselves up for years now, and not just among the Conservatives. In good times or bad backbenchers naturally yearn for influence, and are seemingly more obvious about it.

    In one sense it is good party leadership's get some pushback, they are already very powerful, but there appears to me an increasing downside to formalising the factions in the way we see more and more. People aren't just ideologically leaning in X or Y direction, they gather and plot and publicise, and develop bitter rivalry and hatred of their fellows who do not think the same way.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I believe the short version of "technically out" is "out".

    The batsman shouldn't have left his crease until the ball was out of play. Its like when football defenders give up and appeal for offside. Play to the whistle.
    No it's not. It;s like a ball smacking a goalkeeper in the face, the keeper falling over with blood squirting from his nose, the injury being obvious to anyone, but it's happened so quick the keeper has not yet waved for help and the ref hasn't stopped the game - and a striker taking advantage to tap the ball in

    Technically a goal. Absolutely a goal

    But if a football player dd that he'd never live it down and in a FOOTBALL game you'd probably see a lethal riot and the player's family murdered by drug cartels, but in cricket you saw some VERY hefty boos and three old guys in blazers have a quiet aneurysm

    In both cases it is legal, but everyone knows viscerally that it is wrong
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,786
    viewcode said:

    Phil said:

    Off-topic:

    During my run this morning in St Neots, I ran along a street that only had off-road parking. Two electric cars were on charge, the cables stretching from the homes across the pavement. Both had little mat-style ramps out over the cables, but IMO a whole street of these may cause accessibility problems for people in wheelchairs or people pushing prams. And pavements can be bad enough as they already are..

    An interesting problem.

    Oxford is trialling these things: https://gul-e.co.uk/
    What happens when the lithium ore runs out?
    Lithium is one of commonest elements.

    If anyone starts talking nonsense about “Proven Reserves”…. I have some Peak Oil to sell them.
    But Li isn't an infinite resource...
    No resource is infinite. Yet we also don't run out of resources. Funny that.

    What do you think is going to happen when copper runs out? Or iron? Or coal? Or ...
    Unsarcastically, I believe helium is one of those things we may run out of. Happy to be contradicted if wrong.
    Well I was about to post that can't be correct, but it is. My logic was that it will still be there in the atmosphere when released and in fact the amount is actually slightly growing from radioactive decay. However you are right because when released it escapes the gravitational hold of the earth and disappears into space. Well I never knew that.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    Foxy said:

    One factor in the gubernatorial race in Washington state: The failure -- so far -- of Democrats to deal with the fentanyl crisis. Life expectancy in the US had begun to decline in the last year of Obama's presidency (2016), but many of the party's leaders, Obama included, were so attached to old ideas -- and old problems -- that they have only begun to respond to the problem.

    (That's especially true in Seattle, as one would expect.)

    As of 2021, deaths in the US from drug overdoses outnumber the deaths from motor vehicle accidents and guns, combined: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm

    Are the Red states doing any better? Isn't the characteristic of the American opiod crisis that it unlike previous drug epidemics, as bad in small town and rural areas, and in the white population as much as the inner city?

    The problem is that the demand is there, so the supply finds its way.

    Answer to your first question, is (as far as I can tell) hell no.

    As to 2nd question, answer is qualified yes.

    Re: fentanyl, current impact appears to be greatest in cities, including Seattle, and esp. in certain areas such as in downtown Seattle.

    However, note that last month there was case where a couple of teenagers out in the burbs (closer to Jim than me) overdosed on fentanyl they apparently ingested via a tainted vape pipe.

    So one way or another it seems to be expanding outward from big cities.

    Not aware of any brilliant solutions on part of Republicans in or out of office. Other than boiler-plate get-tough-on-crime rhetoric. Which of course has been a GOP stand-by since before Richard Nixon.

    In WA State, former sheriff and famed lawman Dave Reichert aka "the White Knight" (am NOT making that up!) clearly has the credentials and credibility to use issue of crime in general, and the fentanyl crisis in particular, to his advantage.

    However, note that most likely Democratic contender is state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, so the lawman angle is not a pure play. Republicans will want to blame AG for deficiencies in law and order, which may prove easier said than done. Esp. as Ferguson will be touting his own anti-crime credentials
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    Farooq said:

    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I believe the short version of "technically out" is "out".

    The batsman shouldn't have left his crease until the ball was out of play. Its like when football defenders give up and appeal for offside. Play to the whistle.
    Bluntly, don't put yourself into the hands of your opponents in the first place by relying on their honour.
    I don't even see it as a matter of honour. Ball was active, ginge went walkabout, got mugged by a team that bothered to do some prep. Off you go son, you'll know next time.
    NAE REFERENDUM, you're getting NAE REFERENDUM
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,998
    Foxy: Here's the drug overdose data by state: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/drug_poisoning_mortality/drug_poisoning.htm

    Of the six states in the lowest category, only one, Hawaii, usually votes Democratic. Four of the six are predomnately rural. On the other hand, another rural state, West Virginia, which is strongly Republican nationally, is in the worst category, all by itself.

    (Looking only at that state data, I would say that Texas seems to be doing surprisingly well.)
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I believe the short version of "technically out" is "out".

    The batsman shouldn't have left his crease until the ball was out of play. Its like when football defenders give up and appeal for offside. Play to the whistle.
    The whistle being the umpire? Well if you watch he thought play was finished too - he starts to hand over something to the bowler.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,083
    Farooq said:

    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I believe the short version of "technically out" is "out".

    The batsman shouldn't have left his crease until the ball was out of play. Its like when football defenders give up and appeal for offside. Play to the whistle.
    Bluntly, don't put yourself into the hands of your opponents in the first place by relying on their honour.
    I don't even see it as a matter of honour. Ball was active, ginge went walkabout, got mugged by a team that bothered to do some prep. Off you go son, you'll know next time.
    Whilst we're at it, I think mankading is perfectly fine. Even more so in fact, since unlike foolishly walking off too soon the person stepping out of the crease is seeking an advantage.

    Apparently the rules on it have been adjusted this past year though.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 8,581
    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    pigeon said:

    Phil said:

    Off-topic:

    During my run this morning in St Neots, I ran along a street that only had off-road parking. Two electric cars were on charge, the cables stretching from the homes across the pavement. Both had little mat-style ramps out over the cables, but IMO a whole street of these may cause accessibility problems for people in wheelchairs or people pushing prams. And pavements can be bad enough as they already are..

    An interesting problem.

    Oxford is trialling these things: https://gul-e.co.uk/
    Then that's one piece in the jigsaw puzzle.

    Now we just have to work out how to build enough extra electricity generating capacity to power the entire national car fleet, and how to complete a commensurate upgrade of the National Grid, and what to do about everyone who lives in a flat rather than a house, all in time for the prohibition of the purchase of ICE cars in... 6.5 years' time.

    That should be fun.
    You are dramatically overestimating the difficulty.

    Say the average age of a car in the UK is eight years. That means that the entire car fleet turns over every 16 years. Even if *every* car sold today was full on BEV, it would still only mean that an incremental 6% of vehicles would need to be electric powered each year.

    The reality, though, is that it is changing much less quickly than that because (a) only about a third of vehicles are electric today, and (b) the ones that are changing first are lower mileage ones. That means that this is a problem we have a quarter century to solve.

    The vast majority of electric car charging happens overnight. And there's still a 15 GW difference between peak electricity usage (which is late afternoon in winter and which is about 37GW) and average nightime usage (about 20GW).

    Electric cars mostly just fill that gap.

    Go look at Norway: even though it is by far the highest electric car penetration in the world (80% of new cars last year!), it has caused essentially no problems to their grid.
    The Norwegians don't have our politicians trying to implement it.
    The transition will happen fine, irrespective of politcians.
    It'll happen more fine for some than for others.

    For people with at-home charger capabilities everything will be fine.

    For those without though, they may struggle but may equally lack the political voice to be taken seriously enough.

    A bit like housing. Those who've got one and are doing fine and want house prices to keep going up have for too long been over-represented politically over those who are struggling to afford it.

    The problem is that I don't see any political party especially interested in resolving the issues for those without at-home charging. The Tories and Lib Dems are predominantly represented by and for people who can have a drive at their own home. And Labour are overly-concerned with public transportation instead.
    Sounds about right.

    Of course, if I understand the electrification plans correctly, there's no time limit on the phasing out of ICE cars after their sale is banned. So we know where that will end: the haves with their driveways and their shiny, efficient electric cars; the have-nots engaged in an increasing desperate and expensive battle to keep their jalopies on the road as they start to dwindle in number, petrol becomes gradually harder to come by and desperately dear, and both repair bills and the price of second hand vehicles escalates.
    Is there a potential for a high capacity portable battery that you charge in your home and then take to your car in the street and charge the car?
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,821
    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I believe the short version of "technically out" is "out".

    The batsman shouldn't have left his crease until the ball was out of play. Its like when football defenders give up and appeal for offside. Play to the whistle.
    Bluntly, don't put yourself into the hands of your opponents in the first place by relying on their honour.
    I don't even see it as a matter of honour. Ball was active, ginge went walkabout, got mugged by a team that bothered to do some prep. Off you go son, you'll know next time.
    NAE REFERENDUM, you're getting NAE REFERENDUM
    Australia = Labour
    England = Tory Party
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,717
    edited July 2023
    BBC R4 news getting ever more hysterical - "temperatures last month were 0.9C hotter than last year". No doubt 'global warming' is too tame; they'll be talking about global hotting next.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I believe the short version of "technically out" is "out".

