Is Medvedev losing it? Saying in public you're going to hit targets that no-one is expecting you to hit is crap psywar. Why say it? When you gotta shoot, shoot - don't talk. Otherwise you sound like the Black Knight. If he isn't losing it, this kind of declaration is meant to bolster morale in the Russian armed forces ... for a time. See also the tone: "morons" this, "bastards" that. Whingeing that the other side is carrying out effective psywar against you is also crap psywar. Sheesh!
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
Reports that a Saudi team have offered €300m for Mbappe
With a salary of - wait for it - €700m A YEAR
Obscene.
It’s quite possibly nonsense. Maybe spread by the Saudis themselves just to say: Look how much money we have
Mbappe, a sublime talent, just 24, stripped of his dignity, turned into a circus act. That's what this would do if it's true (which I hope it isn't).
Yeah but even for him… €700m?!
And it’s just one season then he goes to Real for free
PSG really want this to happen as the alternative seems to be Mbappe sulking on the bench for a whole season (he and the team have entirely fallen out) then his contract expires and he goes to Real and PSG get nothing
That's kind of what I mean. It's such a stupid sum he almost has to take it even though it's a betrayal of his talent and potential. The money is - quite literally - buying him. Demeaning him, actually, the way I see it. But hopefully we're getting all het up about something that isn't happening. We do see this sometimes on here.
The boundaries have changed so she would likely have lost anyway. The MP from the next constituency along has been a better Tory MP than her (though he will likely also lose). But if he does stand for the revised constituency and wins he'll be one of the better ones.
She's nice enough (tho' I can't possibly repeat on here the gossip I have about her) but a bit useless, even on local matters. Husband who knows her well gave up on her ages ago.
Copeland had always had a Labour MP until 2017, so likely to revert to type and she has clearly seen the writing on the wall. Hence her decision to return to being a 'community activist'
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/5020679/uploads/editor/ke/me7c7ap3xml8.jpeg" alt="" /> eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Good to see Ukranian cities looking as lovely as always.
GDP is not related to civic pride. The people where you are, are proud of where they live, and proud of their country in the face of an enemy.
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
San Fransisco is miles richer than any of our cities on a per cap basis, and yet it is swimming in shit.
Degraded urbanism is a problem in the English speaking world. You see it much less elsewhere
America’s urban problems are different to ours and probably worse. We have litter and they have shit. But still. How hard is it to stop littering?
Doing some pondering. The Premier League has been the dominant league for c 20 years? But the world's very best player, Zidane, Messi, Mbappe, Ronaldo at his peak, haven't ever played in it. Checking back, the world's best player has only been won once by an EPL player. Ronaldo in 2008. He immediately left for Real. Anyone got a reason why?
Crazy talk. Best players to have played in the Premier League:
Thierry Henry Robert Pires Frederik Ljungberg Dennis Bergkamp Ashley Cole etc
As a rebrand, X is potentially superior to Meta and Alphabet (neither of which has really worked, except perhaps on some obscure accounting basis)
Yeah, but Meta and Alphabet are corporate-facing brands. Alphabet is entirely corporate; I don't think I've ever noticed it on a Google property. "Meta" shows up as a subtitle on some of the company's products.
Musk appears to want to replace the consumer-facing Twitter brand entirely with the X brand. It's not "Twitter from X" in the same way as "Facebook from Meta", it's just "X".
Yes, X is superior and more memorable, but it is a big risk
However, Musk could be feeling that he’s taken such flak since he bought Twitter he might as well have fun with it: experiment wildly
He’s not gonna go personally bankrupt
Given that what he wants to do with twitter is very different to most people's perceptions of what twitter is, then a rebrand makes a lot of sense in terms of creating a blank canvas on which to project a new perception.
I have my doubts as to whether he will be successful. There's a tension between the ostensible goal of the "everything app" and having twitter be the ego-stroking alt-right echo chamber that he's enjoying so much in between running proper business ventures like Tesla and SpaceX.
It's trying to do too much rather than anything to do with moderation policies that will threaten Twitter's position. I don't think there's a market for an everything app.
As a rebrand, X is potentially superior to Meta and Alphabet (neither of which has really worked, except perhaps on some obscure accounting basis)
Yeah, but Meta and Alphabet are corporate-facing brands. Alphabet is entirely corporate; I don't think I've ever noticed it on a Google property. "Meta" shows up as a subtitle on some of the company's products.
Musk appears to want to replace the consumer-facing Twitter brand entirely with the X brand. It's not "Twitter from X" in the same way as "Facebook from Meta", it's just "X".
Yes, X is superior and more memorable, but it is a big risk
However, Musk could be feeling that he’s taken such flak since he bought Twitter he might as well have fun with it: experiment wildly
He’s not gonna go personally bankrupt
Surprised you think X is more memorable. Nobody forgets Twitter. Just guessing, but "X" might have more power in China or India? Or it could just be that this is this month's way for Musk to get himself on the front pages, after the cage fight challenge. Did he not have x.com in his back pocket from the days of the run-up to Paypal? But the most interesting possibility is that the plan really is to integrate Twitter into an "everything app" perhaps based around microchip implants (Neuralink).
X is potentially pretty good
But there is an issue with terms that refer specifically to Twitter and the Twitter experience. Musk is suggesting tweets will become X’s. What, really? And how about retweets? Hmm
I think it's a load of shite tbh, and a weird choice* - unless he's planning to crash the whole thing into the side of a mountain and build the real 'X' from the wreckage. The only x com I'm interested in is the one that combats alien invasions.
Also dunno that there is an appetite for an 'everything app'. My phone is kind of my 'everything app'. What does X add that I (or indeed a business that sells things that I want) actually need? As for neural chips, thanks but no.
*not the name itself; 'X' is fine, if a bit porny. 'Twitter' felt slightly frivolous and silly to me. But like shit band names ('The Beatles') you just get used to it. Which is why I find it a bit odd; why give up all that recognition and brand equity?
It should have been TwitterX, to line up with SpaceX. Then he could have a holding company called "MuskX". Why they don't pay me squillions for branding I dunno
Poo. Somebody else stole my idea for an adhesive label to prove letter delivery payment. And the one for attaching a boiler to steel rails and transporting things with it. I am a prophet after my time...
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
San Fransisco is miles richer than any of our cities on a per cap basis, and yet it is swimming in shit.
Maybe there is a link between wealth in absolute terms, and the distribution of it, and how much people care about public goods.
Of course if you are Ukrainian right now you are probably feeling more civic pride than ever before, and less inclined than ever to create any unnecessary work or waste. So that might explain things as well.
Doing some pondering. The Premier League has been the dominant league for c 20 years? But the world's very best player, Zidane, Messi, Mbappe, Ronaldo at his peak, haven't ever played in it. Checking back, the world's best player has only been won once by an EPL player. Ronaldo in 2008. He immediately left for Real. Anyone got a reason why?
Crazy talk. Best players to have played in the Premier League:
Thierry Henry Robert Pires Frederik Ljungberg Dennis Bergkamp Ashley Cole etc
A tracking system, as used in several countries. Box in the car.
Charging is proportional to vehicle size, distance travelled. Given it is registered to a specific owner/vehicle, exemptions and reductions for poorer people becomes easy.
Since it has GPS, easy to enforce speed limits. So get rid of the expensive to maintain road humps that penalise small cars. And cause accidents - they are often placed very badly, causing drivers to swerve left and right to get the lowest bump.
If you want to price use according to car size and distance travelled, perhaps with additional cost for urban use -
why not just tax fuel more?
Emissions vary quite widely among cars with equal mpg.
Also location of the travel is important for congestion.
Fuel will be electricity.
I can seem some case for a levy on charge point electricity as it goes only to fuel vehicles, but that would drive home charging - a good thing for the large majority of people with off street parking perhaps.
On the downside we would need a sharp remedy for the people who create trip hazards by draping cables across pavements.
Trouble with adding a levy to charge points is that you can charge from a normal 13amp socket so a lot of people would be evading the levy
I think an incentive to charge at home is perhaps a good thing.
Many users of charge points use shared resources ie space.
Perhaps applied to on street charging points?
I think there are probably better ways, though, I quite like the idea of an annual axle weight tax based on the 4th power of the axle weight which is the formula for wear on roads, as I have argued before.
