The Greens are parachuting in a London resident to Brighton Pavilion which may not be the wisest of moves given the drubbing they took in the local elections:
What the Brighton Greens thought a three times failed London Mayoral Candidate and leader of the Greens on Camden Council brings to the party escapes me….
Now that @kinabalu has sadly departed us I’d like to say that I rather miss the silly old fool
That’s what I’d LIKE to say but in reality I’m glad he’s dead. Couldn’t stand the man. Thank God he’s gone
Kinalabu may be gone but his postings carry on
We will all have a ghostly presence on the interweb, long after our mortal remains have rotted.
A friend of mine died 6 years ago, and you can still read his Facebook musings, some ominously prescient.
Apparently the logic behind AI girlfriends came about because a computer programmer's friend died, and he missed him, and he created an AI of him based on his text messages. I find this both sweet and terrifying. I don't think I'd want an artificial Cookie over which I had no control to live on after I die.
We already know that the UN is no longer able to keep the peace. If it isn't capable of creating a convoy to protect the export of Ukrainian grain, then it's time to shut the whole institution down.
So, personal update, the time is nigh: I have a sedated MRI at the hospital, then I go to the dentist for root canal. C'mon baby let the good times roll.
Have written a silly little poem to distract and cheer myself up:
(to the Elvis tune)
I lost use of my left ear Couldn’t hear things on that side Maybe you could have ditched me But instead you really tried Making sure that you spoke to me From where your voice could still be mine You were always on my right You were always on my right
Sounds rubbish. Are these 2 non-related contingencies? Good luck anyway.
The poem's rubbish? I'm hurt!
But seriously, cheers thanks, and yes we're talking 2 separate things. Can't complain really. No health drama for my whole adult life till this - v lucky.
Root canal is fairly horrible but you’ll cope
MRI sounds a bit scarier. Good luck
My root canal led to trigeminal neuralgia which is exceptionally painful. Been on anti-depressants at a low dose to dull the pain for the last year. Seeing a neurologist next week to see if there are alternative treatments.
Yikes. Sympathies.
Mine was horrible painful but then I was fine
-- Look away if you are dentist-phobic --
When I was an early teen I broke one of my front teeth. Taken to the dentist and was told it'd have to be a crown and they'd have to kill the root of my tooth to stop... something or other.
Shot of local anaesthetic to the gum, then a drill _straight up into the nerve of my tooth_. I remember writhing in pain in the chair and crying while the dentist *screamed at me* "YOU CAN'T FEEL IT YOU'VE HAD SOME ANAESTHETIC!".
At which point I blacked out.
Entirely unrelated - I found out a few years later a local dentist had been done for defrauding the NHS and spending vast amounts of cash on holidays, cars and gak.
The Greens are parachuting in a London resident to Brighton Pavilion which may not be the wisest of moves given the drubbing they took in the local elections:
What the Brighton Greens thought a three times failed London Mayoral Candidate and leader of the Greens on Camden Council brings to the party escapes me….
Was Caroline Lucas that Brightonny before she became an MP there? Sian Berry is the nearest the Greens have to a Big Beast (presumably a herbivore), and putting big beasts in hopeful seats is what parties do.
An uninspiring start for the Conservative Mayoral candidate - she will likely hold 25-30% of the vote across London but that's about it. Khan remains in a very strong position.
Susan Hall's support of Truss and Kwarteng will be played for all its worth by Labour and I can't see her appealing in the likes of Sutton, Kingston, Richmond and other parts of SW London which may explain the decent LD showing.
Now all the LDs have to do is pick a better candidate than last time.
That poll long predates Hall's selection.
And the Lib Dems will be mercilessly squeezed in a FPTP mayoral election in a city where they simply aren't on the map in many areas, being realistic about it.
I suspect most LDs, given a choice between Khan, Hall and Binface will head to the Count - I know I would,
Count Binface deserves to improve on the 1.0% he got last time (more than Piers Corbyn and UKIP). As a joke candidate sure he only has a few obvious gags repeated, but he puts effort in and so has maintained some attention, and his book was pretty amusing.
Now that @kinabalu has sadly departed us I’d like to say that I rather miss the silly old fool
That’s what I’d LIKE to say but in reality I’m glad he’s dead. Couldn’t stand the man. Thank God he’s gone
Kinalabu may be gone but his postings carry on
We will all have a ghostly presence on the interweb, long after our mortal remains have rotted.
A friend of mine died 6 years ago, and you can still read his Facebook musings, some ominously prescient.
Apparently the logic behind AI girlfriends came about because a computer programmer's friend died, and he missed him, and he created an AI of him based on his text messages. I find this both sweet and terrifying. I don't think I'd want an artificial Cookie over which I had no control to live on after I die.
Now that @kinabalu has sadly departed us I’d like to say that I rather miss the silly old fool
That’s what I’d LIKE to say but in reality I’m glad he’s dead. Couldn’t stand the man. Thank God he’s gone
Kinalabu may be gone but his postings carry on
We will all have a ghostly presence on the interweb, long after our mortal remains have rotted.
A friend of mine died 6 years ago, and you can still read his Facebook musings, some ominously prescient.
Apparently the logic behind AI girlfriends came about because a computer programmer's friend died, and he missed him, and he created an AI of him based on his text messages. I find this both sweet and terrifying. I don't think I'd want an artificial Cookie over which I had no control to live on after I die.
Why stop at one? Your distant relatives could sell 100s. "It Rubs The Lotion On The Cookie's Skin Or Else It Gets The Hose Again!".
The Greens are parachuting in a London resident to Brighton Pavilion which may not be the wisest of moves given the drubbing they took in the local elections:
What the Brighton Greens thought a three times failed London Mayoral Candidate and leader of the Greens on Camden Council brings to the party escapes me….
Was Caroline Lucas that Brightonny before she became an MP there? Sian Berry is the nearest the Greens have to a Big Beast (presumably a herbivore), and putting big beasts in hopeful seats is what parties do.
Nothing wrong with a bit of carpetbagging. People move to a new area and forge close and meanginful connections with it all the time.
With Brighton and Lucas I wonder if it was a combination of her being a decent candidate at just the right moment - the previous candidate had done very well in 2005, and she took it one step further with a minor majority the next time, and after that there may have been a bit of 'We've got the only Green MP in the country, isn't that cool?' tendency. Given how her vote has increased each time she must have done a good job for them, but I wouldn't be surprised if that early consolidation was in part due to the novelty.
With a new, unknown Green, they may have to start from the sort of base she was working from initially, especially with local troubles.
La Daronne Narvali 😎🦔 @DNarvali La promotion russe pour la sortie de Barbie ça va trop loin. (The Russian promotion for the release of Barbie is going too far) REMOVED
can we have trigger warnings on posts like this please?
An uninspiring start for the Conservative Mayoral candidate - she will likely hold 25-30% of the vote across London but that's about it. Khan remains in a very strong position.
Susan Hall's support of Truss and Kwarteng will be played for all its worth by Labour and I can't see her appealing in the likes of Sutton, Kingston, Richmond and other parts of SW London which may explain the decent LD showing.
Now all the LDs have to do is pick a better candidate than last time.
I am going to praise Andrew Bridgen and Laura Pidcock. Someone has to.
Why?
Andrew Bridgen made an allegation in the House of Commons yesterday on behalf of two of his constituents that by 2014 the Government (as well as the Post Office) had evidence that they had been wrongly convicted. Bear in mind that, if true, this was 5 years before the Bates case which blew the whole scandal wide open and led to the inquiry. Will the relevant Minister rebut this charge or let it lie? And if the latter, it raises some very serious questions about the government's handling of the compensation schemes since then. 9 years later Mr Bridgen's constituents still have received no compensation.
Laura Pidcock
In a Tweet she said this.
Something the Mayor of London, the Labour leader and the Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities have felt unable or unwilling to say.
Well Pidcock's right. But I find it slightly lamentable that we're only apparently allowed to say this is wrong from a feminist perspective. Sarah Jane Baker is regrettable not because he/she is saying things that are regrettabke from the perspective of feminism but because he/she is saying things which are wrong full stop.
I agree. But the point is that a party which claims to be feminist etc cannot bring itself to say even this much.
The Greens are parachuting in a London resident to Brighton Pavilion which may not be the wisest of moves given the drubbing they took in the local elections:
The Greens are parachuting in a London resident to Brighton Pavilion which may not be the wisest of moves given the drubbing they took in the local elections:
The Greens are parachuting in a London resident to Brighton Pavilion which may not be the wisest of moves given the drubbing they took in the local elections:
The Greens are parachuting in a London resident to Brighton Pavilion which may not be the wisest of moves given the drubbing they took in the local elections:
I thought that fighting another male on the beach while David Attenborough does a running commentary was the usual way, but each to their own.