    The batsman shouldn't have left his crease until the ball was out of play. Its like when football defenders give up and appeal for offside. Play to the whistle.
    Bluntly, don't put yourself into the hands of your opponents in the first place by relying on their honour.
    I don't even see it as a matter of honour. Ball was active, ginge went walkabout, got mugged by a team that bothered to do some prep. Off you go son, you'll know next time.
    NAE REFERENDUM, you're getting NAE REFERENDUM
    Nae sae nae? (Just sae'n'!)
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,075
    edited July 2023
    kle4 said:

    viewcode said:

    Phil said:

    Off-topic:

    During my run this morning in St Neots, I ran along a street that only had off-road parking. Two electric cars were on charge, the cables stretching from the homes across the pavement. Both had little mat-style ramps out over the cables, but IMO a whole street of these may cause accessibility problems for people in wheelchairs or people pushing prams. And pavements can be bad enough as they already are..

    An interesting problem.

    Oxford is trialling these things: https://gul-e.co.uk/
    What happens when the lithium ore runs out?
    Lithium is one of commonest elements.

    If anyone starts talking nonsense about “Proven Reserves”…. I have some Peak Oil to sell them.
    But Li isn't an infinite resource...
    No resource is infinite. Yet we also don't run out of resources. Funny that.

    What do you think is going to happen when copper runs out? Or iron? Or coal? Or ...
    Unsarcastically, I believe helium is one of those things we may run out of. Happy to be contradicted if wrong.
    That is a bit funny, considering it's supposed to be one of the most plentiful substances in the universe. Not where we can get at it I suppose.
    Our nearest source of free (as in uncombined) helium is either Jupiter or Saturn, I forget which. And yes I know about theorised helium-3 deposits on the moon.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    kjh said:

    viewcode said:

    Phil said:

    Off-topic:

    During my run this morning in St Neots, I ran along a street that only had off-road parking. Two electric cars were on charge, the cables stretching from the homes across the pavement. Both had little mat-style ramps out over the cables, but IMO a whole street of these may cause accessibility problems for people in wheelchairs or people pushing prams. And pavements can be bad enough as they already are..

    An interesting problem.

    Oxford is trialling these things: https://gul-e.co.uk/
    What happens when the lithium ore runs out?
    Lithium is one of commonest elements.

    If anyone starts talking nonsense about “Proven Reserves”…. I have some Peak Oil to sell them.
    But Li isn't an infinite resource...
    No resource is infinite. Yet we also don't run out of resources. Funny that.

    What do you think is going to happen when copper runs out? Or iron? Or coal? Or ...
    Unsarcastically, I believe helium is one of those things we may run out of. Happy to be contradicted if wrong.
    Well I was about to post that can't be correct, but it is. My logic was that it will still be there in the atmosphere when released and in fact the amount is actually slightly growing from radioactive decay. However you are right because when released it escapes the gravitational hold of the earth and disappears into space. Well I never knew that.
    I use helium in my super conducting magnets (similar to MRI). It’s a worry for the future for sure, but we are finding other ways to achieve the low temps and field strengths needed. A genuine high temp super conductor that could be made at scale would help.

    But for now, please don’t use helium in balloons. Please, just don’t. Your MRI may need that helium.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,522
    stodge said:

    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I'm trying to imagine what bollocks you'd be coming up with now if an English wicket keeper had done the same to an Australian batsman. I presume you'd be hailing it as sporting genius and berating the Aussies for sour grapes.
    An assertion based on no evidence whatsoever and simply a sad attempt to divert from the justifiable criticism. The only thing it reveals is your own bias.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,663
    edited July 2023
    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I believe the short version of "technically out" is "out".

    The batsman shouldn't have left his crease until the ball was out of play. Its like when football defenders give up and appeal for offside. Play to the whistle.
    Tbf it is open to interpretation:

    20.1 Ball is dead
    20.1.1 The ball becomes dead when
    20.1.1.1 it is finally settled in the hands of the wicket-keeper or of the bowler.
    ...
    20.1.2 The ball shall be considered to be dead when it is clear to the bowler’s end umpire that the fielding side and both batters at the wicket have ceased to regard it as in play.
    20.2 Ball finally settled
    Whether the ball is finally settled or not is a matter for the umpire alone to decide.


    https://www.lords.org/mcc/the-laws-of-cricket/dead-ball

    So, the umpire could have ruled that the ball was dead, that's his prerogative.

    In fairness to the Aussies, 20.1.2 was clearly not true for the fielding side (well Carey at least) although it pretty clearly was for the batting side and in particular for Bairstow. The issue with that though is how would the umpire ever know that the fielding side have ceased to regard the ball as in play?

    The umpire should have ruled the ball dead under the circs, imho.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647
    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I believe the short version of "technically out" is "out".

    The batsman shouldn't have left his crease until the ball was out of play. Its like when football defenders give up and appeal for offside. Play to the whistle.
    No it's not. It;s like a ball smacking a goalkeeper in the face, the keeper falling over with blood squirting from his nose, the injury being obvious to anyone, but it's happened so quick the keeper has not yet waved for help and the ref hasn't stopped the game - and a striker taking advantage to tap the ball in

    Technically a goal. Absolutely a goal

    But if a football player dd that he'd never live it down and in a FOOTBALL game you'd probably see a lethal riot and the player's family murdered by drug cartels, but in cricket you saw some VERY hefty boos and three old guys in blazers have a quiet aneurysm

    In both cases it is legal, but everyone knows viscerally that it is wrong
    Nothing like it. The batsman wasn't injured, just not paying attention.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    pigeon said:

    Phil said:

    Off-topic:

    During my run this morning in St Neots, I ran along a street that only had off-road parking. Two electric cars were on charge, the cables stretching from the homes across the pavement. Both had little mat-style ramps out over the cables, but IMO a whole street of these may cause accessibility problems for people in wheelchairs or people pushing prams. And pavements can be bad enough as they already are..

    An interesting problem.

    Oxford is trialling these things: https://gul-e.co.uk/
    Then that's one piece in the jigsaw puzzle.

    Now we just have to work out how to build enough extra electricity generating capacity to power the entire national car fleet, and how to complete a commensurate upgrade of the National Grid, and what to do about everyone who lives in a flat rather than a house, all in time for the prohibition of the purchase of ICE cars in... 6.5 years' time.

    That should be fun.
    You are dramatically overestimating the difficulty.

    Say the average age of a car in the UK is eight years. That means that the entire car fleet turns over every 16 years. Even if *every* car sold today was full on BEV, it would still only mean that an incremental 6% of vehicles would need to be electric powered each year.

    The reality, though, is that it is changing much less quickly than that because (a) only about a third of vehicles are electric today, and (b) the ones that are changing first are lower mileage ones. That means that this is a problem we have a quarter century to solve.

    The vast majority of electric car charging happens overnight. And there's still a 15 GW difference between peak electricity usage (which is late afternoon in winter and which is about 37GW) and average nightime usage (about 20GW).

    Electric cars mostly just fill that gap.

    Go look at Norway: even though it is by far the highest electric car penetration in the world (80% of new cars last year!), it has caused essentially no problems to their grid.
    The Norwegians don't have our politicians trying to implement it.
    The transition will happen fine, irrespective of politcians.
    It'll happen more fine for some than for others.

    For people with at-home charger capabilities everything will be fine.

    For those without though, they may struggle but may equally lack the political voice to be taken seriously enough.

    A bit like housing. Those who've got one and are doing fine and want house prices to keep going up have for too long been over-represented politically over those who are struggling to afford it.

    The problem is that I don't see any political party especially interested in resolving the issues for those without at-home charging. The Tories and Lib Dems are predominantly represented by and for people who can have a drive at their own home. And Labour are overly-concerned with public transportation instead.
    Nah.

    It'll really be fine.

    Firstly, remember that full fat ICEs will continue to be sold for the next seven years and six months. Until that point, there is absolutely no issue for anyone.

    Secondly, even after that point, the only people who will be affected will be (a) those who life in a space without electric car parking, who (b) wish to buy an entirely new car, and (c) don't have easy alternate charging options.

    And sure, that will be people, but it will be surprisingly few. I suspect that the intersection of (a) buys a new car and (b) has a house with a driveway is surprisingly large.

    FWIW, my two senior management people in London have both just bought electric cars - one a Model Y and one a VW iD3. In neither case do they have their off street parking, but in both cases they are lucky that their streets have charging facilities. And over the next decade, more and more of that infrastructure will be built out.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,522

    Leon said:

    Can we please get back to the cricket?

    I don't mind the occasional foray into politics, or indeed folk dancing, aliens, AI, the fetid ugliness of Scots, and likeminded distractions, but ultimately we are here to talk about the cricket, and we should remember that

    Also, and this will come as a surprise to PB-ers, I was THERE yesterday, at Lord's. Yes

    The most utterly tedious, boring, snooze-fest "sport" in the world?

    Cruellest aspect of British rule in South Asia was teaching the forebears of today's Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans how to play sodding cricket instead of, say, football.
    You think the peoples of South Asia were looking for an excuse to roll around on the floor pretending to be hurt? I thought they had more self respect than that.
    The Brits taught the South Americans football, in a similar(ish) climate. Why not South Asia?
    Because we like the South Asians. Why would we inflict self obsessed bladder kicking upon them?
    By your definition, why wouldn't self-obsessed bladder kickers inflict their sport on whomever they came across?
    Oh I am sure they would try. But quality will win out. Hence the reason Cricket remains so popular.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559

    Foxy - For several years now, my local King County library has had a charging station in its basement parking garage. And recently I have seen cars actually being charged there. (For a while, I was beginning to wonder if anyone ever used it.)

    A local Fred Meyer supermarket also has a charging station, and has had one for at least a couple of years.

    So there are solutions, even for those who don't have off street parking.

    (Note: Thanks to hydro power, electricity here is cheaper than the average in the rest of the US. There's a lot of local variation, with some places getting real bargains.)

