Krakow must be right up there in the top 20 most beautiful cities on the planet. I think I prefer it to Prague
True story: I was last here 20 years ago for a wedding. A couple of days before the wedding we all went for a jaunt. On the way back to krakow from the salt mines we passed auschwitz and the minibus driver said “if anyone wants to see it, well, here it is”
Despite the horror everyone wanted to see it, as they’d not seen it before, so they all piled off. I could hardly stay on the bus (“what, don’t you care??”) so I dutifully got off to “see Auschwitz”
Thing is I’d specifically seen it about six months before. So I spent my time hiding behind a gas chamber, basically, in case one of the staff recognised me and said “what, you came back? Did you enjoy it that much? Perhaps you should get a season ticket?”
I love Krakow. My favourite European city of the ones I’ve seen.
Although to be fair I’ve seen Vienna but not Prague.
Prague is stunning. But it’s now SO touristy. Almost as bad as Venice
Both are global top 20 most-beautiful-city contenders. From the UK I’d definitely put Bath and Cambridge in there
Very few cities outside Europe would make the list
New York. Hong Kong. Errr….
There are cities outside Europe with extraordinary locations but usually the architecture rather lets them down. Sydney. Cape Town. Etc
Onto the Jamie Driscoll thing again, the "ha, he's just raised £25k" thing is exactly like "ha, Jeremy has just raised £gazillions to defend him from libel". Fools and their money are easily parted.
Driscoll is losing his job and is unhappy about it. I understand that. But this is politics - losing comes with the job. Some battles are internal - he is hardly the first politician to be deselected by his own party.
Question is why he and his are so bereft of friends and allies. Forging those across a spectrum of colleagues is also a key part of politics.
Why was Driscoll barred from Labour candidate selection (according to his wiki page)?
The Polish countryside is REALLY dull. It’s a whole load of nothing. Apart from various sites of appalling atrocity and genocide
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
Being perpetually bored is so . . . boring.
The relentnessless of large open spaces is a scenery of its own. I have felt that driving inland between Victoria and Queens land, with a stop in an Aussie dairy every couple of hours to break the monotony of dessicated gum trees. It's an acquired taste, but beautiful.
Had roughly similar experience many years ago, taking the Great Northern railroad line (now part of BNSF) across the northern Great Plains of USA. Took full day and then some from Glacier National Park to Minneapolis.
Distinctly remember when the train was briefly stopped at Havre, Montana. Was looking out the window, and there was a real-live cowboy, or close enough, likely a rancher. I gave him a wave . . . and he tipped his Stetson.
The sort of flat landscape you get in the north European plain, or Lincolnshire for that matter, is different and worse than anything in the prairies or the steppe.
It’s cluttered flatness. There are buildings, road signage, rows of trees, electricity pylons all preventing any really long distance views. So you don’t really get the big sky effect or the sense of emptiness.
Yes, I get that. There is a bleakness to the Fens when I drive east to Norfolk. Not least the weird sex shop in a lay-by near Thorney Toll. The sort of place that serial killers shop, I suppose.
I rather like the Fens. They feel weird and other wordly. I like that you can scramble up a drainage ditch and be the highest person for miles around. But I only pass through them once every few years. Maybe I'd feel differently if I passed through them regularly. I bought my favourite ever pair of trousers on Boston market in February 1994.
Onto the Jamie Driscoll thing again, the "ha, he's just raised £25k" thing is exactly like "ha, Jeremy has just raised £gazillions to defend him from libel". Fools and their money are easily parted.
Driscoll is losing his job and is unhappy about it. I understand that. But this is politics - losing comes with the job. Some battles are internal - he is hardly the first politician to be deselected by his own party.
Question is why he and his are so bereft of friends and allies. Forging those across a spectrum of colleagues is also a key part of politics.
Why was Driscoll barred from Labour candidate selection (according to his wiki page)?
He’s a Corbynite and shared a platform with Corbyn after his expulsion from Labour.
Just heard Nick Read from the Post Office condemning Kevan Jones for criticising the Post Office Board's Brucie bonus.
What is it with all these horrid Labour MPs called Jones beating up on Nick?
He has a fucking nerve criticising anyone given his own behaviour.
I saw him and McAulay get rinsed by Darren Jones in committee. Read clearly thought Darren Jones was arrogant and deserved contempt calling out someone so important as the CEO of the Post Office. Jones was critical of the time and motion tablet that postmen were using to feedback when they stood still. It seemed quite oppressive. Read explained it wasn't a time and motion exercise. Jones didn't believe him.
Jones also questioned Read over SD priority over standard letters. He denied the programme despite compelling evidence to the contrary. Are you allowed to mislead a Parliamentary Committee?
Appears to be mandatory for current HMG. (Is this required by Con-jobber by-laws or some such?)
The Polish countryside is REALLY dull. It’s a whole load of nothing. Apart from various sites of appalling atrocity and genocide
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
Being perpetually bored is so . . . boring.
The relentnessless of large open spaces is a scenery of its own. I have felt that driving inland between Victoria and Queens land, with a stop in an Aussie dairy every couple of hours to break the monotony of dessicated gum trees. It's an acquired taste, but beautiful.
Had roughly similar experience many years ago, taking the Great Northern railroad line (now part of BNSF) across the northern Great Plains of USA. Took full day and then some from Glacier National Park to Minneapolis.
Distinctly remember when the train was briefly stopped at Havre, Montana. Was looking out the window, and there was a real-live cowboy, or close enough, likely a rancher. I gave him a wave . . . and he tipped his Stetson.
The sort of flat landscape you get in the north European plain, or Lincolnshire for that matter, is different and worse than anything in the prairies or the steppe.
It’s cluttered flatness. There are buildings, road signage, rows of trees, electricity pylons all preventing any really long distance views. So you don’t really get the big sky effect or the sense of emptiness.
Yes, I get that. There is a bleakness to the Fens when I drive east to Norfolk. Not least the weird sex shop in a lay-by near Thorney Toll. The sort of place that serial killers shop, I suppose.
I rather like the Fens. They feel weird and other wordly. I like that you can scramble up a drainage ditch and be the highest person for miles around. But I only pass through them once every few years. Maybe I'd feel differently if I passed through them regularly. I bought my favourite ever pair of trousers on Boston market in February 1994.
I've visited the lowest trig pillar, at half a metre below sea level.
There's also the fen near Peterborough where two posts (from the Great Exhibition?) were driven down into the peat. As the fens were drained, the ground shrunk, and they are now very much above ground.
I love the Fens. They're not everyone's cup of tea, and I like a good hill as much as the next nutter, but there's something elemental about them. You can almost imagine coming across a Fen Tiger.
I bet they're also the most man-altered landscape in Britain. Except perhaps the Norfolk Broads?
The Polish countryside is REALLY dull. It’s a whole load of nothing. Apart from various sites of appalling atrocity and genocide
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
Being perpetually bored is so . . . boring.
The relentnessless of large open spaces is a scenery of its own. I have felt that driving inland between Victoria and Queens land, with a stop in an Aussie dairy every couple of hours to break the monotony of dessicated gum trees. It's an acquired taste, but beautiful.
Had roughly similar experience many years ago, taking the Great Northern railroad line (now part of BNSF) across the northern Great Plains of USA. Took full day and then some from Glacier National Park to Minneapolis.
Distinctly remember when the train was briefly stopped at Havre, Montana. Was looking out the window, and there was a real-live cowboy, or close enough, likely a rancher. I gave him a wave . . . and he tipped his Stetson.
The sort of flat landscape you get in the north European plain, or Lincolnshire for that matter, is different and worse than anything in the prairies or the steppe.
It’s cluttered flatness. There are buildings, road signage, rows of trees, electricity pylons all preventing any really long distance views. So you don’t really get the big sky effect or the sense of emptiness.
Perhaps unexpectedly you CAN get those views in bits of coastal Essex. On the estuary of the River Blackwater say. At Osea
Or here. The Anglo Saxon chapel of Cedd. Bradwell
Skies that go on and on. Ruskin loved them
Part of my local flatlands used to have no human construct visible once the winding gear on the nearest pit had been taken down.
The big skies now contain 126 (at the last count) wind turbines.
I guess that's roughly the right ratio for energy replacement...
Not sure what the most boring road in the UK would be. Ermine Street (the A15) north of Lincoln is pretty straight but is on a ridgeline so occasionally you get a view beyond the hedge. The traffic is a bit nuts too so there's not much chance of a snooze.
The Polish countryside is REALLY dull. It’s a whole load of nothing. Apart from various sites of appalling atrocity and genocide
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
Being perpetually bored is so . . . boring.
The relentnessless of large open spaces is a scenery of its own. I have felt that driving inland between Victoria and Queens land, with a stop in an Aussie dairy every couple of hours to break the monotony of dessicated gum trees. It's an acquired taste, but beautiful.
Had roughly similar experience many years ago, taking the Great Northern railroad line (now part of BNSF) across the northern Great Plains of USA. Took full day and then some from Glacier National Park to Minneapolis.
Distinctly remember when the train was briefly stopped at Havre, Montana. Was looking out the window, and there was a real-live cowboy, or close enough, likely a rancher. I gave him a wave . . . and he tipped his Stetson.
The sort of flat landscape you get in the north European plain, or Lincolnshire for that matter, is different and worse than anything in the prairies or the steppe.
It’s cluttered flatness. There are buildings, road signage, rows of trees, electricity pylons all preventing any really long distance views. So you don’t really get the big sky effect or the sense of emptiness.
