End of an era: Completed the sale of my father's house. I lived there from the age of 9 until I went to university and obviously visited a lot in the 50 years after I left home. The house was in a terrible state by the time my father died. We had tried to get him to move to something more appropriate for at least the last 10 years but he refused.
The housing market was just coming off a high when it went on the market but it has completely collapsed. Only 2 viewings. Fortunately neither myself nor my sister need the money, consequently our priority was getting rid of it. I think the Estate Agent was rather shocked that we accepted the offer made for it, but in hindsight I think we have made the right move.
The couple moving in were in rented accommodation. They were presented with a huge rent rise and found other comparable rentals were similarly as high so they bit the bullet (@BartholomewRoberts will be pleased). They have one hell of a job on their hands, but I think it is a win/win. They have a bargain and now own their own home and we are relieved a stressful time is all over.
Too late now, but did you consider putting it up for auction? Its state of disrepair or untidyness would not have mattered. You'd have to take an offer 10-20% off the market value, but it adds certainty and is easier.
PS. Did you confirm that you and your sister owned the property? I looked at a property at auction once: it had descended thru three generations and was occupied by the younger daughter each time (for sadly obvious reasons). The presumption was that the children of the last occupant were the legal owners and she had left it to them in their will, but it was questionable if she had ever had title due to the informal inheritance from the previous generations. Each surviving sibling and aunt/uncle had to be contacted to confirm they had no interest. This was a problem.
End of an era: Completed the sale of my father's house. I lived there from the age of 9 until I went to university and obviously visited a lot in the 50 years after I left home. The house was in a terrible state by the time my father died. We had tried to get him to move to something more appropriate for at least the last 10 years but he refused.
The housing market was just coming off a high when it went on the market but it has completely collapsed. Only 2 viewings. Fortunately neither myself nor my sister need the money, consequently our priority was getting rid of it. I think the Estate Agent was rather shocked that we accepted the offer made for it, but in hindsight I think we have made the right move.
The couple moving in were in rented accommodation. They were presented with a huge rent rise and found other comparable rentals were similarly as high so they bit the bullet (@BartholomewRoberts will be pleased). They have one hell of a job on their hands, but I think it is a win/win. They have a bargain and now own their own home and we are relieved a stressful time is all over.
I'm driving up to Scotland tomorrow to help my folks move to a smaller house. The old place needs some work that they haven't the money or energy to carry out, and they want to move while they're still in reasonably good shape. We moved there when I was 11 so it was pretty much my childhood home. They managed to sell for a decent price but they don't feel great about it, the buyer is getting it for her daughter and friends to live in while she's at Uni there. It's going to be emosh saying bye to the old place but I will probably be too busy driving to the dump to notice.
With respect to shoes. It is a good idea to go to Timpsons in your local town and ask them which shoes they can resole. Buying shoes is expensive, getting them fixed is cheap
Getting them fixed is not cheap. Around £100 for full soles, heels, etc. Quite a conundrum for an older pair of shoes but what else do you do - throw them away?
For good quality leather shoes, it may be worth it. For running trainers, they generally fall apart before the soles wear - especially if you run through brambles, as I did once. A perfectly serviceable pair of running trainers were considerably ripped. As were my legs...
Talking of which, I just did a run. A couple of black cars with tinter windows roared past along a country lane, blue lights flashing on their roofs. I stepped onto the verge to give them plenty of room - straight into a nettle patch. Ouch.
And in other news, I just saw a first (for me, at least): a female car transporter driver / loader. I'm glad to say that more and more women are breaking into roles that men traditionally did - even the mucky and/or heavy ones.
With respect to shoes. It is a good idea to go to Timpsons in your local town and ask them which shoes they can resole. Buying shoes is expensive, getting them fixed is cheap
Getting them fixed is not cheap. Around £100 for full soles, heels, etc. Quite a conundrum for an older pair of shoes but what else do you do - throw them away?
£170 for full sole & heel with Tricker's, £200 to include linings. I've bought new pairs from ebay for less so I'm ashamed to say if a local lad can't do it, replacement it is. There's a vg young guy in Morningside, Edinburgh who'll do a full sole and reheel for £85 which is good value, but not an option for everyone obvs.
With respect to shoes. It is a good idea to go to Timpsons in your local town and ask them which shoes they can resole. Buying shoes is expensive, getting them fixed is cheap
Getting them fixed is not cheap. Around £100 for full soles, heels, etc. Quite a conundrum for an older pair of shoes but what else do you do - throw them away?
Cannibalize for parts?
You could also mend the uppers with good precedent here.
"MPs approve report on alleged interference in Partygate probe"
Could be worth a celebration if they got their titles confiscated
The vote entailed no punishments. There was a LibDem amendment to refer the names individuals back to the Committee to assess whether they had committed contempt of Parliament, in which case punishments could have been recommended, but the Speaker didn’t pick the amendment.
End of an era: Completed the sale of my father's house. I lived there from the age of 9 until I went to university and obviously visited a lot in the 50 years after I left home. The house was in a terrible state by the time my father died. We had tried to get him to move to something more appropriate for at least the last 10 years but he refused.
The housing market was just coming off a high when it went on the market but it has completely collapsed. Only 2 viewings. Fortunately neither myself nor my sister need the money, consequently our priority was getting rid of it. I think the Estate Agent was rather shocked that we accepted the offer made for it, but in hindsight I think we have made the right move.
The couple moving in were in rented accommodation. They were presented with a huge rent rise and found other comparable rentals were similarly as high so they bit the bullet (@BartholomewRoberts will be pleased). They have one hell of a job on their hands, but I think it is a win/win. They have a bargain and now own their own home and we are relieved a stressful time is all over.
Too late now, but did you consider putting it up for auction? Its state of disrepair or untidyness would not have mattered. You'd have to take an offer 10-20% off the market value, but it adds certainty and is easier.
PS. Did you confirm that you and your sister owned the property? I looked at a property at auction once: it had descended thru three generations and was occupied by the younger daughter each time (for sadly obvious reasons). The presumption was that the children of the last occupant were the legal owners and she had left it to them in their will, but it was questionable if she had ever had title due to the informal inheritance from the previous generations. Each surviving sibling and aunt/uncle had to be contacted to confirm they had no interest. This was a problem.
Dear god man* - he's* only just said that it was a huge stress and end of an era, etc and now you bombard him* with questions did you do this..did you do that....?
End of an era: Completed the sale of my father's house. I lived there from the age of 9 until I went to university and obviously visited a lot in the 50 years after I left home. The house was in a terrible state by the time my father died. We had tried to get him to move to something more appropriate for at least the last 10 years but he refused.
The housing market was just coming off a high when it went on the market but it has completely collapsed. Only 2 viewings. Fortunately neither myself nor my sister need the money, consequently our priority was getting rid of it. I think the Estate Agent was rather shocked that we accepted the offer made for it, but in hindsight I think we have made the right move.
The couple moving in were in rented accommodation. They were presented with a huge rent rise and found other comparable rentals were similarly as high so they bit the bullet (@BartholomewRoberts will be pleased). They have one hell of a job on their hands, but I think it is a win/win. They have a bargain and now own their own home and we are relieved a stressful time is all over.
Good news. Having much the same issues at the moment so I feel your pain.
The only meaningful way my situation is different is my parents lived in that house all my life.
Just hoping I can complete the sale in the next few weeks.
Good luck with it @ydoethur. I found the house clearance quite painful even though we weren't that close and I'm not very emotional when it comes to stuff like this. 96 though is a long life, but he really shouldn't have been living there, but stubborn doesn't cover it. We had offered to buy him a place in sheltered housing and still keep his house in case he wasn't happy. I hope that doesn't happen to me when I get older. He should have blown what little money he had on a better final few years, but he felt he should leave something to his children. Bizarre really as he lived in a rundown 3 bed semi and both myself and my sister are more than comfortably off.
With respect to shoes. It is a good idea to go to Timpsons in your local town and ask them which shoes they can resole. Buying shoes is expensive, getting them fixed is cheap
Getting them fixed is not cheap. Around £100 for full soles, heels, etc. Quite a conundrum for an older pair of shoes but what else do you do - throw them away?
Cannibalize for parts?
You could also mend the uppers with good precedent here.
Our liege lord?
Must say I've come round to turn ups in a suit again. (insert obligatory Malc joke)
I'm sceptical about this sort of thing. I mean "is in good mental and physical health". Surely you'd have to say yes to Sunak, and probably yes for Starmer. And they get 33% and 37% respectively?
These are largely just proxies for who people are going to vote for, really, aren't they?
EDIT: beaten to it by seconds by EPG
Given that one is 43 and extremely slim and the other 60 and a little paunchy (though no worse than the average), for physical health certainly Sunak should score better. Mental health? You'd need to be a professional and sit with each for a good few hours to know.
I think Starmer looks pretty good for somebody who is 60 and in a high flying role. You could easily think he was 10 years younger.
5 years a PM, will undoubtedly age him, as it does with all leaders.
So much been happening that cartoongate is rapidly disappearing over the horizon. No need to worry in any case as 'It is the correct decision these facilities have the requisite decoration befitting their purpose'.
Do we know the name or title of this minister? A photo of him might have done the trick
Lord Williams.
Doesn't look at all the sort of person to dribble out callous, pompous govspeak.
The original story and this latest statement are telling: they show that the government sees asylum claims as part of the prison system. Hence a children’s reception centre should be a form of young offenders institution.
It’s a crime and punishment mindset, which is how the home office have consistently treated refugees for at least a decade and a half.
Once people move into the care of local authorities and out of the direct clutches of Whitehall this criminal justice mindset seems to disappear and people are treated more humanely, even if conditions can be dodgy.
Over thirty years ago, I was on my way into uni on the tube during rush hour. Unfortunately, I was on crutches. A smartly-dressed woman glared at me and asked me: "Do you have to use those things on the tube?"
Because, obviously, my using crutches was only to inconvenience her. I said nothing, but my female friend tore a few strips off her.
Just one example that smart clothes in no way mark value or worth.
That is just mind blowing. Not sure how one could survive in life without realising you are being mindbogglingly selfish with that attitude as I assume she will do similar things all the time.
When I broke both my legs last year I found everyone very considerate. I'm sure some thought I was a fraud as I would always be offered a seat (because of the crutches) but choose to stand.
When Headley Court opened, some people complained when disabled soldiers use the local swimming pool. They complained.
And even wrote letters to the local papers, *signed with their names*, about how offended they were by visibly disabled people using *their* pool.
One of my uncles lost a leg during the Normandy campaign. He’d been an excellent swimmer before being conscripted and it later life it was one of the few physical things he could do on equal terms with the rest of us.
Indeed
I was gobsmacked at the thundercunts in question actually announcing their thundercuntery in the local papers.
IIRC Headley Court later raised money and built a special pool on site for physio for residents.
My father, some 10 years older than his brother, and always enjoined by his mother to look after him, would have REALLY blown his top. It was bad enough when uncle was called up for a medical at the time of Suez. There were threats to go to MP’s, the press and anyone who might respond. Uncle merely took his artificial leg off and turned up at the medical centre on crutches. The sergeant managing the place was furious!
Something similar happened when my Russian mole's brother was called up for the special military operation, although it was not his crutches he showed in the army recruitment centre but his FSB card. Don't Leave Home Without It.
With respect to shoes. It is a good idea to go to Timpsons in your local town and ask them which shoes they can resole. Buying shoes is expensive, getting them fixed is cheap
Getting them fixed is not cheap. Around £100 for full soles, heels, etc. Quite a conundrum for an older pair of shoes but what else do you do - throw them away?
£170 for full sole & heel with Tricker's, £200 to include linings. I've bought new pairs from ebay for less so I'm ashamed to say if a local lad can't do it, replacement it is. There's a vg young guy in Morningside, Edinburgh who'll do a full sole and reheel for £85 which is good value, but not an option for everyone obvs.
Yep I go to the high street (Timpsons in fact) and it is around £100 I can well imagine if you go to source as you have stated it is 2x that. And yes at £200 to mend replacement becomes compelling.
The day trip on LNER to Edinburgh might leave me change from both, that said.
End of an era: Completed the sale of my father's house. I lived there from the age of 9 until I went to university and obviously visited a lot in the 50 years after I left home. The house was in a terrible state by the time my father died. We had tried to get him to move to something more appropriate for at least the last 10 years but he refused.
The housing market was just coming off a high when it went on the market but it has completely collapsed. Only 2 viewings. Fortunately neither myself nor my sister need the money, consequently our priority was getting rid of it. I think the Estate Agent was rather shocked that we accepted the offer made for it, but in hindsight I think we have made the right move.
The couple moving in were in rented accommodation. They were presented with a huge rent rise and found other comparable rentals were similarly as high so they bit the bullet (@BartholomewRoberts will be pleased). They have one hell of a job on their hands, but I think it is a win/win. They have a bargain and now own their own home and we are relieved a stressful time is all over.
Good news. Having much the same issues at the moment so I feel your pain.
The only meaningful way my situation is different is my parents lived in that house all my life.
Just hoping I can complete the sale in the next few weeks.
Good luck with it @ydoethur. I found the house clearance quite painful even though we weren't that close and I'm not very emotional when it comes to stuff like this. 96 though is a long life, but he really shouldn't have been living there, but stubborn doesn't cover it. We had offered to buy him a place in sheltered housing and still keep his house in case he wasn't happy. I hope that doesn't happen to me when I get older. He should have blown what little money he had on a better final few years, but he felt he should leave something to his children. Bizarre really as he lived in a rundown 3 bed semi and both myself and my sister are more than comfortably off.
Yes, my father was also stubbornly refusing to go into sheltered housing even though he simply couldn't cope alone. I suppose it's natural and human but it was quite tough and the state of the house itself was a constant worry. The garage literally fell down when we got some work done to it. Fortunately the walls and roof of the house itself seem sound.
Clearing the place has been very emotionally draining. My sister and I found an awful lot of stuff buried in the attics that had clearly been stored and simply forgotten about, including many of our toys from childhood.
However, we seem to be finally making some progress.