    Seattle City Light = municipal socialism that works (most of the time)!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I believe the short version of "technically out" is "out".

    The batsman shouldn't have left his crease until the ball was out of play. Its like when football defenders give up and appeal for offside. Play to the whistle.
    No it's not. It;s like a ball smacking a goalkeeper in the face, the keeper falling over with blood squirting from his nose, the injury being obvious to anyone, but it's happened so quick the keeper has not yet waved for help and the ref hasn't stopped the game - and a striker taking advantage to tap the ball in

    Technically a goal. Absolutely a goal

    But if a football player dd that he'd never live it down and in a FOOTBALL game you'd probably see a lethal riot and the player's family murdered by drug cartels, but in cricket you saw some VERY hefty boos and three old guys in blazers have a quiet aneurysm

    In both cases it is legal, but everyone knows viscerally that it is wrong
    Nothing like it. The batsman wasn't injured, just not paying attention.
    If this is the case, why is the Aussie media in conflicted agonies over what happened?

    They have a reputation for cheating. They hated it so much they all cried on camera and the prime minister apologised. Now they are in agonies again

    Heh
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,998
    On fusion: I have seen claims that Helium-3 is so suited for fusion that it could make sense, economically, to collect it on the moon, and ship it back to earth. As I understand it, there is a continuous supply of He-3 there, coming from the sun. (Granted, that will run out in time, but I don't believe that's an immediate problem.)
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    Farooq said:

    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I believe the short version of "technically out" is "out".

    The batsman shouldn't have left his crease until the ball was out of play. Its like when football defenders give up and appeal for offside. Play to the whistle.
    Bluntly, don't put yourself into the hands of your opponents in the first place by relying on their honour.
    I don't even see it as a matter of honour. Ball was active, ginge went walkabout, got mugged by a team that bothered to do some prep. Off you go son, you'll know next time.
    US - Call of Duty

    UK - Ball of Honour
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,663

    Leon said:

    Can we please get back to the cricket?

    I don't mind the occasional foray into politics, or indeed folk dancing, aliens, AI, the fetid ugliness of Scots, and likeminded distractions, but ultimately we are here to talk about the cricket, and we should remember that

    Also, and this will come as a surprise to PB-ers, I was THERE yesterday, at Lord's. Yes

    The most utterly tedious, boring, snooze-fest "sport" in the world?

    Cruellest aspect of British rule in South Asia was teaching the forebears of today's Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans how to play sodding cricket instead of, say, football.
    You think the peoples of South Asia were looking for an excuse to roll around on the floor pretending to be hurt? I thought they had more self respect than that.
    The Brits taught the South Americans football, in a similar(ish) climate. Why not South Asia?
    Because we like the South Asians. Why would we inflict self obsessed bladder kicking upon them?
    By your definition, why wouldn't self-obsessed bladder kickers inflict their sport on whomever they came across?
    Oh I am sure they would try. But quality will win out. Hence the reason Cricket remains so popular.
    And football remains more popular ;-)
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,522

    DougSeal said:

    murali_s said:

    Leon said:

    Can we please get back to the cricket?

    I don't mind the occasional foray into politics, or indeed folk dancing, aliens, AI, the fetid ugliness of Scots, and likeminded distractions, but ultimately we are here to talk about the cricket, and we should remember that

    Also, and this will come as a surprise to PB-ers, I was THERE yesterday, at Lord's. Yes

    The most utterly tedious, boring, snooze-fest "sport" in the world?

    Cruellest aspect of British rule in South Asia was teaching the forebears of today's Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans how to play sodding cricket instead of, say, football.
    As someone of Sri Lankan descent, I violently disagree. Cricket is probably the best sport in the World.
    Standing around in a field all day a sport doth not make!
    A surprising number of sports involve standing or sitting around for a very long time. Fishing, golf, playing on the wing for an English rugby team…
    Playing in goal for bladder kicking. Actually playing as a striker for most of the history of the England football team.
    Football matches rarely last FIVE BLEEDING DAYS :lol:
    No they just feel like it sometimes. :)
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I believe the short version of "technically out" is "out".

    The batsman shouldn't have left his crease until the ball was out of play. Its like when football defenders give up and appeal for offside. Play to the whistle.
    Tbf it is open to interpretation:

    20.1 Ball is dead
    20.1.1 The ball becomes dead when
    20.1.1.1 it is finally settled in the hands of the wicket-keeper or of the bowler.
    ...
    20.1.2 The ball shall be considered to be dead when it is clear to the bowler’s end umpire that the fielding side and both batters at the wicket have ceased to regard it as in play.
    20.2 Ball finally settled
    Whether the ball is finally settled or not is a matter for the umpire alone to decide.


    https://www.lords.org/mcc/the-laws-of-cricket/dead-ball

    So, the umpire could have ruled that the ball was dead, that's his prerogative.

    In fairness to the Aussies, 20.1.2 was clearly not true for the fielding side (well Carey at least) although it pretty clearly was for the batting side and in particular for Bairstow. The issue with that though is how would the umpire ever know that the fielding side have ceased to regard the ball as in play?

    The umpire should have ruled the ball dead under the circs, imho.
    Yes, but the umpire did not rule that it was a dead ball, and did rule the batsman out.

    It's "just not cricket" to dispute the umpires decision surely?
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,401
    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I believe the short version of "technically out" is "out".

    The batsman shouldn't have left his crease until the ball was out of play. Its like when football defenders give up and appeal for offside. Play to the whistle.
    No it's not. It;s like a ball smacking a goalkeeper in the face, the keeper falling over with blood squirting from his nose, the injury being obvious to anyone, but it's happened so quick the keeper has not yet waved for help and the ref hasn't stopped the game - and a striker taking advantage to tap the ball in

    Technically a goal. Absolutely a goal

    But if a football player dd that he'd never live it down and in a FOOTBALL game you'd probably see a lethal riot and the player's family murdered by drug cartels, but in cricket you saw some VERY hefty boos and three old guys in blazers have a quiet aneurysm


    In both cases it is legal, but everyone knows viscerally that it is wrong
    See Paolo di Canio v Everton some years back.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,253

    .

    Phil said:

    Off-topic:

    During my run this morning in St Neots, I ran along a street that only had off-road parking. Two electric cars were on charge, the cables stretching from the homes across the pavement. Both had little mat-style ramps out over the cables, but IMO a whole street of these may cause accessibility problems for people in wheelchairs or people pushing prams. And pavements can be bad enough as they already are..

    An interesting problem.

    Oxford is trialling these things: https://gul-e.co.uk/
    What happens when the lithium ore runs out?
    Lithium is one of commonest elements.

    If anyone starts talking nonsense about “Proven Reserves”…. I have some Peak Oil to sell them.
    But Li isn't an infinite resource...
    No resource is infinite. Yet we also don't run out of resources. Funny that.
    Perhaps someone should take him to a scrap yard.
    Also mines are a literal blot on the landscape.
    Lithium is quite often not mined in the sense of digging holes and pulling out megatons of dirt. Lookup Lithium brine extraction…

  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,821
    viewcode said:

    kle4 said:

    viewcode said:

    Phil said:

    Off-topic:

    During my run this morning in St Neots, I ran along a street that only had off-road parking. Two electric cars were on charge, the cables stretching from the homes across the pavement. Both had little mat-style ramps out over the cables, but IMO a whole street of these may cause accessibility problems for people in wheelchairs or people pushing prams. And pavements can be bad enough as they already are..

    An interesting problem.

    Oxford is trialling these things: https://gul-e.co.uk/
    What happens when the lithium ore runs out?
    Lithium is one of commonest elements.

    If anyone starts talking nonsense about “Proven Reserves”…. I have some Peak Oil to sell them.
    But Li isn't an infinite resource...
    No resource is infinite. Yet we also don't run out of resources. Funny that.

    What do you think is going to happen when copper runs out? Or iron? Or coal? Or ...
    Unsarcastically, I believe helium is one of those things we may run out of. Happy to be contradicted if wrong.
    That is a bit funny, considering it's supposed to be one of the most plentiful substances in the universe. Not where we can get at it I suppose.
    Our nearest source of free (as in uncombined) helium is either Jupiter or Saturn, I forget which. And yes I know about theorised helium-3 deposits on the moon.
    "I saw what they're planning to do. They're like locusts. They're moving from planet to planet... their whole civilization. After they've consumed every natural resource they move on... and we're next!"
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,522
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I believe the short version of "technically out" is "out".

    The batsman shouldn't have left his crease until the ball was out of play. Its like when football defenders give up and appeal for offside. Play to the whistle.
    Tbf it is open to interpretation:

    20.1 Ball is dead
    20.1.1 The ball becomes dead when
    20.1.1.1 it is finally settled in the hands of the wicket-keeper or of the bowler.
    ...
    20.1.2 The ball shall be considered to be dead when it is clear to the bowler’s end umpire that the fielding side and both batters at the wicket have ceased to regard it as in play.
    20.2 Ball finally settled
    Whether the ball is finally settled or not is a matter for the umpire alone to decide.


    https://www.lords.org/mcc/the-laws-of-cricket/dead-ball

    So, the umpire could have ruled that the ball was dead, that's his prerogative.

    In fairness to the Aussies, 20.1.2 was clearly not true for the fielding side (well Carey at least) although it pretty clearly was for the batting side and in particular for Bairstow. The issue with that though is how would the umpire ever know that the fielding side have ceased to regard the ball as in play?

    The umpire should have ruled the ball dead under the circs, imho.
    Yes, but the umpire did not rule that it was a dead ball, and did rule the batsman out.

    It's "just not cricket" to dispute the umpires decision surely?
    Well clearly it is otherwise they would not have the referal system. :)

    And which umpire? The two on field umpires did not give it out.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,522

    Leon said:

    Can we please get back to the cricket?