Have driven across Lincolnshire (from north to south) and thought it was great.
Great minds thinking un-alike. Vive la difference (in a manner of speaking)!
I've driven from Lake Tahoe to Chicago. That was pretty dull. I think we only met three people on the way.
The Polish countryside is REALLY dull. It’s a whole load of nothing. Apart from various sites of appalling atrocity and genocide
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
Being perpetually bored is so . . . boring.
The relentnessless of large open spaces is a scenery of its own. I have felt that driving inland between Victoria and Queens land, with a stop in an Aussie dairy every couple of hours to break the monotony of dessicated gum trees. It's an acquired taste, but beautiful.
I agree. I’ve done the drive from Alice to coober pedy to Oodnadatta. On and on and on
It’s mesmerising, even lovely, in its own boring way
Also dangerous. You don’t fall asleep so much as drift into a weird dream state. Where you can easily and rhapsodically drive off the road into a ghost gum
And you gotta watch out for roos and camels
Many years ago driving with family friends ahead of us on the way from San Diego to Phoenix this pretty much happened to them.
Ran slowly off the road a few miles from Gila Bend, nearly hit a Porsche hire car broken down on the hard shoulder (with a German tourist standing behind the boot), bypassing the German and clipping the Porsche’s right rear and then rolling into a saguaro cactus.
We arrived about a minute later to a scene of great confusion. Somewhat later still the local cop turned up complete with hat, tight fitting uniform and shades and addressed everyone as sir and ma’am.
I believe roadmaking people in Australia and elsewhere are now encouraged to add pointless curves and bends just to keep drivers awake?
A dead straight road for miles and miles is an invitation to have an accident, or do 190mph
They should have learnt from their Anglo Saxon ancestors:
Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode, The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road. A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire, And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire; A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head...
The Polish countryside is REALLY dull. It’s a whole load of nothing. Apart from various sites of appalling atrocity and genocide
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
Being perpetually bored is so . . . boring.
The relentnessless of large open spaces is a scenery of its own. I have felt that driving inland between Victoria and Queens land, with a stop in an Aussie dairy every couple of hours to break the monotony of dessicated gum trees. It's an acquired taste, but beautiful.
Had roughly similar experience many years ago, taking the Great Northern railroad line (now part of BNSF) across the northern Great Plains of USA. Took full day and then some from Glacier National Park to Minneapolis.
Distinctly remember when the train was briefly stopped at Havre, Montana. Was looking out the window, and there was a real-live cowboy, or close enough, likely a rancher. I gave him a wave . . . and he tipped his Stetson.
The sort of flat landscape you get in the north European plain, or Lincolnshire for that matter, is different and worse than anything in the prairies or the steppe.
It’s cluttered flatness. There are buildings, road signage, rows of trees, electricity pylons all preventing any really long distance views. So you don’t really get the big sky effect or the sense of emptiness.
Yes, I get that. There is a bleakness to the Fens when I drive east to Norfolk. Not least the weird sex shop in a lay-by near Thorney Toll. The sort of place that serial killers shop, I suppose.
I rather like the Fens. They feel weird and other wordly. I like that you can scramble up a drainage ditch and be the highest person for miles around. But I only pass through them once every few years. Maybe I'd feel differently if I passed through them regularly. I bought my favourite ever pair of trousers on Boston market in February 1994.
I've visited the lowest trig pillar, at half a metre below sea level.
There's also the fen near Peterborough where two posts (from the Great Exhibition?) were driven down into the peat. As the fens were drained, the ground shrunk, and they are now very much above ground.
I love the Fens. They're not everyone's cup of tea, and I like a good hill as much as the next nutter, but there's something elemental about them. You can almost imagine coming across a Fen Tiger.
I bet they're also the most man-altered landscape in Britain. Except perhaps the Norfolk Broads?
You have to admit those wide open landscapes give a wonderful light.
Been spending a lot of time in North Norfolk recently. It's surprisngly hilly. Well i was surprised anyway.
Onto the Jamie Driscoll thing again, the "ha, he's just raised £25k" thing is exactly like "ha, Jeremy has just raised £gazillions to defend him from libel". Fools and their money are easily parted.
Driscoll is losing his job and is unhappy about it. I understand that. But this is politics - losing comes with the job. Some battles are internal - he is hardly the first politician to be deselected by his own party.
Question is why he and his are so bereft of friends and allies. Forging those across a spectrum of colleagues is also a key part of politics.
Why was Driscoll barred from Labour candidate selection (according to his wiki page)?
He’s a Corbynite and shared a platform with Corbyn after his expulsion from Labour.
He’s supported by Nadhim Zahawi.
He has some pretty dodgy friends.
It was actually Ken Loach and it was some theatre event. Loach is a rarity. He spends time and money on the North East arts scene and has made three films there.
‘Sharing a platform’ is such an abused term as it implies standing in solidarity with them over their views and this was nothing of the sort.
Nadim Zahawi commented to praise Driscoll during Covid for his non partisan approach to the matter.
Onto the Jamie Driscoll thing again, the "ha, he's just raised £25k" thing is exactly like "ha, Jeremy has just raised £gazillions to defend him from libel". Fools and their money are easily parted.
Driscoll is losing his job and is unhappy about it. I understand that. But this is politics - losing comes with the job. Some battles are internal - he is hardly the first politician to be deselected by his own party.
Question is why he and his are so bereft of friends and allies. Forging those across a spectrum of colleagues is also a key part of politics.
Why was Driscoll barred from Labour candidate selection (according to his wiki page)?
He’s a Corbynite and shared a platform with Corbyn after his expulsion from Labour.
He’s supported by Nadhim Zahawi.
He has some pretty dodgy friends.
It was actually Ken Loach and it was some theatre event. Loach is a rarity. He spends time and money on the North East arts scene and has made three films there.
‘Sharing a platform’ is such an abused term as it implies standing in solidarity with them over their views and this was nothing of the sort.
Nadim Zahawi commented to praise Driscoll during Covid for his non partisan approach to the matter.
My mistake.
Although to be fair anyone sharing a platform with Loach whether they support his views or not should probably be ruled out for lack of judgement.
There seems an emerging "concensus" (not based on very much to be honest) Labour will unconvincingly win Uxbridge, pull of a big win in Selby & Ainsty while the LDs enjoy a comfortable but unremarkable win in Somerton & Frome.
The question for Conservatives, IF they decide to remove Sunak from the leadership (and I consider that highly unlikely) is who is the alternative and where is the evidence that alternative would be polling any better? I've seen no evidence a Conservative Party led by a Mordaunt, Braverman, Badenoch, Wallace or Tugendhat (to name but five) would be doing any better and therein lies the problem.
If Kemi Badenoch wasn't so full of shit, she'd be all over this.
I gave birth to my second child with the tag on.”
Sima Misra is still waiting to be compensated for being wrongfully sacked and sentenced to 15 months in prison 2 years on from the Post Office scandal.
The Polish countryside is REALLY dull. It’s a whole load of nothing. Apart from various sites of appalling atrocity and genocide
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
Being perpetually bored is so . . . boring.
The relentnessless of large open spaces is a scenery of its own. I have felt that driving inland between Victoria and Queens land, with a stop in an Aussie dairy every couple of hours to break the monotony of dessicated gum trees. It's an acquired taste, but beautiful.
Had roughly similar experience many years ago, taking the Great Northern railroad line (now part of BNSF) across the northern Great Plains of USA. Took full day and then some from Glacier National Park to Minneapolis.
Distinctly remember when the train was briefly stopped at Havre, Montana. Was looking out the window, and there was a real-live cowboy, or close enough, likely a rancher. I gave him a wave . . . and he tipped his Stetson.
The sort of flat landscape you get in the north European plain, or Lincolnshire for that matter, is different and worse than anything in the prairies or the steppe.
It’s cluttered flatness. There are buildings, road signage, rows of trees, electricity pylons all preventing any really long distance views. So you don’t really get the big sky effect or the sense of emptiness.
Perhaps unexpectedly you CAN get those views in bits of coastal Essex. On the estuary of the River Blackwater say. At Osea
We have so far dodged the heat here in our part of the planet - I'm slightly puzzled by the excitement re: the south western United States. Summer temperatures of 47c in Las Vegas and Palm Springs aren't unusual and happen most years - were those temperatures to spike to 50c or higher I'd be concerned.
For those with air conditioning, it's tolerable but for those without it must be akin to purgatory.
Talking of the A15 if anyone makes it to that bit of Lincolnshire they should go to Temple Bruer. Preferably on a cold dank winter’s afternoon as the light begins to die
One of the most haunted and terrifying places in the UK
The Polish countryside is REALLY dull. It’s a whole load of nothing. Apart from various sites of appalling atrocity and genocide
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
Being perpetually bored is so . . . boring.
The relentnessless of large open spaces is a scenery of its own. I have felt that driving inland between Victoria and Queens land, with a stop in an Aussie dairy every couple of hours to break the monotony of dessicated gum trees. It's an acquired taste, but beautiful.
Had roughly similar experience many years ago, taking the Great Northern railroad line (now part of BNSF) across the northern Great Plains of USA. Took full day and then some from Glacier National Park to Minneapolis.
Distinctly remember when the train was briefly stopped at Havre, Montana. Was looking out the window, and there was a real-live cowboy, or close enough, likely a rancher. I gave him a wave . . . and he tipped his Stetson.
The sort of flat landscape you get in the north European plain, or Lincolnshire for that matter, is different and worse than anything in the prairies or the steppe.