Incidentally @viewcode thank you for the tip on auctioning. I'll remember it if the sale falls through.
End of an era: Completed the sale of my father's house. I lived there from the age of 9 until I went to university and obviously visited a lot in the 50 years after I left home. The house was in a terrible state by the time my father died. We had tried to get him to move to something more appropriate for at least the last 10 years but he refused.
The housing market was just coming off a high when it went on the market but it has completely collapsed. Only 2 viewings. Fortunately neither myself nor my sister need the money, consequently our priority was getting rid of it. I think the Estate Agent was rather shocked that we accepted the offer made for it, but in hindsight I think we have made the right move.
The couple moving in were in rented accommodation. They were presented with a huge rent rise and found other comparable rentals were similarly as high so they bit the bullet (@BartholomewRoberts will be pleased). They have one hell of a job on their hands, but I think it is a win/win. They have a bargain and now own their own home and we are relieved a stressful time is all over.
Too late now, but did you consider putting it up for auction? Its state of disrepair or untidyness would not have mattered. You'd have to take an offer 10-20% off the market value, but it adds certainty and is easier.
PS. Did you confirm that you and your sister owned the property? I looked at a property at auction once: it had descended thru three generations and was occupied by the younger daughter each time (for sadly obvious reasons). The presumption was that the children of the last occupant were the legal owners and she had left it to them in their will, but it was questionable if she had ever had title due to the informal inheritance from the previous generations. Each surviving sibling and aunt/uncle had to be contacted to confirm they had no interest. This was a problem.
Thanks for that message @viewcode . Yes we did consider auction.
My father was the owner. Myself and my sister are the executors (although I am doing it all). Simple will - Small lump sum to both my children, rest split between myself and my sister.
The Metropolitan police have asked the BBC to pause its investigation into a suspended male presenter, while specialist officers decide if there is any justification for a criminal investigation.
The Metropolitan police have asked the BBC to pause its investigation into a suspended male presenter, while specialist officers decide if there is any justification for a criminal investigation.
The article seems to be written in some sort of code, but luckily my browser could translate it into English. For CDU security experts, one thing is clear: "Russia was involved in this attack."
With respect to shoes. It is a good idea to go to Timpsons in your local town and ask them which shoes they can resole. Buying shoes is expensive, getting them fixed is cheap
Getting them fixed is not cheap. Around £100 for full soles, heels, etc. Quite a conundrum for an older pair of shoes but what else do you do - throw them away?
For good quality leather shoes, it may be worth it. For running trainers, they generally fall apart before the soles wear - especially if you run through brambles, as I did once. A perfectly serviceable pair of running trainers were considerably ripped. As were my legs...
Talking of which, I just did a run. A couple of black cars with tinter windows roared past along a country lane, blue lights flashing on their roofs. I stepped onto the verge to give them plenty of room - straight into a nettle patch. Ouch.
And in other news, I just saw a first (for me, at least): a female car transporter driver / loader. I'm glad to say that more and more women are breaking into roles that men traditionally did - even the mucky and/or heavy ones.
I remember staying with friends once on the Dorset coast. I'll go for a run down to the sea, I said, what could be nicer. Be careful of the geese at the farmyard on the way down, they said. Sure, I said. Geese, I thought, no big deal.
Well, the little (actually not so little) fuckers began to chase me and looked to be closing so I climbed/leapt over a five barred gate straight into a bramble patch until they lost interest in me then sprinted through the farmyard at a very rapid rate, legs stinging like a bastard.
Just curious. The 20-year-old "child's" step-father was reportedly told by the police that no law had been broken. The police now say there is no investigation. The "child's" lawyers say no law was broken.
So what is this all about? Just a salacious expose of a famous person allegedly having a gay affair? Have we gone back to the 1950s?
the alleged victim’s lawyer might be correct
It's vanishingly unlikely that he isn't.
In fact, it's nigh impossible.
The only reason some people are reluctant to accept this is because they've been made to look stupid.
Not enough pedantry on here I feel. Pretty obvious that drugs laws have been broken.
Oh, is that not what you meant .... ?
Weren't you asking me yesterday to write a header on this?
Well I won't because I don't know the facts and a prurient story about a family in distress and someone else who may also now face their own family issues is not of any interest to me. How badly the BBC is handling this is not a surprise.
And, frankly, I simply do not understand a world where people perform sex acts on camera for strangers. It seems utterly tawdry and unerotic and pathetic. And really rather grotesque.
Perhaps you could write instead a header on permissable types of sex which are not tawdry, unerotic and pathetic. A simple categorisation, say A-E or 1-10 might help people know where they stand.
No. I do not understand this world of performance sex. It is not for me.
The only sex I'm interested in is that involving me and I'm certainly not sharing that with you or anyone else on this or any other forum.
OTOH this site needs more headers about gardening (a fantastically sensuous activity), the Lake District, the glories of Naples, how to cook pasta properly, why good shoes are essential to looking elegant, Irish writers you must read and why Persuasion is, I now think, Austen's greatest novel.
So I shall sharpen my pencil in anticipation of the "Yes please!" demands ....
Could you and @TSE write a joint thread header on this?
I’ve recently bought a pair of Louis Vuitton loafers and I’ll do a thread on that.
I’m looking forward to this series of headers, “The shoes of PB” where each week a poster writes a header on their newest or favourite shoes. We can deduce their class or get it totally wrong and have thrilling arguments about what colour socks should be worn to go with the shoes (trick question) and laugh at those who have tiny feet. There will at least be something for those from the left and the right.
How about @El_Capitano and I discussing our favourite organ shoes? Just for variety.
I may be drummed out of polite society for this, but I don't actually wear shoes while playing. I tried Organmasters but couldn't really get on with them.
Or as our elderly sacristan once put it, "Our organist plays in nothing but his socks!" Shades of Terry Gilliam there...
With respect to shoes. It is a good idea to go to Timpsons in your local town and ask them which shoes they can resole. Buying shoes is expensive, getting them fixed is cheap
Getting them fixed is not cheap. Around £100 for full soles, heels, etc. Quite a conundrum for an older pair of shoes but what else do you do - throw them away?
Cannibalize for parts?
You could also mend the uppers with good precedent here.
Our liege lord?
Must say I've come round to turn ups in a suit again. (insert obligatory Malc joke)
It was in one of those "and here he is in the coat he was seen wearing in 1976" articles. And good on him for it.
It's not just a submarine issue because there is no social media access on the surface fleet while at sea either. Unless you're within 4G range of shore.
Are we sure this same travel agency didn't arrange for those chaps to go on a site seeing trip to Salisbury, as they appear to specialise in "unique" tourist opportunities ;-)
NB. For those who thing the BBC is handling this badly: what exactly should have they have done differently, given what has currently been stated by the various parties involved? Given that the BBC owes everyone involved a duty of care & the right to a private life, what were they supposed to actually do?
Assuming it is true that the initial complaint in May was of a different character that didn’t include the allegations of underage relationships, I find it difficult to see that the BBC could have done anything at all personally. Buying porn on OnlyFans is not illegal & given that it’s a completely private relationship between consenting adults it’s not at all clear to me that it would reach the threshold of bringing the BBC into disrepute that would be required to sack them, given the usual employment contract terms. But perhaps I am wrong about this: is there any case law on the topic?
You then have the second issue - OnlyFans is the party that is responsible for the due diligence that everyone is over the age of 18.
Given that everything seems to have been conducted via OnlyFans I'm at a loss as to how any crime has knowingly occurred.
I believe possession of child pornography is a strict liability offence: /If/ images were taken and passed on when the individual concerned was under 18 then everyone involved has committed an offence.
But a judge can take intent into account when sentencing & the CPS may take the view that if someone had a reasonable belief that the other party was over 18 then no public good is served by prosecuting them in the first place. The written letter of the law does not always correspond to the law as implemented in actuality.
Spot the problem for the Sun = the BBC Presenter had reasonable belief - the Sun knows they were 17 and so given they claim to have a dossier of evidence they clearly have a problem because the dossier must contain pictures.
AGAIN....WE HAVE DONE THIS SEVERAL TIMES....the Sun wording on this is very careful. At no point do they say pornographic images were sent at 17, they say "sleazy messages" were exchanged with first contact at 17....the claim is that over the course of 3 years that money changed hands for pictures / videos during this period.
So there is absolutely no evidence that the Sun has any issues around possession of child pornography in the "dossier".
They have said the buying of "sordid images" started when the young person was 17.
Just curious. The 20-year-old "child's" step-father was reportedly told by the police that no law had been broken. The police now say there is no investigation. The "child's" lawyers say no law was broken.
So what is this all about? Just a salacious expose of a famous person allegedly having a gay affair? Have we gone back to the 1950s?
the alleged victim’s lawyer might be correct
It's vanishingly unlikely that he isn't.
In fact, it's nigh impossible.
The only reason some people are reluctant to accept this is because they've been made to look stupid.
Not enough pedantry on here I feel. Pretty obvious that drugs laws have been broken.
Oh, is that not what you meant .... ?
Weren't you asking me yesterday to write a header on this?
Well I won't because I don't know the facts and a prurient story about a family in distress and someone else who may also now face their own family issues is not of any interest to me. How badly the BBC is handling this is not a surprise.
And, frankly, I simply do not understand a world where people perform sex acts on camera for strangers. It seems utterly tawdry and unerotic and pathetic. And really rather grotesque.
Perhaps you could write instead a header on permissable types of sex which are not tawdry, unerotic and pathetic. A simple categorisation, say A-E or 1-10 might help people know where they stand.
No. I do not understand this world of performance sex. It is not for me.
The only sex I'm interested in is that involving me and I'm certainly not sharing that with you or anyone else on this or any other forum.
OTOH this site needs more headers about gardening (a fantastically sensuous activity), the Lake District, the glories of Naples, how to cook pasta properly, why good shoes are essential to looking elegant, Irish writers you must read and why Persuasion is, I now think, Austen's greatest novel.
So I shall sharpen my pencil in anticipation of the "Yes please!" demands ....
Could you and @TSE write a joint thread header on this?
I’ve recently bought a pair of Louis Vuitton loafers and I’ll do a thread on that.
I’m looking forward to this series of headers, “The shoes of PB” where each week a poster writes a header on their newest or favourite shoes. We can deduce their class or get it totally wrong and have thrilling arguments about what colour socks should be worn to go with the shoes (trick question) and laugh at those who have tiny feet. There will at least be something for those from the left and the right.
How about @El_Capitano and I discussing our favourite organ shoes? Just for variety.
I may be drummed out of polite society for this, but I don't actually wear shoes while playing. I tried Organmasters but couldn't really get on with them.
Or as our elderly sacristan once put it, "Our organist plays in nothing but his socks!" Shades of Terry Gilliam there...
I must admit, I prefer playing in socks too, certainly at home. However, I can't do that in an actual church because I have poor circulation so the cold causes me problems with my feet.
Equally, I don't use Organmasters. I have a pair of top-quality dance shoes that do very nicely until the moment I try to climb the very steep uncarpeted stairs to the organ loft.
It's a bit odd the parents are asking how can their child afford a lawyer given it seems they were absolutely coining it on Onlyfans. I know briefs aren't cheap but if they've got Guybrush Threepwood paying thousands to them for various pictures then it's not such a mystery.
However, they are a crack addict.....not know for their ability to save and invest should a legal emergency come along in the future. That was the whole point of the story, that all the money the individual was getting from selling pictures / videos was going on chronic drug problem and the parents asked the police and the BBC to tell the presenter to stop funding this as they were at their wits end.
The problem obviously is buying nudes off OnlyFans isn't illegal, so what could the police / BBC do when presented with a story of my child is a drug addict, they sell naughty pics / videos to fund it, one of those people is a rich famous person. Not a lot really.
The question is really did the BBC presenter know any of this, or did they just think they were engaging with the services of a sex worker. The latest claim from the Sun was the presenter had moved this "relationship" into the real world and they were organising to meet up....that was the last straw for the parents.
As Phil has mentioned, we don't know the young person is a drug addict. Their version of events starkly contrasts with their parents' version, and either may be correct or it may be somewhere in between.
As to what the BBC / Police can do, those are different things. The Police can only look into alleged criminal offences and, if the young person denies everything the evidence is unlikely to be there to prosecute (and personal drug use, if it has happened, is unlikely to be prosecuted in practice). The BBC, however, have a wider disciplinary process - it's pretty unlikely that the BBC would only be able to terminate a contract if the presenter had committed an actual criminal offence; there's a much wider issue of bringing the organisation into disrepute.
Well yes I think this is a point that is being missed....other BBC presenters in the past have been sacked for such things.
There has been moaning from employees to the Telegraph that this presenter is getting special treatment because they are well in with management and the "talent".
We do have *some* established facts. The BBC exists, for example. Probably.
Or have I just committed libel?
Not quite a fact, but the denial issued by the young man's lawyer that nothing "inappropriate" took place between the young man and the BBC presenter suggests to me both parties agree there was a communication of some kind.
It's not just a submarine issue because there is no social media access on the surface fleet while at sea either. Unless you're within 4G range of shore.
I’ve head that the US started putting pico cell repeaters on their ships. So anyone trying to get a signal on their mobile connects to the “local” repeater on the ship (which doesn’t actually put calls through or provide data) and hence doesn’t get uncontrolled access to the internet.
On clothes, particularly work clothes: Some time ago, the local Google workers staged a protest* a few blocks away, and so I went up to look at it.
And was amazed by the uniformity of their dress: They were all wearing jeans, casual tops, and runnng shoes. Young men -- and young women. Most of them didn't look good in the outfits. Which are often quite impractical for outside wear, in our rainy season.
I was impressed by how Google had somehow gotten them all to wear "uniforms", and unattractive and impractical uniforms, at that. But a little distressed, especially for the young women.
(*The protest was, as I recall, over a large payment to the head of some company Google had bought out -- after he had been accused of mistreating women.)
NB. For those who thing the BBC is handling this badly: what exactly should have they have done differently, given what has currently been stated by the various parties involved? Given that the BBC owes everyone involved a duty of care & the right to a private life, what were they supposed to actually do?