Things are clearly more exciting in Leicester than I thought
Well, he does come from there originally (DA I mean), so you can see the influence of his early training. And plenty of space in that big park with the Abbey ruins up near the Space Centre and industrial museum, with the river, canal and ornamental lake.
So we’d have to bowl out Oz within the first 3 overs tomorrow then somehow hit 450 in a day (against their attack?) and hope to basically bowl them out for 150 giving us one last session to hit 100
It’s not going to happen. It’s a draw or a wildly gallant English defeat. Damn shame. This is why we shouldn’t have Tests in the north
Betting post: draw at current odds looks like value to me.
The Greens are parachuting in a London resident to Brighton Pavilion which may not be the wisest of moves given the drubbing they took in the local elections:
What the Brighton Greens thought a three times failed London Mayoral Candidate and leader of the Greens on Camden Council brings to the party escapes me….
Was Caroline Lucas that Brightonny before she became an MP there? Sian Berry is the nearest the Greens have to a Big Beast (presumably a herbivore), and putting big beasts in hopeful seats is what parties do.
According to wiki, heck no. CL, an Oxford councillor before election as SE England MEP, parachuted herself in to Brighton Pavillion, in the process pushing aside previous Green candidate.
So we’d have to bowl out Oz within the first 3 overs tomorrow then somehow hit 450 in a day (against their attack?) and hope to basically bowl them out for 150 giving us one last session to hit 100
It’s not going to happen. It’s a draw or a wildly gallant English defeat. Damn shame. This is why we shouldn’t have Tests in the north
Betting post: draw at current odds looks like value to me.
I can see England declaring behind and it going horribly wrong. Sunday may yet not be unplayable.
Not a surprise if you've ever driven up the M74! Though they were 90% tree farms.
I just don't see the ishoo here. Provided the ground between the turbines is left to grow whatever it wants to grow it's doing pretty much the same job as the trees were. Net win.
Not a surprise if you've ever driven up the M74! Though they were 90% tree farms.
I just don't see the ishoo here. Provided the ground between the turbines is left to grow whatever it wants to grow it's doing pretty much the same job as the trees were. Net win.
Well, that's not quite true. A large number of these turbines in the uplands have been planted on soft peat.
They need a monster concrete base and mess up the local hydrology, as do all the servicing roads required. There's some argument whether they are even carbon neutral given the resultant soil oxidation.
Where there was forestry there will have been some drainage but not quite on the same scale, as anyone who has tried to fight through a Sitka plantation can tell you.
Not a surprise if you've ever driven up the M74! Though they were 90% tree farms.
I just don't see the ishoo here. Provided the ground between the turbines is left to grow whatever it wants to grow it's doing pretty much the same job as the trees were. Net win.
Well, that's not quite true. A large number of these turbines in the uplands have been planted on soft peat.
They need a monster concrete base and mess up the local hydrology, as do all the servicing roads required.
There's some argument whether they are even carbon neutral given the resultant soil oxidation.
Where there was forestry there will have been some drainage but not quite on the same scale.
Offshore just makes more sense.
Completely agree, but all your points would apply equally if the turbines had been erected where heather, rather than trees used to grow. The trees are an irrelevance.
Ulez-X as deeply unpopular as the PB Bumpkins told us
Indeed, it's clearly caused a swing of -3.5 to the Tories.
Not surprising. If you ask the electorate as a whole whether it's OK for furriners from Epping to choke babies, there are rather more folk affected than those in Epping who think it their human right to asphyxiate said infants.
Quite apart from the basic human perception of fair dos all round.
Not a surprise if you've ever driven up the M74! Though they were 90% tree farms.
I just don't see the ishoo here. Provided the ground between the turbines is left to grow whatever it wants to grow it's doing pretty much the same job as the trees were. Net win.
Well, that's not quite true. A large number of these turbines in the uplands have been planted on soft peat.
They need a monster concrete base and mess up the local hydrology, as do all the servicing roads required.
There's some argument whether they are even carbon neutral given the resultant soil oxidation.
Where there was forestry there will have been some drainage but not quite on the same scale.
Offshore just makes more sense.
Completely agree, but all your points would apply equally if the turbines had been erected where heather, rather than trees used to grow. The trees are an irrelevance.
I also wonder how many simply got harvested as per usual, or were small saplings of little value. The rest would just have gone into the biomass machines.
The Greens are parachuting in a London resident to Brighton Pavilion which may not be the wisest of moves given the drubbing they took in the local elections:
What the Brighton Greens thought a three times failed London Mayoral Candidate and leader of the Greens on Camden Council brings to the party escapes me….
Was Caroline Lucas that Brightonny before she became an MP there?
Lucas was elected one of the MEPs for the South East three times before she stood for Westminster. The local Greens were eviscerated in the local elections after being seen as arrogant and out of touch. They have a 19k lead but some of that will be a personal vote for Ms Lucas.
I am going to praise Andrew Bridgen and Laura Pidcock. Someone has to.
Why?
Andrew Bridgen made an allegation in the House of Commons yesterday on behalf of two of his constituents that by 2014 the Government (as well as the Post Office) had evidence that they had been wrongly convicted. Bear in mind that, if true, this was 5 years before the Bates case which blew the whole scandal wide open and led to the inquiry. Will the relevant Minister rebut this charge or let it lie? And if the latter, it raises some very serious questions about the government's handling of the compensation schemes since then. 9 years later Mr Bridgen's constituents still have received no compensation.
Laura Pidcock
In a Tweet she said this.
Something the Mayor of London, the Labour leader and the Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities have felt unable or unwilling to say.
It is obvious to ordinary common sense that a number of people must have known in their hearts that innocent people were being sent o prison as the PO scandal rolled on. Even if there was no other evidence the sudden plethora of 'people like us' suddenly being found dishonest by the same route must have rung bells.
BTW I am still puzzled about this, as in my family we have had old fashioned accountants with simple ways, and if 6d was missing you searched till it was sorted.
How is it possible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone has stolen/fraudulently obtained money when as a matter of hard fact no-one has - there has been no fraud or theft and an old fashioned audit will be unable to show that actual money has actually disappeared.
How did this get past common sense, accountants, auditors, forensic investigators, prosecutors, defence lawyers, defence expert forensic accountants, judges and juries?
I am going to praise Andrew Bridgen and Laura Pidcock. Someone has to.
Why?
Andrew Bridgen made an allegation in the House of Commons yesterday on behalf of two of his constituents that by 2014 the Government (as well as the Post Office) had evidence that they had been wrongly convicted. Bear in mind that, if true, this was 5 years before the Bates case which blew the whole scandal wide open and led to the inquiry. Will the relevant Minister rebut this charge or let it lie? And if the latter, it raises some very serious questions about the government's handling of the compensation schemes since then. 9 years later Mr Bridgen's constituents still have received no compensation.
Laura Pidcock
In a Tweet she said this.
Something the Mayor of London, the Labour leader and the Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities have felt unable or unwilling to say.
It is obvious to ordinary common sense that a number of people must have known in their hearts that innocent people were being sent o prison as the PO scandal rolled on. Even if there was no other evidence the sudden plethora of 'people like us' suddenly being found dishonest by the same route must have rung bells.
BTW I am still puzzled about this, as in my family we have had old fashioned accountants with simple ways, and if 6d was missing you searched till it was sorted.
How is it possible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone has stolen/fraudulently obtained money when as a matter of hard fact no-one has - there has been no fraud or theft and an old fashioned audit will be unable to show that actual money has actually disappeared.
The Greens are parachuting in a London resident to Brighton Pavilion which may not be the wisest of moves given the drubbing they took in the local elections:
I hadn't heard that the Greens lost control of Brighton council. Great news. That's the constituency where 76 refugee children disappeared from a hotel owned by Nicholas van Hoogstraten's family firm:
Not a surprise if you've ever driven up the M74! Though they were 90% tree farms.
I just don't see the ishoo here. Provided the ground between the turbines is left to grow whatever it wants to grow it's doing pretty much the same job as the trees were. Net win.
Well, that's not quite true. A large number of these turbines in the uplands have been planted on soft peat.
They need a monster concrete base and mess up the local hydrology, as do all the servicing roads required.
There's some argument whether they are even carbon neutral given the resultant soil oxidation.
Where there was forestry there will have been some drainage but not quite on the same scale.
Offshore just makes more sense.
Completely agree, but all your points would apply equally if the turbines had been erected where heather, rather than trees used to grow. The trees are an irrelevance.
I also wonder how many simply got harvested as per usual, or were small saplings of little value. The rest would just have gone into the biomass machines.