One way or the other fuel duty needs to be replaced which will require electricity used to charge cars to be taxed accordingly or some other method such as you suggest. However using the method you describe penalises the people who drive little vs those that drive a lot if just based on axle weight. It will also like result in electric cars with extra axles. No reason a car is limited to 4 wheels
It will also like result in electric cars with extra axles.
Well if it does, that'll be better for road wear.
And worse for efficiency, and thus range, as there will be more surface area in contact with the road and so a higher coefficient of friction.
Mu is constant and does not vary with contact area. The system resistance and friction losses might increase but not the CoF - all else being equal.
Yes, that's what I meant. You are right that it's the relationship between two objects and the normal reaction between them.
I should have added the word 'effect' onto the end of my sentence there but I have a toddler squabbling around my feet.
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
I would vote for a government which started jailing litterers and fly-tippers and graffiti taggers. Enough
Anyone got any tips on getting energy companies to refund money? I'm owed over £1k but cant get through to anyone to get a refund...
Lufthansa owe us a few hundred pounds for cancelling a flight in February which caused us to have to take an unexpected train journey to London to get a flight from a different airport. We've tried everything but they won't reply.
Sue them with a small claim.
Yep. 3 times I've used that approach and 3 times it's worked. People get spooked and settle.
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
I would guess the vast majority of people in this country don't drop litter. The strange thing is that we don't do anything about the minority who do.
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
I would vote for a government which started jailing litterers and fly-dumpers and graffiti taggers. Enough
This is the true version of Singapore-on-Thames that will have to emerge in the West if we want to turn things around.
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
San Fransisco is miles richer than any of our cities on a per cap basis, and yet it is swimming in shit.
Degraded urbanism is a problem in the English speaking world. You see it much less elsewhere
America’s urban problems are different to ours and probably worse. We have litter and they have shit. But still. How hard is it to stop littering?
It's not hard at all - it's a measure of whether the person cares, thinks they can get away with it and if someone else will deal with it.
It's a measure of self-respect and decadence really.
As a rebrand, X is potentially superior to Meta and Alphabet (neither of which has really worked, except perhaps on some obscure accounting basis)
Yeah, but Meta and Alphabet are corporate-facing brands. Alphabet is entirely corporate; I don't think I've ever noticed it on a Google property. "Meta" shows up as a subtitle on some of the company's products.
Musk appears to want to replace the consumer-facing Twitter brand entirely with the X brand. It's not "Twitter from X" in the same way as "Facebook from Meta", it's just "X".
Yes, X is superior and more memorable, but it is a big risk
However, Musk could be feeling that he’s taken such flak since he bought Twitter he might as well have fun with it: experiment wildly
He’s not gonna go personally bankrupt
Surprised you think X is more memorable. Nobody forgets Twitter. Just guessing, but "X" might have more power in China or India? Or it could just be that this is this month's way for Musk to get himself on the front pages, after the cage fight challenge. Did he not have x.com in his back pocket from the days of the run-up to Paypal? But the most interesting possibility is that the plan really is to integrate Twitter into an "everything app" perhaps based around microchip implants (Neuralink).
X is potentially pretty good
But there is an issue with terms that refer specifically to Twitter and the Twitter experience. Musk is suggesting tweets will become X’s. What, really? And how about retweets? Hmm
I think it's a load of shite tbh, and a weird choice* - unless he's planning to crash the whole thing into the side of a mountain and build the real 'X' from the wreckage. The only x com I'm interested in is the one that combats alien invasions.
Also dunno that there is an appetite for an 'everything app'. My phone is kind of my 'everything app'. What does X add that I (or indeed a business that sells things that I want) actually need? As for neural chips, thanks but no.
*not the name itself; 'X' is fine, if a bit porny. 'Twitter' felt slightly frivolous and silly to me. But like shit band names ('The Beatles') you just get used to it. Which is why I find it a bit odd; why give up all that recognition and brand equity?
It should have been TwitterX, to line up with SpaceX. Then he could have a holding company called "MuskX". Why they don't pay me squillions for branding I dunno
X is an utterly shit logo and brand. With everything in black and grey. Euurgh!
A brand designed by tiresome teenage boys for tiresome teenage boys.
The CEO is a woman.
https://twitter.com/lindayacc/status/1683213895463215104 X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine...
...There’s absolutely no limit to this transformation. X will be the platform that can deliver, well….everything. @elonmusk and I are looking forward to working with our teams and every single one of our partners to bring X to the world.
Isn't she the Dimitri Medvedev of Twitter? Nominally in charge but actually a figure head?
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
I would vote for a government which started jailing litterers and fly-dumpers and graffiti taggers. Enough
This is the true version of Singapore-on-Thames that will have to emerge in the West if we want to turn things around.
Singapore is the best place I’ve ever visited.
Take everything that’s good about London, Dubai, and Hong Kong, and put them all the the same place.
It’s a clean city, with loads of public transport, but also completely walkable if you wish, and everyone stands politely in line.
Doing some pondering. The Premier League has been the dominant league for c 20 years? But the world's very best player, Zidane, Messi, Mbappe, Ronaldo at his peak, haven't ever played in it. Checking back, the world's best player has only been won once by an EPL player. Ronaldo in 2008. He immediately left for Real. Anyone got a reason why?
Crazy talk. Best players to have played in the Premier League:
Thierry Henry Robert Pires Frederik Ljungberg Dennis Bergkamp Ashley Cole etc
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
I would guess the vast majority of people in this country don't drop litter. The strange thing is that we don't do anything about the minority who do.
Same people that try and flush wet-wipes down the loo.
As a rebrand, X is potentially superior to Meta and Alphabet (neither of which has really worked, except perhaps on some obscure accounting basis)
Yeah, but Meta and Alphabet are corporate-facing brands. Alphabet is entirely corporate; I don't think I've ever noticed it on a Google property. "Meta" shows up as a subtitle on some of the company's products.
Musk appears to want to replace the consumer-facing Twitter brand entirely with the X brand. It's not "Twitter from X" in the same way as "Facebook from Meta", it's just "X".
Yes, X is superior and more memorable, but it is a big risk
However, Musk could be feeling that he’s taken such flak since he bought Twitter he might as well have fun with it: experiment wildly
He’s not gonna go personally bankrupt
Surprised you think X is more memorable. Nobody forgets Twitter. Just guessing, but "X" might have more power in China or India? Or it could just be that this is this month's way for Musk to get himself on the front pages, after the cage fight challenge. Did he not have x.com in his back pocket from the days of the run-up to Paypal? But the most interesting possibility is that the plan really is to integrate Twitter into an "everything app" perhaps based around microchip implants (Neuralink).
X is potentially pretty good
But there is an issue with terms that refer specifically to Twitter and the Twitter experience. Musk is suggesting tweets will become X’s. What, really? And how about retweets? Hmm
I think it's a load of shite tbh, and a weird choice* - unless he's planning to crash the whole thing into the side of a mountain and build the real 'X' from the wreckage. The only x com I'm interested in is the one that combats alien invasions.
Also dunno that there is an appetite for an 'everything app'. My phone is kind of my 'everything app'. What does X add that I (or indeed a business that sells things that I want) actually need? As for neural chips, thanks but no.
*not the name itself; 'X' is fine, if a bit porny. 'Twitter' felt slightly frivolous and silly to me. But like shit band names ('The Beatles') you just get used to it. Which is why I find it a bit odd; why give up all that recognition and brand equity?
It should have been TwitterX, to line up with SpaceX. Then he could have a holding company called "MuskX". Why they don't pay me squillions for branding I dunno
X is an utterly shit logo and brand. With everything in black and grey. Euurgh!
A brand designed by tiresome teenage boys for tiresome teenage boys.
The CEO is a woman.
https://twitter.com/lindayacc/status/1683213895463215104 X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine...
...There’s absolutely no limit to this transformation. X will be the platform that can deliver, well….everything. @elonmusk and I are looking forward to working with our teams and every single one of our partners to bring X to the world.
Isn't she the Dimitri Medvedev of Twitter? Nominally in charge but actually a figure head?
She’s an advertising exec, there to try and get ad revenue back as Musk looks for other sources of revenue.
Doing some pondering. The Premier League has been the dominant league for c 20 years? But the world's very best player, Zidane, Messi, Mbappe, Ronaldo at his peak, haven't ever played in it. Checking back, the world's best player has only been won once by an EPL player. Ronaldo in 2008. He immediately left for Real. Anyone got a reason why?