    I don't mind the occasional foray into politics, or indeed folk dancing, aliens, AI, the fetid ugliness of Scots, and likeminded distractions, but ultimately we are here to talk about the cricket, and we should remember that

    Also, and this will come as a surprise to PB-ers, I was THERE yesterday, at Lord's. Yes

    The most utterly tedious, boring, snooze-fest "sport" in the world?

    Cruellest aspect of British rule in South Asia was teaching the forebears of today's Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans how to play sodding cricket instead of, say, football.
    You think the peoples of South Asia were looking for an excuse to roll around on the floor pretending to be hurt? I thought they had more self respect than that.
    The Brits taught the South Americans football, in a similar(ish) climate. Why not South Asia?
    Because we like the South Asians. Why would we inflict self obsessed bladder kicking upon them?
    By your definition, why wouldn't self-obsessed bladder kickers inflict their sport on whomever they came across?
    Oh I am sure they would try. But quality will win out. Hence the reason Cricket remains so popular.
    And football remains more popular ;-)
    Only with the riffraff ;)
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,663
    edited July 2023
    Barnesian said:

    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    pigeon said:

    Phil said:

    Off-topic:

    During my run this morning in St Neots, I ran along a street that only had off-road parking. Two electric cars were on charge, the cables stretching from the homes across the pavement. Both had little mat-style ramps out over the cables, but IMO a whole street of these may cause accessibility problems for people in wheelchairs or people pushing prams. And pavements can be bad enough as they already are..

    An interesting problem.

    Oxford is trialling these things: https://gul-e.co.uk/
    Then that's one piece in the jigsaw puzzle.

    Now we just have to work out how to build enough extra electricity generating capacity to power the entire national car fleet, and how to complete a commensurate upgrade of the National Grid, and what to do about everyone who lives in a flat rather than a house, all in time for the prohibition of the purchase of ICE cars in... 6.5 years' time.

    That should be fun.
    You are dramatically overestimating the difficulty.

    Say the average age of a car in the UK is eight years. That means that the entire car fleet turns over every 16 years. Even if *every* car sold today was full on BEV, it would still only mean that an incremental 6% of vehicles would need to be electric powered each year.

    The reality, though, is that it is changing much less quickly than that because (a) only about a third of vehicles are electric today, and (b) the ones that are changing first are lower mileage ones. That means that this is a problem we have a quarter century to solve.

    The vast majority of electric car charging happens overnight. And there's still a 15 GW difference between peak electricity usage (which is late afternoon in winter and which is about 37GW) and average nightime usage (about 20GW).

    Electric cars mostly just fill that gap.

    Go look at Norway: even though it is by far the highest electric car penetration in the world (80% of new cars last year!), it has caused essentially no problems to their grid.
    The Norwegians don't have our politicians trying to implement it.
    The transition will happen fine, irrespective of politcians.
    It'll happen more fine for some than for others.

    For people with at-home charger capabilities everything will be fine.

    For those without though, they may struggle but may equally lack the political voice to be taken seriously enough.

    A bit like housing. Those who've got one and are doing fine and want house prices to keep going up have for too long been over-represented politically over those who are struggling to afford it.

    The problem is that I don't see any political party especially interested in resolving the issues for those without at-home charging. The Tories and Lib Dems are predominantly represented by and for people who can have a drive at their own home. And Labour are overly-concerned with public transportation instead.
    Sounds about right.

    Of course, if I understand the electrification plans correctly, there's no time limit on the phasing out of ICE cars after their sale is banned. So we know where that will end: the haves with their driveways and their shiny, efficient electric cars; the have-nots engaged in an increasing desperate and expensive battle to keep their jalopies on the road as they start to dwindle in number, petrol becomes gradually harder to come by and desperately dear, and both repair bills and the price of second hand vehicles escalates.
    Is there a potential for a high capacity portable battery that you charge in your home and then take to your car in the street and charge the car?
    Never say never but... No.

    You'd need a battery with something like 5-10 times the energy density of petrol to be able to easily carry out a 200 mile plus range to the car.

    Current lithium batteries have an energy density of 1-2% of petrol.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    Foxy said:

    Nothing like it. The batsman wasn't injured, just not paying attention.

    If he had stayed in his crease he would not have been out.

    The Australians didn't force him to go walkabout.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559

    murali_s said:

    Leon said:

    Can we please get back to the cricket?

    I don't mind the occasional foray into politics, or indeed folk dancing, aliens, AI, the fetid ugliness of Scots, and likeminded distractions, but ultimately we are here to talk about the cricket, and we should remember that

    Also, and this will come as a surprise to PB-ers, I was THERE yesterday, at Lord's. Yes

    The most utterly tedious, boring, snooze-fest "sport" in the world?

    Cruellest aspect of British rule in South Asia was teaching the forebears of today's Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans how to play sodding cricket instead of, say, football.
    As someone of Sri Lankan descent, I violently disagree. Cricket is probably the best sport in the World.
    Standing around in a field all day a sport doth not make!
    Bite your tongue! Seeing as how MY own sporting prowess as a school boy, playing dis-organized baseball, consisted at least 99.46% of the time, stationed somewhere on the FAR fringes of the outfield, waiting to dodge whatever balls might be hit in my direction.
    To your nation's great credit, when it comes to, er, "soccer" (what we call football!), the USA is ranked 11th in the world by FIFA, just one place behind Spain! England are in 4th place, with Argentina top.
    IF yours truly had been dragooned into playing "soccer" as a kid, would no doubt have managed, instead of kicking the ball, to somehow end up kicking my own ass.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,075

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I don't know what's more tedious:

    Actual snooze-fest test cricket, or @Leon wittering on and on about it...
    If you prefer, I have opinions on: aliens, AI, Covid, slavery, Lab Leak, England's rugby coach, myself, my virility, Liz Truss's upside surprisingness, What3Words, "it was a bomb on a truck", Nordstream, travelling to the Solovetsky Islands, Brexit, Brexit being like having a baby, Georgian architecture, Gareth Southgate, neo-Caroline urbanism, and the exact number of women you need to sleep with to achieve mortal wisdom, but I suspect you won't be interested in these opinions either, especially the last
    I've visited every single station in London AND I've been on every National Rail line in Britain with a daily service! All of them!

    What have you done, Leon?

    You've done nothing!

    [Shrieking] NOTHING!
    [Insert piano-tie reference]
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    There are iconic moments of cheating/gamesmanship

    In cricket:

    Bodyline
    THIS
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    Scott_xP said:

    Foxy said:

    Nothing like it. The batsman wasn't injured, just not paying attention.

    If he had stayed in his crease he would not have been out.

    The Australians didn't force him to go walkabout.
    Jesus Christ you know fuck all about cricket or sport. As you have admitted. All you know is rabid Remoanerism. Shut up
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I believe the short version of "technically out" is "out".

    The batsman shouldn't have left his crease until the ball was out of play. Its like when football defenders give up and appeal for offside. Play to the whistle.
    Bluntly, don't put yourself into the hands of your opponents in the first place by relying on their honour.
    I don't even see it as a matter of honour. Ball was active, ginge went walkabout, got mugged by a team that bothered to do some prep. Off you go son, you'll know next time.
    NAE REFERENDUM, you're getting NAE REFERENDUM
    Err ok.
    I've been to the gym. It's called a testosterone surge. You may not be aware of the experience, or, indeed, the hormone
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,253
    Barnesian said:

    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    pigeon said:

    Phil said:

    Off-topic:

    During my run this morning in St Neots, I ran along a street that only had off-road parking. Two electric cars were on charge, the cables stretching from the homes across the pavement. Both had little mat-style ramps out over the cables, but IMO a whole street of these may cause accessibility problems for people in wheelchairs or people pushing prams. And pavements can be bad enough as they already are..

    An interesting problem.

    Oxford is trialling these things: https://gul-e.co.uk/
    Then that's one piece in the jigsaw puzzle.

    Now we just have to work out how to build enough extra electricity generating capacity to power the entire national car fleet, and how to complete a commensurate upgrade of the National Grid, and what to do about everyone who lives in a flat rather than a house, all in time for the prohibition of the purchase of ICE cars in... 6.5 years' time.

    That should be fun.
    You are dramatically overestimating the difficulty.

    Say the average age of a car in the UK is eight years. That means that the entire car fleet turns over every 16 years. Even if *every* car sold today was full on BEV, it would still only mean that an incremental 6% of vehicles would need to be electric powered each year.

    The reality, though, is that it is changing much less quickly than that because (a) only about a third of vehicles are electric today, and (b) the ones that are changing first are lower mileage ones. That means that this is a problem we have a quarter century to solve.

    The vast majority of electric car charging happens overnight. And there's still a 15 GW difference between peak electricity usage (which is late afternoon in winter and which is about 37GW) and average nightime usage (about 20GW).

    Electric cars mostly just fill that gap.

    Go look at Norway: even though it is by far the highest electric car penetration in the world (80% of new cars last year!), it has caused essentially no problems to their grid.
    The Norwegians don't have our politicians trying to implement it.
    The transition will happen fine, irrespective of politcians.
    It'll happen more fine for some than for others.

    For people with at-home charger capabilities everything will be fine.

    For those without though, they may struggle but may equally lack the political voice to be taken seriously enough.

    A bit like housing. Those who've got one and are doing fine and want house prices to keep going up have for too long been over-represented politically over those who are struggling to afford it.

    The problem is that I don't see any political party especially interested in resolving the issues for those without at-home charging. The Tories and Lib Dems are predominantly represented by and for people who can have a drive at their own home. And Labour are overly-concerned with public transportation instead.
    Sounds about right.