Assuming it is true that the initial complaint in May was of a different character that didn’t include the allegations of underage relationships, I find it difficult to see that the BBC could have done anything at all personally. Buying porn on OnlyFans is not illegal & given that it’s a completely private relationship between consenting adults it’s not at all clear to me that it would reach the threshold of bringing the BBC into disrepute that would be required to sack them, given the usual employment contract terms. But perhaps I am wrong about this: is there any case law on the topic?
You then have the second issue - OnlyFans is the party that is responsible for the due diligence that everyone is over the age of 18.
Given that everything seems to have been conducted via OnlyFans I'm at a loss as to how any crime has knowingly occurred.
I believe possession of child pornography is a strict liability offence: /If/ images were taken and passed on when the individual concerned was under 18 then everyone involved has committed an offence.
But a judge can take intent into account when sentencing & the CPS may take the view that if someone had a reasonable belief that the other party was over 18 then no public good is served by prosecuting them in the first place. The written letter of the law does not always correspond to the law as implemented in actuality.
Spot the problem for the Sun = the BBC Presenter had reasonable belief - the Sun knows they were 17 and so given they claim to have a dossier of evidence they clearly have a problem because the dossier must contain pictures.
AGAIN....WE HAVE DONE THIS SEVERAL TIMES....the Sun wording on this is very careful. At no point do they say pornographic images were sent at 17, they say "sleazy messages" were exchanged with first contact at 17....the claim is that over the course of 3 years that money changed hands for pictures / videos during this period.
So there is absolutely no evidence that the Sun has any issues around possession of child pornography in the "dossier".
They have said the buying of "sordid images" started when the young person was 17.
"The well-known presenter is accused of giving the teen more than £35,000 since they were 17 in return for sordid images."
(They mention "sleazy messages" lower down in that piece.)
No, again read carefully. It doesn't say that. Some might say its worded to deceive. "since they were 17", doesn't mean it began at 17...and later in the piece they say sleazy messages at 17.
As others have suggested, it could be that the Sun themselves aren't 100% certain or can't back up a claim that would move the story to illegality rather than moral judgement. Just that the parents have told them that the first contact was at 17.
I'm sceptical about this sort of thing. I mean "is in good mental and physical health". Surely you'd have to say yes to Sunak, and probably yes for Starmer. And they get 33% and 37% respectively?
These are largely just proxies for who people are going to vote for, really, aren't they?
EDIT: beaten to it by seconds by EPG
Given that one is 43 and extremely slim and the other 60 and a little paunchy (though no worse than the average), for physical health certainly Sunak should score better. Mental health? You'd need to be a professional and sit with each for a good few hours to know.
I think Starmer looks pretty good for somebody who is 60 and in a high flying role. You could easily think he was 10 years younger.
5 years a PM, will undoubtedly age him, as it does with all leaders.
Specsavers for you lad
No, it's true. I saw him in a cafe in Swains Lane not long ago. He looked almost as youthful and sprightly as me.
NB. For those who thing the BBC is handling this badly: what exactly should have they have done differently, given what has currently been stated by the various parties involved? Given that the BBC owes everyone involved a duty of care & the right to a private life, what were they supposed to actually do?
Assuming it is true that the initial complaint in May was of a different character that didn’t include the allegations of underage relationships, I find it difficult to see that the BBC could have done anything at all personally. Buying porn on OnlyFans is not illegal & given that it’s a completely private relationship between consenting adults it’s not at all clear to me that it would reach the threshold of bringing the BBC into disrepute that would be required to sack them, given the usual employment contract terms. But perhaps I am wrong about this: is there any case law on the topic?
You then have the second issue - OnlyFans is the party that is responsible for the due diligence that everyone is over the age of 18.
Given that everything seems to have been conducted via OnlyFans I'm at a loss as to how any crime has knowingly occurred.
I believe possession of child pornography is a strict liability offence: /If/ images were taken and passed on when the individual concerned was under 18 then everyone involved has committed an offence.
But a judge can take intent into account when sentencing & the CPS may take the view that if someone had a reasonable belief that the other party was over 18 then no public good is served by prosecuting them in the first place. The written letter of the law does not always correspond to the law as implemented in actuality.
Spot the problem for the Sun = the BBC Presenter had reasonable belief - the Sun knows they were 17 and so given they claim to have a dossier of evidence they clearly have a problem because the dossier must contain pictures.
AGAIN....WE HAVE DONE THIS SEVERAL TIMES....the Sun wording on this is very careful. At no point do they say pornographic images were sent at 17, they say "sleazy messages" were exchanged with first contact at 17....the claim is that over the course of 3 years that money changed hands for pictures / videos during this period.
So there is absolutely no evidence that the Sun has any issues around possession of child pornography in the "dossier".
They have said the buying of "sordid images" started when the young person was 17.
"The well-known presenter is accused of giving the teen more than £35,000 since they were 17 in return for sordid images."
(They mention "sleazy messages" lower down in that piece.)
Ah but "since they were 17" is not quite the same as "when they were 17". The wording here and elsewhere seems designed to strongly hint at the latter without quite spelling it out. The Sun seems to be dancing carefully round the edges of this story, possibly because they know they lack the evidence to stand it up. Overnight they seem to be shifting ground slightly to attack the BBC's lack of action rather than the star's behaviour.
In most countries, elderly parents live with their adult children. Their adult children see living with them when they're old, rather than letting them live alone or in a sheltered place or a care "home". as a responsibility and a positive experience rather than as a burden.
Their view of common practice in Britain if they get to hear of it is often similar to their view of sending children to live with strangers who don't love them for more than half of each year in boarding schools.
I totally get it when elderly people prefer to live alone rather than accept being dumped in a "home".
End of an era: Completed the sale of my father's house. I lived there from the age of 9 until I went to university and obviously visited a lot in the 50 years after I left home. The house was in a terrible state by the time my father died. We had tried to get him to move to something more appropriate for at least the last 10 years but he refused.
The housing market was just coming off a high when it went on the market but it has completely collapsed. Only 2 viewings. Fortunately neither myself nor my sister need the money, consequently our priority was getting rid of it. I think the Estate Agent was rather shocked that we accepted the offer made for it, but in hindsight I think we have made the right move.
The couple moving in were in rented accommodation. They were presented with a huge rent rise and found other comparable rentals were similarly as high so they bit the bullet (@BartholomewRoberts will be pleased). They have one hell of a job on their hands, but I think it is a win/win. They have a bargain and now own their own home and we are relieved a stressful time is all over.
That's great news, I'm happy for you and for the happy couple who now have a new home of their own.
Many people get emotional about 'losing' or 'saying goodbye' to family homes, which in a way kind of makes sense, but to me I find it much nicer to think that a home that was once a happy family home can now be a happy, family home for someone else. Pay it forward.
End of an era: Completed the sale of my father's house. I lived there from the age of 9 until I went to university and obviously visited a lot in the 50 years after I left home. The house was in a terrible state by the time my father died. We had tried to get him to move to something more appropriate for at least the last 10 years but he refused.
The housing market was just coming off a high when it went on the market but it has completely collapsed. Only 2 viewings. Fortunately neither myself nor my sister need the money, consequently our priority was getting rid of it. I think the Estate Agent was rather shocked that we accepted the offer made for it, but in hindsight I think we have made the right move.
The couple moving in were in rented accommodation. They were presented with a huge rent rise and found other comparable rentals were similarly as high so they bit the bullet (@BartholomewRoberts will be pleased). They have one hell of a job on their hands, but I think it is a win/win. They have a bargain and now own their own home and we are relieved a stressful time is all over.
Good news. Having much the same issues at the moment so I feel your pain.
The only meaningful way my situation is different is my parents lived in that house all my life.
Just hoping I can complete the sale in the next few weeks.
Good luck with it @ydoethur. I found the house clearance quite painful even though we weren't that close and I'm not very emotional when it comes to stuff like this. 96 though is a long life, but he really shouldn't have been living there, but stubborn doesn't cover it. We had offered to buy him a place in sheltered housing and still keep his house in case he wasn't happy. I hope that doesn't happen to me when I get older. He should have blown what little money he had on a better final few years, but he felt he should leave something to his children. Bizarre really as he lived in a rundown 3 bed semi and both myself and my sister are more than comfortably off.
Best wishes to both of you. (Sale of Himself's place should be going through about now... Touch wood.)
People are odd though- especially that deep desire to pass stuff on, even though it's not a sensible way to live life. (One aged relative left, who has a crazy amount of stuff that must be kept in the family...)
But I can't point fingers; I'm about to spend £lots (comfortably more than it will be worth) refurbishing some furniture. Because it's not just stuff, is it?
End of an era: Completed the sale of my father's house. I lived there from the age of 9 until I went to university and obviously visited a lot in the 50 years after I left home. The house was in a terrible state by the time my father died. We had tried to get him to move to something more appropriate for at least the last 10 years but he refused.
The housing market was just coming off a high when it went on the market but it has completely collapsed. Only 2 viewings. Fortunately neither myself nor my sister need the money, consequently our priority was getting rid of it. I think the Estate Agent was rather shocked that we accepted the offer made for it, but in hindsight I think we have made the right move.
The couple moving in were in rented accommodation. They were presented with a huge rent rise and found other comparable rentals were similarly as high so they bit the bullet (@BartholomewRoberts will be pleased). They have one hell of a job on their hands, but I think it is a win/win. They have a bargain and now own their own home and we are relieved a stressful time is all over.
That's great news, I'm happy for you and for the happy couple who now have a new home of their own.
Many people get emotional about 'losing' or 'saying goodbye' to family homes, which in a way kind of makes sense, but to me I find it much nicer to think that a home that was once a happy family home can now be a happy, family home for someone else. Pay it forward.
I have a friend whose family home is now a hotel. While he won't go there he is happy that the place is giving good experiences to plenty of people.
NB. For those who thing the BBC is handling this badly: what exactly should have they have done differently, given what has currently been stated by the various parties involved? Given that the BBC owes everyone involved a duty of care & the right to a private life, what were they supposed to actually do?
Assuming it is true that the initial complaint in May was of a different character that didn’t include the allegations of underage relationships, I find it difficult to see that the BBC could have done anything at all personally. Buying porn on OnlyFans is not illegal & given that it’s a completely private relationship between consenting adults it’s not at all clear to me that it would reach the threshold of bringing the BBC into disrepute that would be required to sack them, given the usual employment contract terms. But perhaps I am wrong about this: is there any case law on the topic?
You then have the second issue - OnlyFans is the party that is responsible for the due diligence that everyone is over the age of 18.
Given that everything seems to have been conducted via OnlyFans I'm at a loss as to how any crime has knowingly occurred.
I believe possession of child pornography is a strict liability offence: /If/ images were taken and passed on when the individual concerned was under 18 then everyone involved has committed an offence.
But a judge can take intent into account when sentencing & the CPS may take the view that if someone had a reasonable belief that the other party was over 18 then no public good is served by prosecuting them in the first place. The written letter of the law does not always correspond to the law as implemented in actuality.
Spot the problem for the Sun = the BBC Presenter had reasonable belief - the Sun knows they were 17 and so given they claim to have a dossier of evidence they clearly have a problem because the dossier must contain pictures.
AGAIN....WE HAVE DONE THIS SEVERAL TIMES....the Sun wording on this is very careful. At no point do they say pornographic images were sent at 17, they say "sleazy messages" were exchanged with first contact at 17....the claim is that over the course of 3 years that money changed hands for pictures / videos during this period.
So there is absolutely no evidence that the Sun has any issues around possession of child pornography in the "dossier".
They have said the buying of "sordid images" started when the young person was 17.
"The well-known presenter is accused of giving the teen more than £35,000 since they were 17 in return for sordid images."
(They mention "sleazy messages" lower down in that piece.)
Ah but "since they were 17" is not quite the same as "when they were 17". The wording here and elsewhere seems designed to strongly hint at the latter without quite spelling it out. The Sun seems to be dancing carefully round the edges of this story, possibly because they know they lack the evidence to stand it up. Overnight they seem to be shifting ground slightly to attack the BBC's lack of action rather than the star's behaviour.
ETA scooped by FU.
Is it not the same?
Since 17 linguistically and mathematically to me means it is something that happened at 17 and later too.
If it only began at 19, then since 17 is surely incorrect?
If I told my wife I'd been home since 6pm, and it turned out I was at the pub until 11pm and got home just before midnight, then the caveat of since doesn't make my claim correct, it would mean I had lied.
NB. For those who thing the BBC is handling this badly: what exactly should have they have done differently, given what has currently been stated by the various parties involved? Given that the BBC owes everyone involved a duty of care & the right to a private life, what were they supposed to actually do?
Assuming it is true that the initial complaint in May was of a different character that didn’t include the allegations of underage relationships, I find it difficult to see that the BBC could have done anything at all personally. Buying porn on OnlyFans is not illegal & given that it’s a completely private relationship between consenting adults it’s not at all clear to me that it would reach the threshold of bringing the BBC into disrepute that would be required to sack them, given the usual employment contract terms. But perhaps I am wrong about this: is there any case law on the topic?
You then have the second issue - OnlyFans is the party that is responsible for the due diligence that everyone is over the age of 18.
Given that everything seems to have been conducted via OnlyFans I'm at a loss as to how any crime has knowingly occurred.
I believe possession of child pornography is a strict liability offence: /If/ images were taken and passed on when the individual concerned was under 18 then everyone involved has committed an offence.
But a judge can take intent into account when sentencing & the CPS may take the view that if someone had a reasonable belief that the other party was over 18 then no public good is served by prosecuting them in the first place. The written letter of the law does not always correspond to the law as implemented in actuality.
Spot the problem for the Sun = the BBC Presenter had reasonable belief - the Sun knows they were 17 and so given they claim to have a dossier of evidence they clearly have a problem because the dossier must contain pictures.
AGAIN....WE HAVE DONE THIS SEVERAL TIMES....the Sun wording on this is very careful. At no point do they say pornographic images were sent at 17, they say "sleazy messages" were exchanged with first contact at 17....the claim is that over the course of 3 years that money changed hands for pictures / videos during this period.