Quite. If this is standard softwood forestry they are hideous at a distance when growing and worse to be in among, and the brash left after harvesting them makes WW1 no man's land look like dejeuner sur l'herbe and lasts, and is allowed to last, for decades. They are not all ents any more than the surplus-to-requirements red deer are all bambis.
Ulez-X as deeply unpopular as the PB Bumpkins told us
Indeed, it's clearly caused a swing of -3.5 to the Tories.
Regardless of the polling, I’m struggling to see why the Tories want to be on the side of air pollution. I could sort of grasp it were it a new scheme. They could say: “it won’t work, and will increase costs for hard-up people”. But it HAS worked. It’s merely an expansion of a successful scheme that has been in force for 19 months 🤦♂️
Ulez-X as deeply unpopular as the PB Bumpkins told us
Indeed, it's clearly caused a swing of -3.5 to the Tories.
Regardless of the polling, I’m struggling to see why the Tories want to be on the side of air pollution. I could sort of grasp it were it a new scheme. They could say: “it won’t work, and will increase costs for hard-up people”. But it HAS worked. It’s merely an expansion of a successful scheme that has been in force for 19 months 🤦♂️
Tbf it's mainly HYUFD and a few other right-wing nutters banging about ULEZ. (Plus a few self-obsessed 'don't-they-know-who-I-am?' celebs.)
Ulez-X as deeply unpopular as the PB Bumpkins told us
Indeed, it's clearly caused a swing of -3.5 to the Tories.
Regardless of the polling, I’m struggling to see why the Tories want to be on the side of air pollution. I could sort of grasp it were it a new scheme. They could say: “it won’t work, and will increase costs for hard-up people”. But it HAS worked. It’s merely an expansion of a successful scheme that has been in force for 19 months 🤦♂️
Well it hasn't happened yet, has it? until Aug 29? Not that I care who governs London, or ever go there except by train, but people don't know how they feel about things until the things actually happen (see also: Brexit).
Not a surprise if you've ever driven up the M74! Though they were 90% tree farms.
I just don't see the ishoo here. Provided the ground between the turbines is left to grow whatever it wants to grow it's doing pretty much the same job as the trees were. Net win.
Everyone knows that north Scotland is vast areas of pointless empty space, for very good reason. What is odd is that south Scotland is also vast and endless vistas of empty space, with the M74 going through the middle, with which you can do anything you like without bothering anyone. I have often wondered why, when in London 20 people live in a cupboard under the stairs paying £10,000 pa for it, the whole of agreeable but dull south Scotland is entirely empty.
If you want a walk of about 200 miles meeting not a soul try the Southern Upland Way. No-one else does.
Completely OT, in tonight’s Scottish League Cup, FC Edinburgh went 3-0 up in the first 20 mins and are now 3-5 down. It’s good to have proper sport back…
So we’d have to bowl out Oz within the first 3 overs tomorrow then somehow hit 450 in a day (against their attack?) and hope to basically bowl them out for 150 giving us one last session to hit 100
It’s not going to happen. It’s a draw or a wildly gallant English defeat. Damn shame. This is why we shouldn’t have Tests in the north
Betting post: draw at current odds looks like value to me.
I can see England declaring behind and it going horribly wrong. Sunday may yet not be unplayable.
Day 2: couple of showers possible, best guess near full day with late finish Day 3: On the edge of a lot of the shower bands, best guess 3-4 hrs play Day 4: Best guess, no play Day 5: Rain clearing to somewhat concentrated showers estimated to happen by around start of play. Best guess 2-3 hours play available.
Basically looking at a 3 and a bit day test match.
Not a surprise if you've ever driven up the M74! Though they were 90% tree farms.
I just don't see the ishoo here. Provided the ground between the turbines is left to grow whatever it wants to grow it's doing pretty much the same job as the trees were. Net win.
Everyone knows that north Scotland is vast areas of pointless empty space, for very good reason. What is odd is that south Scotland is also vast and endless vistas of empty space, with the M74 going through the middle, with which you can do anything you like without bothering anyone. I have often wondered why, when in London 20 people live in a cupboard under the stairs paying £10,000 pa for it, the whole of agreeable but dull south Scotland is entirely empty.
By definition, people tend not to live in empty spaces.
The Greens are parachuting in a London resident to Brighton Pavilion which may not be the wisest of moves given the drubbing they took in the local elections:
Ulez-X as deeply unpopular as the PB Bumpkins told us
Indeed, it's clearly caused a swing of -3.5 to the Tories.
Regardless of the polling, I’m struggling to see why the Tories want to be on the side of air pollution. I could sort of grasp it were it a new scheme. They could say: “it won’t work, and will increase costs for hard-up people”. But it HAS worked. It’s merely an expansion of a successful scheme that has been in force for 19 months 🤦♂️
Well it hasn't happened yet, has it? until Aug 29? Not that I care who governs London, or ever go there except by train, but people don't know how they feel about things until the things actually happen (see also: Brexit).
Well yes, it has happened. As I say, the Ulez has been operational for 19 months inside the north and south circs, covering millions of resident Londoners and millions more who go in and out of the zone weekly. This is merely an expansion of the boundary: a fact that seems to get lost on here.
Not a surprise if you've ever driven up the M74! Though they were 90% tree farms.
I just don't see the ishoo here. Provided the ground between the turbines is left to grow whatever it wants to grow it's doing pretty much the same job as the trees were. Net win.
Everyone knows that north Scotland is vast areas of pointless empty space, for very good reason. What is odd is that south Scotland is also vast and endless vistas of empty space, with the M74 going through the middle, with which you can do anything you like without bothering anyone. I have often wondered why, when in London 20 people live in a cupboard under the stairs paying £10,000 pa for it, the whole of agreeable but dull south Scotland is entirely empty.
By definition, people tend not to live in empty spaces.
Got that. Kant would call it an a priori analytic statement. All bachelors are unmarried too.
The Greens are parachuting in a London resident to Brighton Pavilion which may not be the wisest of moves given the drubbing they took in the local elections:
The Greens are parachuting in a London resident to Brighton Pavilion which may not be the wisest of moves given the drubbing they took in the local elections:
I am going to praise Andrew Bridgen and Laura Pidcock. Someone has to.
Why?
Andrew Bridgen made an allegation in the House of Commons yesterday on behalf of two of his constituents that by 2014 the Government (as well as the Post Office) had evidence that they had been wrongly convicted. Bear in mind that, if true, this was 5 years before the Bates case which blew the whole scandal wide open and led to the inquiry. Will the relevant Minister rebut this charge or let it lie? And if the latter, it raises some very serious questions about the government's handling of the compensation schemes since then. 9 years later Mr Bridgen's constituents still have received no compensation.
Laura Pidcock
In a Tweet she said this.
Something the Mayor of London, the Labour leader and the Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities have felt unable or unwilling to say.
It is obvious to ordinary common sense that a number of people must have known in their hearts that innocent people were being sent o prison as the PO scandal rolled on. Even if there was no other evidence the sudden plethora of 'people like us' suddenly being found dishonest by the same route must have rung bells.
BTW I am still puzzled about this, as in my family we have had old fashioned accountants with simple ways, and if 6d was missing you searched till it was sorted.
How is it possible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone has stolen/fraudulently obtained money when as a matter of hard fact no-one has - there has been no fraud or theft and an old fashioned audit will be unable to show that actual money has actually disappeared.
How did this get past common sense, accountants, auditors, forensic investigators, prosecutors, defence lawyers, defence expert forensic accountants, judges and juries?
One of the reasons was because of a ruling made by one of the judges (and in line with a Law Commission recommendation) that computer evidence should be relied upon. In other words, the presumption was made that the Horizon software was working properly unless proved otherwise. This effectively reversed the burden of proof and made it pretty much impossible for subpostmasters to prove that the software was not working as it should be. It also shows up the wickedness of the Post Office because they knew that the software was not working and had bugs etc and lied to the defendants and the courts about this - repeatedly.
They failed to disclose to the defendants - in breach of all the rules - the information they had and that failure to disclose is happening to this day.
The stupidity of this assumption coupled with the wickedness of the Post Office is a large part of what caused this. Also very few of the defendants had the resources needed to pay for expert computer and accounting experts.
Ulez-X as deeply unpopular as the PB Bumpkins told us
Indeed, it's clearly caused a swing of -3.5 to the Tories.
Regardless of the polling, I’m struggling to see why the Tories want to be on the side of air pollution. I could sort of grasp it were it a new scheme. They could say: “it won’t work, and will increase costs for hard-up people”. But it HAS worked. It’s merely an expansion of a successful scheme that has been in force for 19 months 🤦♂️
Tbf it's mainly HYUFD and a few other right-wing nutters banging about ULEZ. (Plus a few self-obsessed 'don't-they-know-who-I-am?' celebs.)