I think Ronaldo was at his (first?) peak in 2007-08.
I would also say that Thierry Henry was the world's best player for at least one calendar year (2003). Alas, Italy and Spain have always dominated these awards. Pavel Nedved was a very good footballer (winner of the Ballon D'Or in 2003), but he was no Thierry Henry:
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
I would vote for a government which started jailing litterers and fly-tippers and graffiti taggers. Enough
Sorting out the rampanent knife crime and phone / watch muggings would be a decent start.....
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
I would vote for a government which started jailing litterers and fly-tippers and graffiti taggers. Enough
Sorting out the rampanent knife crime and phone / watch muggings would be a decent start.....
It still seems likely that to bring core inflation down to the 2pc target, interest rates will need to go a fair bit higher and the economy will have to be driven into recession, leading to higher unemployment.
Which is why we are going to have to live with somewhat higher inflation for some time to come. No government is going to fancy paying that cost.
The government doesn't control the interest rate.
They do, however, ultimately control the Bank. If the MPC started pushing interest rates up to 7 or 8% they would have plenty to say about it, especially in an election year. And interest rates alone would not be enough. A much, much tighter fiscal policy would need to supplement and support a tighter monetary policy to bring inflation back to those levels. Once again, not going to happen.
The Bank likes to think in terms of inflation *in the medium term*, so will want it back at 2% or so in around 24 months, or that's what it'll tell itself.
And to get there, you need to make all sorts of assumptions about oil and energy prices which are, essentially, subjective - which in turn means you can justify interest rates at quite a wide range and still say you'll hit 2%.
Of course, that's different from actually hitting 2% but everyone will be 2 years down the line by then and 'events, dear boy'.
The problem with inflation is that the UK seems exceptionally prone to secondary effects. Hence the government’s current obsession with wages. We don’t need high oil prices to generate inflation. Once we get the spark it will feed on itself. Some of this is because we are such a service dominated economy. Some because we have done so poorly with productivity. Wage increases without output increases are by definition inflationary. My priority as a trustee of a pension fund has been to ensure that the fund is as inflation proofed as possible for the foreseeable future. I don’t believe a word the Bank says about it.
Productivity increases however won't be invested in while it is cheaper to throw low waged workers at it which is why bringing it young persons visa's for barista's and au pairs is such a shitty policy.
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
It still seems likely that to bring core inflation down to the 2pc target, interest rates will need to go a fair bit higher and the economy will have to be driven into recession, leading to higher unemployment.
Which is why we are going to have to live with somewhat higher inflation for some time to come. No government is going to fancy paying that cost.
The government doesn't control the interest rate.
They do, however, ultimately control the Bank. If the MPC started pushing interest rates up to 7 or 8% they would have plenty to say about it, especially in an election year. And interest rates alone would not be enough. A much, much tighter fiscal policy would need to supplement and support a tighter monetary policy to bring inflation back to those levels. Once again, not going to happen.
The Bank likes to think in terms of inflation *in the medium term*, so will want it back at 2% or so in around 24 months, or that's what it'll tell itself.
And to get there, you need to make all sorts of assumptions about oil and energy prices which are, essentially, subjective - which in turn means you can justify interest rates at quite a wide range and still say you'll hit 2%.
Of course, that's different from actually hitting 2% but everyone will be 2 years down the line by then and 'events, dear boy'.
The problem with inflation is that the UK seems exceptionally prone to secondary effects. Hence the government’s current obsession with wages. We don’t need high oil prices to generate inflation. Once we get the spark it will feed on itself. Some of this is because we are such a service dominated economy. Some because we have done so poorly with productivity. Wage increases without output increases are by definition inflationary. My priority as a trustee of a pension fund has been to ensure that the fund is as inflation proofed as possible for the foreseeable future. I don’t believe a word the Bank says about it.
We've become a soft and flimsy economy, lacking gravitas, extremely vulnerable to global forces and the whims of big business. This is my sense of it.
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
I would guess the vast majority of people in this country don't drop litter. The strange thing is that we don't do anything about the minority who do.
Same people that try and flush wet-wipes down the loo.
Caused a major blockage near us. Fortunately the actual site of the blockage was far enough away for us not to be implicated, although I think we were the first to be actually affected
As a rebrand, X is potentially superior to Meta and Alphabet (neither of which has really worked, except perhaps on some obscure accounting basis)
Yeah, but Meta and Alphabet are corporate-facing brands. Alphabet is entirely corporate; I don't think I've ever noticed it on a Google property. "Meta" shows up as a subtitle on some of the company's products.
Musk appears to want to replace the consumer-facing Twitter brand entirely with the X brand. It's not "Twitter from X" in the same way as "Facebook from Meta", it's just "X".
Yes, X is superior and more memorable, but it is a big risk
However, Musk could be feeling that he’s taken such flak since he bought Twitter he might as well have fun with it: experiment wildly
He’s not gonna go personally bankrupt
Surprised you think X is more memorable. Nobody forgets Twitter. Just guessing, but "X" might have more power in China or India? Or it could just be that this is this month's way for Musk to get himself on the front pages, after the cage fight challenge. Did he not have x.com in his back pocket from the days of the run-up to Paypal? But the most interesting possibility is that the plan really is to integrate Twitter into an "everything app" perhaps based around microchip implants (Neuralink).
X is potentially pretty good
But there is an issue with terms that refer specifically to Twitter and the Twitter experience. Musk is suggesting tweets will become X’s. What, really? And how about retweets? Hmm
I think it's a load of shite tbh, and a weird choice* - unless he's planning to crash the whole thing into the side of a mountain and build the real 'X' from the wreckage. The only x com I'm interested in is the one that combats alien invasions.
Also dunno that there is an appetite for an 'everything app'. My phone is kind of my 'everything app'. What does X add that I (or indeed a business that sells things that I want) actually need? As for neural chips, thanks but no.
*not the name itself; 'X' is fine, if a bit porny. 'Twitter' felt slightly frivolous and silly to me. But like shit band names ('The Beatles') you just get used to it. Which is why I find it a bit odd; why give up all that recognition and brand equity?
It should have been TwitterX, to line up with SpaceX. Then he could have a holding company called "MuskX". Why they don't pay me squillions for branding I dunno
X is an utterly shit logo and brand. With everything in black and grey. Euurgh!
A brand designed by tiresome teenage boys for tiresome teenage boys.
What is it with black and grey these days? They are everywhere.
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
San Fransisco is miles richer than any of our cities on a per cap basis, and yet it is swimming in shit.
Degraded urbanism is a problem in the English speaking world. You see it much less elsewhere
America’s urban problems are different to ours and probably worse. We have litter and they have shit. But still. How hard is it to stop littering?
Look at places like glastonbury festival after the youth went home. The youth are pretty much left wing. Therefore litter is the fault of lefties...nods
As a rebrand, X is potentially superior to Meta and Alphabet (neither of which has really worked, except perhaps on some obscure accounting basis)
Yeah, but Meta and Alphabet are corporate-facing brands. Alphabet is entirely corporate; I don't think I've ever noticed it on a Google property. "Meta" shows up as a subtitle on some of the company's products.
Musk appears to want to replace the consumer-facing Twitter brand entirely with the X brand. It's not "Twitter from X" in the same way as "Facebook from Meta", it's just "X".
Yes, X is superior and more memorable, but it is a big risk
However, Musk could be feeling that he’s taken such flak since he bought Twitter he might as well have fun with it: experiment wildly
He’s not gonna go personally bankrupt
Surprised you think X is more memorable. Nobody forgets Twitter. Just guessing, but "X" might have more power in China or India? Or it could just be that this is this month's way for Musk to get himself on the front pages, after the cage fight challenge. Did he not have x.com in his back pocket from the days of the run-up to Paypal? But the most interesting possibility is that the plan really is to integrate Twitter into an "everything app" perhaps based around microchip implants (Neuralink).
X is potentially pretty good
But there is an issue with terms that refer specifically to Twitter and the Twitter experience. Musk is suggesting tweets will become X’s. What, really? And how about retweets? Hmm
I think it's a load of shite tbh, and a weird choice* - unless he's planning to crash the whole thing into the side of a mountain and build the real 'X' from the wreckage. The only x com I'm interested in is the one that combats alien invasions.