It’s cluttered flatness. There are buildings, road signage, rows of trees, electricity pylons all preventing any really long distance views. So you don’t really get the big sky effect or the sense of emptiness.
Perhaps unexpectedly you CAN get those views in bits of coastal Essex. On the estuary of the River Blackwater say. At Osea
Or here. The Anglo Saxon chapel of Cedd. Bradwell
Skies that go on and on. Ruskin loved them
Flatland churches continued:
One of my favourite English churches. Romney Marsh if I’m not mistaken
Onto the Jamie Driscoll thing again, the "ha, he's just raised £25k" thing is exactly like "ha, Jeremy has just raised £gazillions to defend him from libel". Fools and their money are easily parted.
Driscoll is losing his job and is unhappy about it. I understand that. But this is politics - losing comes with the job. Some battles are internal - he is hardly the first politician to be deselected by his own party.
Question is why he and his are so bereft of friends and allies. Forging those across a spectrum of colleagues is also a key part of politics.
Why was Driscoll barred from Labour candidate selection (according to his wiki page)?
He’s a Corbynite and shared a platform with Corbyn after his expulsion from Labour.
He’s supported by Nadhim Zahawi.
He has some pretty dodgy friends.
It was actually Ken Loach and it was some theatre event. Loach is a rarity. He spends time and money on the North East arts scene and has made three films there.
‘Sharing a platform’ is such an abused term as it implies standing in solidarity with them over their views and this was nothing of the sort.
Nadim Zahawi commented to praise Driscoll during Covid for his non partisan approach to the matter.
My mistake.
Although to be fair anyone sharing a platform with Loach whether they support his views or not should probably be ruled out for lack of judgement.
Ken Loach has a wonderful portfolio of Film, plays and drama serials and has been making them for over fifty years. Should he be ignored or not have his work, or his contribution to North East film, celebrated due to internal Labour Party politics ?
Perhaps Driscoll should just use lazy anti traveller tropes and all would be okay.
I do not see why anyone should not discuss Loach’s work. It’s very very worthy of discussion and retrospectives in the same way Mike Leigh, Alan Bennett, Alan Clark and Jack Rosenthal are.
I’ve got a copy of his ‘at the BBC boxset’, there are some cracking dramas on there. The Spongers is well worth watching. Especially implicit at the start being the royal family are the real spongers.
We have so far dodged the heat here in our part of the planet - I'm slightly puzzled by the excitement re: the south western United States. Summer temperatures of 47c in Las Vegas and Palm Springs aren't unusual and happen most years - were those temperatures to spike to 50c or higher I'd be concerned.
For those with air conditioning, it's tolerable but for those without it must be akin to purgatory.
One issue with current Southwest US heat wave, is the DURATION of super-hot days.
Here in Seattle, in my humble abode (no a/c) there is a BIG difference from having a hot day, to having a series of hot days without cool-down.
Off-topic - but I know a few people here enjoy European noir/politics drama's. I can recommend "Actor (Herec)" (available on CH4's "Walter Presents") - I'm about halfway through but really quite well done.
From Wikipedia :
Herec (English: Actor) is a Czech drama television series directed by Peter Bebjak. It is set in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s.
The title role in the series, the young actor Stanislav Láník, is played by Jan Cina. Láník finds himself in a difficult situation: State Security takes advantage of his homosexuality and uses him as bait to compromise influential figures, in exchange for help with his acting career.
The Polish countryside is REALLY dull. It’s a whole load of nothing. Apart from various sites of appalling atrocity and genocide
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
Being perpetually bored is so . . . boring.
The relentnessless of large open spaces is a scenery of its own. I have felt that driving inland between Victoria and Queens land, with a stop in an Aussie dairy every couple of hours to break the monotony of dessicated gum trees. It's an acquired taste, but beautiful.
Had roughly similar experience many years ago, taking the Great Northern railroad line (now part of BNSF) across the northern Great Plains of USA. Took full day and then some from Glacier National Park to Minneapolis.
Distinctly remember when the train was briefly stopped at Havre, Montana. Was looking out the window, and there was a real-live cowboy, or close enough, likely a rancher. I gave him a wave . . . and he tipped his Stetson.
The sort of flat landscape you get in the north European plain, or Lincolnshire for that matter, is different and worse than anything in the prairies or the steppe.
It’s cluttered flatness. There are buildings, road signage, rows of trees, electricity pylons all preventing any really long distance views. So you don’t really get the big sky effect or the sense of emptiness.
Perhaps unexpectedly you CAN get those views in bits of coastal Essex. On the estuary of the River Blackwater say. At Osea
Or here. The Anglo Saxon chapel of Cedd. Bradwell
Skies that go on and on. Ruskin loved them
Flatland churches continued:
Jonathan Meades "Absentee Landlord" is worth a watch if you like your Churches.
The Polish countryside is REALLY dull. It’s a whole load of nothing. Apart from various sites of appalling atrocity and genocide
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
Being perpetually bored is so . . . boring.
The relentnessless of large open spaces is a scenery of its own. I have felt that driving inland between Victoria and Queens land, with a stop in an Aussie dairy every couple of hours to break the monotony of dessicated gum trees. It's an acquired taste, but beautiful.
Had roughly similar experience many years ago, taking the Great Northern railroad line (now part of BNSF) across the northern Great Plains of USA. Took full day and then some from Glacier National Park to Minneapolis.
Distinctly remember when the train was briefly stopped at Havre, Montana. Was looking out the window, and there was a real-live cowboy, or close enough, likely a rancher. I gave him a wave . . . and he tipped his Stetson.
The sort of flat landscape you get in the north European plain, or Lincolnshire for that matter, is different and worse than anything in the prairies or the steppe.
It’s cluttered flatness. There are buildings, road signage, rows of trees, electricity pylons all preventing any really long distance views. So you don’t really get the big sky effect or the sense of emptiness.
Yes, I get that. There is a bleakness to the Fens when I drive east to Norfolk. Not least the weird sex shop in a lay-by near Thorney Toll. The sort of place that serial killers shop, I suppose.
I rather like the Fens. They feel weird and other wordly. I like that you can scramble up a drainage ditch and be the highest person for miles around. But I only pass through them once every few years. Maybe I'd feel differently if I passed through them regularly. I bought my favourite ever pair of trousers on Boston market in February 1994.
I've visited the lowest trig pillar, at half a metre below sea level.
There's also the fen near Peterborough where two posts (from the Great Exhibition?) were driven down into the peat. As the fens were drained, the ground shrunk, and they are now very much above ground.
I love the Fens. They're not everyone's cup of tea, and I like a good hill as much as the next nutter, but there's something elemental about them. You can almost imagine coming across a Fen Tiger.
I bet they're also the most man-altered landscape in Britain. Except perhaps the Norfolk Broads?
You have to admit those wide open landscapes give a wonderful light.
Been spending a lot of time in North Norfolk recently. It's surprisngly hilly. Well i was surprised anyway.
I did a cycling holiday there. It's bloody mountainous.
At last we have you interested in a real, albeit insidious, threat to human existence.
One that requires uncomfortable actions.
The SSTs in the Caribbean are also anomalously high and IF any hurricane got into the Gulf of Mexico it would be super charged. However, at the moment wind shear and Saharan dust is preventing any significant cyclonic formation but there are already indications what looked like a "super" El Nino isn't going to be as powerful as predicted which should lead to reduced wind shear by September which will in turn promote conditions more suitable for hurricane development.
In Northern News Jamie Driscoll (North of Tyne Mayor) has resigned from the Labour party and is now fundraising to run as an independent candidate.
Now if I lived in the area I would be supporting him as the Labour candidate is dire and the Labour party completely shafted Jamie to avoid him being their candidate.
The only positive I can see from the insane weather this month (which, let's not forget, is happening at 1.2C) is that it might drive some more immediate sense into energy generation policy.
Onto the Jamie Driscoll thing again, the "ha, he's just raised £25k" thing is exactly like "ha, Jeremy has just raised £gazillions to defend him from libel". Fools and their money are easily parted.
Driscoll is losing his job and is unhappy about it. I understand that. But this is politics - losing comes with the job. Some battles are internal - he is hardly the first politician to be deselected by his own party.
Question is why he and his are so bereft of friends and allies. Forging those across a spectrum of colleagues is also a key part of politics.
Why was Driscoll barred from Labour candidate selection (according to his wiki page)?
He’s a Corbynite and shared a platform with Corbyn after his expulsion from Labour.
He’s supported by Nadhim Zahawi.
He has some pretty dodgy friends.
It was actually Ken Loach and it was some theatre event. Loach is a rarity. He spends time and money on the North East arts scene and has made three films there.
‘Sharing a platform’ is such an abused term as it implies standing in solidarity with them over their views and this was nothing of the sort.
Nadim Zahawi commented to praise Driscoll during Covid for his non partisan approach to the matter.
My mistake.
Although to be fair anyone sharing a platform with Loach whether they support his views or not should probably be ruled out for lack of judgement.
Ken Loach has a wonderful portfolio of Film, plays and drama serials and has been making them for over fifty years. Should he be ignored or not have his work, or his contribution to North East film, celebrated due to internal Labour Party politics ?
Perhaps Driscoll should just use lazy anti traveller tropes and all would be okay.
I do not see why anyone should not discuss Loach’s work. It’s very very worthy of discussion and retrospectives in the same way Mike Leigh, Alan Bennett, Alan Clark and Jack Rosenthal are.