    Of course, if I understand the electrification plans correctly, there's no time limit on the phasing out of ICE cars after their sale is banned. So we know where that will end: the haves with their driveways and their shiny, efficient electric cars; the have-nots engaged in an increasing desperate and expensive battle to keep their jalopies on the road as they start to dwindle in number, petrol becomes gradually harder to come by and desperately dear, and both repair bills and the price of second hand vehicles escalates.
    Is there a potential for a high capacity portable battery that you charge in your home and then take to your car in the street and charge the car?
    An EV battery weighs in the order of 700-900kg.

    And, these days, is part of the structure of the vehicle.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,663
    Leon said:

    There are iconic moments of cheating/gamesmanship

    In cricket:

    Bodyline
    THIS

    Aren't you forgetting all these?:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sporting_scandals#Cricket_scandals
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I believe the short version of "technically out" is "out".

    The batsman shouldn't have left his crease until the ball was out of play. Its like when football defenders give up and appeal for offside. Play to the whistle.
    No it's not. It;s like a ball smacking a goalkeeper in the face, the keeper falling over with blood squirting from his nose, the injury being obvious to anyone, but it's happened so quick the keeper has not yet waved for help and the ref hasn't stopped the game - and a striker taking advantage to tap the ball in

    Technically a goal. Absolutely a goal

    But if a football player dd that he'd never live it down and in a FOOTBALL game you'd probably see a lethal riot and the player's family murdered by drug cartels, but in cricket you saw some VERY hefty boos and three old guys in blazers have a quiet aneurysm


    In both cases it is legal, but everyone knows viscerally that it is wrong
    See Paolo di Canio v Everton some years back.
    Exactly
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,553
    edited July 2023
    "Virginia Woolf classic joins growing list with ‘ludicrous’ trigger warnings
    To the Lighthouse from 1927 now carries warning that the book ‘reflects the attitudes of its time’"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/01/virginia-woolf-to-the-lighthouse-trigger-warning-vintage/

    How stupid would you have to be to read a book from 1927 and not expect it to reflect the attitudes of the time?
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,522
    Farooq said:

    Phil said:

    Off-topic:

    During my run this morning in St Neots, I ran along a street that only had off-road parking. Two electric cars were on charge, the cables stretching from the homes across the pavement. Both had little mat-style ramps out over the cables, but IMO a whole street of these may cause accessibility problems for people in wheelchairs or people pushing prams. And pavements can be bad enough as they already are..

    An interesting problem.

    Oxford is trialling these things: https://gul-e.co.uk/
    What happens when the lithium ore runs out?
    Lithium is one of commonest elements.

    If anyone starts talking nonsense about “Proven Reserves”…. I have some Peak Oil to sell them.
    Peak Oil was a seminal moment in my education. I remember reading about it in the early 2000s. I fully believed all of it. By 2010, oil will be running out, demand will push the price into the stratosphere. There will be a world war and societal breakdown. People will freeze to death and have to get around on foot. We're all fucked.

    I told my friends about it. I got a few of them worried. A few others said "hmmm, I dunno Rooq, sounds a bit iffy to me." I told them they had their heads in the sand.

    And so on.

    In short, I was taken for an absolute ride.

    See how my shtick these days is question everyone's silly little theories? Testing their "facts", looking stuff up, catching people out in their little deceits, throwing light on their sleight of hand (I'm looking at YOU here HYUFD). All of that stems from making an absolute arse of myself believing in Peak Oil.
    What is so strange about the whole Peak Oil idea is that no one who actually had anything to do with Oil and Gas had any time for it at all. By that I mean the people who did the actual work. Of course we all knew that it was a finite resource and that it would, one day, potentially run out. But we also knew based on the work we were doing that we were many many decades or even centuries from that. That said, we were also of the view that the stuff was too good and too valuable to burn.

    But the whole Peak Oil scare was a classic example of what happens when you take a perfectly good hypothesis for individual wells and try to scale it up for worldwide production. It just doesn't work.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    stodge said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    So they're basically the right-wing equivalent of Militant from the 1980s.

    Basically a Party within a Party. Sunak and Hands should expel each and every one of them.

    It could be good for Sunak - imagine his Conference speech:

    “I’ll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far-fetched plans on migration. They are then pickled into a rigid anti-Woke dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, out-dated, mis-placed, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end in the grotesque chaos of a Conservative leader – a Conservative leader - standing on Brighton beach telling migrants they aren't welcome"
    Except controlling immigration is rather more popular with the public than turning the UK into a socialist economy run by Militant and the trades unions
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,998
    Some years ago, an Israeli firm was experimenting with interchangeable batteries for electric cars. You would pull up to a charging store, they would remove your old battery, and replace it with a fully charged one. The idea seemed technically feasible to this non-expert, but I was never sure it made sense, economically.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,522
    Andy_JS said:

    "Virginia Woolf classic joins growing list with ‘ludicrous’ trigger warnings
    To the Lighthouse from 1927 now carries warning that the book ‘reflects the attitudes of its time’"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/01/virginia-woolf-to-the-lighthouse-trigger-warning-vintage/

    How stupid would you have to be to read a book from 1927 and not expect it to reflect the attitudes of the time?

    My personal view is that it should have a trigger warnings for being drivelling crap.

    I really, REALLY detest Virginia Woolf. All the more so because I went through a phase in my thirties of convincing myself it could not be as bad as I thought and it must just be the particular books I was reading. So I tried reading as much as possible to prove myself wrong. I failed and that is many weeks of reading time I will never get back.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    Leon said:

    There are iconic moments of cheating/gamesmanship

    In cricket:

    Bodyline
    THIS

    Aren't you forgetting all these?:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sporting_scandals#Cricket_scandals
    I was having a laugh

    Tho, to he fair, with Sunak's intervention today this might be the only cricket cheating scandal which has got so political?

    The Aussie PM - IIRC - did apologise for sandpapergate - but the Ashes are a class apart
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,253
    Farooq said:

    Phil said:

    Off-topic:

    During my run this morning in St Neots, I ran along a street that only had off-road parking. Two electric cars were on charge, the cables stretching from the homes across the pavement. Both had little mat-style ramps out over the cables, but IMO a whole street of these may cause accessibility problems for people in wheelchairs or people pushing prams. And pavements can be bad enough as they already are..

    An interesting problem.

    Oxford is trialling these things: https://gul-e.co.uk/
    What happens when the lithium ore runs out?
    Lithium is one of commonest elements.

    If anyone starts talking nonsense about “Proven Reserves”…. I have some Peak Oil to sell them.
    Peak Oil was a seminal moment in my education. I remember reading about it in the early 2000s. I fully believed all of it. By 2010, oil will be running out, demand will push the price into the stratosphere. There will be a world war and societal breakdown. People will freeze to death and have to get around on foot. We're all fucked.

    I told my friends about it. I got a few of them worried. A few others said "hmmm, I dunno Rooq, sounds a bit iffy to me." I told them they had their heads in the sand.

    And so on.

    In short, I was taken for an absolute ride.

    See how my shtick these days is question everyone's silly little theories? Testing their "facts", looking stuff up, catching people out in their little deceits, throwing light on their sleight of hand (I'm looking at YOU here HYUFD). All of that stems from making an absolute arse of myself believing in Peak Oil.
    In God we trust. All others bring data.

    A valuable lesson - there are many plausible sounding scams/conspiracy theories out there. The trick is to enjoy pulling them apart…

    I can still remember the look on the face of one poor sap, when I explained why the Tax Gap stuff was horse manure…. He had been so convinced that there was this ocean of money that could be used for all kinds of Good Works….
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Watched it again on iPlayer. It is actually worse on reflection. You can tell by their smirking Aussie response (which later turned to pained and bashful awkwardness as they got rightly barracked)

    Cheating Aussie fucks

    Ben Stokes got it exactly right. It WAS technically out. But would any captain want to win that way? Absolutely not. And nor, I suspect, do the Aussies, not after the ball tampering debacle

    I believe the short version of "technically out" is "out".

    The batsman shouldn't have left his crease until the ball was out of play. Its like when football defenders give up and appeal for offside. Play to the whistle.
    Bluntly, don't put yourself into the hands of your opponents in the first place by relying on their honour.
    I don't even see it as a matter of honour. Ball was active, ginge went walkabout, got mugged by a team that bothered to do some prep. Off you go son, you'll know next time.
    NAE REFERENDUM, you're getting NAE REFERENDUM
    Err ok.
    I've been to the gym. It's called a testosterone surge. You may not be aware of the experience, or, indeed, the hormone
    Is the gym where you get your "plain brown wrapper" mail delivered?

    Just kidding! Bon chance with your health regime.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957
    edited July 2023
    Leon said:

    There are iconic moments of cheating/gamesmanship

    In cricket:

    Bodyline
    THIS

    We get it. You went to a cricket match, a rare occurrence, and got all het up with the rest of the boozed up punters there and you enjoyed the camaraderie which is not a usual experience for you and out of a sense of loyalty to those people (you'll never see them again, obvs), and to keep that feeling going, you continue to fight the good fight on here.

    Perfectly understandable and of course the actual rights or wrongs of the situation are immaterial.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,522

    Leon said:

    There are iconic moments of cheating/gamesmanship

    In cricket:

    Bodyline
    THIS

    Aren't you forgetting all these?:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sporting_scandals#Cricket_scandals
    Very surprised that Bodyline is not included in that list.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153

    Farooq said:

    Phil said:

    Off-topic:

    During my run this morning in St Neots, I ran along a street that only had off-road parking. Two electric cars were on charge, the cables stretching from the homes across the pavement. Both had little mat-style ramps out over the cables, but IMO a whole street of these may cause accessibility problems for people in wheelchairs or people pushing prams. And pavements can be bad enough as they already are..