Also dunno that there is an appetite for an 'everything app'. My phone is kind of my 'everything app'. What does X add that I (or indeed a business that sells things that I want) actually need? As for neural chips, thanks but no.
*not the name itself; 'X' is fine, if a bit porny. 'Twitter' felt slightly frivolous and silly to me. But like shit band names ('The Beatles') you just get used to it. Which is why I find it a bit odd; why give up all that recognition and brand equity?
It should have been TwitterX, to line up with SpaceX. Then he could have a holding company called "MuskX". Why they don't pay me squillions for branding I dunno
X is an utterly shit logo and brand. With everything in black and grey. Euurgh!
A brand designed by tiresome teenage boys for tiresome teenage boys.
What is it with black and grey these days? They are everywhere.
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
San Fransisco is miles richer than any of our cities on a per cap basis, and yet it is swimming in shit.
Degraded urbanism is a problem in the English speaking world. You see it much less elsewhere
America’s urban problems are different to ours and probably worse. We have litter and they have shit. But still. How hard is it to stop littering?
Look at places like glastonbury festival after the youth went home. The youth are pretty much left wing. Therefore litter is the fault of lefties...nods
It should have been TwitterX, to line up with SpaceX. Then he could have a holding company called "MuskX". Why they don't pay me squillions for branding I dunno
Surely X-Twitter would make more sense?
I wonder when Elon "goes to glory" if his headstone will have "X Musk" on it?
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
I would guess the vast majority of people in this country don't drop litter. The strange thing is that we don't do anything about the minority who do.
Same people that try and flush wet-wipes down the loo.
Caused a major blockage near us. Fortunately the actual site of the blockage was far enough away for us not to be implicated, although I think we were the first to be actually affected
Is Medvedev losing it? Saying in public you're going to hit targets that no-one is expecting you to hit is crap psywar. Why say it? When you gotta shoot, shoot - don't talk. Otherwise you sound like the Black Knight. If he isn't losing it, this kind of declaration is meant to bolster morale in the Russian armed forces ... for a time. See also the tone: "morons" this, "bastards" that. Whingeing that the other side is carrying out effective psywar against you is also crap psywar. Sheesh!
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
San Fransisco is miles richer than any of our cities on a per cap basis, and yet it is swimming in shit.
Degraded urbanism is a problem in the English speaking world. You see it much less elsewhere
America’s urban problems are different to ours and probably worse. We have litter and they have shit. But still. How hard is it to stop littering?
Look at places like glastonbury festival after the youth went home. The youth are pretty much left wing. Therefore litter is the fault of lefties...nods
Yeah, never any litter after football matches.
The majority of those that goto football matches are also young
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
I would guess the vast majority of people in this country don't drop litter. The strange thing is that we don't do anything about the minority who do.
Same people that try and flush wet-wipes down the loo.
Caused a major blockage near us. Fortunately the actual site of the blockage was far enough away for us not to be implicated, although I think we were the first to be actually affected
It really ought to be a City midfielder, but if it has to be a forward (Pavel Nedved (2003), Fabio Cannavaro (2006) and Luka Modric (2018) all won it, so non-forwards can get it), then surely Haaland gets it.
As a rebrand, X is potentially superior to Meta and Alphabet (neither of which has really worked, except perhaps on some obscure accounting basis)
Yeah, but Meta and Alphabet are corporate-facing brands. Alphabet is entirely corporate; I don't think I've ever noticed it on a Google property. "Meta" shows up as a subtitle on some of the company's products.
Musk appears to want to replace the consumer-facing Twitter brand entirely with the X brand. It's not "Twitter from X" in the same way as "Facebook from Meta", it's just "X".
Yes, X is superior and more memorable, but it is a big risk
However, Musk could be feeling that he’s taken such flak since he bought Twitter he might as well have fun with it: experiment wildly
He’s not gonna go personally bankrupt
Given that what he wants to do with twitter is very different to most people's perceptions of what twitter is, then a rebrand makes a lot of sense in terms of creating a blank canvas on which to project a new perception.
I have my doubts as to whether he will be successful. There's a tension between the ostensible goal of the "everything app" and having twitter be the ego-stroking alt-right echo chamber that he's enjoying so much in between running proper business ventures like Tesla and SpaceX.
It's trying to do too much rather than anything to do with moderation policies that will threaten Twitter's position. I don't think there's a market for an everything app.
I didn't say anything about moderation policies.
The tension is between twitter as essentially somewhere for him to blow off steam and receive adulation for that, and running it as a serious business.
Is Medvedev losing it? Saying in public you're going to hit targets that no-one is expecting you to hit is crap psywar. Why say it? When you gotta shoot, shoot - don't talk. Otherwise you sound like the Black Knight. If he isn't losing it, this kind of declaration is meant to bolster morale in the Russian armed forces ... for a time. See also the tone: "morons" this, "bastards" that. Whingeing that the other side is carrying out effective psywar against you is also crap psywar. Sheesh!
Given that what he wants to do with twitter is very different to most people's perceptions of what twitter is, then a rebrand makes a lot of sense in terms of creating a blank canvas on which to project a new perception.
I have my doubts as to whether he will be successful. There's a tension between the ostensible goal of the "everything app" and having twitter be the ego-stroking alt-right echo chamber that he's enjoying so much in between running proper business ventures like Tesla and SpaceX.
I also tend to agree with (ex VC now tech pontificater) Benedict Evans that "everything apps" are unlikely to take off in the West because the tech market is already divided up, and we ended up with verticals -- PayPal does payments, Amazon sells you stuff, WhatsApp does messaging, etc. In China they happened to end up dividing the market horizontally, so you get multiple big companies that all do a bit of everything and make their stuff interoperate smoothly. But just because China has that kind of app doesn't mean it will work here, simply because the space is already occupied. You can't turn your vertical stripe into a horizontal stripe without painting over a lot of other people's stripes...
As a rebrand, X is potentially superior to Meta and Alphabet (neither of which has really worked, except perhaps on some obscure accounting basis)
Yeah, but Meta and Alphabet are corporate-facing brands. Alphabet is entirely corporate; I don't think I've ever noticed it on a Google property. "Meta" shows up as a subtitle on some of the company's products.
Musk appears to want to replace the consumer-facing Twitter brand entirely with the X brand. It's not "Twitter from X" in the same way as "Facebook from Meta", it's just "X".
Yes, X is superior and more memorable, but it is a big risk
However, Musk could be feeling that he’s taken such flak since he bought Twitter he might as well have fun with it: experiment wildly
He’s not gonna go personally bankrupt
Surprised you think X is more memorable. Nobody forgets Twitter. Just guessing, but "X" might have more power in China or India? Or it could just be that this is this month's way for Musk to get himself on the front pages, after the cage fight challenge. Did he not have x.com in his back pocket from the days of the run-up to Paypal? But the most interesting possibility is that the plan really is to integrate Twitter into an "everything app" perhaps based around microchip implants (Neuralink).
X is potentially pretty good
But there is an issue with terms that refer specifically to Twitter and the Twitter experience. Musk is suggesting tweets will become X’s. What, really? And how about retweets? Hmm
I think it's a load of shite tbh, and a weird choice* - unless he's planning to crash the whole thing into the side of a mountain and build the real 'X' from the wreckage. The only x com I'm interested in is the one that combats alien invasions.
Also dunno that there is an appetite for an 'everything app'. My phone is kind of my 'everything app'. What does X add that I (or indeed a business that sells things that I want) actually need? As for neural chips, thanks but no.
*not the name itself; 'X' is fine, if a bit porny. 'Twitter' felt slightly frivolous and silly to me. But like shit band names ('The Beatles') you just get used to it. Which is why I find it a bit odd; why give up all that recognition and brand equity?
It should have been TwitterX, to line up with SpaceX. Then he could have a holding company called "MuskX". Why they don't pay me squillions for branding I dunno
X is an utterly shit logo and brand. With everything in black and grey. Euurgh!
A brand designed by tiresome teenage boys for tiresome teenage boys.
What is it with black and grey these days? They are everywhere.
Something about the general mood?
Possibly. It's the kind of thing which is a little self reinforcing though. How are you supposed to be positive when everything is decorated so darkly?
Anyone got any tips on getting energy companies to refund money? I'm owed over £1k but cant get through to anyone to get a refund...