I’ve got a copy of his ‘at the BBC boxset’, there are some cracking dramas on there. The Spongers is well worth watching. Especially implicit at the start being the royal family are the real spongers.
Even before he claimed that Starmer was conducting a purge under the guise of rooting out anti-semites, he had shown some rather alarming tendencies. For which he was expelled from Labour.
He wrote a play claiming Zionists collaborated with Hitler and has said Holocaust Denial is worthy of discussion. The latter may have been clumsy phrasing. But it was still a stupid thing to say.
Does art trump dubious views? I don’t know. I appreciate we get on to questions about J K Rowling there. Or Wagner. But I would say it shows either a massive two fingers to the party leadership or very poor judgement indeed to share a platform with such a man, whatever his artistic merits. His dropping should not have come as a surprise.
The Polish countryside is REALLY dull. It’s a whole load of nothing. Apart from various sites of appalling atrocity and genocide
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
Being perpetually bored is so . . . boring.
The relentnessless of large open spaces is a scenery of its own. I have felt that driving inland between Victoria and Queens land, with a stop in an Aussie dairy every couple of hours to break the monotony of dessicated gum trees. It's an acquired taste, but beautiful.
Had roughly similar experience many years ago, taking the Great Northern railroad line (now part of BNSF) across the northern Great Plains of USA. Took full day and then some from Glacier National Park to Minneapolis.
Distinctly remember when the train was briefly stopped at Havre, Montana. Was looking out the window, and there was a real-live cowboy, or close enough, likely a rancher. I gave him a wave . . . and he tipped his Stetson.
The sort of flat landscape you get in the north European plain, or Lincolnshire for that matter, is different and worse than anything in the prairies or the steppe.
It’s cluttered flatness. There are buildings, road signage, rows of trees, electricity pylons all preventing any really long distance views. So you don’t really get the big sky effect or the sense of emptiness.
Yes, I get that. There is a bleakness to the Fens when I drive east to Norfolk. Not least the weird sex shop in a lay-by near Thorney Toll. The sort of place that serial killers shop, I suppose.
I rather like the Fens. They feel weird and other wordly. I like that you can scramble up a drainage ditch and be the highest person for miles around. But I only pass through them once every few years. Maybe I'd feel differently if I passed through them regularly. I bought my favourite ever pair of trousers on Boston market in February 1994.
Long may Lincolnshire remain reviled and unvisited. It is thrilling in every way, and in an odd corner of it Stamford is the finest smallish town in England. And it is full of odd small towns. And it is gigantic. It takes a lifetime to discover. Its fields are a standing rebuke to urban types who think agriculture is less important than financial services.
I recall Matlock being quietly attractive in a gritty hilly Peak District kinda way
The opposite of flat fenland bleakness
Perhaps there are two Matlocks?
Matlock Bath, where the Heights of Abraham are. A seaside town in all but location, and Matlock itself.
But both quite nice, and neither flat.
Indeed, it is a nice cable car up to the Heights of Abraham.
Matlock Bath is a tad odd, though, no? Have you ever been to the aquarium-and-hologram museum? Or seen the boat parade? Even the heights of Abraham is one of England's odder tourist attractions. I've never not enjoyed myself at Matlock Bath. But it's peculiar.
The only positive I can see from the insane weather this month (which, let's not forget, is happening at 1.2C) is that it might drive some more immediate sense into energy generation policy.
Like, no more coal. Like, NOW.
The future may be uncertain to us, but it is already baked in. CO2 emissions are not stoppable now or in the next few years.
Millions of US military emails have been misdirected to Mali through a “typo leak” that has exposed highly sensitive information, including diplomatic documents, tax returns, passwords and the travel details of top officers.
Despite repeated warnings over a decade, a steady flow of email traffic continues to the .ML domain, the country identifier for Mali, as a result of people mistyping .MIL, the suffix to all US military email addresses.
The problem was first identified almost a decade ago by Johannes Zuurbier, a Dutch internet entrepreneur who has a contract to manage Mali’s country domain.
Zuurbier has been collecting misdirected emails since January in an effort to persuade the US to take the issue seriously. He holds close to 117,000 misdirected messages — almost 1,000 arrived on Wednesday alone. In a letter he sent to the US in early July, Zuurbier wrote: “This risk is real and could be exploited by adversaries of the US.”
Increasingly, I do sort of look at the news about the extreme temperatures and feel some relief I don't have children. Who knows what the hell things are going to look like in 20 years, say.
Shouting from afar will not improve women’s rights.
We need to re-engage.
We need to re-open the British Embassy.
God the Afghans should despise the west. How many deaths for nothing?
Why? It’s not like they are averse to slaughtering each other given half the chance
What did we achieve for the trillions spent? Their situation is no different from 2001 and we'd have all been better of if the Americans had just air dropped the cash over the hills.
The only positive I can see from the insane weather this month (which, let's not forget, is happening at 1.2C) is that it might drive some more immediate sense into energy generation policy.
Like, no more coal. Like, NOW.
The future may be uncertain to us, but it is already baked in. CO2 emissions are not stoppable now or in the next few years.
No, but we can stop increasing them and accelerating the transition.
On a more cheerful note, the Main Square of Old Krakow is absolutely magnificent. I had forgotten exactly how magnificent it is
Surely one of the two most beautiful town squares in the world. Only St Mark’s in Venice can match it. Hard to decide on a winner
I love that market too. Hope it’s still open.
I once saw the most beautiful chess set, hand carved, there. And I could have afforded it. But - I was on hand luggage only and couldn’t fit it in my bag so I had to sadly leave it there.
Shouting from afar will not improve women’s rights.
We need to re-engage.
We need to re-open the British Embassy.
God the Afghans should despise the west. How many deaths for nothing?
Why? It’s not like they are averse to slaughtering each other given half the chance
What did we achieve for the trillions spent? Their situation is no different from 2001 and we'd have all been better of if the Americans had just air dropped the cash over the hills.
I don’t disagree. It was a tragic error by the west
I’m just pointing out that the Afghans are as brutally violent to each other - famously so - as any invading empire
If Kemi Badenoch wasn't so full of shit, she'd be all over this.
I gave birth to my second child with the tag on.”
Sima Misra is still waiting to be compensated for being wrongfully sacked and sentenced to 15 months in prison 2 years on from the Post Office scandal.
She is the encyclopaedia entry for 'disappointment' - no surprise to those of us who suspected her leadership run was orchestrated by Sunak and Gove to ensure he ended up facing Truss. Which of course still didn't help.
I recall Matlock being quietly attractive in a gritty hilly Peak District kinda way
The opposite of flat fenland bleakness
Perhaps there are two Matlocks?
Matlock Bath, where the Heights of Abraham are. A seaside town in all but location, and Matlock itself.
But both quite nice, and neither flat.
Indeed, it is a nice cable car up to the Heights of Abraham.
Matlock Bath is a tad odd, though, no? Have you ever been to the aquarium-and-hologram museum? Or seen the boat parade? Even the heights of Abraham is one of England's odder tourist attractions. I've never not enjoyed myself at Matlock Bath. But it's peculiar.
Yes Matlock Bath is odd, I’ve not seen either of those attractions but the shops are like going back in time. Also it’s like a seaside resort in the middle of the country. I’ve been twice, when we stayed in Belper, and enjoyed it both times. Heights of Abraham has some nice views and an old mine they take you through. Not much else. A walk along the river is nice and wherever you drive around there the views are splendid. It’s a lovely part of the country.
At last we have you interested in a real, albeit insidious, threat to human existence.
One that requires uncomfortable actions.
If you don’t think AI is a threat you aren’t thinking
Of course it is a threat. Sooner or later it is going to exterminate us.
Paradoxically AI might be the one thing that can save us from climate disaster. I fear it is a problem beyond the wit of man to solve. But maybe not beyond the capabilities of a robot mega brain
The only positive I can see from the insane weather this month (which, let's not forget, is happening at 1.2C) is that it might drive some more immediate sense into energy generation policy.
Like, no more coal. Like, NOW.
The future may be uncertain to us, but it is already baked in. CO2 emissions are not stoppable now or in the next few years.
No, but we can stop increasing them and accelerating the transition.
If it really is an existential issue, then shouldn't we be forcibly deindustrialising the world using our military? A bit like a modern version of using the British Navy to stop the slave trade.
The only positive I can see from the insane weather this month (which, let's not forget, is happening at 1.2C) is that it might drive some more immediate sense into energy generation policy.
Like, no more coal. Like, NOW.
The future may be uncertain to us, but it is already baked in. CO2 emissions are not stoppable now or in the next few years.
No, but we can stop increasing them and accelerating the transition.
Yup. Whatever badness is already baked in, there's still a choice about how much badness to put on top of that.
At last we have you interested in a real, albeit insidious, threat to human existence.
One that requires uncomfortable actions.
If you don’t think AI is a threat you aren’t thinking
Of course it is a threat. Sooner or later it is going to exterminate us.
Paradoxically AI might be the one thing that can save us from climate disaster. I fear it is a problem beyond the wit of man to solve. But maybe not beyond the capabilities of a robot mega brain
I’m quite serious
Why not both? Solve climate change by exterminating humanity? Simples.
Yes. It’s at a weird angle. This is more realistic. I’ll stop with the beer photos now in case @viewcode has conniptions
That view must be one of the great urban views of Europe, come to think of it. The loveliest square in one of Europe’s loveliest cities. Ergo one of the finest urban views in the world
It would have been considerably better if it had been in focus, but to do that would require you moving five foot forward and removing your table, your beer, and yourself from the photo. Choices.