So there is absolutely no evidence that the Sun has any issues around possession of child pornography in the "dossier".
They have said the buying of "sordid images" started when the young person was 17.
"The well-known presenter is accused of giving the teen more than £35,000 since they were 17 in return for sordid images."
(They mention "sleazy messages" lower down in that piece.)
Ah but "since they were 17" is not quite the same as "when they were 17". The wording here and elsewhere seems designed to strongly hint at the latter without quite spelling it out. The Sun seems to be dancing carefully round the edges of this story, possibly because they know they lack the evidence to stand it up. Overnight they seem to be shifting ground slightly to attack the BBC's lack of action rather than the star's behaviour.
ETA scooped by FU.
It's different and they are shifting their ground, but I wouldn't like to have to argue in litigation that "since" in this context doesn't mean "beginning when". If 17 were a point in time rather than a year-long duration they might have a leg to stand on.
It's a bit odd the parents are asking how can their child afford a lawyer given it seems they were absolutely coining it on Onlyfans. I know briefs aren't cheap but if they've got Guybrush Threepwood paying thousands to them for various pictures then it's not such a mystery.
However, they are a crack addict.....not know for their ability to save and invest should a legal emergency come along in the future. That was the whole point of the story, that all the money the individual was getting from selling pictures / videos was going on chronic drug problem and the parents asked the police and the BBC to tell the presenter to stop funding this as they were at their wits end.
The problem obviously is buying nudes off OnlyFans isn't illegal, so what could the police / BBC do when presented with a story of my child is a drug addict, they sell naughty pics / videos to fund it, one of those people is a rich famous person. Not a lot really.
The question is really did the BBC presenter know any of this, or did they just think they were engaging with the services of a sex worker. The latest claim from the Sun was the presenter had moved this "relationship" into the real world and they were organising to meet up....that was the last straw for the parents.
As Phil has mentioned, we don't know the young person is a drug addict. Their version of events starkly contrasts with their parents' version, and either may be correct or it may be somewhere in between.
As to what the BBC / Police can do, those are different things. The Police can only look into alleged criminal offences and, if the young person denies everything the evidence is unlikely to be there to prosecute (and personal drug use, if it has happened, is unlikely to be prosecuted in practice). The BBC, however, have a wider disciplinary process - it's pretty unlikely that the BBC would only be able to terminate a contract if the presenter had committed an actual criminal offence; there's a much wider issue of bringing the organisation into disrepute.
Well yes I think this is a point that is being missed....other BBC presenters in the past have been sacked for such things.
There has been moaning from employees to the Telegraph that this presenter is getting special treatment because they are well in with management and the "talent".
The Telegraph says there has been moaning from employees to the Telegraph along those lines. It may be that there has been. Equally, it may be that it is exactly what the Telegraph would say.
Journalistic standards at the Telegraph have absolutely gone down the toilet over the last couple of years. They've always had a particular perspective on the world, but I'm not sure I believe it's reliable when they cite "sources" as saying things any more.
Fixed for you....
E.g. one of BBC very first BBC Verify reports got a number of key (easily checkable) facts wrong.
Whilst I agree to an extent, there's quite a big difference between a genuine (if shoddy) mistake and lying. I think the Telegraph has been thoroughly Johnson-ised in recent years, which is a shame as it was a very respectable newspaper at one time.
I should say the Telegraph has in recent months become far worse, despite having the same editor and proprietor.
IT seems to be obsessed with inheritance tax. There was an article the other day saying that abolishing it should be Rishi Sunak's number 1 priority.
As for old people, my 93-yr old mother lives alone and loves it. Potters round the garden, I visit regularly, has great neighbours, local shop drops round groceries.
That said, a few years ago when she was in a short stay in hospital a water pipe burst and flooded 3/4 of her cottage. It was carnage but...it gave us the opportunity to throw out a ton (literally) of stuff. Everything from books to 1983 receipts to clothes. Including, sadly, many paintings and drawings that my mother had done over the course of her life. Now it was super sad but when else would this be done - after she dies when it would be immeasurably more upsetting. As it was, she half-noticed some stuff had gone, had fun choosing new eg sofas and chairs, and has in general much less stuff and is happy with it.
So my advice is to declutter your aged relatives' homes. Preferably while they are compos mentis and can participate. Didn't Alan Bennett call it something - cutting down the nachlass.
It's a bit odd the parents are asking how can their child afford a lawyer given it seems they were absolutely coining it on Onlyfans. I know briefs aren't cheap but if they've got Guybrush Threepwood paying thousands to them for various pictures then it's not such a mystery.
However, they are a crack addict.....not know for their ability to save and invest should a legal emergency come along in the future. That was the whole point of the story, that all the money the individual was getting from selling pictures / videos was going on chronic drug problem and the parents asked the police and the BBC to tell the presenter to stop funding this as they were at their wits end.
The problem obviously is buying nudes off OnlyFans isn't illegal, so what could the police / BBC do when presented with a story of my child is a drug addict, they sell naughty pics / videos to fund it, one of those people is a rich famous person. Not a lot really.
The question is really did the BBC presenter know any of this, or did they just think they were engaging with the services of a sex worker. The latest claim from the Sun was the presenter had moved this "relationship" into the real world and they were organising to meet up....that was the last straw for the parents.
As Phil has mentioned, we don't know the young person is a drug addict. Their version of events starkly contrasts with their parents' version, and either may be correct or it may be somewhere in between.
As to what the BBC / Police can do, those are different things. The Police can only look into alleged criminal offences and, if the young person denies everything the evidence is unlikely to be there to prosecute (and personal drug use, if it has happened, is unlikely to be prosecuted in practice). The BBC, however, have a wider disciplinary process - it's pretty unlikely that the BBC would only be able to terminate a contract if the presenter had committed an actual criminal offence; there's a much wider issue of bringing the organisation into disrepute.
Well yes I think this is a point that is being missed....other BBC presenters in the past have been sacked for such things.
There has been moaning from employees to the Telegraph that this presenter is getting special treatment because they are well in with management and the "talent".
The Telegraph says there has been moaning from employees to the Telegraph along those lines. It may be that there has been. Equally, it may be that it is exactly what the Telegraph would say.
Journalistic standards at the Telegraph have absolutely gone down the toilet over the last couple of years. They've always had a particular perspective on the world, but I'm not sure I believe it's reliable when they cite "sources" as saying things any more.
Fixed for you....
E.g. one of BBC very first BBC Verify reports got a number of key (easily checkable) facts wrong.
Whilst I agree to an extent, there's quite a big difference between a genuine (if shoddy) mistake and lying. I think the Telegraph has been thoroughly Johnson-ised in recent years, which is a shame as it was a very respectable newspaper at one time.
I should say the Telegraph has in recent months become far worse, despite having the same editor and proprietor.
IT seems to be obsessed with inheritance tax. There was an article the other day saying that abolishing it should be Rishi Sunak's number 1 priority.
Inheritance tax (bad), working from home (bad) and house prices (high=good). There was a headline recently 'why the working from home cult could lead to permanently lower house prices'.
It's still a good investigative paper occasionally. But it is turning a little into a parody of itself.
NB. For those who thing the BBC is handling this badly: what exactly should have they have done differently, given what has currently been stated by the various parties involved? Given that the BBC owes everyone involved a duty of care & the right to a private life, what were they supposed to actually do?
Assuming it is true that the initial complaint in May was of a different character that didn’t include the allegations of underage relationships, I find it difficult to see that the BBC could have done anything at all personally. Buying porn on OnlyFans is not illegal & given that it’s a completely private relationship between consenting adults it’s not at all clear to me that it would reach the threshold of bringing the BBC into disrepute that would be required to sack them, given the usual employment contract terms. But perhaps I am wrong about this: is there any case law on the topic?
You then have the second issue - OnlyFans is the party that is responsible for the due diligence that everyone is over the age of 18.
Given that everything seems to have been conducted via OnlyFans I'm at a loss as to how any crime has knowingly occurred.
I believe possession of child pornography is a strict liability offence: /If/ images were taken and passed on when the individual concerned was under 18 then everyone involved has committed an offence.
But a judge can take intent into account when sentencing & the CPS may take the view that if someone had a reasonable belief that the other party was over 18 then no public good is served by prosecuting them in the first place. The written letter of the law does not always correspond to the law as implemented in actuality.
Spot the problem for the Sun = the BBC Presenter had reasonable belief - the Sun knows they were 17 and so given they claim to have a dossier of evidence they clearly have a problem because the dossier must contain pictures.
AGAIN....WE HAVE DONE THIS SEVERAL TIMES....the Sun wording on this is very careful. At no point do they say pornographic images were sent at 17, they say "sleazy messages" were exchanged with first contact at 17....the claim is that over the course of 3 years that money changed hands for pictures / videos during this period.
So there is absolutely no evidence that the Sun has any issues around possession of child pornography in the "dossier".
They have said the buying of "sordid images" started when the young person was 17.
"The well-known presenter is accused of giving the teen more than £35,000 since they were 17 in return for sordid images."
(They mention "sleazy messages" lower down in that piece.)
Ah but "since they were 17" is not quite the same as "when they were 17". The wording here and elsewhere seems designed to strongly hint at the latter without quite spelling it out. The Sun seems to be dancing carefully round the edges of this story, possibly because they know they lack the evidence to stand it up. Overnight they seem to be shifting ground slightly to attack the BBC's lack of action rather than the star's behaviour.
ETA scooped by FU.
Is it not the same?
Since 17 linguistically and mathematically to me means it is something that happened at 17 and later too.
If it only began at 19, then since 17 is surely incorrect?
If I told my wife I'd been home since 6pm, and it turned out I was at the pub until 11pm and got home just before midnight, then the caveat of since doesn't make my claim correct, it would mean I had lied.
I think there is a number of possible explanations for its being phrased in this way.
As for old people, my 93-yr old mother lives alone and loves it. Potters round the garden, I visit regularly, has great neighbours, local shop drops round groceries.
That said, a few years ago when she was in a short stay in hospital a water pipe burst and flooded 3/4 of her cottage. It was carnage but...it gave us the opportunity to throw out a ton (literally) of stuff. Everything from books to 1983 receipts to clothes. Including, sadly, many paintings and drawings that my mother had done over the course of her life. Now it was super sad but when else would this be done - after she dies when it would be immeasurably more upsetting. As it was, she half-noticed some stuff had gone, had fun choosing new eg sofas and chairs, and has in general much less stuff and is happy with it.
So my advice is to declutter your aged relatives' homes. Preferably while they are compos mentis and can participate. Didn't Alan Bennett call it something - cutting down the nachlass.
Just curious. The 20-year-old "child's" step-father was reportedly told by the police that no law had been broken. The police now say there is no investigation. The "child's" lawyers say no law was broken.
So what is this all about? Just a salacious expose of a famous person allegedly having a gay affair? Have we gone back to the 1950s?
the alleged victim’s lawyer might be correct
It's vanishingly unlikely that he isn't.
In fact, it's nigh impossible.
The only reason some people are reluctant to accept this is because they've been made to look stupid.
Not enough pedantry on here I feel. Pretty obvious that drugs laws have been broken.
Oh, is that not what you meant .... ?
Weren't you asking me yesterday to write a header on this?
Well I won't because I don't know the facts and a prurient story about a family in distress and someone else who may also now face their own family issues is not of any interest to me. How badly the BBC is handling this is not a surprise.
And, frankly, I simply do not understand a world where people perform sex acts on camera for strangers. It seems utterly tawdry and unerotic and pathetic. And really rather grotesque.
Perhaps you could write instead a header on permissable types of sex which are not tawdry, unerotic and pathetic. A simple categorisation, say A-E or 1-10 might help people know where they stand.
No. I do not understand this world of performance sex. It is not for me.
The only sex I'm interested in is that involving me and I'm certainly not sharing that with you or anyone else on this or any other forum.
OTOH this site needs more headers about gardening (a fantastically sensuous activity), the Lake District, the glories of Naples, how to cook pasta properly, why good shoes are essential to looking elegant, Irish writers you must read and why Persuasion is, I now think, Austen's greatest novel.
So I shall sharpen my pencil in anticipation of the "Yes please!" demands ....
Could you and @TSE write a joint thread header on this?
I’ve recently bought a pair of Louis Vuitton loafers and I’ll do a thread on that.
I’m looking forward to this series of headers, “The shoes of PB” where each week a poster writes a header on their newest or favourite shoes. We can deduce their class or get it totally wrong and have thrilling arguments about what colour socks should be worn to go with the shoes (trick question) and laugh at those who have tiny feet. There will at least be something for those from the left and the right.
How about @El_Capitano and I discussing our favourite organ shoes? Just for variety.
I may be drummed out of polite society for this, but I don't actually wear shoes while playing. I tried Organmasters but couldn't really get on with them.
Or as our elderly sacristan once put it, "Our organist plays in nothing but his socks!" Shades of Terry Gilliam there...
I must admit, I prefer playing in socks too, certainly at home. However, I can't do that in an actual church because I have poor circulation so the cold causes me problems with my feet.
Equally, I don't use Organmasters. I have a pair of top-quality dance shoes that do very nicely until the moment I try to climb the very steep uncarpeted stairs to the organ loft.
Oh, now, that I am jealous of. Our church was reordered in the 1990s (before my time) and the organ is prominently at the front* of the church, close to the lectern. Which means no opportunity to read the Sunday papers during the sermon.
That said, our new vicar arrives at Christmas and is by all accounts an excellent sermoniser. I haven't had chance to quiz him on his taste in hymns yet but signs are good...
It's a bit odd the parents are asking how can their child afford a lawyer given it seems they were absolutely coining it on Onlyfans. I know briefs aren't cheap but if they've got Guybrush Threepwood paying thousands to them for various pictures then it's not such a mystery.
However, they are a crack addict.....not know for their ability to save and invest should a legal emergency come along in the future. That was the whole point of the story, that all the money the individual was getting from selling pictures / videos was going on chronic drug problem and the parents asked the police and the BBC to tell the presenter to stop funding this as they were at their wits end.