Lufthansa owe us a few hundred pounds for cancelling a flight in February which caused us to have to take an unexpected train journey to London to get a flight from a different airport. We've tried everything but they won't reply.
Sue them with a small claim.
Yep. 3 times I've used that approach and 3 times it's worked. People get spooked and settle.
Or try section 75 or chargeback claim if you purchased with Cr/DR Card. Simpler.
People voting Corbyn in 2017 "Age was even more of a dividing factor than in 2015 (and the biggest we’ve seen since our records began in 1979). All the swing to Labour was among under 44s (and highest of all among 25-34s), while there was a swing to the Conservatives among over 55s. This is the biggest age gap we’ve seen in elections going back to the 1970s. Although (as in previous elections) the swing among women and men overall was similar, there was a difference between young men and young women. Among 18-24 year olds, Labour increased its vote share much more among women than men"
Is Medvedev losing it? Saying in public you're going to hit targets that no-one is expecting you to hit is crap psywar. Why say it? When you gotta shoot, shoot - don't talk. Otherwise you sound like the Black Knight. If he isn't losing it, this kind of declaration is meant to bolster morale in the Russian armed forces ... for a time. See also the tone: "morons" this, "bastards" that. Whingeing that the other side is carrying out effective psywar against you is also crap psywar. Sheesh!
People voting Corbyn in 2017 "Age was even more of a dividing factor than in 2015 (and the biggest we’ve seen since our records began in 1979). All the swing to Labour was among under 44s (and highest of all among 25-34s), while there was a swing to the Conservatives among over 55s. This is the biggest age gap we’ve seen in elections going back to the 1970s. Although (as in previous elections) the swing among women and men overall was similar, there was a difference between young men and young women. Among 18-24 year olds, Labour increased its vote share much more among women than men"
Anyone got any tips on getting energy companies to refund money? I'm owed over £1k but cant get through to anyone to get a refund...
Lufthansa owe us a few hundred pounds for cancelling a flight in February which caused us to have to take an unexpected train journey to London to get a flight from a different airport. We've tried everything but they won't reply.
Sue them with a small claim.
Yep. 3 times I've used that approach and 3 times it's worked. People get spooked and settle.
Or try section 75 or chargeback claim if you purchased with Cr/DR Card. Simpler.
Can you now initiate a chargeback with a debit card in the UK?
Given that what he wants to do with twitter is very different to most people's perceptions of what twitter is, then a rebrand makes a lot of sense in terms of creating a blank canvas on which to project a new perception.
I have my doubts as to whether he will be successful. There's a tension between the ostensible goal of the "everything app" and having twitter be the ego-stroking alt-right echo chamber that he's enjoying so much in between running proper business ventures like Tesla and SpaceX.
I also tend to agree with (ex VC now tech pontificater) Benedict Evans that "everything apps" are unlikely to take off in the West because the tech market is already divided up, and we ended up with verticals -- PayPal does payments, Amazon sells you stuff, WhatsApp does messaging, etc. In China they happened to end up dividing the market horizontally, so you get multiple big companies that all do a bit of everything and make their stuff interoperate smoothly. But just because China has that kind of app doesn't mean it will work here, simply because the space is already occupied. You can't turn your vertical stripe into a horizontal stripe without painting over a lot of other people's stripes...
Personally I find it really irritating when apps try to branch out into other areas. The idea of customer service via Facebook is creepy.
As a rebrand, X is potentially superior to Meta and Alphabet (neither of which has really worked, except perhaps on some obscure accounting basis)
Yeah, but Meta and Alphabet are corporate-facing brands. Alphabet is entirely corporate; I don't think I've ever noticed it on a Google property. "Meta" shows up as a subtitle on some of the company's products.
Musk appears to want to replace the consumer-facing Twitter brand entirely with the X brand. It's not "Twitter from X" in the same way as "Facebook from Meta", it's just "X".
Yes, X is superior and more memorable, but it is a big risk
However, Musk could be feeling that he’s taken such flak since he bought Twitter he might as well have fun with it: experiment wildly
He’s not gonna go personally bankrupt
Surprised you think X is more memorable. Nobody forgets Twitter. Just guessing, but "X" might have more power in China or India? Or it could just be that this is this month's way for Musk to get himself on the front pages, after the cage fight challenge. Did he not have x.com in his back pocket from the days of the run-up to Paypal? But the most interesting possibility is that the plan really is to integrate Twitter into an "everything app" perhaps based around microchip implants (Neuralink).
X is potentially pretty good
But there is an issue with terms that refer specifically to Twitter and the Twitter experience. Musk is suggesting tweets will become X’s. What, really? And how about retweets? Hmm
I think it's a load of shite tbh, and a weird choice* - unless he's planning to crash the whole thing into the side of a mountain and build the real 'X' from the wreckage. The only x com I'm interested in is the one that combats alien invasions.
Also dunno that there is an appetite for an 'everything app'. My phone is kind of my 'everything app'. What does X add that I (or indeed a business that sells things that I want) actually need? As for neural chips, thanks but no.
*not the name itself; 'X' is fine, if a bit porny. 'Twitter' felt slightly frivolous and silly to me. But like shit band names ('The Beatles') you just get used to it. Which is why I find it a bit odd; why give up all that recognition and brand equity?
It should have been TwitterX, to line up with SpaceX. Then he could have a holding company called "MuskX". Why they don't pay me squillions for branding I dunno
X is an utterly shit logo and brand. With everything in black and grey. Euurgh!
A brand designed by tiresome teenage boys for tiresome teenage boys.
The CEO is a woman.
https://twitter.com/lindayacc/status/1683213895463215104 X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine...
...There’s absolutely no limit to this transformation. X will be the platform that can deliver, well….everything. @elonmusk and I are looking forward to working with our teams and every single one of our partners to bring X to the world.
Correction - The TITULAR for the record CEO is a woman. Musk is the REAL head Poo(p)bah.
People voting Corbyn in 2017 "Age was even more of a dividing factor than in 2015 (and the biggest we’ve seen since our records began in 1979). All the swing to Labour was among under 44s (and highest of all among 25-34s), while there was a swing to the Conservatives among over 55s. This is the biggest age gap we’ve seen in elections going back to the 1970s. Although (as in previous elections) the swing among women and men overall was similar, there was a difference between young men and young women. Among 18-24 year olds, Labour increased its vote share much more among women than men"
Therefore we can conclude that the majority of those that watch football thought Corbyn was an all round good egg
That football fact is from 2016. From Everton, and witnessing who goes to St James's, they don't appear to be getting any younger.
And yours was from manchester united. 2016 was close to the 2017 election so most of those going to football matches were more likely to support Corbyn than May. Of course as they matured they may have realised left wing ideology is not a sane choice but then they watch football so probably not
*rechecking I dont see everton mentioned once I do see figures from the premier league mentioned which implies more than 1 club
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
I would vote for a government which started jailing litterers and fly-dumpers and graffiti taggers. Enough
This is the true version of Singapore-on-Thames that will have to emerge in the West if we want to turn things around.
Wiemar in Germany is a small, relatively poor city in the East of the country. It also - like @Leon's pictures of Ukraine - is devoid of litter and graffiti.
Yet it is anything but Singapore-on-Thames, as far as I can tell.
Why is it clean, while so much of (say) London, is not?
The birthplace of Leopold von Sacher Masoch, author of Venus in Furs and the “first masochist”
Less impressively, I had no idea until now that Venus in Furs was anything other than a Velvet Underground song.
It's a good book. There is a lot less hanky spanky than you might expect, and a lot more of people sitting round in elegant drawing rooms discussing the differences between men and women and what it means to be in love.
It is definitely one to read if you are interested in the question "who has more power in a relationship, the male or the female?" and much less one to read if you want literature of the more one-handed variety.
DHL workers at Gatwick get pay rise of between 15% and 31%. Plus an extra £1.25ph between midnight and 5 am.
Good to see pay rises at the bottom of the market. That would never have happened under FoM.
Nothing to do with inflation and cost of living going through the roof then?
If those workers could be easily replaced as they could be under FoM they would have been told where to shove their pay demands
That's what strong trade unions are for.
Anyone who has been working there less than 2 years can be laid off at will union or no union. Having lived near heathrow and know people working there its probably half that workforce. If they had enough applicants as they would have in the past they would have done it and told the union to go fuck itself
Anyone got any tips on getting energy companies to refund money? I'm owed over £1k but cant get through to anyone to get a refund...