Sorry @viewcode I like the picture. The beer sets it off. It says to me, 'I want to be there'. I know, I have no taste.
It's OK. I'm cursed to be right when everybody else is wrong. I shall bear my rightness with honor. Still I have the silent majority on my side.
Talking of the A15 if anyone makes it to that bit of Lincolnshire they should go to Temple Bruer. Preferably on a cold dank winter’s afternoon as the light begins to die
One of the most haunted and terrifying places in the UK
Why? From Googling it looks like a tower in the middle of a farmyard.
I'm loving these list of hauntingly beautiful locations to visit. I don't have time to do it now but thinking of compiling a list!
Not sure if this will come out OK. Supposed to be Alnmouth taken from a speeding LNER train last Thursday.
Is the rolling stock now all the Hitachi made/assembled trains ?
Not quite, they still have a few Mark 4 trains (Class 91 locos etc.), some even painted in a kind of retro "Inter-City" livery. My trains to Edinburgh and back were both Hitachi Azumas.
Am with those saying that Selby feels like Tory value right now.
A value loser probably, but value nonetheless. I'm working the market slowly but surely.
Damn shame the market's so thin (all the money is going on Labour where there is plenty more, but you lose opportunity to work out of line offers that way).
At last we have you interested in a real, albeit insidious, threat to human existence.
One that requires uncomfortable actions.
If you don’t think AI is a threat you aren’t thinking
Of course it is a threat. Sooner or later it is going to exterminate us.
Paradoxically AI might be the one thing that can save us from climate disaster. I fear it is a problem beyond the wit of man to solve. But maybe not beyond the capabilities of a robot mega brain
I’m quite serious
Personally I believe a lot of the corporate and governmental panic about AI is the concern that it may gain the ability to show a great many of their core messages to be utterly without foundation.
On most current polls and expectations the Tories will lose all 3 by elections on Thursday. So if they hold just one that will boost Sunak before the summer recess.
Starmer by contrast will need to win at least one of Selby or Uxbridge or Labour MPs will wonder why poll leads don't translate to ballot box success. The LDs I assume will win Somerton and Frome which will give Sir Ed Davey an enjoyable summer holiday
We, political pundits and people in Westminster will be impressed if the Conservatives win 1 in 3. The general public will see 2 in 3 losses and be less impressed. Losing is losing.
Not sure if this will come out OK. Supposed to be Alnmouth taken from a speeding LNER train last Thursday.
Is the rolling stock now all the Hitachi made/assembled trains ?
Not quite, they still have a few Mark 4 trains (Class 91 locos etc.), some even painted in a kind of retro "Inter-City" livery. My trains to Edinburgh and back were both Hitachi Azumas.
The 91s are only working Leeds/York now I think sadly.
The only positive I can see from the insane weather this month (which, let's not forget, is happening at 1.2C) is that it might drive some more immediate sense into energy generation policy.
Like, no more coal. Like, NOW.
The future may be uncertain to us, but it is already baked in. CO2 emissions are not stoppable now or in the next few years.
No, but we can stop increasing them and accelerating the transition.
If it really is an existential issue, then shouldn't we be forcibly deindustrialising the world using our military? A bit like a modern version of using the British Navy to stop the slave trade.
Trouble is we can't just switch-off the lights as millions and millions (billions?) would die from regression to a pre-industrial society and you'd have mass social disorder and anarchy. Even worse.
Mass expansion of proven nuclear, wind and solar over the next 15-20 years- worldwide- should be an immediate goal and funded accordingly.
The only positive I can see from the insane weather this month (which, let's not forget, is happening at 1.2C) is that it might drive some more immediate sense into energy generation policy.
Like, no more coal. Like, NOW.
We have been cool and wet for the last month, catching up much of the shortfall of an exceptionally dry spring. Most the tracks around here have more muddy puddles now than they did in April.
The Polish countryside is REALLY dull. It’s a whole load of nothing. Apart from various sites of appalling atrocity and genocide
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
Being perpetually bored is so . . . boring.
The relentnessless of large open spaces is a scenery of its own. I have felt that driving inland between Victoria and Queens land, with a stop in an Aussie dairy every couple of hours to break the monotony of dessicated gum trees. It's an acquired taste, but beautiful.
Had roughly similar experience many years ago, taking the Great Northern railroad line (now part of BNSF) across the northern Great Plains of USA. Took full day and then some from Glacier National Park to Minneapolis.
Distinctly remember when the train was briefly stopped at Havre, Montana. Was looking out the window, and there was a real-live cowboy, or close enough, likely a rancher. I gave him a wave . . . and he tipped his Stetson.
The sort of flat landscape you get in the north European plain, or Lincolnshire for that matter, is different and worse than anything in the prairies or the steppe.
It’s cluttered flatness. There are buildings, road signage, rows of trees, electricity pylons all preventing any really long distance views. So you don’t really get the big sky effect or the sense of emptiness.
Yes, I get that. There is a bleakness to the Fens when I drive east to Norfolk. Not least the weird sex shop in a lay-by near Thorney Toll. The sort of place that serial killers shop, I suppose.
I rather like the Fens. They feel weird and other wordly. I like that you can scramble up a drainage ditch and be the highest person for miles around. But I only pass through them once every few years. Maybe I'd feel differently if I passed through them regularly. I bought my favourite ever pair of trousers on Boston market in February 1994.
I've visited the lowest trig pillar, at half a metre below sea level.
There's also the fen near Peterborough where two posts (from the Great Exhibition?) were driven down into the peat. As the fens were drained, the ground shrunk, and they are now very much above ground.
I love the Fens. They're not everyone's cup of tea, and I like a good hill as much as the next nutter, but there's something elemental about them. You can almost imagine coming across a Fen Tiger.
I bet they're also the most man-altered landscape in Britain. Except perhaps the Norfolk Broads?
I find that part of England really bleak and depressing. With no hills it feels like you're living in two dimensions. And so much wind and rain. Plus it reminds me of being at university, much of which I didn't enjoy. Brings back that sinking feeling in my stomach waiting to change trains at Peterbrough after coming south. On the other hand, Lincolnshire is home to my favourite piece of road signage, on the A1, giving directions to the Honeypot Lane Industrial Estate.
Shouting from afar will not improve women’s rights.
We need to re-engage.
We need to re-open the British Embassy.
God the Afghans should despise the west. How many deaths for nothing?
Why? It’s not like they are averse to slaughtering each other given half the chance
What did we achieve for the trillions spent? Their situation is no different from 2001 and we'd have all been better of if the Americans had just air dropped the cash over the hills.
I don’t disagree. It was a tragic error by the west
I’m just pointing out that the Afghans are as brutally violent to each other - famously so - as any invading empire
This might come of a little Kipling-like but... Weren't we supposed to be better, enlightenment values and all? Why did we do that damn silly thing in such a damn silly way?
Onto the Jamie Driscoll thing again, the "ha, he's just raised £25k" thing is exactly like "ha, Jeremy has just raised £gazillions to defend him from libel". Fools and their money are easily parted.
Driscoll is losing his job and is unhappy about it. I understand that. But this is politics - losing comes with the job. Some battles are internal - he is hardly the first politician to be deselected by his own party.
Question is why he and his are so bereft of friends and allies. Forging those across a spectrum of colleagues is also a key part of politics.
Why was Driscoll barred from Labour candidate selection (according to his wiki page)?
He’s a Corbynite and shared a platform with Corbyn after his expulsion from Labour.
He’s supported by Nadhim Zahawi.
He has some pretty dodgy friends.
It was actually Ken Loach and it was some theatre event. Loach is a rarity. He spends time and money on the North East arts scene and has made three films there.
‘Sharing a platform’ is such an abused term as it implies standing in solidarity with them over their views and this was nothing of the sort.
Nadim Zahawi commented to praise Driscoll during Covid for his non partisan approach to the matter.
My mistake.
Although to be fair anyone sharing a platform with Loach whether they support his views or not should probably be ruled out for lack of judgement.
Ken Loach has a wonderful portfolio of Film, plays and drama serials and has been making them for over fifty years. Should he be ignored or not have his work, or his contribution to North East film, celebrated due to internal Labour Party politics ?
Perhaps Driscoll should just use lazy anti traveller tropes and all would be okay.
I do not see why anyone should not discuss Loach’s work. It’s very very worthy of discussion and retrospectives in the same way Mike Leigh, Alan Bennett, Alan Clark and Jack Rosenthal are.
I’ve got a copy of his ‘at the BBC boxset’, there are some cracking dramas on there. The Spongers is well worth watching. Especially implicit at the start being the royal family are the real spongers.
Even before he claimed that Starmer was conducting a purge under the guise of rooting out anti-semites, he had shown some rather alarming tendencies. For which he was expelled from Labour.
He wrote a play claiming Zionists collaborated with Hitler and has said Holocaust Denial is worthy of discussion. The latter may have been clumsy phrasing. But it was still a stupid thing to say.
Does art trump dubious views? I don’t know. I appreciate we get on to questions about J K Rowling there. Or Wagner. But I would say it shows either a massive two fingers to the party leadership or very poor judgement indeed to share a platform with such a man, whatever his artistic merits. His dropping should not have come as a surprise.
I think it a tad unfair to collate Rowling with Loach. Rowling's views are pretty mainstream, albeit a tad heavy on the feminism. Loach inhabits a strange rabbit hole most of the country would find quite dusturbing. Don't know about Wagner. Possibly his views were entirely mainstream for his day?