The problem obviously is buying nudes off OnlyFans isn't illegal, so what could the police / BBC do when presented with a story of my child is a drug addict, they sell naughty pics / videos to fund it, one of those people is a rich famous person. Not a lot really.
The question is really did the BBC presenter know any of this, or did they just think they were engaging with the services of a sex worker. The latest claim from the Sun was the presenter had moved this "relationship" into the real world and they were organising to meet up....that was the last straw for the parents.
As Phil has mentioned, we don't know the young person is a drug addict. Their version of events starkly contrasts with their parents' version, and either may be correct or it may be somewhere in between.
As to what the BBC / Police can do, those are different things. The Police can only look into alleged criminal offences and, if the young person denies everything the evidence is unlikely to be there to prosecute (and personal drug use, if it has happened, is unlikely to be prosecuted in practice). The BBC, however, have a wider disciplinary process - it's pretty unlikely that the BBC would only be able to terminate a contract if the presenter had committed an actual criminal offence; there's a much wider issue of bringing the organisation into disrepute.
Well yes I think this is a point that is being missed....other BBC presenters in the past have been sacked for such things.
There has been moaning from employees to the Telegraph that this presenter is getting special treatment because they are well in with management and the "talent".
The Telegraph says there has been moaning from employees to the Telegraph along those lines. It may be that there has been. Equally, it may be that it is exactly what the Telegraph would say.
Journalistic standards at the Telegraph have absolutely gone down the toilet over the last couple of years. They've always had a particular perspective on the world, but I'm not sure I believe it's reliable when they cite "sources" as saying things any more.
Fixed for you....
E.g. one of BBC very first BBC Verify reports got a number of key (easily checkable) facts wrong.
Whilst I agree to an extent, there's quite a big difference between a genuine (if shoddy) mistake and lying. I think the Telegraph has been thoroughly Johnson-ised in recent years, which is a shame as it was a very respectable newspaper at one time.
I should say the Telegraph has in recent months become far worse, despite having the same editor and proprietor.
IT seems to be obsessed with inheritance tax. There was an article the other day saying that abolishing it should be Rishi Sunak's number 1 priority.
You can't create a caste system of ossified inherited wealth with a permanent underclass of favela-dwellers when inheritance tax is mucking the whole project up.
True, unearned wealth and privilege needs to be perpetuated and ingrained into society.
It's a bit odd the parents are asking how can their child afford a lawyer given it seems they were absolutely coining it on Onlyfans. I know briefs aren't cheap but if they've got Guybrush Threepwood paying thousands to them for various pictures then it's not such a mystery.
However, they are a crack addict.....not know for their ability to save and invest should a legal emergency come along in the future. That was the whole point of the story, that all the money the individual was getting from selling pictures / videos was going on chronic drug problem and the parents asked the police and the BBC to tell the presenter to stop funding this as they were at their wits end.
The problem obviously is buying nudes off OnlyFans isn't illegal, so what could the police / BBC do when presented with a story of my child is a drug addict, they sell naughty pics / videos to fund it, one of those people is a rich famous person. Not a lot really.
The question is really did the BBC presenter know any of this, or did they just think they were engaging with the services of a sex worker. The latest claim from the Sun was the presenter had moved this "relationship" into the real world and they were organising to meet up....that was the last straw for the parents.
As Phil has mentioned, we don't know the young person is a drug addict. Their version of events starkly contrasts with their parents' version, and either may be correct or it may be somewhere in between.
As to what the BBC / Police can do, those are different things. The Police can only look into alleged criminal offences and, if the young person denies everything the evidence is unlikely to be there to prosecute (and personal drug use, if it has happened, is unlikely to be prosecuted in practice). The BBC, however, have a wider disciplinary process - it's pretty unlikely that the BBC would only be able to terminate a contract if the presenter had committed an actual criminal offence; there's a much wider issue of bringing the organisation into disrepute.
Well yes I think this is a point that is being missed....other BBC presenters in the past have been sacked for such things.
There has been moaning from employees to the Telegraph that this presenter is getting special treatment because they are well in with management and the "talent".
The Telegraph says there has been moaning from employees to the Telegraph along those lines. It may be that there has been. Equally, it may be that it is exactly what the Telegraph would say.
Journalistic standards at the Telegraph have absolutely gone down the toilet over the last couple of years. They've always had a particular perspective on the world, but I'm not sure I believe it's reliable when they cite "sources" as saying things any more.
Fixed for you....
E.g. one of BBC very first BBC Verify reports got a number of key (easily checkable) facts wrong.
Whilst I agree to an extent, there's quite a big difference between a genuine (if shoddy) mistake and lying. I think the Telegraph has been thoroughly Johnson-ised in recent years, which is a shame as it was a very respectable newspaper at one time.
I should say the Telegraph has in recent months become far worse, despite having the same editor and proprietor.
IT seems to be obsessed with inheritance tax. There was an article the other day saying that abolishing it should be Rishi Sunak's number 1 priority.
Inheritance tax (bad), working from home (bad) and house prices (high=good). There was a headline recently 'why the working from home cult could lead to permanently lower house prices'.
It's still a good investigative paper occasionally. But it is turning a little into a parody of itself.
I still have issues with the way they handled the biggest scoop they had in recent memory, expenses scandal. They were so desperate to pin an MP a day, they smeared a number of innocent MPs without remorse and really didn't properly investigate some very very very iffy goings on (some of which eventually found their way to court).
They were the only ones with the info, they could have taken as long as it took to get the bottom of more complex arrangements, instead they just fired and moved on.
"Even the warmth of a London summer evening and a cool glass of Pol Roger was doing little to raise morale among MPs in Rishi Sunak’s ruling Conservative party, as they contemplated their own political mortality and the threat of a wipeout in a British general election next year. “I just want the election over and done with,” said one glum Tory MP at a Westminster garden party last week. “At least it would put us out of our misery. I’m trying to find someone to talk to about opportunities after parliament — but who wants to hire useless one-term former MPs?”
A fatalistic mood has taken hold of many in Sunak’s party. “Reality is biting,” says a former cabinet minister. “We are on for a massive defeat. We aren’t talking margins of error in opinion polls any more. The public are tuning out now. They are psychologically exhausted by this government.”"
With respect to shoes. It is a good idea to go to Timpsons in your local town and ask them which shoes they can resole. Buying shoes is expensive, getting them fixed is cheap
Getting them fixed is not cheap. Around £100 for full soles, heels, etc. Quite a conundrum for an older pair of shoes but what else do you do - throw them away?
£170 for full sole & heel with Tricker's, £200 to include linings. I've bought new pairs from ebay for less so I'm ashamed to say if a local lad can't do it, replacement it is. There's a vg young guy in Morningside, Edinburgh who'll do a full sole and reheel for £85 which is good value, but not an option for everyone obvs.
Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist · 3h Private school fees have risen 20% in real terms since 2010 and 55% since 2003. Numbers privately educated have been pretty constant that whole time. Removing tax exemptions likely to have only small effects on numbers. Net benefit to public finances likely to be £1.3-1.5bn p.a.
Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist · 3h Private school fees have risen 20% in real terms since 2010 and 55% since 2003. Numbers privately educated have been pretty constant that whole time. Removing tax exemptions likely to have only small effects on numbers. Net benefit to public finances likely to be £1.3-1.5bn p.a.
Paying an extra 20% tomorrow isn't quite the same as 20% more over 10 years. Also be interesting to know the shift in who is attending. Has it shifted to much more reliance on overseas students? How has the currency of major markets for overseas students versus the pound changed over that time?
BBC reporting on itself....BBC sent one email, got no reply, and attempted to make one phone call , which didn't connect.
The glee with which the BBC deals with any story about the BBC is always quite baffling. Until you consider that the BBC is not one massive megabrain but is made up of thousands of individuals, many of whom have built up massive resentments against other individuals or the institution as a whole.
Also it's quite an easy story for them to report on. No tedious trips to dull or far flung locations.
Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist · 3h Private school fees have risen 20% in real terms since 2010 and 55% since 2003. Numbers privately educated have been pretty constant that whole time. Removing tax exemptions likely to have only small effects on numbers. Net benefit to public finances likely to be £1.3-1.5bn p.a.
"We think it is reasonable to assume that that an effective VAT rate of 15% would lead to a 3–7% reduction in private school attendance."
Which is all well and fine, but many private schools are already finding it tough, and even a 3-7% reduction in pupils may force some to close. And that means many more than 3-7% of pupils from that school will enter the state sector (not 100%, as some will transfer to other public schools).
Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist · 3h Private school fees have risen 20% in real terms since 2010 and 55% since 2003. Numbers privately educated have been pretty constant that whole time. Removing tax exemptions likely to have only small effects on numbers. Net benefit to public finances likely to be £1.3-1.5bn p.a.
Paying an extra 20% tomorrow isn't quite the same as 20% more over 10 years. Also be interesting to know the shift in who is attending. Has it shifted to much more reliance on overseas students?
Short answer: yes.
Labour's proposed changes will have basically no effect on Eton and Harrow. It's the smaller, less selective private schools with specialisms (e.g. music or autism support) which are going to suffer. It's not really a very progressive policy at all.
Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist · 3h Private school fees have risen 20% in real terms since 2010 and 55% since 2003. Numbers privately educated have been pretty constant that whole time. Removing tax exemptions likely to have only small effects on numbers. Net benefit to public finances likely to be £1.3-1.5bn p.a.
Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist · 3h Private school fees have risen 20% in real terms since 2010 and 55% since 2003. Numbers privately educated have been pretty constant that whole time. Removing tax exemptions likely to have only small effects on numbers. Net benefit to public finances likely to be £1.3-1.5bn p.a.
If school fees were the only thing going up then not a problem however increases between 2003 to recently weren’t also competing with a cost of living squeeze.
People who were just managing fee increases because the cost of servicing their mortgages and other debts weren’t increasing now will have the increased school fees through added VAT as well as increased mortgage payments.
It’s a lot easier and quicker to whip your child out of private school and get them educated for free than to sell your house and downsize, even get a mortgage, so I think trying to map attitudes to increased school fees before now and after don’t work.
BBC reporting on itself....BBC sent one email, got no reply, and attempted to make one phone call , which didn't connect.
The glee with which the BBC deals with any story about the BBC is always quite baffling. Until you consider that the BBC is not one massive megabrain but is made up of thousands of individuals, many of whom have built up massive resentments against other individuals or the institution as a whole.
Also it's quite an easy story for them to report on. No tedious trips to dull or far flung locations.
Also there is the background that they are very angry with BBC merging the news departments, claiming need for cutting costs, while the "talent" is still on big bucks for reading out the news they write.
Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist · 3h Private school fees have risen 20% in real terms since 2010 and 55% since 2003. Numbers privately educated have been pretty constant that whole time. Removing tax exemptions likely to have only small effects on numbers. Net benefit to public finances likely to be £1.3-1.5bn p.a.
"We think it is reasonable to assume that that an effective VAT rate of 15% would lead to a 3–7% reduction in private school attendance."
Which is all well and fine, but many private schools are already finding it tough, and even a 3-7% reduction in pupils may force some to close. And that means many more than 3-7% of pupils from that school will enter the state sector (not 100%, as some will transfer to other public schools).
The change of meaning of public when put before school is one of the great quirks of the English language.
BBC reporting on itself....BBC sent one email, got no reply, and attempted to make one phone call , which didn't connect.
The glee with which the BBC deals with any story about the BBC is always quite baffling. Until you consider that the BBC is not one massive megabrain but is made up of thousands of individuals, many of whom have built up massive resentments against other individuals or the institution as a whole.
Also it's quite an easy story for them to report on. No tedious trips to dull or far flung locations.
Also there is the background that they are very angry with BBC merging the news departments, claiming need for cutting costs, while the "talent" is still on big bucks for reading out the news they write.
Very clear from the reporting that BBC News are no fans of BBC management. They probably also can't believe that ... [Any more and both myself and OGH will be in legal trouble]
NB. For those who thing the BBC is handling this badly: what exactly should have they have done differently, given what has currently been stated by the various parties involved? Given that the BBC owes everyone involved a duty of care & the right to a private life, what were they supposed to actually do?
Assuming it is true that the initial complaint in May was of a different character that didn’t include the allegations of underage relationships, I find it difficult to see that the BBC could have done anything at all personally. Buying porn on OnlyFans is not illegal & given that it’s a completely private relationship between consenting adults it’s not at all clear to me that it would reach the threshold of bringing the BBC into disrepute that would be required to sack them, given the usual employment contract terms. But perhaps I am wrong about this: is there any case law on the topic?
You then have the second issue - OnlyFans is the party that is responsible for the due diligence that everyone is over the age of 18.
Given that everything seems to have been conducted via OnlyFans I'm at a loss as to how any crime has knowingly occurred.
I believe possession of child pornography is a strict liability offence: /If/ images were taken and passed on when the individual concerned was under 18 then everyone involved has committed an offence.
But a judge can take intent into account when sentencing & the CPS may take the view that if someone had a reasonable belief that the other party was over 18 then no public good is served by prosecuting them in the first place. The written letter of the law does not always correspond to the law as implemented in actuality.
Spot the problem for the Sun = the BBC Presenter had reasonable belief - the Sun knows they were 17 and so given they claim to have a dossier of evidence they clearly have a problem because the dossier must contain pictures.
AGAIN....WE HAVE DONE THIS SEVERAL TIMES....the Sun wording on this is very careful. At no point do they say pornographic images were sent at 17, they say "sleazy messages" were exchanged with first contact at 17....the claim is that over the course of 3 years that money changed hands for pictures / videos during this period.
So there is absolutely no evidence that the Sun has any issues around possession of child pornography in the "dossier".
They have said the buying of "sordid images" started when the young person was 17.
"The well-known presenter is accused of giving the teen more than £35,000 since they were 17 in return for sordid images."
(They mention "sleazy messages" lower down in that piece.)
Ah but "since they were 17" is not quite the same as "when they were 17". The wording here and elsewhere seems designed to strongly hint at the latter without quite spelling it out. The Sun seems to be dancing carefully round the edges of this story, possibly because they know they lack the evidence to stand it up. Overnight they seem to be shifting ground slightly to attack the BBC's lack of action rather than the star's behaviour.