Lufthansa owe us a few hundred pounds for cancelling a flight in February which caused us to have to take an unexpected train journey to London to get a flight from a different airport. We've tried everything but they won't reply.
Sue them with a small claim.
Yep. 3 times I've used that approach and 3 times it's worked. People get spooked and settle.
That's what I did with Wizz Air, and recovered £1,209.
These useless companies rely upon most people just giving up and going away.
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
I would vote for a government which started jailing litterers and fly-dumpers and graffiti taggers. Enough
This is the true version of Singapore-on-Thames that will have to emerge in the West if we want to turn things around.
Wiemar in Germany is a small, relatively poor city in the East of the country. It also - like @Leon's pictures of Ukraine - is devoid of litter and graffiti.
Yet it is anything but Singapore-on-Thames, as far as I can tell.
Why is it clean, while so much of (say) London, is not?
There’s been some major cultural change since the 1950. Maybe even earlier
If you look at photos of central London in, say, the 1900s it is noticeable how handsome and clean it is (in the centre). Of course the corollary of this is hideous slums in the East End etc, much worse than anything now
By the 70s and 80s London was looking grotty and rundown almost everywhere
Now it looks much richer. But we’ve kept too much of that grot. That lack of care and pride
American cities (if they’re not overrun with homeless and the like) are noticeably cleaner than British cities
DHL workers at Gatwick get pay rise of between 15% and 31%. Plus an extra £1.25ph between midnight and 5 am.
Good to see pay rises at the bottom of the market. That would never have happened under FoM.
Nothing to do with inflation and cost of living going through the roof then?
If those workers could be easily replaced as they could be under FoM they would have been told where to shove their pay demands
That's what strong trade unions are for.
Anyone who has been working there less than 2 years can be laid off at will union or no union. Having lived near heathrow and know people working there its probably half that workforce. If they had enough applicants as they would have in the past they would have done it and told the union to go fuck itself
They can do that because of the UK's very strong anti-trade union laws and relatively low employment protections.
The birthplace of Leopold von Sacher Masoch, author of Venus in Furs and the “first masochist”
Less impressively, I had no idea until now that Venus in Furs was anything other than a Velvet Underground song.
What did you think the song was about? Somebody called "Venus" wearing furs?
Sado masochism. Thinking about it there's a disconnect between title and content, but so what?
The title is taken from an in-book discussion about Titian's Venus With a Mirror, which he believes exemplifies the cruelty and vanity of female nature. There's a lot of arguments like that in the book...
Strangely enough the song really does manage to encapsulate the way the book is written, which is dark and gloomy and gothic and pensive all at the same time.
DHL workers at Gatwick get pay rise of between 15% and 31%. Plus an extra £1.25ph between midnight and 5 am.
Good to see pay rises at the bottom of the market. That would never have happened under FoM.
Nothing to do with inflation and cost of living going through the roof then?
Everything to do with that. If FoM still existed, they’d be recruiting two year contracts at minimum wage from Romania.
Not with strong trade unions, they wouldn't.
Of course they would. They’d just employ people who don’t actually work for DHL, but for some franchised outsourced delivery or sorting company, just as Amazon do. If they’re lucky they’ll make minimum wage on piece work. The ending of FoM means that companies actually need to pay attention to their blue-collar employees, rather than treating them as disposable.
DHL workers at Gatwick get pay rise of between 15% and 31%. Plus an extra £1.25ph between midnight and 5 am.
Good to see pay rises at the bottom of the market. That would never have happened under FoM.
Nothing to do with inflation and cost of living going through the roof then?
Everything to do with that. If FoM still existed, they’d be recruiting two year contracts at minimum wage from Romania.
Not with strong trade unions, they wouldn't.
Of course they would. They’d just employ people who don’t actually work for DHL, but for some franchised outsourced delivery or sorting company, just as Amazon do. If they’re lucky they’ll make minimum wage on piece work. The ending of FoM means that companies actually need to pay attention to their blue-collar employees, rather than treating them as disposable.
Strong trade unions ensure that. It's why companies like Amazon are so opposed to them.
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
I would vote for a government which started jailing litterers and fly-dumpers and graffiti taggers. Enough
This is the true version of Singapore-on-Thames that will have to emerge in the West if we want to turn things around.
Wiemar in Germany is a small, relatively poor city in the East of the country. It also - like @Leon's pictures of Ukraine - is devoid of litter and graffiti.
Yet it is anything but Singapore-on-Thames, as far as I can tell.
Why is it clean, while so much of (say) London, is not?
There’s been some major cultural change since the 1950. Maybe even earlier
If you look at photos of central London in, say, the 1900s it is noticeable how handsome and clean it is (in the centre). Of course the corollary of this is hideous slums in the East End etc, much worse than anything now
By the 70s and 80s London was looking grotty and rundown almost everywhere
Now it looks much richer. But we’ve kept too much of that grot. That lack of care and pride
American cities (if they’re not overrun with homeless and the like) are noticeably cleaner than British cities
Lee Kuan Yew himself spoke about how impressed he was by the civic pride in Britain when he arrived as a student after the war.
DHL workers at Gatwick get pay rise of between 15% and 31%. Plus an extra £1.25ph between midnight and 5 am.
Good to see pay rises at the bottom of the market. That would never have happened under FoM.
Nothing to do with inflation and cost of living going through the roof then?
Everything to do with that. If FoM still existed, they’d be recruiting two year contracts at minimum wage from Romania.
Not with strong trade unions, they wouldn't.
Of course they would. They’d just employ people who don’t actually work for DHL, but for some franchised outsourced delivery or sorting company, just as Amazon do. If they’re lucky they’ll make minimum wage on piece work. The ending of FoM means that companies actually need to pay attention to their blue-collar employees, rather than treating them as disposable.
Strong trade unions ensure that. It's why companies like Amazon are so opposed to them.
Good on them, that’s exactly what unions should be good for.
Anyone got any tips on getting energy companies to refund money? I'm owed over £1k but cant get through to anyone to get a refund...
Lufthansa owe us a few hundred pounds for cancelling a flight in February which caused us to have to take an unexpected train journey to London to get a flight from a different airport. We've tried everything but they won't reply.
Sue them with a small claim.
Yep. 3 times I've used that approach and 3 times it's worked. People get spooked and settle.
Or try section 75 or chargeback claim if you purchased with Cr/DR Card. Simpler.
Can you now initiate a chargeback with a debit card in the UK?
Yep. You have always been able to I think. You can't do a Section 75 with a Debit Card. Chargeback also has less restrictions. There is no legal right unlike a Section 75, but I have never failed when using it.
Did one recently with Easyjet, although a Cr Card. Because it was less than £100 I had to use Chargeback, but have used Chargeback on a Debit Card before also.
An interesting argument. But I don't see the Conservatives winning unless:two things happen:
- they pick a popular celebrity candidate, of the kind that has such huge advantage in direct elections like this; and - they recover significantly in national politics.
Boris won narrowly in 2008 when he had good name recognition and Labour were hugely unpopular nationally and in 2012, he was the incumbent, which gives a big advantage in being known.
So good luck to OGH but I'm not sure I'd take 7/1 for Susan Who?
Agreed. The other thing would be needing a popular celebrity candidate who isn’t labelable as a party hack.
None of the Mayors of London so far have primarily been identified by their party affiliation, in the public eye. Khan is the closest to a standard party candidate, but most people don’t regard him as Mr Labour.
Khan is a figure of ridicule. ULEZ has given him a bloody nose because he tried to force it through. It won't be forgotten however much Labour apologise.
No. ULEZ policy is good. The implementation sucks, a bit.
Turing this into culture wars bullshit is so Donald Fucking Trump.
1) London needs cleaner air 2) Historically, the best way to achieve this is incrementally improving standards. As proven many times in many places 3) The “ULEZ policy”that was implemented was just one of a number of possible policies. 4) Not being impressed with 3) doesn’t mean opposing 1 & 2.
What makes me laugh about the Tory attempt to create ULEZ as a culture war issue is that it's their policy. Implemented by Boris for inner London, imposed on the suburbs by Grant Shapps. Where the "it will tax motorists" attack is literally what Shapps demanded as part of the TfL bailouts.