Right now, there are a lot of people in outermost London who really don't want ULEZ to expand. And they probably overlap with potential Conservative supporters anyway. Like cars and freedom, don't like taxes, don't really care about pollution and definitely don't like being reminded which side of the M25 they are. I get the short term political dopamine of opposition to ULEZ expansion. We may see it to a degree Thursday night / Friday morning.
But it's probably bad governance- the time for politics on the principle is over. And I'm confident that it's bad politics for the Conservatives. By next spring, the painful bit of the transition will be over, the benefits should be clearer and I don't think that cutting ULEZ back will be popular.
Not a surprise if you've ever driven up the M74! Though they were 90% tree farms.
I just don't see the ishoo here. Provided the ground between the turbines is left to grow whatever it wants to grow it's doing pretty much the same job as the trees were. Net win.
Everyone knows that north Scotland is vast areas of pointless empty space, for very good reason. What is odd is that south Scotland is also vast and endless vistas of empty space, with the M74 going through the middle, with which you can do anything you like without bothering anyone. I have often wondered why, when in London 20 people live in a cupboard under the stairs paying £10,000 pa for it, the whole of agreeable but dull south Scotland is entirely empty.
By definition, people tend not to live in empty spaces.
Got that. Kant would call it an a priori analytic statement. All bachelors are unmarried too.
Hah yes!
My point really is that people congregate, cities are popular, most of us want to live close to others.
TLDR: possibly the best reviewed film of the summer (MI:7, whilst universally lauded, had a few caveats). So if you were looking forward to it, it looks like you picked the right horse
MI:7 was fun but not as good as MI:5 or MI:6. Oppenheimer look boring (if well acted, well shot, boring), but hopefully the reviews indicate that is not so. The trailers do not really sell that type of film very well.
I am looking forward to the Barbie movie, despite the obvious merchandising.
I go to the cinema about 25 times a year, and yet somehow nothing I've seen has had a Barbie trailer in front of it that I can recall other than the 2001 one, so still have no idea what it is actually about.
I’m assumed it would be standard product-placement trash despite the hype and a-list cast.
Ulez-X as deeply unpopular as the PB Bumpkins told us
Indeed, it's clearly caused a swing of -3.5 to the Tories.
Regardless of the polling, I’m struggling to see why the Tories want to be on the side of air pollution. I could sort of grasp it were it a new scheme. They could say: “it won’t work, and will increase costs for hard-up people”. But it HAS worked. It’s merely an expansion of a successful scheme that has been in force for 19 months 🤦♂️
Tbf it's mainly HYUFD and a few other right-wing nutters banging about ULEZ. (Plus a few self-obsessed 'don't-they-know-who-I-am?' celebs.)
Right now, there are a lot of people in outermost London who really don't want ULEZ to expand. And they probably overlap with potential Conservative supporters anyway. Like cars and freedom, don't like taxes, don't really care about pollution and definitely don't like being reminded which side of the M25 they are. I get the short term political dopamine of opposition to ULEZ expansion. We may see it to a degree Thursday night / Friday morning.
But it's probably bad governance- the time for politics on the principle is over. And I'm confident that it's bad politics for the Conservatives. By next spring, the painful bit of the transition will be over, the benefits should be clearer and I don't think that cutting ULEZ back will be popular.
Is abandoning it even popular now? I live in outer London and 90% of the whining I hear about it is from the bumpkins on PB. It’s rarely mentioned to me in real life.
TLDR: possibly the best reviewed film of the summer (MI:7, whilst universally lauded, had a few caveats). So if you were looking forward to it, it looks like you picked the right horse
MI:7 was fun but not as good as MI:5 or MI:6. Oppenheimer look boring (if well acted, well shot, boring), but hopefully the reviews indicate that is not so. The trailers do not really sell that type of film very well.
I am looking forward to the Barbie movie, despite the obvious merchandising.
I go to the cinema about 25 times a year, and yet somehow nothing I've seen has had a Barbie trailer in front of it that I can recall other than the 2001 one, so still have no idea what it is actually about.
I’m assumed it would be standard product-placement trash despite the hype and a-list cast.
Yeah, there will be plenty of that, but I reckon it will be a massive hit.
At least its not another derivative superhero film...
TLDR: possibly the best reviewed film of the summer (MI:7, whilst universally lauded, had a few caveats). So if you were looking forward to it, it looks like you picked the right horse
MI:7 was fun but not as good as MI:5 or MI:6. Oppenheimer look boring (if well acted, well shot, boring), but hopefully the reviews indicate that is not so. The trailers do not really sell that type of film very well.
I am looking forward to the Barbie movie, despite the obvious merchandising.
I go to the cinema about 25 times a year, and yet somehow nothing I've seen has had a Barbie trailer in front of it that I can recall other than the 2001 one, so still have no idea what it is actually about.
I’m assumed it would be standard product-placement trash despite the hype and a-list cast.
Yeah, there will be plenty of that, but I reckon it will be a massive hit.
At least its not another derivative superhero film...
I walked past the big Boots in Covent Garden earlier today. It had the Barbie logo on the window. Assume they were using it to flog pink lipstick or some such?
I am going to praise Andrew Bridgen and Laura Pidcock. Someone has to.
Why?
Andrew Bridgen made an allegation in the House of Commons yesterday on behalf of two of his constituents that by 2014 the Government (as well as the Post Office) had evidence that they had been wrongly convicted. Bear in mind that, if true, this was 5 years before the Bates case which blew the whole scandal wide open and led to the inquiry. Will the relevant Minister rebut this charge or let it lie? And if the latter, it raises some very serious questions about the government's handling of the compensation schemes since then. 9 years later Mr Bridgen's constituents still have received no compensation.
Laura Pidcock
In a Tweet she said this.
Something the Mayor of London, the Labour leader and the Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities have felt unable or unwilling to say.
It is obvious to ordinary common sense that a number of people must have known in their hearts that innocent people were being sent o prison as the PO scandal rolled on. Even if there was no other evidence the sudden plethora of 'people like us' suddenly being found dishonest by the same route must have rung bells.
BTW I am still puzzled about this, as in my family we have had old fashioned accountants with simple ways, and if 6d was missing you searched till it was sorted.
How is it possible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone has stolen/fraudulently obtained money when as a matter of hard fact no-one has - there has been no fraud or theft and an old fashioned audit will be unable to show that actual money has actually disappeared.
How did this get past common sense, accountants, auditors, forensic investigators, prosecutors, defence lawyers, defence expert forensic accountants, judges and juries?
One of the reasons was because of a ruling made by one of the judges (and in line with a Law Commission recommendation) that computer evidence should be relied upon. In other words, the presumption was made that the Horizon software was working properly unless proved otherwise. This effectively reversed the burden of proof and made it pretty much impossible for subpostmasters to prove that the software was not working as it should be. It also shows up the wickedness of the Post Office because they knew that the software was not working and had bugs etc and lied to the defendants and the courts about this - repeatedly.
They failed to disclose to the defendants - in breach of all the rules - the information they had and that failure to disclose is happening to this day.
The stupidity of this assumption coupled with the wickedness of the Post Office is a large part of what caused this. Also very few of the defendants had the resources needed to pay for expert computer and accounting experts.
Thanks. I am a simple soul, so I still want to know: How can a proper audit show that in fact money has been misappropriated when it hasn't? Computers by making mistakes can show that money has appeared and disappeared when it hasn't. But a proper audit has to actually find the real stuff and the real transactions and make sure they add up.
In a genuine fraud case the defendants records will say X and the audited reality will say Y. Mutatis mutandis the same must apply here. Still puzzled.
Ulez-X as deeply unpopular as the PB Bumpkins told us
Indeed, it's clearly caused a swing of -3.5 to the Tories.
Regardless of the polling, I’m struggling to see why the Tories want to be on the side of air pollution. I could sort of grasp it were it a new scheme. They could say: “it won’t work, and will increase costs for hard-up people”. But it HAS worked. It’s merely an expansion of a successful scheme that has been in force for 19 months 🤦♂️
Tbf it's mainly HYUFD and a few other right-wing nutters banging about ULEZ. (Plus a few self-obsessed 'don't-they-know-who-I-am?' celebs.)
Right now, there are a lot of people in outermost London who really don't want ULEZ to expand. And they probably overlap with potential Conservative supporters anyway. Like cars and freedom, don't like taxes, don't really care about pollution and definitely don't like being reminded which side of the M25 they are. I get the short term political dopamine of opposition to ULEZ expansion. We may see it to a degree Thursday night / Friday morning.