ETA scooped by FU.
Is it not the same?
Since 17 linguistically and mathematically to me means it is something that happened at 17 and later too.
If it only began at 19, then since 17 is surely incorrect?
If I told my wife I'd been home since 6pm, and it turned out I was at the pub until 11pm and got home just before midnight, then the caveat of since doesn't make my claim correct, it would mean I had lied.
That would be continuous but here we are talking about discrete acts, so what exactly started at 17: contact, payments of £35,000 spread somehow over four years, exchange of sleazy messages or sordid images (and the latter two terms are vague enough)? What the Sun has not said in as many words is that the BBC star paid a 17-year-old for illegal pictures. If the Sun had proof, it would say that and would have named the star.
Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist · 3h Private school fees have risen 20% in real terms since 2010 and 55% since 2003. Numbers privately educated have been pretty constant that whole time. Removing tax exemptions likely to have only small effects on numbers. Net benefit to public finances likely to be £1.3-1.5bn p.a.
Paying an extra 20% tomorrow isn't quite the same as 20% more over 10 years. Also be interesting to know the shift in who is attending. Has it shifted to much more reliance on overseas students?
Short answer: yes.
Labour's proposed changes will have basically no effect on Eton and Harrow. It's the smaller, less selective private schools with specialisms (e.g. music or autism support) which are going to suffer. It's not really a very progressive policy at all.
Why can't we have specialist schools in the state system?
Autism is definitely covered within the state system. There are state schools (with additional charity support) locally that take on Autistic children,
Specialist (Maths, Arts, Science) secondary schools were introduced by Labour but killed in the early years of Austerity by Cameron / Osborne...
Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist · 3h Private school fees have risen 20% in real terms since 2010 and 55% since 2003. Numbers privately educated have been pretty constant that whole time. Removing tax exemptions likely to have only small effects on numbers. Net benefit to public finances likely to be £1.3-1.5bn p.a.
"We think it is reasonable to assume that that an effective VAT rate of 15% would lead to a 3–7% reduction in private school attendance."
Which is all well and fine, but many private schools are already finding it tough, and even a 3-7% reduction in pupils may force some to close. And that means many more than 3-7% of pupils from that school will enter the state sector (not 100%, as some will transfer to other public schools).
The change of meaning of public when put before school is one of the great quirks of the English language.
Yes, but public schools and private schools are not exactly the same thing. All public schools are private schools, but not all private schools are public schools.
BBC reporting on itself....BBC sent one email, got no reply, and attempted to make one phone call , which didn't connect.
The glee with which the BBC deals with any story about the BBC is always quite baffling. Until you consider that the BBC is not one massive megabrain but is made up of thousands of individuals, many of whom have built up massive resentments against other individuals or the institution as a whole.
Also it's quite an easy story for them to report on. No tedious trips to dull or far flung locations.
Sky News is all over it. If the BBC didn't give it big coverage everyone would be asking why not.
I thought Neil Wallis was pretty outrageous on Sky News. Claiming this was the BBC's equivalent of the Schofield scandal - conveniently forgetting that n that case Schofield admitted to behaving inappropriately - and also bringing up Jimmy Saville for good measure.
An allegation was made to the BBC by a third party. They made no attempt to follow up on their allegation. They then went to a newspaper. Surely there are crackpot allegations being made about BBC stars all the time. What are they supposed to do?
Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist · 3h Private school fees have risen 20% in real terms since 2010 and 55% since 2003. Numbers privately educated have been pretty constant that whole time. Removing tax exemptions likely to have only small effects on numbers. Net benefit to public finances likely to be £1.3-1.5bn p.a.
Paying an extra 20% tomorrow isn't quite the same as 20% more over 10 years. Also be interesting to know the shift in who is attending. Has it shifted to much more reliance on overseas students?
Short answer: yes.
Labour's proposed changes will have basically no effect on Eton and Harrow. It's the smaller, less selective private schools with specialisms (e.g. music or autism support) which are going to suffer. It's not really a very progressive policy at all.
Why can't we have specialist schools in the state system?
We absolutely can, and we should.
But if you think that Starmer is going to magically create establishments of the calibre of the best music or autism independent schools overnight, with the same staff-to-pupil ratio and spend per pupil, I have several bridges to sell you. Labour isn't even promising to reverse decades of cuts to SEND provision in state schools, let alone plough extra money into specialist education.
Never get overly attached to anything inanimate, it's not wrong, just pointless
Things are just things. Books are just books. Furniture, houses, cars, whatever, they can all be replaced and emotional time spent on them is largely wasted
When the plague hit and I thought I might never see my London flat as I fled for the sticks, I honestly appraised all the things that would really upset me if I never saw them again. I was brutal. In the end these things filled about half a shoebox
It's a good exercise. Imagine your house being nuked. What would REALLY distress you, if everything was fried forever?
This is even truer in an age when so much can be stored (esp photos) in the cloud, for eternity
Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist · 3h Private school fees have risen 20% in real terms since 2010 and 55% since 2003. Numbers privately educated have been pretty constant that whole time. Removing tax exemptions likely to have only small effects on numbers. Net benefit to public finances likely to be £1.3-1.5bn p.a.
Paying an extra 20% tomorrow isn't quite the same as 20% more over 10 years. Also be interesting to know the shift in who is attending. Has it shifted to much more reliance on overseas students?
Short answer: yes.
Labour's proposed changes will have basically no effect on Eton and Harrow. It's the smaller, less selective private schools with specialisms (e.g. music or autism support) which are going to suffer. It's not really a very progressive policy at all.
Why can't we have specialist schools in the state system?
Autism is definitely covered within the state system. There are state schools (with additional charity support) locally that take on Autistic children,
Yeah, there are, but good luck getting your kid into one. The waiting list for an EHCP in much of England is measured in years, not weeks.
Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist · 3h Private school fees have risen 20% in real terms since 2010 and 55% since 2003. Numbers privately educated have been pretty constant that whole time. Removing tax exemptions likely to have only small effects on numbers. Net benefit to public finances likely to be £1.3-1.5bn p.a.
If school fees were the only thing going up then not a problem however increases between 2003 to recently weren’t also competing with a cost of living squeeze.
People who were just managing fee increases because the cost of servicing their mortgages and other debts weren’t increasing now will have the increased school fees through added VAT as well as increased mortgage payments.
It’s a lot easier and quicker to whip your child out of private school and get them educated for free than to sell your house and downsize, even get a mortgage, so I think trying to map attitudes to increased school fees before now and after don’t work.
Use the template of my old school. Charge more than anyone else and give out plenty of scholarships. Particularly sports scholarships. Then you'll get them queuing up. If you make your school appear to be unique you'll fill it up whatever the cost As for those that don't get the pupils let them close down. You'll be doing the parents a favour. Close Eton and Harrow down and you'll be doing all of us a favour.
PS Time to choose a new DG for the BBC. Just NOT a TORY this time please. The man is useless and he's slowly destroying it. This should be Starmer's job number one
Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist · 3h Private school fees have risen 20% in real terms since 2010 and 55% since 2003. Numbers privately educated have been pretty constant that whole time. Removing tax exemptions likely to have only small effects on numbers. Net benefit to public finances likely to be £1.3-1.5bn p.a.
Paying an extra 20% tomorrow isn't quite the same as 20% more over 10 years. Also be interesting to know the shift in who is attending. Has it shifted to much more reliance on overseas students?
Short answer: yes.
Labour's proposed changes will have basically no effect on Eton and Harrow. It's the smaller, less selective private schools with specialisms (e.g. music or autism support) which are going to suffer. It's not really a very progressive policy at all.
Why can't we have specialist schools in the state system?
We do have specialist state schools. It is not uncommon to see signs outside state schools claiming they specialise in maths or whatever. I've no idea how helpful this is. Can parents know what their 10-year-olds will do best at five years later, and if your daughter is a rare prodigy, should she go to a school that specialises in her stronger or weaker subjects?
As this is PB's Alan Turing week, we should recall his school report: If he is to stay at a Public School he must aim at becoming educated. If he is to be solely a scientific specialist, he is wasting time at a Public School.
Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist · 3h Private school fees have risen 20% in real terms since 2010 and 55% since 2003. Numbers privately educated have been pretty constant that whole time. Removing tax exemptions likely to have only small effects on numbers. Net benefit to public finances likely to be £1.3-1.5bn p.a.
If school fees were the only thing going up then not a problem however increases between 2003 to recently weren’t also competing with a cost of living squeeze.
People who were just managing fee increases because the cost of servicing their mortgages and other debts weren’t increasing now will have the increased school fees through added VAT as well as increased mortgage payments.
It’s a lot easier and quicker to whip your child out of private school and get them educated for free than to sell your house and downsize, even get a mortgage, so I think trying to map attitudes to increased school fees before now and after don’t work.
For me, there are so many massive issues that need sorting, its a distraction. These things never raise what they claim and could easily be offset by increased numbers giving up on private and entering the state system.
If you need to raise another £1bn, that are loads of tweaks that you can perform that can raise that. Fiscal drag is your friend.....
Obviously many in Labour see it as unfairness / privilege issue. For me, just make the state system as good as possible AND the big one for "fairness", post A-level application for university, then there is no funny business of predicted grades etc. Its on what you got versus your peers, plus a small weighting towards relevant life circumstances e.g. you got A*AA, but were you the top of your school because its shit etc.
NB. For those who thing the BBC is handling this badly: what exactly should have they have done differently, given what has currently been stated by the various parties involved? Given that the BBC owes everyone involved a duty of care & the right to a private life, what were they supposed to actually do?
Assuming it is true that the initial complaint in May was of a different character that didn’t include the allegations of underage relationships, I find it difficult to see that the BBC could have done anything at all personally. Buying porn on OnlyFans is not illegal & given that it’s a completely private relationship between consenting adults it’s not at all clear to me that it would reach the threshold of bringing the BBC into disrepute that would be required to sack them, given the usual employment contract terms. But perhaps I am wrong about this: is there any case law on the topic?
You then have the second issue - OnlyFans is the party that is responsible for the due diligence that everyone is over the age of 18.
Given that everything seems to have been conducted via OnlyFans I'm at a loss as to how any crime has knowingly occurred.
I believe possession of child pornography is a strict liability offence: /If/ images were taken and passed on when the individual concerned was under 18 then everyone involved has committed an offence.
But a judge can take intent into account when sentencing & the CPS may take the view that if someone had a reasonable belief that the other party was over 18 then no public good is served by prosecuting them in the first place. The written letter of the law does not always correspond to the law as implemented in actuality.
Spot the problem for the Sun = the BBC Presenter had reasonable belief - the Sun knows they were 17 and so given they claim to have a dossier of evidence they clearly have a problem because the dossier must contain pictures.
AGAIN....WE HAVE DONE THIS SEVERAL TIMES....the Sun wording on this is very careful. At no point do they say pornographic images were sent at 17, they say "sleazy messages" were exchanged with first contact at 17....the claim is that over the course of 3 years that money changed hands for pictures / videos during this period.
So there is absolutely no evidence that the Sun has any issues around possession of child pornography in the "dossier".
They have said the buying of "sordid images" started when the young person was 17.
"The well-known presenter is accused of giving the teen more than £35,000 since they were 17 in return for sordid images."
(They mention "sleazy messages" lower down in that piece.)
Ah but "since they were 17" is not quite the same as "when they were 17". The wording here and elsewhere seems designed to strongly hint at the latter without quite spelling it out. The Sun seems to be dancing carefully round the edges of this story, possibly because they know they lack the evidence to stand it up. Overnight they seem to be shifting ground slightly to attack the BBC's lack of action rather than the star's behaviour.
ETA scooped by FU.
Is it not the same?
Since 17 linguistically and mathematically to me means it is something that happened at 17 and later too.
If it only began at 19, then since 17 is surely incorrect?
If I told my wife I'd been home since 6pm, and it turned out I was at the pub until 11pm and got home just before midnight, then the caveat of since doesn't make my claim correct, it would mean I had lied.
That would be continuous but here we are talking about discrete acts, so what exactly started at 17: contact, payments of £35,000 spread somehow over four years, exchange of sleazy messages or sordid images (and the latter two terms are vague enough)? What the Sun has not said in as many words is that the BBC star paid a 17-year-old for illegal pictures. If the Sun had proof, it would say that and would have named the star.
They've said they made payments 'since 17' for 'sordid photos'.
That surely means the payments began at 17? If the payments began at 18 or later, then the claim of 'since 17' is surely wrong?
Its possible perhaps that the 'sordid photos' were legal, even at 17? The justice system should be able to resolve that, if its the case, but if the sordid photos did occur but only from 18 onwards then I would say that The Sun not for the first time has been talking s**t and is not excused by its language used.
Given how successful the Elizabeth Line has been, with one is six train journeys being made on it, does anyone know how quickly the costs of constructing it will be paid off? Maybe if the answer is "much sooner than originally expected" it'll encourage other Elizabeth Lines to be built, both in London and elsewhere over the next few decades.
Never get overly attached to anything inanimate, it's not wrong, just pointless
Things are just things. Books are just books. Furniture, houses, cars, whatever, they can all be replaced and emotional time spent on them is largely wasted
When the plague hit and I thought I might never see my London flat as I fled for the sticks, I honestly appraised all the things that would really upset me if I never saw them again. I was brutal. In the end these things filled about half a shoebox
It's a good exercise. Imagine your house being nuked. What would REALLY distress you, if everything was fried forever?
This is even truer in an age when so much can be stored (esp photos) in the cloud, for eternity
Would you say people today are attached to their phones, or is it just the idea of a phone, not the actual physical device, so that they could swap one phone for another without a problem, as long as the same data is available on the new one?
Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist · 3h Private school fees have risen 20% in real terms since 2010 and 55% since 2003. Numbers privately educated have been pretty constant that whole time. Removing tax exemptions likely to have only small effects on numbers. Net benefit to public finances likely to be £1.3-1.5bn p.a.
Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist · 3h Private school fees have risen 20% in real terms since 2010 and 55% since 2003. Numbers privately educated have been pretty constant that whole time. Removing tax exemptions likely to have only small effects on numbers. Net benefit to public finances likely to be £1.3-1.5bn p.a.
If school fees were the only thing going up then not a problem however increases between 2003 to recently weren’t also competing with a cost of living squeeze.
People who were just managing fee increases because the cost of servicing their mortgages and other debts weren’t increasing now will have the increased school fees through added VAT as well as increased mortgage payments.
It’s a lot easier and quicker to whip your child out of private school and get them educated for free than to sell your house and downsize, even get a mortgage, so I think trying to map attitudes to increased school fees before now and after don’t work.
Use the template of my old school. Charge more than anyone else and give out plenty of scholarships. Particularly sports scholarships. Then you'll get them queuing up. If you make your school appear to be unique you'll fill it up whatever the cost As for those that don't get the pupils let them close down. You'll be doing the parents a favour. Close Eton and Harrow down and you'll be doing all of us a favour.
PS Time to choose a new DG for the BBC. Just NOT a TORY this time please. The man is useless and he's slowly destroying it. This should be Starmer's job number one
My school did that. I only found out fairly recently. I was in a conversation with ten friends from school - it turned out by far the majority of us were on scholarships. It had never really struck me before - but all the conspicuously rich kids were not really desperately bright.
Have only just seen a couple minutes toward beginning of today's livestreaming, but appears that the Post Office did NOT provide to the inquiry, thousands of documents that were legally discoverable.
And that issue was only discovered, when some of these undisclosed docs were provided to a member of the public pursuant to a freedom of information request.
Only on PB would the cost of repairing shoes, at higher cost than most people spend on a new pair of shoes, be considered good value.
The whole point of the discussion is the high cost (relatively) of repairing shoes. If you have a £50 pair of leather shoes and are charged £100 for repairing them what is your next move?
It's a bit odd the parents are asking how can their child afford a lawyer given it seems they were absolutely coining it on Onlyfans. I know briefs aren't cheap but if they've got Guybrush Threepwood paying thousands to them for various pictures then it's not such a mystery.
However, they are a crack addict.....not know for their ability to save and invest should a legal emergency come along in the future. That was the whole point of the story, that all the money the individual was getting from selling pictures / videos was going on chronic drug problem and the parents asked the police and the BBC to tell the presenter to stop funding this as they were at their wits end.
The problem obviously is buying nudes off OnlyFans isn't illegal, so what could the police / BBC do when presented with a story of my child is a drug addict, they sell naughty pics / videos to fund it, one of those people is a rich famous person. Not a lot really.
The question is really did the BBC presenter know any of this, or did they just think they were engaging with the services of a sex worker. The latest claim from the Sun was the presenter had moved this "relationship" into the real world and they were organising to meet up....that was the last straw for the parents.
As Phil has mentioned, we don't know the young person is a drug addict. Their version of events starkly contrasts with their parents' version, and either may be correct or it may be somewhere in between.
As to what the BBC / Police can do, those are different things. The Police can only look into alleged criminal offences and, if the young person denies everything the evidence is unlikely to be there to prosecute (and personal drug use, if it has happened, is unlikely to be prosecuted in practice). The BBC, however, have a wider disciplinary process - it's pretty unlikely that the BBC would only be able to terminate a contract if the presenter had committed an actual criminal offence; there's a much wider issue of bringing the organisation into disrepute.
Well yes I think this is a point that is being missed....other BBC presenters in the past have been sacked for such things.
There has been moaning from employees to the Telegraph that this presenter is getting special treatment because they are well in with management and the "talent".
The Telegraph says there has been moaning from employees to the Telegraph along those lines. It may be that there has been. Equally, it may be that it is exactly what the Telegraph would say.
Journalistic standards at the Telegraph have absolutely gone down the toilet over the last couple of years. They've always had a particular perspective on the world, but I'm not sure I believe it's reliable when they cite "sources" as saying things any more.
Fixed for you....
E.g. one of BBC very first BBC Verify reports got a number of key (easily checkable) facts wrong.
Whilst I agree to an extent, there's quite a big difference between a genuine (if shoddy) mistake and lying. I think the Telegraph has been thoroughly Johnson-ised in recent years, which is a shame as it was a very respectable newspaper at one time.
I think the BBC verify reporter wasn't dissimilar. Bit like the Telegraph or the Sun, they took somebodies claims, didn't fact check them because their bias made it seem that it must be true and then twisted some other facts to fit the narrative. They couldn't provide any receipts for their claims, which for a service that is supposed to be THE "fact checker" is rather concerning.
That is always the problem with so-called "fact checkers" - Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Snopes always did a good job when it was debunking myths by linking to sources etc, before "fact checkers" became common. Now every media source seems to have its own "fact checking" service, but they very rarely seem to bother with sources well.
Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist · 3h Private school fees have risen 20% in real terms since 2010 and 55% since 2003. Numbers privately educated have been pretty constant that whole time. Removing tax exemptions likely to have only small effects on numbers. Net benefit to public finances likely to be £1.3-1.5bn p.a.
If school fees were the only thing going up then not a problem however increases between 2003 to recently weren’t also competing with a cost of living squeeze.
People who were just managing fee increases because the cost of servicing their mortgages and other debts weren’t increasing now will have the increased school fees through added VAT as well as increased mortgage payments.
It’s a lot easier and quicker to whip your child out of private school and get them educated for free than to sell your house and downsize, even get a mortgage, so I think trying to map attitudes to increased school fees before now and after don’t work.
Use the template of my old school. Charge more than anyone else and give out plenty of scholarships. Particularly sports scholarships. Then you'll get them queuing up. If you make your school appear to be unique you'll fill it up whatever the cost As for those that don't get the pupils let them close down. You'll be doing the parents a favour. Close Eton and Harrow down and you'll be doing all of us a favour.
PS Time to choose a new DG for the BBC. Just NOT a TORY this time please. The man is useless and he's slowly destroying it. This should be Starmer's job number one
My school did that. I only found out fairly recently. I was in a conversation with ten friends from school - it turned out by far the majority of us were on scholarships. It had never really struck me before - but all the conspicuously rich kids were not really desperately bright.
Not Manchester Grammar? No it can't have been. They were all bright there. That's where my brother went.
Just curious. The 20-year-old "child's" step-father was reportedly told by the police that no law had been broken. The police now say there is no investigation. The "child's" lawyers say no law was broken.
So what is this all about? Just a salacious expose of a famous person allegedly having a gay affair? Have we gone back to the 1950s?
the alleged victim’s lawyer might be correct
It's vanishingly unlikely that he isn't.
In fact, it's nigh impossible.
The only reason some people are reluctant to accept this is because they've been made to look stupid.
Not enough pedantry on here I feel. Pretty obvious that drugs laws have been broken.
Oh, is that not what you meant .... ?
Weren't you asking me yesterday to write a header on this?
Well I won't because I don't know the facts and a prurient story about a family in distress and someone else who may also now face their own family issues is nMsot of any interest to me. How badly the BBC is handling this is not a surprise.
And, frankly, I simply do not understand a world where people perform sex acts on camera for strangers. It seems utterly tawdry and unerotic and pathetic. And really rather grotesque.
Perhaps you could write instead a header on permissable types of sex which are not tawdry, unerotic and pathetic. A simple categorisation, say A-E or 1-10 might help people know where they stand.
No. I do not understand this world of performance sex. It is not for me.
The only sex I'm interested in is that involving me and I'm certainly not sharing that with you or anyone else on this or any other forum.
OTOH this site needs more headers about gardening (a fantastically sensuous activity), the Lake District, the glories of Naples, how to cook pasta properly, why good shoes are essential to looking elegant, Irish writers you must read and why Persuasion is, I now think, Austen's greatest novel.
So I shall sharpen my pencil in anticipation of the "Yes please!" demands ....
Could you and @TSE write a joint thread header on this?
I’ve recently bought a pair of Louis Vuitton loafers and I’ll do a thread on that.
It's not the individual shoes but how they go with the outfit as a whole that is key. I have upwards of 60 pairs and often decide my outfit on the basis of the shoes I want to wear. Then there is the question of what types of tights or socks. One hideous mistake is thick opaque tights with delicate shoes, for instance. Glossy beige tights are another horror.
You can never have too many shoes. You can never have too many comfortable shoes. Or handbags, come to that. Plus nice gloves and scarves. Accessories are most important.
When you buy a coat or jacket, always change the buttons: they are usually - even on expensive items - cheap rubbish.
Anyone who thinks that you can make do with some work shoes and a pair of smelly old trainers is a barbarian.
Ms Free, I have metal in my ankle, which means that a) it can be very hard (and expensive) to find shoes and trainers that do not cripple me; and b) when I do find pairs, I tend to wear them out.
What makes you think you can judge me or my worth on my somewhat forced choice of footwear?
We are allowed opinions. You have judged me - most unfairly and hurtfully - on other topics.
Anyway if you have shoes that work for you given the state of your ankles, good for you. Just have plenty of them for different occasions. Imagine you must have a fair number of walking boots (as do I) and getting them right is most important.
The other week you said: ""Oh and I criticise both men and women for how they look and dress because I think that when people go out in public they should make an effort to be presentable at the very least and elegant at best. If you cannot be bothered to make that effort stay at home. "
I will judge you on your words - in the same way you seem very open to harshly and unfairly judge others.
I do think that people should make an effort to look presentable. If you need specialist shoes there is no issue. Having specialist ones is not the same as having smelly old trainers which is bad for your feet and unappealing.
As for harsh and unfair judgments, you need to look at the beam in your eye. You have very harshly judged me in a way that has been extremely unjust and hurtful and which led me to leaving this site for a while. If I think about it again I will get very angry again at you and, believe me, this time I might say things you will not like.
So I won't and will concentrate on choosing my shoes for the day and getting on with it.
BTW I don't know if you've ever walked the coast path in the Lakes but if not you should. It is very beautiful. I have recently done part of it and it is quite enchanting.
I cannot think of what I've said to you in the past that has led you to being off the site for a while. I have discussed - firmly - trans issues with you, something where the differences between us are minor but a gulf rhetorically. But don't expect me not to counter your argument when you say silly things - such as the above.
Do not try to close down debate by saying stuff like that.
You have zero idea about the problems shoes cause me, and why I might just want to use them until they are more than a little worn out. I've been blooming lucky to get to where I have, and do not want to experience the pain again - as frequently happens with new shoes.
As for looking presentable: I am a runner and (sometime) hiker. Yesterday I did a 10K run in the heat and ended my run at the school, sweaty and dishevelled. If anyone objected to that, then it's their issue, not mine. When I got home I showered and changed.
I really don't know why my views on shoes and clothes bother you. If you have medical problems with your feet I have every sympathy and can quite see why you buy shoes that work for you.
As for what you said to me in the past, it was deeply offensive and upsetting and the fact that you don't remember or can't think what it was is not a surprise to me. But since I do not wish to dwell on it, that is the end of it. I am well aware you don't like me but this is a forum for discussion not about making friends so it does not matter.
You are being silly referring to runners. Of course they and hikers etc will look sweaty. No-one - least of all me - has any issue with that. I am quite a keen walker myself tho' nothing on your scale and, having recently received good medical news affecting my legs, I am planning some longer walks near where I live.
But the visual environment around us affects all of us so it pains me to see horrible and badly maintained buildings, tatty front gardens - don't get me started on plastic grass - litter and people looking dirty and ill-dressed or, more accurately, unsuitably dressed for the circumstances or, and I used to see this on the tube, people (often women) doing their make up. Can't they get up 5 minutes earlier? The worst was seeing someone floss their teeth. On the tube. I ask you.
Visual beauty is a joy. We can all play our part in making public spaces attractive, including how we appear in them.
Just been out on a practice driving run with the eldest. Some absolutely /shocking/ driving out there - a good chunk of the session was spent saying “whatever you do, don’t do that!”
Never get overly attached to anything inanimate, it's not wrong, just pointless
Things are just things. Books are just books. Furniture, houses, cars, whatever, they can all be replaced and emotional time spent on them is largely wasted
When the plague hit and I thought I might never see my London flat as I fled for the sticks, I honestly appraised all the things that would really upset me if I never saw them again. I was brutal. In the end these things filled about half a shoebox
It's a good exercise. Imagine your house being nuked. What would REALLY distress you, if everything was fried forever?
This is even truer in an age when so much can be stored (esp photos) in the cloud, for eternity
Most people who have divorced will have reached the same conclusion
Paul Johnson @PJTheEconomist · 3h Private school fees have risen 20% in real terms since 2010 and 55% since 2003. Numbers privately educated have been pretty constant that whole time. Removing tax exemptions likely to have only small effects on numbers. Net benefit to public finances likely to be £1.3-1.5bn p.a.
Paying an extra 20% tomorrow isn't quite the same as 20% more over 10 years. Also be interesting to know the shift in who is attending. Has it shifted to much more reliance on overseas students?
Short answer: yes.
Labour's proposed changes will have basically no effect on Eton and Harrow. It's the smaller, less selective private schools with specialisms (e.g. music or autism support) which are going to suffer. It's not really a very progressive policy at all.
If I wanted to target Eton, Harrow, Clifton, Winchester, Westminster, Cheltenham etc my policy would be to disendow all schools registered as charities that charged fees.
I think that would make a very substantial difference to their business models. Either lose your reserves, or pay business rates.
I suspect those ones would also be able to compensate by whacking up the overseas fees, so it wouldn’t make much difference in practice to them.
Only on PB would the cost of repairing shoes, at higher cost than most people spend on a new pair of shoes, be considered good value.
All part of the analysis of the class struggle, comrade. Unfortunately Big Boot has fucked up shoe repairs for the little guy.
'The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.'
Never get overly attached to anything inanimate, it's not wrong, just pointless
Things are just things. Books are just books. Furniture, houses, cars, whatever, they can all be replaced and emotional time spent on them is largely wasted
When the plague hit and I thought I might never see my London flat as I fled for the sticks, I honestly appraised all the things that would really upset me if I never saw them again. I was brutal. In the end these things filled about half a shoebox
It's a good exercise. Imagine your house being nuked. What would REALLY distress you, if everything was fried forever?