    An interesting problem.

    Oxford is trialling these things: https://gul-e.co.uk/
    What happens when the lithium ore runs out?
    Lithium is one of commonest elements.

    If anyone starts talking nonsense about “Proven Reserves”…. I have some Peak Oil to sell them.
    Peak Oil was a seminal moment in my education. I remember reading about it in the early 2000s. I fully believed all of it. By 2010, oil will be running out, demand will push the price into the stratosphere. There will be a world war and societal breakdown. People will freeze to death and have to get around on foot. We're all fucked.

    I told my friends about it. I got a few of them worried. A few others said "hmmm, I dunno Rooq, sounds a bit iffy to me." I told them they had their heads in the sand.

    And so on.

    In short, I was taken for an absolute ride.

    See how my shtick these days is question everyone's silly little theories? Testing their "facts", looking stuff up, catching people out in their little deceits, throwing light on their sleight of hand (I'm looking at YOU here HYUFD). All of that stems from making an absolute arse of myself believing in Peak Oil.
    What is so strange about the whole Peak Oil idea is that no one who actually had anything to do with Oil and Gas had any time for it at all. By that I mean the people who did the actual work. Of course we all knew that it was a finite resource and that it would, one day, potentially run out. But we also knew based on the work we were doing that we were many many decades or even centuries from that. That said, we were also of the view that the stuff was too good and too valuable to burn.

    But the whole Peak Oil scare was a classic example of what happens when you take a perfectly good hypothesis for individual wells and try to scale it up for worldwide production. It just doesn't work.
    Part of the problem is that everyone got obsessed by these charts that showed we discovered a lot of oil in the past, and since discovered a lot less.

    The charts, though, involved constantly moving up the amounts of oil we discovered in the past, because URRs were rising all the time. It meant that it was impossible to show anything other than sharply downward pointing chart.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    Andy_JS said:

    "Virginia Woolf classic joins growing list with ‘ludicrous’ trigger warnings
    To the Lighthouse from 1927 now carries warning that the book ‘reflects the attitudes of its time’"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/01/virginia-woolf-to-the-lighthouse-trigger-warning-vintage/

    How stupid would you have to be to read a book from 1927 and not expect it to reflect the attitudes of the time?

    My personal view is that it should have a trigger warnings for being drivelling crap.

    I really, REALLY detest Virginia Woolf. All the more so because I went through a phase in my thirties of convincing myself it could not be as bad as I thought and it must just be the particular books I was reading. So I tried reading as much as possible to prove myself wrong. I failed and that is many weeks of reading time I will never get back.
    You are almost completely right. She is absolute shite in her modernist guise. To The Lighthouse etc. All I could think was: JUST GO TO THE FUCKING LIGHTHOUSE, BITCH

    So dull

    She is - in this medium - James Joyce but with 3% of his linguistic skill. And she knew this, deep down, hence her loathing and fear of him. She publicly reviled Ulysses even tho it was absolutely clear that Joyce had achieved, with majestic elan, what she had tentatively and falteringly nudged at

    HOWEVER she is still is still a great writer. Try "Orlando" - she wrote it in a few brisk weeks yet it is brilliant and witty and very prescient about changing gender roles, it is her true masterpiece. She wrote it in six weeks and therefore, I think, dismissed it. She was wrong

    She was also great on the subject of creativity and writing in general. "A Room of One's Own" is full of insights for the ages, especially for any artist

    Her problem is that she is revered for rather dire modernist failures, yet her genuine spleandour goes unappreciated

  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 4,931

    Farooq said:

    Phil said:

    Off-topic:

    During my run this morning in St Neots, I ran along a street that only had off-road parking. Two electric cars were on charge, the cables stretching from the homes across the pavement. Both had little mat-style ramps out over the cables, but IMO a whole street of these may cause accessibility problems for people in wheelchairs or people pushing prams. And pavements can be bad enough as they already are..

    An interesting problem.

    Oxford is trialling these things: https://gul-e.co.uk/
    What happens when the lithium ore runs out?
    Lithium is one of commonest elements.

    If anyone starts talking nonsense about “Proven Reserves”…. I have some Peak Oil to sell them.
    Peak Oil was a seminal moment in my education. I remember reading about it in the early 2000s. I fully believed all of it. By 2010, oil will be running out, demand will push the price into the stratosphere. There will be a world war and societal breakdown. People will freeze to death and have to get around on foot. We're all fucked.

    I told my friends about it. I got a few of them worried. A few others said "hmmm, I dunno Rooq, sounds a bit iffy to me." I told them they had their heads in the sand.

    And so on.

    In short, I was taken for an absolute ride.

    See how my shtick these days is question everyone's silly little theories? Testing their "facts", looking stuff up, catching people out in their little deceits, throwing light on their sleight of hand (I'm looking at YOU here HYUFD). All of that stems from making an absolute arse of myself believing in Peak Oil.
    What is so strange about the whole Peak Oil idea is that no one who actually had anything to do with Oil and Gas had any time for it at all. By that I mean the people who did the actual work. Of course we all knew that it was a finite resource and that it would, one day, potentially run out. But we also knew based on the work we were doing that we were many many decades or even centuries from that. That said, we were also of the view that the stuff was too good and too valuable to burn.

    But the whole Peak Oil scare was a classic example of what happens when you take a perfectly good hypothesis for individual wells and try to scale it up for worldwide production. It just doesn't work.
    Peak Oil was a load of rubbish jumped on by the media. See also, Electric Cars, Global Warming.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153
    Re Peak Oil:

    I wrote a piece on oil for the Mecca of the Peak Oil fetishists (The Oil Drum) back in 2007: http://theoildrum.com/node/2899

    It is worth reading the comments under my article to see just how nutty peak oil adherents were.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    Leon said:

    Jesus Christ you know fuck all about cricket

    Apparently I know more than you.

    AND YOU WERE THERE !!!
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,011
    Scott_xP said:

    Foxy said:

    Nothing like it. The batsman wasn't injured, just not paying attention.

    If he had stayed in his crease he would not have been out.

    The Australians didn't force him to go walkabout.
    I preferred Jenny Agutter's Walkabout.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153
    edited July 2023

    Farooq said:

    Phil said:

    Off-topic:

    During my run this morning in St Neots, I ran along a street that only had off-road parking. Two electric cars were on charge, the cables stretching from the homes across the pavement. Both had little mat-style ramps out over the cables, but IMO a whole street of these may cause accessibility problems for people in wheelchairs or people pushing prams. And pavements can be bad enough as they already are..

    An interesting problem.

    Oxford is trialling these things: https://gul-e.co.uk/
    What happens when the lithium ore runs out?
    Lithium is one of commonest elements.

    If anyone starts talking nonsense about “Proven Reserves”…. I have some Peak Oil to sell them.
    Peak Oil was a seminal moment in my education. I remember reading about it in the early 2000s. I fully believed all of it. By 2010, oil will be running out, demand will push the price into the stratosphere. There will be a world war and societal breakdown. People will freeze to death and have to get around on foot. We're all fucked.

    I told my friends about it. I got a few of them worried. A few others said "hmmm, I dunno Rooq, sounds a bit iffy to me." I told them they had their heads in the sand.

    And so on.

    In short, I was taken for an absolute ride.

    See how my shtick these days is question everyone's silly little theories? Testing their "facts", looking stuff up, catching people out in their little deceits, throwing light on their sleight of hand (I'm looking at YOU here HYUFD). All of that stems from making an absolute arse of myself believing in Peak Oil.
    What is so strange about the whole Peak Oil idea is that no one who actually had anything to do with Oil and Gas had any time for it at all. By that I mean the people who did the actual work. Of course we all knew that it was a finite resource and that it would, one day, potentially run out. But we also knew based on the work we were doing that we were many many decades or even centuries from that. That said, we were also of the view that the stuff was too good and too valuable to burn.

    But the whole Peak Oil scare was a classic example of what happens when you take a perfectly good hypothesis for individual wells and try to scale it up for worldwide production. It just doesn't work.
    Peak Oil was a load of rubbish jumped on by the media. See also, Electric Cars, Global Warming.
    Errrr.

    Electric cars are real. I have one.

    It's a product, not a concept or a scientific theory.

    And personally, I very much doubt I will ever buy an ICE vehicle again. Simply: EVs are faster/more responsive, have more internal storage space, smell less, have virtually no maintenance, cost dramatically less to run, and involve (so long as you have off street parking) no hanging around petrol stations.

    The advantages ICE have are (a) initial purchase price, (b) range and (c) speed of charging/refilling. And each of those advantage diminishes a little every year.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    edited July 2023
    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    There are iconic moments of cheating/gamesmanship

    In cricket:

    Bodyline
    THIS

    We get it. You went to a cricket match, a rare occurrence, and got all het up with the rest of the boozed up punters there and you enjoyed the camaraderie which is not a usual experience for you and out of a sense of loyalty to those people (you'll never see them again, obvs), and to keep that feeling going, you continue to fight the good fight on here.

    Perfectly understandable and of course the actual rights or wrongs of the situation are immaterial.
    I WAS THERE

    They will talk about this game for years, maybe decades. For the iconic "cheating" and the best Test innings ever scored on English soil - all on the same day

    Amd OMFG I was there. I am sorry you weren't - but there you go

    You always have the recompense of having the most up-to-date Shazam list of an averagely lonely, tragic, slightly snobbish upper middle class man in his mid 50s who has nothing else to talk about but sports of which he knows nothing, because he doesn't like sport, really, despite his tortured isolated, sporty public school upbringing
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,253

    Some years ago, an Israeli firm was experimenting with interchangeable batteries for electric cars. You would pull up to a charging store, they would remove your old battery, and replace it with a fully charged one. The idea seemed technically feasible to this non-expert, but I was never sure it made sense, economically.