But it's probably bad governance- the time for politics on the principle is over. And I'm confident that it's bad politics for the Conservatives. By next spring, the painful bit of the transition will be over, the benefits should be clearer and I don't think that cutting ULEZ back will be popular.
Is abandoning it even popular now? I live in outer London and 90% of the whining I hear about it is from the bumpkins on PB. It’s rarely mentioned to me in real life.
If you don't mind me asking, how outer? I wouldn't be surprised if it feels different in Zone 4 and Zone 6. Lots of pissed off normal people in Romford. The sort of place that doesn't like to be reminded it's in Greater London at the best of times.
I am going to praise Andrew Bridgen and Laura Pidcock. Someone has to.
Why?
Andrew Bridgen made an allegation in the House of Commons yesterday on behalf of two of his constituents that by 2014 the Government (as well as the Post Office) had evidence that they had been wrongly convicted. Bear in mind that, if true, this was 5 years before the Bates case which blew the whole scandal wide open and led to the inquiry. Will the relevant Minister rebut this charge or let it lie? And if the latter, it raises some very serious questions about the government's handling of the compensation schemes since then. 9 years later Mr Bridgen's constituents still have received no compensation.
Laura Pidcock
In a Tweet she said this.
Something the Mayor of London, the Labour leader and the Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities have felt unable or unwilling to say.
It is obvious to ordinary common sense that a number of people must have known in their hearts that innocent people were being sent o prison as the PO scandal rolled on. Even if there was no other evidence the sudden plethora of 'people like us' suddenly being found dishonest by the same route must have rung bells.
BTW I am still puzzled about this, as in my family we have had old fashioned accountants with simple ways, and if 6d was missing you searched till it was sorted.
How is it possible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone has stolen/fraudulently obtained money when as a matter of hard fact no-one has - there has been no fraud or theft and an old fashioned audit will be unable to show that actual money has actually disappeared.
How did this get past common sense, accountants, auditors, forensic investigators, prosecutors, defence lawyers, defence expert forensic accountants, judges and juries?
One of the reasons was because of a ruling made by one of the judges (and in line with a Law Commission recommendation) that computer evidence should be relied upon. In other words, the presumption was made that the Horizon software was working properly unless proved otherwise. This effectively reversed the burden of proof and made it pretty much impossible for subpostmasters to prove that the software was not working as it should be. It also shows up the wickedness of the Post Office because they knew that the software was not working and had bugs etc and lied to the defendants and the courts about this - repeatedly.
They failed to disclose to the defendants - in breach of all the rules - the information they had and that failure to disclose is happening to this day.
The stupidity of this assumption coupled with the wickedness of the Post Office is a large part of what caused this. Also very few of the defendants had the resources needed to pay for expert computer and accounting experts.
Thanks. I am a simple soul, so I still want to know: How can a proper audit show that in fact money has been misappropriated when it hasn't? Computers by making mistakes can show that money has appeared and disappeared when it hasn't. But a proper audit has to actually find the real stuff and the real transactions and make sure they add up.
Yes, that's got me too. Where did the 'missing' money go? Or did the issue relate to incorrect tallying of goods/services sold to make it look as if there should have been higher cash receipts?
I am going to praise Andrew Bridgen and Laura Pidcock. Someone has to.
Why?
Andrew Bridgen made an allegation in the House of Commons yesterday on behalf of two of his constituents that by 2014 the Government (as well as the Post Office) had evidence that they had been wrongly convicted. Bear in mind that, if true, this was 5 years before the Bates case which blew the whole scandal wide open and led to the inquiry. Will the relevant Minister rebut this charge or let it lie? And if the latter, it raises some very serious questions about the government's handling of the compensation schemes since then. 9 years later Mr Bridgen's constituents still have received no compensation.
Laura Pidcock
In a Tweet she said this.
Something the Mayor of London, the Labour leader and the Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities have felt unable or unwilling to say.
It is obvious to ordinary common sense that a number of people must have known in their hearts that innocent people were being sent o prison as the PO scandal rolled on. Even if there was no other evidence the sudden plethora of 'people like us' suddenly being found dishonest by the same route must have rung bells.
BTW I am still puzzled about this, as in my family we have had old fashioned accountants with simple ways, and if 6d was missing you searched till it was sorted.
How is it possible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone has stolen/fraudulently obtained money when as a matter of hard fact no-one has - there has been no fraud or theft and an old fashioned audit will be unable to show that actual money has actually disappeared.
How did this get past common sense, accountants, auditors, forensic investigators, prosecutors, defence lawyers, defence expert forensic accountants, judges and juries?
One of the reasons was because of a ruling made by one of the judges (and in line with a Law Commission recommendation) that computer evidence should be relied upon. In other words, the presumption was made that the Horizon software was working properly unless proved otherwise. This effectively reversed the burden of proof and made it pretty much impossible for subpostmasters to prove that the software was not working as it should be. It also shows up the wickedness of the Post Office because they knew that the software was not working and had bugs etc and lied to the defendants and the courts about this - repeatedly.
They failed to disclose to the defendants - in breach of all the rules - the information they had and that failure to disclose is happening to this day.
The stupidity of this assumption coupled with the wickedness of the Post Office is a large part of what caused this. Also very few of the defendants had the resources needed to pay for expert computer and accounting experts.
Worth noting that it was the Post Office which was one of the entities urging the change so as to make it easier for them to prosecute people. Given that they knew this and wanted this, it meant they had no incentive to make sure the software system worked properly because they no longer had to prove that it did. So - bluntly - they could implement a shit system knowing they would get away with it.
When I read stuff like this I get pretty close to the view expressed in that Marina Hyde article that every single member of the Post Office's and Fujitsu's management should be dragged to prison tomorrow and forced to prove why they should not stay there, along with all the relevant Ministers.
It is also a warning to us that automatic reliance on any technical system (AI) for instance is a bloody stupid thing to do.
Tories essentially attack Evening Standard for publishing an obviously posed, voluntary photo of Susan Hall looking as mad as a meataxe.
When an outlet uses an unflattering picture there's really not much to be gained by moaning in official fashion about it. It just comes across as entitled and arrogant to expect deference.
I mean, look at this, which on its face is a complaint that someone should mock a politician, when that is perfectly ok, and suggesting it shouldn't be allowed if it is a woman standing for the Tories or Labour for some reason.
"Your choice of photo of Susan Hall is a clear mockery, and it is contemptible, especially as the first female candidate for London mayor from either of the two main parties. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66250844
Ulez-X as deeply unpopular as the PB Bumpkins told us
Indeed, it's clearly caused a swing of -3.5 to the Tories.
Regardless of the polling, I’m struggling to see why the Tories want to be on the side of air pollution. I could sort of grasp it were it a new scheme. They could say: “it won’t work, and will increase costs for hard-up people”. But it HAS worked. It’s merely an expansion of a successful scheme that has been in force for 19 months 🤦♂️
Tbf it's mainly HYUFD and a few other right-wing nutters banging about ULEZ. (Plus a few self-obsessed 'don't-they-know-who-I-am?' celebs.)
Right now, there are a lot of people in outermost London who really don't want ULEZ to expand. And they probably overlap with potential Conservative supporters anyway. Like cars and freedom, don't like taxes, don't really care about pollution and definitely don't like being reminded which side of the M25 they are. I get the short term political dopamine of opposition to ULEZ expansion. We may see it to a degree Thursday night / Friday morning.
But it's probably bad governance- the time for politics on the principle is over. And I'm confident that it's bad politics for the Conservatives. By next spring, the painful bit of the transition will be over, the benefits should be clearer and I don't think that cutting ULEZ back will be popular.
Is abandoning it even popular now? I live in outer London and 90% of the whining I hear about it is from the bumpkins on PB. It’s rarely mentioned to me in real life.
If you don't mind me asking, how outer? I wouldn't be surprised if it feels different in Zone 4 and Zone 6. Lots of pissed off normal people in Romford. The sort of place that doesn't like to be reminded it's in Greater London at the best of times.
Zone 4. Romford is part of London though, has been since the 1960s.
I am going to praise Andrew Bridgen and Laura Pidcock. Someone has to.
Why?
Andrew Bridgen made an allegation in the House of Commons yesterday on behalf of two of his constituents that by 2014 the Government (as well as the Post Office) had evidence that they had been wrongly convicted. Bear in mind that, if true, this was 5 years before the Bates case which blew the whole scandal wide open and led to the inquiry. Will the relevant Minister rebut this charge or let it lie? And if the latter, it raises some very serious questions about the government's handling of the compensation schemes since then. 9 years later Mr Bridgen's constituents still have received no compensation.