Any British person who calls The Open the British Open is a bit of a dick
I thought we did this a few days ago
In the UK it is known as the Open but in US and elsewhere it is the British Ooen hence why ticket sales are marketed worldwide in the name of the British Open
The only positive I can see from the insane weather this month (which, let's not forget, is happening at 1.2C) is that it might drive some more immediate sense into energy generation policy.
Like, no more coal. Like, NOW.
The future may be uncertain to us, but it is already baked in. CO2 emissions are not stoppable now or in the next few years.
No, but we can stop increasing them and accelerating the transition.
Yup. Whatever badness is already baked in, there's still a choice about how much badness to put on top of that.
And, I think we'll basically have to engineer it out the atmosphere by mass CCUS/direct air capture.
That's probably more realistic than ending absolutely all emissions in all their forms.
The Polish countryside is REALLY dull. It’s a whole load of nothing. Apart from various sites of appalling atrocity and genocide
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
Being perpetually bored is so . . . boring.
The relentnessless of large open spaces is a scenery of its own. I have felt that driving inland between Victoria and Queens land, with a stop in an Aussie dairy every couple of hours to break the monotony of dessicated gum trees. It's an acquired taste, but beautiful.
Had roughly similar experience many years ago, taking the Great Northern railroad line (now part of BNSF) across the northern Great Plains of USA. Took full day and then some from Glacier National Park to Minneapolis.
Distinctly remember when the train was briefly stopped at Havre, Montana. Was looking out the window, and there was a real-live cowboy, or close enough, likely a rancher. I gave him a wave . . . and he tipped his Stetson.
The sort of flat landscape you get in the north European plain, or Lincolnshire for that matter, is different and worse than anything in the prairies or the steppe.
It’s cluttered flatness. There are buildings, road signage, rows of trees, electricity pylons all preventing any really long distance views. So you don’t really get the big sky effect or the sense of emptiness.
Yes, I get that. There is a bleakness to the Fens when I drive east to Norfolk. Not least the weird sex shop in a lay-by near Thorney Toll. The sort of place that serial killers shop, I suppose.
I rather like the Fens. They feel weird and other wordly. I like that you can scramble up a drainage ditch and be the highest person for miles around. But I only pass through them once every few years. Maybe I'd feel differently if I passed through them regularly. I bought my favourite ever pair of trousers on Boston market in February 1994.
I've visited the lowest trig pillar, at half a metre below sea level.
There's also the fen near Peterborough where two posts (from the Great Exhibition?) were driven down into the peat. As the fens were drained, the ground shrunk, and they are now very much above ground.
I love the Fens. They're not everyone's cup of tea, and I like a good hill as much as the next nutter, but there's something elemental about them. You can almost imagine coming across a Fen Tiger.
I bet they're also the most man-altered landscape in Britain. Except perhaps the Norfolk Broads?
I find that part of England really bleak and depressing. With no hills it feels like you're living in two dimensions. And so much wind and rain. Plus it reminds me of being at university, much of which I didn't enjoy. Brings back that sinking feeling in my stomach waiting to change trains at Peterbrough after coming south. On the other hand, Lincolnshire is home to my favourite piece of road signage, on the A1, giving directions to the Honeypot Lane Industrial Estate.
"Plus it reminds me of being at university, much of which I didn't enjoy. "
There seems an emerging "concensus" (not based on very much to be honest) Labour will unconvincingly win Uxbridge, pull of a big win in Selby & Ainsty while the LDs enjoy a comfortable but unremarkable win in Somerton & Frome.
The question for Conservatives, IF they decide to remove Sunak from the leadership (and I consider that highly unlikely) is who is the alternative and where is the evidence that alternative would be polling any better? I've seen no evidence a Conservative Party led by a Mordaunt, Braverman, Badenoch, Wallace or Tugendhat (to name but five) would be doing any better and therein lies the problem.
There won't be a change this side of a GE, as those who calculate will decide it is better to be the next leader after the loss, not before. It isn't long to wait.
For the question of who comes next, this cannot be parted from the question of what comes next. I have literally absolutely no idea what are the core principles of Conservatism which fulfil these categories: they must be simple, consistent, deliverable, electable and possible to communicate.
There is another thing they must do, even more important. They must be clearly distinguishable from: extreme right, social democracy, the left generally (of course) and so on - ir all the other parties.
At the moment each major party (outside of independence this includes the SNP) operates in a narrow frame of situational pragmatism emerging as high spending social democracy and at the same time not convincingly or competently delivered.
A Tory leader who can do this has a chance of ending up running the country. I am not voting for them until I know who they are and what they stand for.
Any British person who calls The Open the British Open is a bit of a dick
I thought we did this a few days ago
In the UK it is known as the Open but in US and elsewhere it is the British Ooen hence why ticket sales are marketed worldwide in the name of the British Open
The Polish countryside is REALLY dull. It’s a whole load of nothing. Apart from various sites of appalling atrocity and genocide
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
Being perpetually bored is so . . . boring.
The relentnessless of large open spaces is a scenery of its own. I have felt that driving inland between Victoria and Queens land, with a stop in an Aussie dairy every couple of hours to break the monotony of dessicated gum trees. It's an acquired taste, but beautiful.
Had roughly similar experience many years ago, taking the Great Northern railroad line (now part of BNSF) across the northern Great Plains of USA. Took full day and then some from Glacier National Park to Minneapolis.
Distinctly remember when the train was briefly stopped at Havre, Montana. Was looking out the window, and there was a real-live cowboy, or close enough, likely a rancher. I gave him a wave . . . and he tipped his Stetson.
The sort of flat landscape you get in the north European plain, or Lincolnshire for that matter, is different and worse than anything in the prairies or the steppe.
It’s cluttered flatness. There are buildings, road signage, rows of trees, electricity pylons all preventing any really long distance views. So you don’t really get the big sky effect or the sense of emptiness.
Perhaps unexpectedly you CAN get those views in bits of coastal Essex. On the estuary of the River Blackwater say. At Osea
Or here. The Anglo Saxon chapel of Cedd. Bradwell
Skies that go on and on. Ruskin loved them
Flatland churches continued:
One of my favourite English churches. Romney Marsh if I’m not mistaken
It is indeed. St Thomas Becket Church, Fairfield. Set in a small field surrounded by dykes, which I used to fish as a teenager. Beautiful church, beautiful setting.
Onto the Jamie Driscoll thing again, the "ha, he's just raised £25k" thing is exactly like "ha, Jeremy has just raised £gazillions to defend him from libel". Fools and their money are easily parted.
Driscoll is losing his job and is unhappy about it. I understand that. But this is politics - losing comes with the job. Some battles are internal - he is hardly the first politician to be deselected by his own party.
Question is why he and his are so bereft of friends and allies. Forging those across a spectrum of colleagues is also a key part of politics.
Why was Driscoll barred from Labour candidate selection (according to his wiki page)?
He’s a Corbynite and shared a platform with Corbyn after his expulsion from Labour.
He’s supported by Nadhim Zahawi.
He has some pretty dodgy friends.
It was actually Ken Loach and it was some theatre event. Loach is a rarity. He spends time and money on the North East arts scene and has made three films there.
‘Sharing a platform’ is such an abused term as it implies standing in solidarity with them over their views and this was nothing of the sort.
Nadim Zahawi commented to praise Driscoll during Covid for his non partisan approach to the matter.
My mistake.
Although to be fair anyone sharing a platform with Loach whether they support his views or not should probably be ruled out for lack of judgement.
Ken Loach has a wonderful portfolio of Film, plays and drama serials and has been making them for over fifty years. Should he be ignored or not have his work, or his contribution to North East film, celebrated due to internal Labour Party politics ?
Perhaps Driscoll should just use lazy anti traveller tropes and all would be okay.
I do not see why anyone should not discuss Loach’s work. It’s very very worthy of discussion and retrospectives in the same way Mike Leigh, Alan Bennett, Alan Clark and Jack Rosenthal are.
I’ve got a copy of his ‘at the BBC boxset’, there are some cracking dramas on there. The Spongers is well worth watching. Especially implicit at the start being the royal family are the real spongers.
Even before he claimed that Starmer was conducting a purge under the guise of rooting out anti-semites, he had shown some rather alarming tendencies. For which he was expelled from Labour.
He wrote a play claiming Zionists collaborated with Hitler and has said Holocaust Denial is worthy of discussion. The latter may have been clumsy phrasing. But it was still a stupid thing to say.
Does art trump dubious views? I don’t know. I appreciate we get on to questions about J K Rowling there. Or Wagner. But I would say it shows either a massive two fingers to the party leadership or very poor judgement indeed to share a platform with such a man, whatever his artistic merits. His dropping should not have come as a surprise.
I think it a tad unfair to collate Rowling with Loach. Rowling's views are pretty mainstream, albeit a tad heavy on the feminism. Loach inhabits a strange rabbit hole most of the country would find quite dusturbing. Don't know about Wagner. Possibly his views were entirely mainstream for his day?
Am with those saying that Selby feels like Tory value right now.
A value loser probably, but value nonetheless. I'm working the market slowly but surely.
Damn shame the market's so thin (all the money is going on Labour where there is plenty more, but you lose opportunity to work out of line offers that way).
There was a piece by Toilet Maguire in the New Statesman saying that the feedback from the doorsteps to Labour canvassers was that the Labour candidate looks as though he should still be at school. A small thing perhaps but you could see that being a potential vote-turner. Agree Tories might be the value candidate.