This is even truer in an age when so much can be stored (esp photos) in the cloud, for eternity
I agree with this completely. I don't own a single thing that I really care about (apart from a cat, who can look after himself). The only things that matter to me are the people in my life.
Where has this phrase "20 year old child" come from? I've heard it a number of times now, including I think on Newsnight yesterday evening.
I imagine Victoria Derbyshire is having a tough meeting with management today after last nights multiple bollock dropping on Newsnight about this story.
The public version of the judgment that imposed an interim gagging order on the BBC on 29 June on an application by a chap known as "WFZ" is poorly written:
"the BBC has found that at least a quarter of businesses in the sector in which the Claimant works have had employees investigated by the police for serious sexual offences, yet despite this the sector does not have any policies or procedures for employees who are accused of violence against women, nor any consistency of approach to allegations". (BBM).
In how many sectors does it make sense 1) to consider all the businesses as in some way equivalent and listable so that you can then proceed to say well at least a quarter of them are this or that, and then 2) to observe that there's no consistent policy across the sector, implying that there could and should be, and furthermore 3) in which there is a person who is described as "a nationally (and internationally) known name"?
That's not financial services, accountancy, banking. It's not drama, music, or retail. It's not construction or information technology. It's not manufacturing, road haulage, agriculture. It's not the law or medicine. It's not television or film production. It's not local government or care homes. It's not advertising or "influencing". It's not even estate agency.
There's only about one thing it could be.
The judge, Rowena Collins Rice, was actually secretary to the Leveson inquiry too.
Comments
PS. Did you confirm that you and your sister owned the property? I looked at a property at auction once: it had descended thru three generations and was occupied by the younger daughter each time (for sadly obvious reasons). The presumption was that the children of the last occupant were the legal owners and she had left it to them in their will, but it was questionable if she had ever had title due to the informal inheritance from the previous generations. Each surviving sibling and aunt/uncle had to be contacted to confirm they had no interest. This was a problem.
Talking of which, I just did a run. A couple of black cars with tinter windows roared past along a country lane, blue lights flashing on their roofs. I stepped onto the verge to give them plenty of room - straight into a nettle patch. Ouch.
And in other news, I just saw a first (for me, at least): a female car transporter driver / loader. I'm glad to say that more and more women are breaking into roles that men traditionally did - even the mucky and/or heavy ones.
TEENS are refusing to serve on UK nuclear submarines because they would have to spend months without TikTok and Instagram.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/23011190/teens-nuclear-submarines-social-media-navy/
He's sold the house - hurrah!
*Edit: he/she/it obvs
Must say I've come round to turn ups in a suit again.
(insert obligatory Malc joke)
It’s a crime and punishment mindset, which is how the home office have consistently treated refugees for at least a decade and a half.
Once people move into the care of local authorities and out of the direct clutches of Whitehall this criminal justice mindset seems to disappear and people are treated more humanely, even if conditions can be dodgy.
https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Nord-Stream-Sprengung-Die-Spur-fuehrt-nach-Moskau-article24250566.html
The day trip on LNER to Edinburgh might leave me change from both, that said.
Clearing the place has been very emotionally draining. My sister and I found an awful lot of stuff buried in the attics that had clearly been stored and simply forgotten about, including many of our toys from childhood.
However, we seem to be finally making some progress.
Incidentally @viewcode thank you for the tip on auctioning. I'll remember it if the sale falls through.
My father was the owner. Myself and my sister are the executors (although I am doing it all). Simple will - Small lump sum to both my children, rest split between myself and my sister.
Well, the little (actually not so little) fuckers began to chase me and looked to be closing so I climbed/leapt over a five barred gate straight into a bramble patch until they lost interest in me then sprinted through the farmyard at a very rapid rate, legs stinging like a bastard.
Or as our elderly sacristan once put it, "Our organist plays in nothing but his socks!" Shades of Terry Gilliam there...
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tv/22978239/bbc-star-paying-teenager-sexual-pictures/
"The well-known presenter is accused of giving the teen more than £35,000 since they were 17 in return for sordid images."
(They mention "sleazy messages" lower down in that piece.)
Equally, I don't use Organmasters. I have a pair of top-quality dance shoes that do very nicely until the moment I try to climb the very steep uncarpeted stairs to the organ loft.
both parties agree there was a communication of some kind.
And was amazed by the uniformity of their dress: They were all wearing jeans, casual tops, and runnng shoes. Young men -- and young women. Most of them didn't look good in the outfits. Which are often quite impractical for outside wear, in our rainy season.
I was impressed by how Google had somehow gotten them all to wear "uniforms", and unattractive and impractical uniforms, at that. But a little distressed, especially for the young women.
(*The protest was, as I recall, over a large payment to the head of some company Google had bought out -- after he had been accused of mistreating women.)
As others have suggested, it could be that the Sun themselves aren't 100% certain or can't back up a claim that would move the story to illegality rather than moral judgement. Just that the parents have told them that the first contact was at 17.
ETA scooped by FU.
Their view of common practice in Britain if they get to hear of it is often similar to their view of sending children to live with strangers who don't love them for more than half of each year in boarding schools.
I totally get it when elderly people prefer to live alone rather than accept being dumped in a "home".
Many people get emotional about 'losing' or 'saying goodbye' to family homes, which in a way kind of makes sense, but to me I find it much nicer to think that a home that was once a happy family home can now be a happy, family home for someone else. Pay it forward.
People are odd though- especially that deep desire to pass stuff on, even though it's not a sensible way to live life. (One aged relative left, who has a crazy amount of stuff that must be kept in the family...)
But I can't point fingers; I'm about to spend £lots (comfortably more than it will be worth) refurbishing some furniture. Because it's not just stuff, is it?
Since 17 linguistically and mathematically to me means it is something that happened at 17 and later too.
If it only began at 19, then since 17 is surely incorrect?
If I told my wife I'd been home since 6pm, and it turned out I was at the pub until 11pm and got home just before midnight, then the caveat of since doesn't make my claim correct, it would mean I had lied.
That said, a few years ago when she was in a short stay in hospital a water pipe burst and flooded 3/4 of her cottage. It was carnage but...it gave us the opportunity to throw out a ton (literally) of stuff. Everything from books to 1983 receipts to clothes. Including, sadly, many paintings and drawings that my mother had done over the course of her life. Now it was super sad but when else would this be done - after she dies when it would be immeasurably more upsetting. As it was, she half-noticed some stuff had gone, had fun choosing new eg sofas and chairs, and has in general much less stuff and is happy with it.
So my advice is to declutter your aged relatives' homes. Preferably while they are compos mentis and can participate. Didn't Alan Bennett call it something - cutting down the nachlass.
There was a headline recently 'why the working from home cult could lead to permanently lower house prices'.
It's still a good investigative paper occasionally. But it is turning a little into a parody of itself.
That said, our new vicar arrives at Christmas and is by all accounts an excellent sermoniser. I haven't had chance to quiz him on his taste in hymns yet but signs are good...
* Which isn't the front. It was turned round.
They were the only ones with the info, they could have taken as long as it took to get the bottom of more complex arrangements, instead they just fired and moved on.
A fatalistic mood has taken hold of many in Sunak’s party. “Reality is biting,” says a former cabinet minister. “We are on for a massive defeat. We aren’t talking margins of error in opinion polls any more. The public are tuning out now. They are psychologically exhausted by this government.”"
https://www.ft.com/content/ca8114d2-64c6-49b5-bfd9-a8bad5b006fc
https://www.shoerepairsonline.co.uk/
£90 for full JR soles & heels, plus the cost of posting the shoes to them (they pay return postage).
@PJTheEconomist
·
3h
Private school fees have risen 20% in real terms since 2010 and 55% since 2003. Numbers privately educated have been pretty constant that whole time. Removing tax exemptions likely to have only small effects on numbers. Net benefit to public finances likely to be £1.3-1.5bn p.a.
https://twitter.com/PJTheEconomist/status/1678687484992004096
The appropriate letter would literally be - we have received your complaint please contact us...
Also it's quite an easy story for them to report on. No tedious trips to dull or far flung locations.
"We think it is reasonable to assume that that an effective VAT rate of 15% would lead to a 3–7% reduction in private school attendance."
Which is all well and fine, but many private schools are already finding it tough, and even a 3-7% reduction in pupils may force some to close. And that means many more than 3-7% of pupils from that school will enter the state sector (not 100%, as some will transfer to other public schools).
Labour's proposed changes will have basically no effect on Eton and Harrow. It's the smaller, less selective private schools with specialisms (e.g. music or autism support) which are going to suffer. It's not really a very progressive policy at all.
People who were just managing fee increases because the cost of servicing their mortgages and other debts weren’t increasing now will have the increased school fees through added VAT as well as increased mortgage payments.
It’s a lot easier and quicker to whip your child out of private school and get them educated for free than to sell your house and downsize, even get a mortgage, so I think trying to map attitudes to increased school fees before now and after don’t work.
Specialist (Maths, Arts, Science) secondary schools were introduced by Labour but killed in the early years of Austerity by Cameron / Osborne...
https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1678738881741565953
I thought Neil Wallis was pretty outrageous on Sky News. Claiming this was the BBC's equivalent of the Schofield scandal - conveniently forgetting that n that case Schofield admitted to behaving inappropriately - and also bringing up Jimmy Saville for good measure.
An allegation was made to the BBC by a third party. They made no attempt to follow up on their allegation. They then went to a newspaper. Surely there are crackpot allegations being made about BBC stars all the time. What are they supposed to do?
But if you think that Starmer is going to magically create establishments of the calibre of the best music or autism independent schools overnight, with the same staff-to-pupil ratio and spend per pupil, I have several bridges to sell you. Labour isn't even promising to reverse decades of cuts to SEND provision in state schools, let alone plough extra money into specialist education.
Things are just things. Books are just books. Furniture, houses, cars, whatever, they can all be replaced and emotional time spent on them is largely wasted
When the plague hit and I thought I might never see my London flat as I fled for the sticks, I honestly appraised all the things that would really upset me if I never saw them again. I was brutal. In the end these things filled about half a shoebox
It's a good exercise. Imagine your house being nuked. What would REALLY distress you, if everything was fried forever?
This is even truer in an age when so much can be stored (esp photos) in the cloud, for eternity
https://nasen.org.uk/news/investigation-bbc-shows-families-waiting-too-long-ehc-plans
PS Time to choose a new DG for the BBC. Just NOT a TORY this time please. The man is useless and he's slowly destroying it. This should be Starmer's job number one
As this is PB's Alan Turing week, we should recall his school report: If he is to stay at a Public School he must aim at becoming educated. If he is to be solely a scientific specialist, he is wasting time at a Public School.
If you need to raise another £1bn, that are loads of tweaks that you can perform that can raise that. Fiscal drag is your friend.....
Obviously many in Labour see it as unfairness / privilege issue. For me, just make the state system as good as possible AND the big one for "fairness", post A-level application for university, then there is no funny business of predicted grades etc. Its on what you got versus your peers, plus a small weighting towards relevant life circumstances e.g. you got A*AA, but were you the top of your school because its shit etc.
There should be a law...instant firing if you utter that.
Tim Divie...I mean Davie...is doing very poorly here. I don't think I should talk to the presenter, I know nothing...lessons should be learned.
That surely means the payments began at 17? If the payments began at 18 or later, then the claim of 'since 17' is surely wrong?
Its possible perhaps that the 'sordid photos' were legal, even at 17? The justice system should be able to resolve that, if its the case, but if the sordid photos did occur but only from 18 onwards then I would say that The Sun not for the first time has been talking s**t and is not excused by its language used.
And that issue was only discovered, when some of these undisclosed docs were provided to a member of the public pursuant to a freedom of information request.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/20/twitter-accuses-tories-of-misleading-public-in-factcheck-row
As for what you said to me in the past, it was deeply offensive and upsetting and the fact that you don't remember or can't think what it was is not a surprise to me. But since I do not wish to dwell on it, that is the end of it.
I am well aware you don't like me but this is a forum for discussion not about making friends so it does not matter.
You are being silly referring to runners. Of course they and hikers etc will look sweaty. No-one - least of all me - has any issue with that. I am quite a keen walker myself tho' nothing on your scale and, having recently received good medical news affecting my legs, I am planning some longer walks near where I live.
But the visual environment around us affects all of us so it pains me to see horrible and badly maintained buildings, tatty front gardens - don't get me started on plastic grass - litter and people looking dirty and ill-dressed or, more accurately, unsuitably dressed for the circumstances or, and I used to see this on the tube, people (often women) doing their make up. Can't they get up 5 minutes earlier? The worst was seeing someone floss their teeth. On the tube. I ask you.
Visual beauty is a joy. We can all play our part in making public spaces attractive, including how we appear in them.
I think that would make a very substantial difference to their business models. Either lose your reserves, or pay business rates.
I suspect those ones would also be able to compensate by whacking up the overseas fees, so it wouldn’t make much difference in practice to them.
'The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.'
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/KB/2023/1618.html
"the BBC has found that at least a quarter of businesses in the sector in which the Claimant works have had employees investigated by the police for serious sexual offences, yet despite this the sector does not have any policies or procedures for employees who are accused of violence against women, nor any consistency of approach to allegations". (BBM).
In how many sectors does it make sense 1) to consider all the businesses as in some way equivalent and listable so that you can then proceed to say well at least a quarter of them are this or that, and then 2) to observe that there's no consistent policy across the sector, implying that there could and should be, and furthermore 3) in which there is a person who is described as "a nationally (and internationally) known name"?
That's not financial services, accountancy, banking. It's not drama, music, or retail. It's not construction or information technology. It's not manufacturing, road haulage, agriculture. It's not the law or medicine. It's not television or film production. It's not local government or care homes. It's not advertising or "influencing". It's not even estate agency.
There's only about one thing it could be.
The judge, Rowena Collins Rice, was actually secretary to the Leveson inquiry too.