Laura Pidcock
In a Tweet she said this.
Something the Mayor of London, the Labour leader and the Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities have felt unable or unwilling to say.
It is obvious to ordinary common sense that a number of people must have known in their hearts that innocent people were being sent o prison as the PO scandal rolled on. Even if there was no other evidence the sudden plethora of 'people like us' suddenly being found dishonest by the same route must have rung bells.
BTW I am still puzzled about this, as in my family we have had old fashioned accountants with simple ways, and if 6d was missing you searched till it was sorted.
How is it possible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone has stolen/fraudulently obtained money when as a matter of hard fact no-one has - there has been no fraud or theft and an old fashioned audit will be unable to show that actual money has actually disappeared.
How did this get past common sense, accountants, auditors, forensic investigators, prosecutors, defence lawyers, defence expert forensic accountants, judges and juries?
One of the reasons was because of a ruling made by one of the judges (and in line with a Law Commission recommendation) that computer evidence should be relied upon. In other words, the presumption was made that the Horizon software was working properly unless proved otherwise. This effectively reversed the burden of proof and made it pretty much impossible for subpostmasters to prove that the software was not working as it should be. It also shows up the wickedness of the Post Office because they knew that the software was not working and had bugs etc and lied to the defendants and the courts about this - repeatedly.
They failed to disclose to the defendants - in breach of all the rules - the information they had and that failure to disclose is happening to this day.
The stupidity of this assumption coupled with the wickedness of the Post Office is a large part of what caused this. Also very few of the defendants had the resources needed to pay for expert computer and accounting experts.
Thanks. I am a simple soul, so I still want to know: How can a proper audit show that in fact money has been misappropriated when it hasn't? Computers by making mistakes can show that money has appeared and disappeared when it hasn't. But a proper audit has to actually find the real stuff and the real transactions and make sure they add up.
Yes, that's got me too. Where did the 'missing' money go? Or did the issue relate to incorrect tallying of goods/services sold to make it look as if there should have been higher cash receipts?
There was no missing money. Why the auditors did not spot this I have yet to understand. Though auditors manage to avoid noticing that millions and billions of money supposedly in bank accounts don't actually exist (see Wirecard) so I suppose this should not be a surprise.
TLDR: possibly the best reviewed film of the summer (MI:7, whilst universally lauded, had a few caveats). So if you were looking forward to it, it looks like you picked the right horse
MI:7 was fun but not as good as MI:5 or MI:6. Oppenheimer look boring (if well acted, well shot, boring), but hopefully the reviews indicate that is not so. The trailers do not really sell that type of film very well.
I am looking forward to the Barbie movie, despite the obvious merchandising.
I go to the cinema about 25 times a year, and yet somehow nothing I've seen has had a Barbie trailer in front of it that I can recall other than the 2001 one, so still have no idea what it is actually about.
I’m assumed it would be standard product-placement trash despite the hype and a-list cast.
That is always a fear. From the buzz it may at least be they've put effort in, which makes the difference between something like The Lego Movie and The Emoji Movie.
Not a surprise if you've ever driven up the M74! Though they were 90% tree farms.
I just don't see the ishoo here. Provided the ground between the turbines is left to grow whatever it wants to grow it's doing pretty much the same job as the trees were. Net win.
Everyone knows that north Scotland is vast areas of pointless empty space, for very good reason. What is odd is that south Scotland is also vast and endless vistas of empty space, with the M74 going through the middle, with which you can do anything you like without bothering anyone. I have often wondered why, when in London 20 people live in a cupboard under the stairs paying £10,000 pa for it, the whole of agreeable but dull south Scotland is entirely empty.
By definition, people tend not to live in empty spaces.
Got that. Kant would call it an a priori analytic statement. All bachelors are unmarried too.
Hah yes!
My point really is that people congregate, cities are popular, most of us want to live close to others.
Of course. The mystery is why the entire of southern Scotland, agreeable, pleasing, on the way to Glasgow Edinburgh and Carlisle should not have developed large towns and even cities over 10 centuries. It's nice, spacious and empty. We assume its a law of nature that Scotland has 5m people and England has 55m. Scottish land in the north explains a difference, but not a tenfold one.
In south Scotland towns of 1,500 people are significant strategic centres. Langholm. Newtown St Boswells. Etc.
TLDR: possibly the best reviewed film of the summer (MI:7, whilst universally lauded, had a few caveats). So if you were looking forward to it, it looks like you picked the right horse
MI:7 was fun but not as good as MI:5 or MI:6. Oppenheimer look boring (if well acted, well shot, boring), but hopefully the reviews indicate that is not so. The trailers do not really sell that type of film very well.
I am looking forward to the Barbie movie, despite the obvious merchandising.
I go to the cinema about 25 times a year, and yet somehow nothing I've seen has had a Barbie trailer in front of it that I can recall other than the 2001 one, so still have no idea what it is actually about.
I’m assumed it would be standard product-placement trash despite the hype and a-list cast.
Yeah, there will be plenty of that, but I reckon it will be a massive hit.
At least its not another derivative superhero film...
I walked past the big Boots in Covent Garden earlier today. It had the Barbie logo on the window. Assume they were using it to flog pink lipstick or some such?
I am going to praise Andrew Bridgen and Laura Pidcock. Someone has to.
Why?
Andrew Bridgen made an allegation in the House of Commons yesterday on behalf of two of his constituents that by 2014 the Government (as well as the Post Office) had evidence that they had been wrongly convicted. Bear in mind that, if true, this was 5 years before the Bates case which blew the whole scandal wide open and led to the inquiry. Will the relevant Minister rebut this charge or let it lie? And if the latter, it raises some very serious questions about the government's handling of the compensation schemes since then. 9 years later Mr Bridgen's constituents still have received no compensation.
Laura Pidcock
In a Tweet she said this.
Something the Mayor of London, the Labour leader and the Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities have felt unable or unwilling to say.
It is obvious to ordinary common sense that a number of people must have known in their hearts that innocent people were being sent o prison as the PO scandal rolled on. Even if there was no other evidence the sudden plethora of 'people like us' suddenly being found dishonest by the same route must have rung bells.
BTW I am still puzzled about this, as in my family we have had old fashioned accountants with simple ways, and if 6d was missing you searched till it was sorted.
How is it possible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone has stolen/fraudulently obtained money when as a matter of hard fact no-one has - there has been no fraud or theft and an old fashioned audit will be unable to show that actual money has actually disappeared.
How did this get past common sense, accountants, auditors, forensic investigators, prosecutors, defence lawyers, defence expert forensic accountants, judges and juries?
The post masters were told that the Horizon system /was the accounts/.
Unless they kept their own parallel accounts, they had no way to demonstrate that it was wrong. And it was wrong, on a regular basis.
TLDR: possibly the best reviewed film of the summer (MI:7, whilst universally lauded, had a few caveats). So if you were looking forward to it, it looks like you picked the right horse
MI:7 was fun but not as good as MI:5 or MI:6. Oppenheimer look boring (if well acted, well shot, boring), but hopefully the reviews indicate that is not so. The trailers do not really sell that type of film very well.
I am looking forward to the Barbie movie, despite the obvious merchandising.
I go to the cinema about 25 times a year, and yet somehow nothing I've seen has had a Barbie trailer in front of it that I can recall other than the 2001 one, so still have no idea what it is actually about.
I’m assumed it would be standard product-placement trash despite the hype and a-list cast.
Yeah, there will be plenty of that, but I reckon it will be a massive hit.
At least its not another derivative superhero film...
I walked past the big Boots in Covent Garden earlier today. It had the Barbie logo on the window. Assume they were using it to flog pink lipstick or some such?
Not a surprise if you've ever driven up the M74! Though they were 90% tree farms.
I just don't see the ishoo here. Provided the ground between the turbines is left to grow whatever it wants to grow it's doing pretty much the same job as the trees were. Net win.
Everyone knows that north Scotland is vast areas of pointless empty space, for very good reason. What is odd is that south Scotland is also vast and endless vistas of empty space, with the M74 going through the middle, with which you can do anything you like without bothering anyone. I have often wondered why, when in London 20 people live in a cupboard under the stairs paying £10,000 pa for it, the whole of agreeable but dull south Scotland is entirely empty.
By definition, people tend not to live in empty spaces.
Got that. Kant would call it an a priori analytic statement. All bachelors are unmarried too.
Hah yes!
My point really is that people congregate, cities are popular, most of us want to live close to others.
Of course. The mystery is why the entire of southern Scotland, agreeable, pleasing, on the way to Glasgow Edinburgh and Carlisle should not have developed large towns and even cities over 10 centuries. It's nice, spacious and empty. We assume its a law of nature that Scotland has 5m people and England has 55m. Scottish land in the north explains a difference, but not a tenfold one.