The Polish countryside is REALLY dull. It’s a whole load of nothing. Apart from various sites of appalling atrocity and genocide
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
Being perpetually bored is so . . . boring.
The relentnessless of large open spaces is a scenery of its own. I have felt that driving inland between Victoria and Queens land, with a stop in an Aussie dairy every couple of hours to break the monotony of dessicated gum trees. It's an acquired taste, but beautiful.
Had roughly similar experience many years ago, taking the Great Northern railroad line (now part of BNSF) across the northern Great Plains of USA. Took full day and then some from Glacier National Park to Minneapolis.
Distinctly remember when the train was briefly stopped at Havre, Montana. Was looking out the window, and there was a real-live cowboy, or close enough, likely a rancher. I gave him a wave . . . and he tipped his Stetson.
The sort of flat landscape you get in the north European plain, or Lincolnshire for that matter, is different and worse than anything in the prairies or the steppe.
It’s cluttered flatness. There are buildings, road signage, rows of trees, electricity pylons all preventing any really long distance views. So you don’t really get the big sky effect or the sense of emptiness.
Yes, I get that. There is a bleakness to the Fens when I drive east to Norfolk. Not least the weird sex shop in a lay-by near Thorney Toll. The sort of place that serial killers shop, I suppose.
I rather like the Fens. They feel weird and other wordly. I like that you can scramble up a drainage ditch and be the highest person for miles around. But I only pass through them once every few years. Maybe I'd feel differently if I passed through them regularly. I bought my favourite ever pair of trousers on Boston market in February 1994.
I've visited the lowest trig pillar, at half a metre below sea level.
There's also the fen near Peterborough where two posts (from the Great Exhibition?) were driven down into the peat. As the fens were drained, the ground shrunk, and they are now very much above ground.
I love the Fens. They're not everyone's cup of tea, and I like a good hill as much as the next nutter, but there's something elemental about them. You can almost imagine coming across a Fen Tiger.
I bet they're also the most man-altered landscape in Britain. Except perhaps the Norfolk Broads?
I find that part of England really bleak and depressing. With no hills it feels like you're living in two dimensions. And so much wind and rain. Plus it reminds me of being at university, much of which I didn't enjoy. Brings back that sinking feeling in my stomach waiting to change trains at Peterbrough after coming south. On the other hand, Lincolnshire is home to my favourite piece of road signage, on the A1, giving directions to the Honeypot Lane Industrial Estate.
"Plus it reminds me of being at university, much of which I didn't enjoy. "
The only positive I can see from the insane weather this month (which, let's not forget, is happening at 1.2C) is that it might drive some more immediate sense into energy generation policy.
Like, no more coal. Like, NOW.
We have been cool and wet for the last month, catching up much of the shortfall of an exceptionally dry spring. Most the tracks around here have more muddy puddles now than they did in April.
The only positive I can see from the insane weather this month (which, let's not forget, is happening at 1.2C) is that it might drive some more immediate sense into energy generation policy.
Like, no more coal. Like, NOW.
The future may be uncertain to us, but it is already baked in. CO2 emissions are not stoppable now or in the next few years.
No, but we can stop increasing them and accelerating the transition.
Yes. All these sentiments are true. But the rapid decrease in CO2 output isn't going to occur. Even when you do (halve it for example) it is like inflation, it's still happening but slower. The end is the same. Understandably people are massively exaggerating the amount which can and will be done to avert the CO2 increase. Unless there is a global level scale up, very rapidly, of carbon capture from the air. Most people seem to think this also is not deliverable.
The only positive I can see from the insane weather this month (which, let's not forget, is happening at 1.2C) is that it might drive some more immediate sense into energy generation policy.
Like, no more coal. Like, NOW.
The future may be uncertain to us, but it is already baked in. CO2 emissions are not stoppable now or in the next few years.
No, but we can stop increasing them and accelerating the transition.
Yup. Whatever badness is already baked in, there's still a choice about how much badness to put on top of that.
And, I think we'll basically have to engineer it out the atmosphere by mass CCUS/direct air capture.
That's probably more realistic than ending absolutely all emissions in all their forms.
Global emissions are 37 Billion tons of CO2 per year.
You can do direct capture from the atmosphere, right now, for $150 per ton
5.5 Trillion dollars is about 6% of world GDP, give or take.
One company is looking at a process that gets it down to $20 per ton.
The only positive I can see from the insane weather this month (which, let's not forget, is happening at 1.2C) is that it might drive some more immediate sense into energy generation policy.
Like, no more coal. Like, NOW.
The future may be uncertain to us, but it is already baked in. CO2 emissions are not stoppable now or in the next few years.
No, but we can stop increasing them and accelerating the transition.
Yup. Whatever badness is already baked in, there's still a choice about how much badness to put on top of that.
And, I think we'll basically have to engineer it out the atmosphere by mass CCUS/direct air capture.
That's probably more realistic than ending absolutely all emissions in all their forms.
Global emissions are 37 Billion tons of CO2 per year.
You can do direct capture from the atmosphere, right now, for $150 per ton
5.5 Trillion dollars is about 6% of world GDP, give or take.
One company is looking at a process that gets it down to $20 per ton.
If the Tories had not made such an F****** mess of nearly everything this lot would have been so beatable. SKS is smart but his team is bordering on pitiful.
The Polish countryside is REALLY dull. It’s a whole load of nothing. Apart from various sites of appalling atrocity and genocide
It’s like you’re driving through the most boring part of Lincolnshire and it’s nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-oh-two-million-people-were-murdered-there-nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing-look-there’s-a-place that sells biscuits nothing nothing nothing nothing-nothing-SITE-OF-SATANIC-EVIL-nothing-nothing-Skegness
I may need a beer after this 19 hour train journey
Being perpetually bored is so . . . boring.
The relentnessless of large open spaces is a scenery of its own. I have felt that driving inland between Victoria and Queens land, with a stop in an Aussie dairy every couple of hours to break the monotony of dessicated gum trees. It's an acquired taste, but beautiful.
Had roughly similar experience many years ago, taking the Great Northern railroad line (now part of BNSF) across the northern Great Plains of USA. Took full day and then some from Glacier National Park to Minneapolis.
Distinctly remember when the train was briefly stopped at Havre, Montana. Was looking out the window, and there was a real-live cowboy, or close enough, likely a rancher. I gave him a wave . . . and he tipped his Stetson.
The sort of flat landscape you get in the north European plain, or Lincolnshire for that matter, is different and worse than anything in the prairies or the steppe.
It’s cluttered flatness. There are buildings, road signage, rows of trees, electricity pylons all preventing any really long distance views. So you don’t really get the big sky effect or the sense of emptiness.
Yes, I get that. There is a bleakness to the Fens when I drive east to Norfolk. Not least the weird sex shop in a lay-by near Thorney Toll. The sort of place that serial killers shop, I suppose.
I rather like the Fens. They feel weird and other wordly. I like that you can scramble up a drainage ditch and be the highest person for miles around. But I only pass through them once every few years. Maybe I'd feel differently if I passed through them regularly. I bought my favourite ever pair of trousers on Boston market in February 1994.
I've visited the lowest trig pillar, at half a metre below sea level.
There's also the fen near Peterborough where two posts (from the Great Exhibition?) were driven down into the peat. As the fens were drained, the ground shrunk, and they are now very much above ground.
I love the Fens. They're not everyone's cup of tea, and I like a good hill as much as the next nutter, but there's something elemental about them. You can almost imagine coming across a Fen Tiger.
I bet they're also the most man-altered landscape in Britain. Except perhaps the Norfolk Broads?
I find that part of England really bleak and depressing. With no hills it feels like you're living in two dimensions. And so much wind and rain. Plus it reminds me of being at university, much of which I didn't enjoy. Brings back that sinking feeling in my stomach waiting to change trains at Peterbrough after coming south. On the other hand, Lincolnshire is home to my favourite piece of road signage, on the A1, giving directions to the Honeypot Lane Industrial Estate.
Am with those saying that Selby feels like Tory value right now.
A value loser probably, but value nonetheless. I'm working the market slowly but surely.
Damn shame the market's so thin (all the money is going on Labour where there is plenty more, but you lose opportunity to work out of line offers that way).
Agree. Modest toe dipped in the water for Tory to hold Selby. My imagination suggests that the constituency has about 20,000 Geoffrey Boycotts among the voters. And Selby is a place that has more gunsmiths than knit your own muesli shops. (And the abbey is a must visit by the way. All the more splendid for its quotidien setting).
The only positive I can see from the insane weather this month (which, let's not forget, is happening at 1.2C) is that it might drive some more immediate sense into energy generation policy.
Like, no more coal. Like, NOW.
The future may be uncertain to us, but it is already baked in. CO2 emissions are not stoppable now or in the next few years.
No, but we can stop increasing them and accelerating the transition.
Yes. All these sentiments are true. But the rapid decrease in CO2 output isn't going to occur. Even when you do (halve it for example) it is like inflation, it's still happening but slower. The end is the same. Understandably people are massively exaggerating the amount which can and will be done to avert the CO2 increase. Unless there is a global level scale up, very rapidly, of carbon capture from the air. Most people seem to think this also is not deliverable.
I don't share your pessimism. The UK has already cut its CO2 emissions massively from 1990 levels and is on course to achieve net zero in energy generation and transmission within the next 20 years.
That should absolutely be the ambition for all other nations and would make a significant difference. A global level scale up is exactly what I'm asking for, and of CCUS.