If the Tories want to oppose their own policy that's fine. But claiming - as some have - that this is "typical socialism" is painfully deluded. Perhaps Michael Green is a socialist?
Good morning
Looks as if wood burning stoves are environmentally unacceptable and a ban is looking for them
I think I read you are installing one
We have a woodturning stove. Put it in 13 years ago in good faith, believing it was greener than using fossil fuels (it is).
But the particulates issue has emerged since then. We would not put one in now, nor will we when we move house next year (hopefully).
Aside from the environmental considerations they have some pros (a real fire is a nice to look at) but are also quite a lot of work and create a lot of dust.
As with ULEZ there is a bit of an optics problem, regardless of facts. Wood burning is as ancient as the hills, a naturally occurring phenomenon and returns to the air only the CO2 that it removed in the first place - which is why recently it was commended as the big way forward - part of the 'biomass' revolution.
But more particularly PB wood burners (good people all) will look at thousands of square miles of wood burning forest fires which can be clearly seen from outer space and are all over the world, and wonder in what way their little pile of carefully curated logs is going to make things worse.
Much like ULEZ paying diesel van driving voters of Uxbridge/Hillingdon might look up at the sky as hundreds of planes land in their back garden at Heathrow.
Anyone who thinks there are not millions of votes in this and related issues is delusional.
I burn wood and I'm not a good person, but I can see the fallacies there. We are responsible for what we do, not for forest fires in faraway countries, and we are relatively more responsible to our literal and moral neighbours than to the world in general.
Having said which I am in the middle of nowhere and would be burning oil otherwise, so no change here. I think any ban will be on new installations, in cities, anyway.
But this is another skirmish in the Man-Ent Wars. Trees have virtually no benefit over low lying vegetation, being just vegetation on stilts. They burn, which we now agree is a bad thing whether intentional or not. We no longer need them to build new ships nor to hold birds and animals to shoot and hunt. The interior of a wood is a gloomy and frightening place, and if you plant beech or softwood, as sterile as a shopping centre. And even if they are the bees knees, they are too late. We don't have a 30 year horizon.
Still displaying your stunning levels of ignorance I see.
OK about as content-free a rejoinder as you'll hope to see.
In the light of current events you really need to make a case for tree planting strong enough to outweigh the fact that they are a bloody great unforced error of a fire hazard. You possibly think that was abroad and it couldn't happen here? let me remind you of conditions last summer, and the fact that we'll be 20-30 years further on when your trees are ready to burn.
So, my case is that trees are just vegetation on a useless and dangerous stalk. If you think they have magical powers of carbon capture denied to other photosynthesisers you need to make the case. Obviously we should have some trees for their own sake and the biodiversity they support, but a TREES! YAY! case where they get on the podium with motherhood and apple pie is simply dangerous and damaging.
The environmental benefits of trees are immense. They capture carbon, and generate oxygen. They provide a habitat for all manner of wildlife. Woodlands have an ecosystem all of their own.
They contribute to human well-being, due to their beauty, and shade.
And, of course, they remain extremely useful as sources of wood and fruit.
Been out this morning tree planting . Actually doing something to help the environment rather than just talking about it like Miklosvar.
Been planting mixed woodland of Birch and Ash, Whytch Elm and Oak. The Birch and Ash will grow fast as colonisers and the oaks will eventually dominate long after I am dead and gone. Although to be fair a couple of oaks I planted a decade ago are already 12 ft or so high. The Whytch Elm will be lost to Dutch Elm disease in a decade but in the meantime they will support the colonies of White Letter Hairstreak butterflies that are thriving on the existing elms which are starting to die off. As long as I keep up a steady rotation of planting elms the colonies should continue to survive.
Oaks support, at the last count, around 2,300 different species of organisms. Far more in both numbers and diversity than grassland. Of course I like grassland as well and have been working to convert two horse paddocks I bought along with the house back to chalk grassland. But trees are massively important for biodiversity and also important on slopes for soil stabilisation and for water retention.
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
I would vote for a government which started jailing litterers and fly-dumpers and graffiti taggers. Enough
This is the true version of Singapore-on-Thames that will have to emerge in the West if we want to turn things around.
Wiemar in Germany is a small, relatively poor city in the East of the country. It also - like @Leon's pictures of Ukraine - is devoid of litter and graffiti.
Yet it is anything but Singapore-on-Thames, as far as I can tell.
Why is it clean, while so much of (say) London, is not?
There’s been some major cultural change since the 1950. Maybe even earlier
If you look at photos of central London in, say, the 1900s it is noticeable how handsome and clean it is (in the centre). Of course the corollary of this is hideous slums in the East End etc, much worse than anything now
By the 70s and 80s London was looking grotty and rundown almost everywhere
Now it looks much richer. But we’ve kept too much of that grot. That lack of care and pride
American cities (if they’re not overrun with homeless and the like) are noticeably cleaner than British cities
A lack of pedestrian traffic - of course - helps. And most American cities have bugger all pedestrian traffic.
An interesting argument. But I don't see the Conservatives winning unless:two things happen:
- they pick a popular celebrity candidate, of the kind that has such huge advantage in direct elections like this; and - they recover significantly in national politics.
Boris won narrowly in 2008 when he had good name recognition and Labour were hugely unpopular nationally and in 2012, he was the incumbent, which gives a big advantage in being known.
So good luck to OGH but I'm not sure I'd take 7/1 for Susan Who?
Agreed. The other thing would be needing a popular celebrity candidate who isn’t labelable as a party hack.
None of the Mayors of London so far have primarily been identified by their party affiliation, in the public eye. Khan is the closest to a standard party candidate, but most people don’t regard him as Mr Labour.
Khan is a figure of ridicule. ULEZ has given him a bloody nose because he tried to force it through. It won't be forgotten however much Labour apologise.
No. ULEZ policy is good. The implementation sucks, a bit.
Turing this into culture wars bullshit is so Donald Fucking Trump.
1) London needs cleaner air 2) Historically, the best way to achieve this is incrementally improving standards. As proven many times in many places 3) The “ULEZ policy”that was implemented was just one of a number of possible policies. 4) Not being impressed with 3) doesn’t mean opposing 1 & 2.
What makes me laugh about the Tory attempt to create ULEZ as a culture war issue is that it's their policy. Implemented by Boris for inner London, imposed on the suburbs by Grant Shapps. Where the "it will tax motorists" attack is literally what Shapps demanded as part of the TfL bailouts.
If the Tories want to oppose their own policy that's fine. But claiming - as some have - that this is "typical socialism" is painfully deluded. Perhaps Michael Green is a socialist?
Good morning
Looks as if wood burning stoves are environmentally unacceptable and a ban is looking for them
I think I read you are installing one
We have a woodturning stove. Put it in 13 years ago in good faith, believing it was greener than using fossil fuels (it is).
But the particulates issue has emerged since then. We would not put one in now, nor will we when we move house next year (hopefully).
Aside from the environmental considerations they have some pros (a real fire is a nice to look at) but are also quite a lot of work and create a lot of dust.
As with ULEZ there is a bit of an optics problem, regardless of facts. Wood burning is as ancient as the hills, a naturally occurring phenomenon and returns to the air only the CO2 that it removed in the first place - which is why recently it was commended as the big way forward - part of the 'biomass' revolution.
But more particularly PB wood burners (good people all) will look at thousands of square miles of wood burning forest fires which can be clearly seen from outer space and are all over the world, and wonder in what way their little pile of carefully curated logs is going to make things worse.
Much like ULEZ paying diesel van driving voters of Uxbridge/Hillingdon might look up at the sky as hundreds of planes land in their back garden at Heathrow.
Anyone who thinks there are not millions of votes in this and related issues is delusional.
I burn wood and I'm not a good person, but I can see the fallacies there. We are responsible for what we do, not for forest fires in faraway countries, and we are relatively more responsible to our literal and moral neighbours than to the world in general.
Having said which I am in the middle of nowhere and would be burning oil otherwise, so no change here. I think any ban will be on new installations, in cities, anyway.
But this is another skirmish in the Man-Ent Wars. Trees have virtually no benefit over low lying vegetation, being just vegetation on stilts. They burn, which we now agree is a bad thing whether intentional or not. We no longer need them to build new ships nor to hold birds and animals to shoot and hunt. The interior of a wood is a gloomy and frightening place, and if you plant beech or softwood, as sterile as a shopping centre. And even if they are the bees knees, they are too late. We don't have a 30 year horizon.