In south Scotland towns of 1,500 people are significant strategic centres. Langholm. Newtown St Boswells. Etc.
The rule was that either you are in striking distance of a port, or you are farmland. No coincidence that Scotland is 200+ miles wide at that point.
Ulez-X as deeply unpopular as the PB Bumpkins told us
Indeed, it's clearly caused a swing of -3.5 to the Tories.
Regardless of the polling, I’m struggling to see why the Tories want to be on the side of air pollution. I could sort of grasp it were it a new scheme. They could say: “it won’t work, and will increase costs for hard-up people”. But it HAS worked. It’s merely an expansion of a successful scheme that has been in force for 19 months 🤦♂️
Tbf it's mainly HYUFD and a few other right-wing nutters banging about ULEZ. (Plus a few self-obsessed 'don't-they-know-who-I-am?' celebs.)
Right now, there are a lot of people in outermost London who really don't want ULEZ to expand. And they probably overlap with potential Conservative supporters anyway. Like cars and freedom, don't like taxes, don't really care about pollution and definitely don't like being reminded which side of the M25 they are. I get the short term political dopamine of opposition to ULEZ expansion. We may see it to a degree Thursday night / Friday morning.
But it's probably bad governance- the time for politics on the principle is over. And I'm confident that it's bad politics for the Conservatives. By next spring, the painful bit of the transition will be over, the benefits should be clearer and I don't think that cutting ULEZ back will be popular.
Is abandoning it even popular now? I live in outer London and 90% of the whining I hear about it is from the bumpkins on PB. It’s rarely mentioned to me in real life.
If you don't mind me asking, how outer? I wouldn't be surprised if it feels different in Zone 4 and Zone 6. Lots of pissed off normal people in Romford. The sort of place that doesn't like to be reminded it's in Greater London at the best of times.
Zone 4. Romford is part of London though, has been since the 1960s.
You know that, I know that, and the Elizabeth Line makes it more obvious. (First through journey I took from here to the West End... Mind blown.)
But I'm still careful who I say it to. Some of them are pretty handy with their fists.
The problem the Conservatives have is this. To win in London, the Conservatives will always gave a doughnut map. But that doughnut needs to be much fatter than it currently is. And the current Conservative approach is too narrow to reach further into London.
TLDR: possibly the best reviewed film of the summer (MI:7, whilst universally lauded, had a few caveats). So if you were looking forward to it, it looks like you picked the right horse
MI:7 was fun but not as good as MI:5 or MI:6. Oppenheimer look boring (if well acted, well shot, boring), but hopefully the reviews indicate that is not so. The trailers do not really sell that type of film very well.
I am looking forward to the Barbie movie, despite the obvious merchandising.
I go to the cinema about 25 times a year, and yet somehow nothing I've seen has had a Barbie trailer in front of it that I can recall other than the 2001 one, so still have no idea what it is actually about.
I’m assumed it would be standard product-placement trash despite the hype and a-list cast.
Yeah, there will be plenty of that, but I reckon it will be a massive hit.
At least its not another derivative superhero film...
I walked past the big Boots in Covent Garden earlier today. It had the Barbie logo on the window. Assume they were using it to flog pink lipstick or some such?
Not a surprise if you've ever driven up the M74! Though they were 90% tree farms.
I just don't see the ishoo here. Provided the ground between the turbines is left to grow whatever it wants to grow it's doing pretty much the same job as the trees were. Net win.
Everyone knows that north Scotland is vast areas of pointless empty space, for very good reason. What is odd is that south Scotland is also vast and endless vistas of empty space, with the M74 going through the middle, with which you can do anything you like without bothering anyone. I have often wondered why, when in London 20 people live in a cupboard under the stairs paying £10,000 pa for it, the whole of agreeable but dull south Scotland is entirely empty.
By definition, people tend not to live in empty spaces.
Got that. Kant would call it an a priori analytic statement. All bachelors are unmarried too.
Hah yes!
My point really is that people congregate, cities are popular, most of us want to live close to others.
Of course. The mystery is why the entire of southern Scotland, agreeable, pleasing, on the way to Glasgow Edinburgh and Carlisle should not have developed large towns and even cities over 10 centuries. It's nice, spacious and empty. We assume its a law of nature that Scotland has 5m people and England has 55m. Scottish land in the north explains a difference, but not a tenfold one.
In south Scotland towns of 1,500 people are significant strategic centres. Langholm. Newtown St Boswells. Etc.
Reminds me of a video which stated if the island of Ireland's population had grown at the rate of Britain in the last 200 years it should have had a population of around 27-36m by now (Scotland increasing by something like a factor of 2.5, Wales by 4, and England 5.5 or so). Granted, there are some obvious reasons why Ireland's population has not expanded in the same way, but it is a big old island.
It does blow the mind how fast populations can both rise and decline.
Completely OT, in tonight’s Scottish League Cup, FC Edinburgh went 3-0 up in the first 20 mins and are now 3-5 down. It’s good to have proper sport back…
Were they playing Dundee United in the first half and someone else in the second half?
La Daronne Narvali 😎🦔 @DNarvali La promotion russe pour la sortie de Barbie ça va trop loin. (The Russian promotion for the release of Barbie is going too far) REMOVED
can we have trigger warnings on posts like this please?
At the Klompen overlooking Namsos Bay, which those interested in military history might remember was a key landing point for British troops during the abortive Narvik campaign. Sadly the town got levelled by German bombs early in the invasion, so it's not a particularly characterful place.
Bizarrely, the hill itself is leased by the Norwegian Temperance movement so they can stop people selling alcohol up here. As if the price of it weren't enough.
Mention of the campaign makes me wonder, did you get to see Oscarsborg Fortress, a gun and torpedo battery on the fjord leading to Oslo? The one which sank a German cruiser when the Germans didn't take it seriously enough.
Or for that matter the 3 x 28cm gun turret off Gneisenau that the Germans put at Austrått Fort near Orland at the mouth of Trondheimfjord?
On my bucket list, as is Norway more generally ...
Done with original Whitehead torpedos from the 19th cent.
Fun fact - back then, torpedos were practise fired and reused. Again and again. Each time they would be carefully twiddled to make them accurate. Those torpedos heading for the Blucher were old friends to the men who fired them. Knew them all their careers, probably. Very often the crews had nicknames for each one, knew their individual foibles…
I loathed Barbie as a child. Loathed dolls, come to think of it. A film of it sounds utterly ghastly.
I've assumed from them managing to nab an acclaimed director that the intention was to make a glorified marketing campaign at least relatively ambitious, which can work, particularly if you can then defend obvious marketing as being ironic or providing commentary in some way. I saw a content description about the film containing commentary about the patriarchy.
They've certainly done a great job at providing awareness that the film exists (you'd be surprised how many movies sneak up even on those who go to the cinema a lot), whether people will actually turn out will be very interesting.
Not a surprise if you've ever driven up the M74! Though they were 90% tree farms.
I just don't see the ishoo here. Provided the ground between the turbines is left to grow whatever it wants to grow it's doing pretty much the same job as the trees were. Net win.
Everyone knows that north Scotland is vast areas of pointless empty space, for very good reason. What is odd is that south Scotland is also vast and endless vistas of empty space, with the M74 going through the middle, with which you can do anything you like without bothering anyone. I have often wondered why, when in London 20 people live in a cupboard under the stairs paying £10,000 pa for it, the whole of agreeable but dull south Scotland is entirely empty.
By definition, people tend not to live in empty spaces.
Got that. Kant would call it an a priori analytic statement. All bachelors are unmarried too.
Hah yes!
My point really is that people congregate, cities are popular, most of us want to live close to others.
Of course. The mystery is why the entire of southern Scotland, agreeable, pleasing, on the way to Glasgow Edinburgh and Carlisle should not have developed large towns and even cities over 10 centuries. It's nice, spacious and empty. We assume its a law of nature that Scotland has 5m people and England has 55m. Scottish land in the north explains a difference, but not a tenfold one.
In south Scotland towns of 1,500 people are significant strategic centres. Langholm. Newtown St Boswells. Etc.
M74 is deceptive. A68 (etc) gives a different view - the Tweeddale woollen towns.
Not a surprise if you've ever driven up the M74! Though they were 90% tree farms.
I just don't see the ishoo here. Provided the ground between the turbines is left to grow whatever it wants to grow it's doing pretty much the same job as the trees were. Net win.
Well, that's not quite true. A large number of these turbines in the uplands have been planted on soft peat.
They need a monster concrete base and mess up the local hydrology, as do all the servicing roads required.