    The problem is that anything bigger than a light moped will need a battery you can’t lift. You could have lots of modules - but then the weight of the structure to carry them in the vehicle becomes a big issue.

    All those schemes died when Tesla demonstrated that fast charging could work without destroying your battery. A surprising number of battery “experts” didn’t know that battery life is a function of temperature excursions. Keep the battery temperature stable and it will live a long time. Tesla went with water cooling/heating for the battery - which made temperature stability easy.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,075

    Scott_xP said:

    Foxy said:

    Nothing like it. The batsman wasn't injured, just not paying attention.

    If he had stayed in his crease he would not have been out.

    The Australians didn't force him to go walkabout.
    I preferred Jenny Agutter's Walkabout.
    [Deleted]
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Virginia Woolf classic joins growing list with ‘ludicrous’ trigger warnings
    To the Lighthouse from 1927 now carries warning that the book ‘reflects the attitudes of its time’"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/01/virginia-woolf-to-the-lighthouse-trigger-warning-vintage/

    How stupid would you have to be to read a book from 1927 and not expect it to reflect the attitudes of the time?

    My personal view is that it should have a trigger warnings for being drivelling crap.

    I really, REALLY detest Virginia Woolf. All the more so because I went through a phase in my thirties of convincing myself it could not be as bad as I thought and it must just be the particular books I was reading. So I tried reading as much as possible to prove myself wrong. I failed and that is many weeks of reading time I will never get back.
    You are almost completely right. She is absolute shite in her modernist guise. To The Lighthouse etc. All I could think was: JUST GO TO THE FUCKING LIGHTHOUSE, BITCH

    So dull

    She is - in this medium - James Joyce but with 3% of his linguistic skill. And she knew this, deep down, hence her loathing and fear of him. She publicly reviled Ulysses even tho it was absolutely clear that Joyce had achieved, with majestic elan, what she had tentatively and falteringly nudged at

    HOWEVER she is still is still a great writer. Try "Orlando" - she wrote it in a few brisk weeks yet it is brilliant and witty and very prescient about changing gender roles, it is her true masterpiece. She wrote it in six weeks and therefore, I think, dismissed it. She was wrong

    She was also great on the subject of creativity and writing in general. "A Room of One's Own" is full of insights for the ages, especially for any artist

    Her problem is that she is revered for rather dire modernist failures, yet her genuine spleandour goes unappreciated

    I read Ulysses. All of it.

    I want to find a strand of Joyce's hair, clone him, and punch his fucking lights out.
    Have you tried Finnegan's Wake? Will make you appreciate Ulysses all the more!
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647

    Scott_xP said:

    Foxy said:

    Nothing like it. The batsman wasn't injured, just not paying attention.

    If he had stayed in his crease he would not have been out.

    The Australians didn't force him to go walkabout.
    I preferred Jenny Agutter's Walkabout.
    Great film. She was though forced into going walkabout.

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153

    Some years ago, an Israeli firm was experimenting with interchangeable batteries for electric cars. You would pull up to a charging store, they would remove your old battery, and replace it with a fully charged one. The idea seemed technically feasible to this non-expert, but I was never sure it made sense, economically.

    Better Place, founded by a friend of mine, Shai Agassi. It was, sadly, doomed from the start because Elon Musk (who at the time was 100% of electric vehicles) had no interest in working with Shai.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    Jesus Christ you know fuck all about cricket

    Apparently I know more than you.

    AND YOU WERE THERE !!!
    Finally, I am honoured

    Alone amonst PB-ers, I was indeed there

    I promised not to gloat if my visit became an iconic match-for-the-ages, with the best Test innings ever recorded by ANYONE on English soil, and I am abiding by my self-imposed rule. Spirit of PB, and all that
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,522
    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Virginia Woolf classic joins growing list with ‘ludicrous’ trigger warnings
    To the Lighthouse from 1927 now carries warning that the book ‘reflects the attitudes of its time’"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/01/virginia-woolf-to-the-lighthouse-trigger-warning-vintage/

    How stupid would you have to be to read a book from 1927 and not expect it to reflect the attitudes of the time?

    My personal view is that it should have a trigger warnings for being drivelling crap.

    I really, REALLY detest Virginia Woolf. All the more so because I went through a phase in my thirties of convincing myself it could not be as bad as I thought and it must just be the particular books I was reading. So I tried reading as much as possible to prove myself wrong. I failed and that is many weeks of reading time I will never get back.
    You are almost completely right. She is absolute shite in her modernist guise. To The Lighthouse etc. All I could think was: JUST GO TO THE FUCKING LIGHTHOUSE, BITCH

    So dull

    She is - in this medium - James Joyce but with 3% of his linguistic skill. And she knew this, deep down, hence her loathing and fear of him. She publicly reviled Ulysses even tho it was absolutely clear that Joyce had achieved, with majestic elan, what she had tentatively and falteringly nudged at

    HOWEVER she is still is still a great writer. Try "Orlando" - she wrote it in a few brisk weeks yet it is brilliant and witty and very prescient about changing gender roles, it is her true masterpiece. She wrote it in six weeks and therefore, I think, dismissed it. She was wrong

    She was also great on the subject of creativity and writing in general. "A Room of One's Own" is full of insights for the ages, especially for any artist

    Her problem is that she is revered for rather dire modernist failures, yet her genuine spleandour goes unappreciated

    I did wonder if I was simply too unintelligent to appreciate the stream of consciousness stuff. At least as she wrote it. After all that was part of the Bloomsbury Set ethos - that art should be elitist and difficult because the proles should not be able to understand it. Maybe I am just a prole.

    And yet. I can list dozens of writers, poets and artists far better whose work is not always easy but it rewards effort. Stefan Zweig, EE Cummings, Umberto Eco and Lawrence Durrell to start with. You have to work at all of them but if you make the effort then the result is wondrous. With Woolf the only feeling I am left with is pointlessness.
  • If Broad could Mankad Khawaja with the first ball of the next Test, should he?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    edited July 2023

    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Virginia Woolf classic joins growing list with ‘ludicrous’ trigger warnings
    To the Lighthouse from 1927 now carries warning that the book ‘reflects the attitudes of its time’"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/01/virginia-woolf-to-the-lighthouse-trigger-warning-vintage/

    How stupid would you have to be to read a book from 1927 and not expect it to reflect the attitudes of the time?

    My personal view is that it should have a trigger warnings for being drivelling crap.

    I really, REALLY detest Virginia Woolf. All the more so because I went through a phase in my thirties of convincing myself it could not be as bad as I thought and it must just be the particular books I was reading. So I tried reading as much as possible to prove myself wrong. I failed and that is many weeks of reading time I will never get back.
    You are almost completely right. She is absolute shite in her modernist guise. To The Lighthouse etc. All I could think was: JUST GO TO THE FUCKING LIGHTHOUSE, BITCH

    So dull

    She is - in this medium - James Joyce but with 3% of his linguistic skill. And she knew this, deep down, hence her loathing and fear of him. She publicly reviled Ulysses even tho it was absolutely clear that Joyce had achieved, with majestic elan, what she had tentatively and falteringly nudged at

    HOWEVER she is still is still a great writer. Try "Orlando" - she wrote it in a few brisk weeks yet it is brilliant and witty and very prescient about changing gender roles, it is her true masterpiece. She wrote it in six weeks and therefore, I think, dismissed it. She was wrong

    She was also great on the subject of creativity and writing in general. "A Room of One's Own" is full of insights for the ages, especially for any artist

    Her problem is that she is revered for rather dire modernist failures, yet her genuine spleandour goes unappreciated

    I did wonder if I was simply too unintelligent to appreciate the stream of consciousness stuff. At least as she wrote it. After all that was part of the Bloomsbury Set ethos - that art should be elitist and difficult because the proles should not be able to understand it. Maybe I am just a prole.

    And yet. I can list dozens of writers, poets and artists far better whose work is not always easy but it rewards effort. Stefan Zweig, EE Cummings, Umberto Eco and Lawrence Durrell to start with. You have to work at all of them but if you make the effort then the result is wondrous. With Woolf the only feeling I am left with is pointlessness.
    Worse, it's dreary

    You can take almost any passage of Ulysses, and it is poetic and enchanting, or at least intriguing and new

    Virginia Woolf hated it, because she knew she was defeated, And she was. Ulysses is now the acknowledged meisterwerk of modernism, Woolf is a sub reddit

    “Never did I read such tosh,” Virginia Woolf wrote, of Ulysses; she even reverted to snobbery in her hatred of it: “a [novel by] a self-taught working man… egotistic, insistent, raw, striking, & ultimately nauseating.” “When one can have cooked flesh,” she writes, “why have the raw?”



  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957
    edited July 2023
    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    There are iconic moments of cheating/gamesmanship

    In cricket:

    Bodyline
    THIS

    We get it. You went to a cricket match, a rare occurrence, and got all het up with the rest of the boozed up punters there and you enjoyed the camaraderie which is not a usual experience for you and out of a sense of loyalty to those people (you'll never see them again, obvs), and to keep that feeling going, you continue to fight the good fight on here.

    Perfectly understandable and of course the actual rights or wrongs of the situation are immaterial.
    I WAS THERE

    They will talk about this game for years, maybe decades. For the iconic "cheating" and the best Test innings ever scored on English soil - all on the same day

    Amd OMFG I was there. I am sorry you weren't - but there you go

    You always have the recompense of having the most up-to-date Shazam list of an averagely lonely, tragic, slightly snobbish upper middle class man in his mid 50s who has nothing else to talk about but sports of which he knows nothing, because he doesn't like sport, really, despite his tortured isolated, sporty public school upbringing
    You had me at hello.