Still displaying your stunning levels of ignorance I see.
OK about as content-free a rejoinder as you'll hope to see.
In the light of current events you really need to make a case for tree planting strong enough to outweigh the fact that they are a bloody great unforced error of a fire hazard. You possibly think that was abroad and it couldn't happen here? let me remind you of conditions last summer, and the fact that we'll be 20-30 years further on when your trees are ready to burn.
So, my case is that trees are just vegetation on a useless and dangerous stalk. If you think they have magical powers of carbon capture denied to other photosynthesisers you need to make the case. Obviously we should have some trees for their own sake and the biodiversity they support, but a TREES! YAY! case where they get on the podium with motherhood and apple pie is simply dangerous and damaging.
The environmental benefits of trees are immense. They capture carbon, and generate oxygen. They provide a habitat for all manner of wildlife. Woodlands have an ecosystem all of their own.
They contribute to human well-being, due to their beauty, and shade.
And, of course, they remain extremely useful as sources of wood and fruit.
Been out this morning tree planting . Actually doing something to help the environment rather than just talking about it like Miklosvar.
Been planting mixed woodland of Birch and Ash, Whytch Elm and Oak. The Birch and Ash will grow fast as colonisers and the oaks will eventually dominate long after I am dead and gone. Although to be fair a couple of oaks I planted a decade ago are already 12 ft or so high. The Whytch Elm will be lost to Dutch Elm disease in a decade but in the meantime they will support the colonies of White Letter Hairstreak butterflies that are thriving on the existing elms which are starting to die off. As long as I keep up a steady rotation of planting elms the colonies should continue to survive.
Oaks support, at the last count, around 2,300 different species of organisms. Far more in both numbers and diversity than grassland. Of course I like grassland as well and have been working to convert two horse paddocks I bought along with the house back to chalk grassland. But trees ar emassively important for biodiversity and also important on slopes for soil stabilisation and for water retention.
Miklosvar is, as usual, talking out of his arse.
Can't manage anything like that, but we have half a dozen trees on out rather small front garden and tiny back garden - small enough that they have to be kept trimmed to avoid risk to the house. Silver birch, rowan, hawthorn, bird cherry.* Perhaps we need to find a retirement house with a really big back garden.
Puzzle. Ukraine has a GDP per capita of $5000 tops. This is its second city. It is also AT WAR. Yet it is cleaner and more handsome than almost any similar-sized British city
eg There’s no litter. We are ten times richer yet our cities are strewn with detritus and no one apparently cares
Civic responsibility is far higher there whereas all we care about is ourselves?
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
I would vote for a government which started jailing litterers and fly-dumpers and graffiti taggers. Enough
This is the true version of Singapore-on-Thames that will have to emerge in the West if we want to turn things around.
Wiemar in Germany is a small, relatively poor city in the East of the country. It also - like @Leon's pictures of Ukraine - is devoid of litter and graffiti.
Comments
https://tass.com/politics/1651009
Might extend to the 'right' to drop litter and that it's someone else's job to clean it up.
GDP is not related to civic pride. The people where you are, are proud of where they live, and proud of their country in the face of an enemy.
America’s urban problems are different to ours and probably worse. We have litter and they have shit. But still. How hard is it to stop littering?
CDU/CSU 26.5%
AfD 20.7%
SPD 17.8%
Green 14.7%
FDP 7.0%
Left 4.5%
Others 8.8%
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahl_zum_21._Deutschen_Bundestag/Umfragen_und_Prognosen#Dynamische_Sonntagsfrage
Of course if you are Ukrainian right now you are probably feeling more civic pride than ever before, and less inclined than ever to create any unnecessary work or waste. So that might explain things as well.
I should have added the word 'effect' onto the end of my sentence there but I have a toddler squabbling around my feet.
The pedantry is appreciated, however.
It's a measure of self-respect and decadence really.
Take everything that’s good about London, Dubai, and Hong Kong, and put them all the the same place.
It’s a clean city, with loads of public transport, but also completely walkable if you wish, and everyone stands politely in line.
But f***, £20 for a pint of beer?
I would also say that Thierry Henry was the world's best player for at least one calendar year (2003). Alas, Italy and Spain have always dominated these awards. Pavel Nedved was a very good footballer (winner of the Ballon D'Or in 2003), but he was no Thierry Henry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czFBu4n06kQ
I'd also say that Luis Suarez was at pretty high peak in 2014 (though biting an opponent didn't do him much good!).
A very important address. Why?
Nyet Gügle!
Sade was French so Masoch
The birthplace of Leopold von Sacher Masoch, author of Venus in Furs and the “first masochist”
They are everywhere.
I wonder when Elon "goes to glory" if his headstone will have "X Musk" on it?
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/football/market/1.207772667
It really ought to be a City midfielder, but if it has to be a forward (Pavel Nedved (2003), Fabio Cannavaro (2006) and Luka Modric (2018) all won it, so non-forwards can get it), then surely Haaland gets it.
The tension is between twitter as essentially somewhere for him to blow off steam and receive adulation for that, and running it as a serious business.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/23/wagner-group-fighters-want-attack-poland-lukashenko-belarus/
If Twitter is now X, does that mean that...
1) Tweets will henceforth be known as "Kisses" (Xxxxx geddit???!?)
2) Will anything downloaded be an X-File? Check with Mulder & Scully before opening
It's the kind of thing which is a little self reinforcing though.
How are you supposed to be positive when everything is decorated so darkly?
source https://thefsa.org.uk/news/football-clubs-facing-demographic-time-bomb/
People voting Corbyn in 2017
"Age was even more of a dividing factor than in 2015 (and the biggest we’ve seen since our records began in 1979). All the swing to Labour was among under 44s (and highest of all among 25-34s), while there was a swing to the Conservatives among over 55s. This is the biggest age gap we’ve seen in elections going back to the 1970s. Although (as in previous elections) the swing among women and men overall was similar, there was a difference between young men and young women. Among 18-24 year olds, Labour increased its vote share much more among women than men"
source https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2017-election
Therefore we can conclude that the majority of those that watch football thought Corbyn was an all round good egg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_(cryptanalysis)
From Everton, and witnessing who goes to St James's, they don't appear to be getting any younger.
*rechecking I dont see everton mentioned once I do see figures from the premier league mentioned which implies more than 1 club
Yet it is anything but Singapore-on-Thames, as far as I can tell.
Why is it clean, while so much of (say) London, is not?
It is definitely one to read if you are interested in the question "who has more power in a relationship, the male or the female?" and much less one to read if you want literature of the more one-handed variety.
These useless companies rely upon most people just giving up and going away.
If you look at photos of central London in, say, the 1900s it is noticeable how handsome and clean it is (in the centre). Of course the corollary of this is hideous slums in the East End etc, much worse than anything now
By the 70s and 80s London was looking grotty and rundown almost everywhere
Now it looks much richer. But we’ve kept too much of that grot. That lack of care and pride
American cities (if they’re not overrun with homeless and the like) are noticeably cleaner than British cities
Strangely enough the song really does manage to encapsulate the way the book is written, which is dark and gloomy and gothic and pensive all at the same time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zueqENoGVA8
Did one recently with Easyjet, although a Cr Card. Because it was less than £100 I had to use Chargeback, but have used Chargeback on a Debit Card before also.
Been planting mixed woodland of Birch and Ash, Whytch Elm and Oak. The Birch and Ash will grow fast as colonisers and the oaks will eventually dominate long after I am dead and gone. Although to be fair a couple of oaks I planted a decade ago are already 12 ft or so high. The Whytch Elm will be lost to Dutch Elm disease in a decade but in the meantime they will support the colonies of White Letter Hairstreak butterflies that are thriving on the existing elms which are starting to die off. As long as I keep up a steady rotation of planting elms the colonies should continue to survive.
Oaks support, at the last count, around 2,300 different species of organisms. Far more in both numbers and diversity than grassland. Of course I like grassland as well and have been working to convert two horse paddocks I bought along with the house back to chalk grassland. But trees are massively important for biodiversity and also important on slopes for soil stabilisation and for water retention.
Miklosvar is, as usual, talking out of his arse.
https://www.accuweather.com/en/gb/london/ec4a-2/current-weather/328328
*Edit: partly to feed the birds.