There's some argument whether they are even carbon neutral given the resultant soil oxidation.
Where there was forestry there will have been some drainage but not quite on the same scale.
Offshore just makes more sense.
Completely agree, but all your points would apply equally if the turbines had been erected where heather, rather than trees used to grow. The trees are an irrelevance.
I also wonder how many simply got harvested as per usual, or were small saplings of little value. The rest would just have gone into the biomass machines.
Quite. If this is standard softwood forestry they are hideous at a distance when growing and worse to be in among, and the brash left after harvesting them makes WW1 no man's land look like dejeuner sur l'herbe and lasts, and is allowed to last, for decades. They are not all ents any more than the surplus-to-requirements red deer are all bambis.
I know - been there, done that, in student vacation work. I can remember how I felt after a day marking trees for felling in a neglected forest - and that was just slashing my way through the jungle to cut the blazes for the loggers.
Not a surprise if you've ever driven up the M74! Though they were 90% tree farms.
I just don't see the ishoo here. Provided the ground between the turbines is left to grow whatever it wants to grow it's doing pretty much the same job as the trees were. Net win.
Everyone knows that north Scotland is vast areas of pointless empty space, for very good reason. What is odd is that south Scotland is also vast and endless vistas of empty space, with the M74 going through the middle, with which you can do anything you like without bothering anyone. I have often wondered why, when in London 20 people live in a cupboard under the stairs paying £10,000 pa for it, the whole of agreeable but dull south Scotland is entirely empty.
By definition, people tend not to live in empty spaces.
Got that. Kant would call it an a priori analytic statement. All bachelors are unmarried too.
Hah yes!
My point really is that people congregate, cities are popular, most of us want to live close to others.
Of course. The mystery is why the entire of southern Scotland, agreeable, pleasing, on the way to Glasgow Edinburgh and Carlisle should not have developed large towns and even cities over 10 centuries. It's nice, spacious and empty. We assume its a law of nature that Scotland has 5m people and England has 55m. Scottish land in the north explains a difference, but not a tenfold one.
In south Scotland towns of 1,500 people are significant strategic centres. Langholm. Newtown St Boswells. Etc.
Comments
This is like what they did to Andy Murray at the 2019 Aussie Open.
Fact is, I feel ok for 62. The peak is long gone but I think I can still do some good PB work.
What the Brighton Greens thought a three times failed London Mayoral Candidate and leader of the Greens on Camden Council brings to the party escapes me….
I find this both sweet and terrifying.
I don't think I'd want an artificial Cookie over which I had no control to live on after I die.
However, if we are doing a liturgy, can I add a good Anglican "And also with you"?
Hope the op goes well.
https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1681740744749379585
We already know that the UN is no longer able to keep the peace. If it isn't capable of creating a convoy to protect the export of Ukrainian grain, then it's time to shut the whole institution down.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/66251589
When I was an early teen I broke one of my front teeth. Taken to the dentist and was told it'd have to be a crown and they'd have to kill the root of my tooth to stop... something or other.
Shot of local anaesthetic to the gum, then a drill _straight up into the nerve of my tooth_. I remember writhing in pain in the chair and crying while the dentist *screamed at me* "YOU CAN'T FEEL IT YOU'VE HAD SOME ANAESTHETIC!".
At which point I blacked out.
Entirely unrelated - I found out a few years later a local dentist had been done for defrauding the NHS and spending vast amounts of cash on holidays, cars and gak.
#lovedentists
All this and more, coming by the year 20....
@DNarvali
La promotion russe pour la sortie de Barbie ça va trop loin.
(The Russian promotion for the release of Barbie is going too far)
https://twitter.com/DNarvali/status/1681585322935701505
With Brighton and Lucas I wonder if it was a combination of her being a decent candidate at just the right moment - the previous candidate had done very well in 2005, and she took it one step further with a minor majority the next time, and after that there may have been a bit of 'We've got the only Green MP in the country, isn't that cool?' tendency. Given how her vote has increased each time she must have done a good job for them, but I wouldn't be surprised if that early consolidation was in part due to the novelty.
With a new, unknown Green, they may have to start from the sort of base she was working from initially, especially with local troubles.
Rob Blackie https://www.rob4london.com/
Chris French https://twitter.com/chrisd_french
He certainly helps us to trust in the hope of resurrection.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/19/snp-chopped-down-16m-trees-develop-wind-farms-scotland/
Leicester doesn't have beaches.
We will keep you in mind for, as your sister Amaz said, you're Too Good To Be Forgotten'
Because they are all bull.
Will ever haunt me
For his clones persist
So he’ll never be missed
They need a monster concrete base and mess up the local hydrology, as do all the servicing roads required. There's some argument whether they are even carbon neutral given the resultant soil oxidation.
Where there was forestry there will have been some drainage but not quite on the same scale, as anyone who has tried to fight through a Sitka plantation can tell you.
Quite apart from the basic human perception of fair dos all round.
BTW I am still puzzled about this, as in my family we have had old fashioned accountants with simple ways, and if 6d was missing you searched till it was sorted.
How is it possible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone has stolen/fraudulently obtained money when as a matter of hard fact no-one has - there has been no fraud or theft and an old fashioned audit will be unable to show that actual money has actually disappeared.
How did this get past common sense, accountants, auditors, forensic investigators, prosecutors, defence lawyers, defence expert forensic accountants, judges and juries?
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tycoon-who-ordered-rivals-death-29070583
If you want a walk of about 200 miles meeting not a soul try the Southern Upland Way. No-one else does.
https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/southern-upland-way.shtml
Day 3: On the edge of a lot of the shower bands, best guess 3-4 hrs play
Day 4: Best guess, no play
Day 5: Rain clearing to somewhat concentrated showers estimated to happen by around start of play. Best guess 2-3 hours play available.
Basically looking at a 3 and a bit day test match.
They failed to disclose to the defendants - in breach of all the rules - the information they had and that failure to disclose is happening to this day.
The stupidity of this assumption coupled with the wickedness of the Post Office is a large part of what caused this. Also very few of the defendants had the resources needed to pay for expert computer and accounting experts.
But it's probably bad governance- the time for politics on the principle is over. And I'm confident that it's bad politics for the Conservatives. By next spring, the painful bit of the transition will be over, the benefits should be clearer and I don't think that cutting ULEZ back will be popular.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66250844
Tories essentially attack Evening Standard for publishing an obviously posed, voluntary photo of Susan Hall looking as mad as a meataxe.
My point really is that people congregate, cities are popular, most of us want to live close to others.
At least its not another derivative superhero film...
In a genuine fraud case the defendants records will say X and the audited reality will say Y. Mutatis mutandis the same must apply here. Still puzzled.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-66251947
Worth noting that it was the Post Office which was one of the entities urging the change so as to make it easier for them to prosecute people. Given that they knew this and wanted this, it meant they had no incentive to make sure the software system worked properly because they no longer had to prove that it did. So - bluntly - they could implement a shit system knowing they would get away with it.
When I read stuff like this I get pretty close to the view expressed in that Marina Hyde article that every single member of the Post Office's and Fujitsu's management should be dragged to prison tomorrow and forced to prove why they should not stay there, along with all the relevant Ministers.
It is also a warning to us that automatic reliance on any technical system (AI) for instance is a bloody stupid thing to do.
I mean, look at this, which on its face is a complaint that someone should mock a politician, when that is perfectly ok, and suggesting it shouldn't be allowed if it is a woman standing for the Tories or Labour for some reason.
"Your choice of photo of Susan Hall is a clear mockery, and it is contemptible, especially as the first female candidate for London mayor from either of the two main parties.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66250844
In south Scotland towns of 1,500 people are significant strategic centres. Langholm. Newtown St Boswells. Etc.
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2023/07/barbie-movie-review-greta-gerwig/674742/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
Unless they kept their own parallel accounts, they had no way to demonstrate that it was wrong. And it was wrong, on a regular basis.
But I'm still careful who I say it to. Some of them are pretty handy with their fists.
The problem the Conservatives have is this. To win in London, the Conservatives will always gave a doughnut map. But that doughnut needs to be much fatter than it currently is. And the current Conservative approach is too narrow to reach further into London.
It does blow the mind how fast populations can both rise and decline.
Fun fact - back then, torpedos were practise fired and reused. Again and again. Each time they would be carefully twiddled to make them accurate. Those torpedos heading for the Blucher were old friends to the men who fired them. Knew them all their careers, probably. Very often the crews had nicknames for each one, knew their individual foibles…
They've certainly done a great job at providing awareness that the film exists (you'd be surprised how many movies sneak up even on those who go to the cinema a lot), whether people will actually turn out will be very interesting.