    Novel an experience as it evidently is for you, actually being at a cricket match doesn't confer on attendees any special analytic powers.

    But you were understandably intoxicated by the whole experience, being so close to "the people" as you were, and this is something to celebrate. I realise it doesn't happen too often so no need to be defensive. We are happy for you and long may you relive the day.

    Doesn't however prevent us from pointing out the actual sequence of events from a rules of cricket perspective.

    Oh and you forgot the devastatingly good looking bit from your encomium.

    Edit: but I love the "slightly snobbish". Trying to imagine that in action.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957
    edited July 2023
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Virginia Woolf classic joins growing list with ‘ludicrous’ trigger warnings
    To the Lighthouse from 1927 now carries warning that the book ‘reflects the attitudes of its time’"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/01/virginia-woolf-to-the-lighthouse-trigger-warning-vintage/

    How stupid would you have to be to read a book from 1927 and not expect it to reflect the attitudes of the time?

    My personal view is that it should have a trigger warnings for being drivelling crap.

    I really, REALLY detest Virginia Woolf. All the more so because I went through a phase in my thirties of convincing myself it could not be as bad as I thought and it must just be the particular books I was reading. So I tried reading as much as possible to prove myself wrong. I failed and that is many weeks of reading time I will never get back.
    You are almost completely right. She is absolute shite in her modernist guise. To The Lighthouse etc. All I could think was: JUST GO TO THE FUCKING LIGHTHOUSE, BITCH

    So dull

    She is - in this medium - James Joyce but with 3% of his linguistic skill. And she knew this, deep down, hence her loathing and fear of him. She publicly reviled Ulysses even tho it was absolutely clear that Joyce had achieved, with majestic elan, what she had tentatively and falteringly nudged at

    HOWEVER she is still is still a great writer. Try "Orlando" - she wrote it in a few brisk weeks yet it is brilliant and witty and very prescient about changing gender roles, it is her true masterpiece. She wrote it in six weeks and therefore, I think, dismissed it. She was wrong

    She was also great on the subject of creativity and writing in general. "A Room of One's Own" is full of insights for the ages, especially for any artist

    Her problem is that she is revered for rather dire modernist failures, yet her genuine spleandour goes unappreciated

    I did wonder if I was simply too unintelligent to appreciate the stream of consciousness stuff. At least as she wrote it. After all that was part of the Bloomsbury Set ethos - that art should be elitist and difficult because the proles should not be able to understand it. Maybe I am just a prole.

    And yet. I can list dozens of writers, poets and artists far better whose work is not always easy but it rewards effort. Stefan Zweig, EE Cummings, Umberto Eco and Lawrence Durrell to start with. You have to work at all of them but if you make the effort then the result is wondrous. With Woolf the only feeling I am left with is pointlessness.
    Worse, it's dreary

    You can take almost any passage of Ulysses, and it is poetic and enchanting, or at least intriguing and new

    Virginia Woolf hated it, because she knew she was defeated, And she was. Ulysses is now the acknowledged meisterwerk of modernism, Woolf is a sub reddit

    “Never did I read such tosh,” Virginia Woolf wrote, of Ulysses; she even reverted to snobbery in her hatred of it: “a [novel by] a self-taught working man… egotistic, insistent, raw, striking, & ultimately nauseating.” “When one can have cooked flesh,” she writes, “why have the raw?”

    Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls.

    She even made a fool of herself with the criticism.
  • Australia have faced 109 more overs than England so far, and scored 45 more runs
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,663
    viewcode said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Foxy said:

    Nothing like it. The batsman wasn't injured, just not paying attention.

    If he had stayed in his crease he would not have been out.

    The Australians didn't force him to go walkabout.
    I preferred Jenny Agutter's Walkabout.
    [Deleted]
    Probably for the best ;-)
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Virginia Woolf classic joins growing list with ‘ludicrous’ trigger warnings
    To the Lighthouse from 1927 now carries warning that the book ‘reflects the attitudes of its time’"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/01/virginia-woolf-to-the-lighthouse-trigger-warning-vintage/

    How stupid would you have to be to read a book from 1927 and not expect it to reflect the attitudes of the time?

    My personal view is that it should have a trigger warnings for being drivelling crap.

    I really, REALLY detest Virginia Woolf. All the more so because I went through a phase in my thirties of convincing myself it could not be as bad as I thought and it must just be the particular books I was reading. So I tried reading as much as possible to prove myself wrong. I failed and that is many weeks of reading time I will never get back.
    You are almost completely right. She is absolute shite in her modernist guise. To The Lighthouse etc. All I could think was: JUST GO TO THE FUCKING LIGHTHOUSE, BITCH

    So dull

    She is - in this medium - James Joyce but with 3% of his linguistic skill. And she knew this, deep down, hence her loathing and fear of him. She publicly reviled Ulysses even tho it was absolutely clear that Joyce had achieved, with majestic elan, what she had tentatively and falteringly nudged at

    HOWEVER she is still is still a great writer. Try "Orlando" - she wrote it in a few brisk weeks yet it is brilliant and witty and very prescient about changing gender roles, it is her true masterpiece. She wrote it in six weeks and therefore, I think, dismissed it. She was wrong

    She was also great on the subject of creativity and writing in general. "A Room of One's Own" is full of insights for the ages, especially for any artist

    Her problem is that she is revered for rather dire modernist failures, yet her genuine spleandour goes unappreciated

    I read Ulysses. All of it.

    I want to find a strand of Joyce's hair, clone him, and punch his fucking lights out.
    Have you tried Finnegan's Wake? Will make you appreciate Ulysses all the more!
    Gotta confess, I draw the line at Finnegan's Wake. TBF so did Joyce himself. I believe he wrote a letter aliong the lines of "possibly I have gone too far". Well, yes, It's like Michelangelo went from sculpting La Pieta to obsessing about different ways he could present Christ's dying penis in multiple forms of coloured Travertine

    Er, no

    It is one of literature's huge Unknowns. Joyce was at the peak of his powers when he finished Ulysses. What might he have written if he had reined it in a bit - and thought about plot and character and readability, along with his own revolutionary genius? We lost ten years of one of the finest writers who ever lived, to a work that fails entirely, and is unreadable even for his fans

    The best comparison is if Picasso stopped at Cubism, and then obsessively doodled eerily distorted manginas for the rest of his career. No Guernica, no The Weeping Woman, no La Reve, and so on
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,421
    With the cricket thing, envisioning what would have happened if the umpire had said it wasn't out, would there have been a great outrage in the other direction? I don't think there would have been. I think the Australians would have shrugged and thought 'worth a try' and got on with it. I am not sure whether that tells us what the umpire should have done, but it does tell us something.
  • MiklosvarMiklosvar Posts: 1,855
    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Virginia Woolf classic joins growing list with ‘ludicrous’ trigger warnings
    To the Lighthouse from 1927 now carries warning that the book ‘reflects the attitudes of its time’"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/01/virginia-woolf-to-the-lighthouse-trigger-warning-vintage/

    How stupid would you have to be to read a book from 1927 and not expect it to reflect the attitudes of the time?

    My personal view is that it should have a trigger warnings for being drivelling crap.

    I really, REALLY detest Virginia Woolf. All the more so because I went through a phase in my thirties of convincing myself it could not be as bad as I thought and it must just be the particular books I was reading. So I tried reading as much as possible to prove myself wrong. I failed and that is many weeks of reading time I will never get back.
    You are almost completely right. She is absolute shite in her modernist guise. To The Lighthouse etc. All I could think was: JUST GO TO THE FUCKING LIGHTHOUSE, BITCH

    So dull

    She is - in this medium - James Joyce but with 3% of his linguistic skill. And she knew this, deep down, hence her loathing and fear of him. She publicly reviled Ulysses even tho it was absolutely clear that Joyce had achieved, with majestic elan, what she had tentatively and falteringly nudged at

    HOWEVER she is still is still a great writer. Try "Orlando" - she wrote it in a few brisk weeks yet it is brilliant and witty and very prescient about changing gender roles, it is her true masterpiece. She wrote it in six weeks and therefore, I think, dismissed it. She was wrong

    She was also great on the subject of creativity and writing in general. "A Room of One's Own" is full of insights for the ages, especially for any artist

    Her problem is that she is revered for rather dire modernist failures, yet her genuine spleandour goes unappreciated

    I read Ulysses. All of it.

    I want to find a strand of Joyce's hair, clone him, and punch his fucking lights out.
    Have you tried Finnegan's Wake? Will make you appreciate Ulysses all the more!
    Gotta confess, I draw the line at Finnegan's Wake. TBF so did Joyce himself. I believe he wrote a letter aliong the lines of "possibly I have gone too far". Well, yes, It's like Michelangelo went from sculpting La Pieta to obsessing about different ways he could present Christ's dying penis in multiple forms of coloured Travertine

    Er, no

    It is one of literature's huge Unknowns. Joyce was at the peak of his powers when he finished Ulysses. What might he have written if he had reined it in a bit - and thought about plot and character and readability, along with his own revolutionary genius? We lost ten years of one of the finest writers who ever lived, to a work that fails entirely, and is unreadable even for his fans

    The best comparison is if Picasso stopped at Cubism, and then obsessively doodled eerily distorted manginas for the rest of his career. No Guernica, no The Weeping Woman, no La Reve, and so on
    Admirer: may I kiss the hand which wrote Ulysses?

    Joyce: certainly not, it did a lot of other things.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    THIS is genuinely shocking

    The state of falling birth rates around the world


    https://twitter.com/BirthGauge/status/1674906307000762370

    Macao is essentially saying Fuck it, we've had enough of this living and reproducing thing
This discussion has been closed.