Don't forget also how the price of PV cells and wind turbines has collapsed over the last 10 years: technology and its economics can shift the dial very quickly.
The only positive I can see from the insane weather this month (which, let's not forget, is happening at 1.2C) is that it might drive some more immediate sense into energy generation policy.
Like, no more coal. Like, NOW.
We have been cool and wet for the last month, catching up much of the shortfall of an exceptionally dry spring. Most the tracks around here have more muddy puddles now than they did in April.
And?
It is important to remember that weather is local and climate is international. I am not suggesting for a moment that the world is not heating up but local records can be misleading.
The only positive I can see from the insane weather this month (which, let's not forget, is happening at 1.2C) is that it might drive some more immediate sense into energy generation policy.
Like, no more coal. Like, NOW.
We have been cool and wet for the last month, catching up much of the shortfall of an exceptionally dry spring. Most the tracks around here have more muddy puddles now than they did in April.
And?
It is important to remember that weather is local and climate is international. I am not suggesting for a moment that the world is not heating up but local records can be misleading.
OK, but that's a non sequitur.
I wasn't referring to local British records in the last few weeks. And don't forget the crazy June we just had and how mad the elevated North Sea temperatures were.
Comments
Both are global top 20 most-beautiful-city contenders. From the UK I’d definitely put Bath and Cambridge in there
Very few cities outside Europe would make the list
New York. Hong Kong. Errr….
There are cities outside Europe with extraordinary locations but usually the architecture rather lets them down. Sydney. Cape Town. Etc
The opposite of flat fenland bleakness
Perhaps there are two Matlocks?
I bought my favourite ever pair of trousers on Boston market in February 1994.
He’s supported by Nadhim Zahawi.
He has some pretty dodgy friends.
The only one I am confident Sunak will lose is Somerton and Frome.
https://trigbagging.co.uk/2019/07/22/little-ouse-tp4449/
There's also the fen near Peterborough where two posts (from the Great Exhibition?) were driven down into the peat. As the fens were drained, the ground shrunk, and they are now very much above ground.
https://www.greatfen.org.uk/about-great-fen/heritage/holme-fen-posts
I love the Fens. They're not everyone's cup of tea, and I like a good hill as much as the next nutter, but there's something elemental about them. You can almost imagine coming across a Fen Tiger.
I bet they're also the most man-altered landscape in Britain. Except perhaps the Norfolk Broads?
The big skies now contain 126 (at the last count) wind turbines.
I guess that's roughly the right ratio for energy replacement...
Not sure what the most boring road in the UK would be. Ermine Street (the A15) north of Lincoln is pretty straight but is on a ridgeline so occasionally you get a view beyond the hedge. The traffic is a bit nuts too so there's not much chance of a snooze.
It wasn't a meeting of minds.
But Matlock is really quite pleasant as Derbyshire towns go. It ain’t Barcelona but there are many worse places
Some selective location usage, it seems
Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head...
Been spending a lot of time in North Norfolk recently. It's surprisngly hilly. Well i was surprised anyway.
‘Sharing a platform’ is such an abused term as it implies standing in solidarity with them over their views and this was nothing of the sort.
Nadim Zahawi commented to praise Driscoll during Covid for his non partisan approach to the matter.
Although to be fair anyone sharing a platform with Loach whether they support his views or not should probably be ruled out for lack of judgement.
There seems an emerging "concensus" (not based on very much to be honest) Labour will unconvincingly win Uxbridge, pull of a big win in Selby & Ainsty while the LDs enjoy a comfortable but unremarkable win in Somerton & Frome.
The question for Conservatives, IF they decide to remove Sunak from the leadership (and I consider that highly unlikely) is who is the alternative and where is the evidence that alternative would be polling any better? I've seen no evidence a Conservative Party led by a Mordaunt, Braverman, Badenoch, Wallace or Tugendhat (to name but five) would be doing any better and therein lies the problem.
I gave birth to my second child with the tag on.”
Sima Misra is still waiting to be compensated for being wrongfully sacked and sentenced to 15 months in prison 2 years on from the Post Office scandal.
https://twitter.com/TimesRadio/status/1681012865308688384
For those with air conditioning, it's tolerable but for those without it must be akin to purgatory.
One of the most haunted and terrifying places in the UK
Perhaps Driscoll should just use lazy anti traveller tropes and all would be okay.
I do not see why anyone should not discuss Loach’s work. It’s very very worthy of discussion and retrospectives in the same way Mike Leigh, Alan Bennett, Alan Clark and Jack Rosenthal are.
I’ve got a copy of his ‘at the BBC boxset’, there are some cracking dramas on there. The Spongers is well worth watching. Especially implicit at the start being the royal family are the real spongers.
Here in Seattle, in my humble abode (no a/c) there is a BIG difference from having a hot day, to having a series of hot days without cool-down.
https://twitter.com/tobias_ellwood/status/1680974793867415554
Hold your breath - but this is a country transformed.
👉 security vastly improved
👉 corruption reduced
👉 opium trade ended
Shouting from afar will not improve women’s rights.
We need to re-engage.
We need to re-open the British Embassy.
From Wikipedia :
Herec (English: Actor) is a Czech drama television series directed by Peter Bebjak. It is set in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s.
The title role in the series, the young actor Stanislav Láník, is played by Jan Cina. Láník finds himself in a difficult situation: State Security takes advantage of his homosexuality and uses him as bait to compromise influential figures, in exchange for help with his acting career.
One that requires uncomfortable actions.
Like, no more coal. Like, NOW.
He wrote a play claiming Zionists collaborated with Hitler and has said Holocaust Denial is worthy of discussion. The latter may have been clumsy phrasing. But it was still a stupid thing to say.
Does art trump dubious views? I don’t know. I appreciate we get on to questions about J K Rowling there. Or Wagner. But I would say it shows either a massive two fingers to the party leadership or very poor judgement indeed to share a platform with such a man, whatever his artistic merits. His dropping should not have come as a surprise.
Despite repeated warnings over a decade, a steady flow of email traffic continues to the .ML domain, the country identifier for Mali, as a result of people mistyping .MIL, the suffix to all US military email addresses.
The problem was first identified almost a decade ago by Johannes Zuurbier, a Dutch internet entrepreneur who has a contract to manage Mali’s country domain.
Zuurbier has been collecting misdirected emails since January in an effort to persuade the US to take the issue seriously. He holds close to 117,000 misdirected messages — almost 1,000 arrived on Wednesday alone. In a letter he sent to the US in early July, Zuurbier wrote: “This risk is real and could be exploited by adversaries of the US.”
https://www.ft.com/content/ab62af67-ed2a-42d0-87eb-c762ac163cf0
Surely one of the two most beautiful town squares in the world. Only St Mark’s in Venice can match it. Hard to decide on a winner
I once saw the most beautiful chess set, hand carved, there. And I could have afforded it. But - I was on hand luggage only and couldn’t fit it in my bag so I had to sadly leave it there.
I’m just pointing out that the Afghans are as brutally violent to each other - famously so - as any invading empire
I’m quite serious
It’s a massive threat, but also an opportunity.
I'm loving these list of hauntingly beautiful locations to visit. I don't have time to do it now but thinking of compiling a list!
A value loser probably, but value nonetheless. I'm working the market slowly but surely.
Damn shame the market's so thin (all the money is going on Labour where there is plenty more, but you lose opportunity to work out of line offers that way).
Matlock TV Series 2023–present [trailer]
Mass expansion of proven nuclear, wind and solar over the next 15-20 years- worldwide- should be an immediate goal and funded accordingly.
On the other hand, Lincolnshire is home to my favourite piece of road signage, on the A1, giving directions to the Honeypot Lane Industrial Estate.
Don't know about Wagner. Possibly his views were entirely mainstream for his day?
In the UK it is known as the Open but in US and elsewhere it is the British Ooen hence why ticket sales are marketed worldwide in the name of the British Open
Mind you it is only pedantry anyway
https://www.viagogo.co.uk/Sports-Tickets/Golf/British-Open-Tickets
That's probably more realistic than ending absolutely all emissions in all their forms.
Going to Cambridge will do that for you.
For the question of who comes next, this cannot be parted from the question of what comes next. I have literally absolutely no idea what are the core principles of Conservatism which fulfil these categories: they must be simple, consistent, deliverable, electable and possible to communicate.
There is another thing they must do, even more important. They must be clearly distinguishable from: extreme right, social democracy, the left generally (of course) and so on - ir all the other parties.
At the moment each major party (outside of independence this includes the SNP) operates in a narrow frame of situational pragmatism emerging as high spending social democracy and at the same time not convincingly or competently delivered.
A Tory leader who can do this has a chance of ending up running the country. I am not voting for them until I know who they are and what they stand for.
https://twitter.com/elenicourea/status/1680995993075044357?t=3ttoXgs8VZvuCIC_R50OTA&s=19
You can do direct capture from the atmosphere, right now, for $150 per ton
5.5 Trillion dollars is about 6% of world GDP, give or take.
One company is looking at a process that gets it down to $20 per ton.
It seems a bit concerning.
That should absolutely be the ambition for all other nations and would make a significant difference. A global level scale up is exactly what I'm asking for, and of CCUS.
Don't forget also how the price of PV cells and wind turbines has collapsed over the last 10 years: technology and its economics can shift the dial very quickly.
I wasn't referring to local British records in the last few weeks. And don't forget the crazy June we just had and how mad the elevated North Sea temperatures were.