Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park. And while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
People in that sort of car go shopping and self-catering? I appreciate you are probably joking but your first point sounds like a serious one.
I always emerge from junctions like that. If you are old enough and your truck is large, old and battered enough, it's a de facto right of way situation.
I'm amusing myself by thinking what I would do with one of those, but I think my general point is a reasonable one - if I buy a thing, it is because I think it will serve a particular purpose better than another thing. Presumably that's also true of whoever buys this - they're not buying it for it to sit in a garage. But what purpose does it serve? What journeys can you make for which it is better than an alternative? Not ease of use (going to the supermarket) or fitting a lot of stuff in. And presumably there are also better cars for speed, if that's your thing. And certainly not affordability. I can't imagine any circumstance that the oligarch goes out to his garage and thinks THAT is the car for the journey I'm making today.
The Roller is the car to be driven to important meetings and events particularly where photographers might be. It's not for practicality, speed or efficiency.
For arriving in, not travelling in?
Still hideous.
I know a bloke whose dad used to take his helicopter down from Cheshire to Smith's Lawn. He sent the chauffeur down in the car the night before, to pick him up for the less than a mile from helipad to final destination.
He was from Cheshire? Going to Smith's Lawn? How perfectly ghastly.
*googles Smith's Lawn* - ah - polo.
To weigh in on behalf of the splendid county of Cheshire, it is not JUST footballers and polo players (who, I would imagine, are exclusive: footballer country is in the east of the county: Alderley Edge, Prestbury, etc; while polo country is in the west, beyond Tarporley). Most of Cheshire is pleasant but not stellar; like anywhere else, the towns and villages of Cheshire range from the idyllic to the functional; for every Wilmslow there is a Winsford; for every Mottram St. Andrew there is a No Man's Heath.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
I think it is entitlement and lack of courtesy to other road users that grates rather than a specific car. Many SUVs are big for the sake of being big, not practicality. We have limited road and parking space.
If you really want to travel in something large to annoy the neighbours, why not go the full Chris Eubank?
Need to change tax to the fourth power of axle weight x number of axles.
Lots of narrow roads around my neck of the woods. Would it be so bad if there were regulations for a maximum length and width of a car?
Narrow roads = likely (likely) one, or several of high hedgerows, drainage ditches, wide verges, muddy gateways, unknown obstacles eg fallen trees all of a sudden.
All of which argue for a large, robust, all wheel drive car.
If it's the driving you are worried about then that's a different matter.
Most of those things are an argument for slowing down, not driving a large car with more momentum.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
I think it is entitlement and lack of courtesy to other road users that grates rather than a specific car. Many SUVs are big for the sake of being big, not practicality. We have limited road and parking space.
If you really want to travel in something large to annoy the neighbours, why not go the full Chris Eubank?
Need to change tax to the fourth power of axle weight x number of axles.
That Defender which killed two schoolgirls in Wimbledon would have bounced off the fence if it had been a nissan Micra.
Do we know what the story was there in the end?
Prosecution incoming I think. went a bit too quick and braked a bit too hard at a guess, though you'd expect ABS and stuff to be able to sort that problem.
Seems to be a straight line to the final resting point. Google tells me a seizure might be involved. That would make sense because just on the photos there could be enought distance to stop after (and certainly just before) going through the gates. But interested to see the outcome.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
TBH I think 'urgh' is a perfectly understandable reflex response to El Musko.
I'll make the point again: disliking Elon Musk for his continual shitbaggery does not mean you have to dislike his companies when they have achieved things. It's perfectly possible to think that Tesla is a great company, but that Musk is a tw@t. Ditto SpaceX.
Whereas sadly, it appears being a fan of Musk often means excusing his companies when they do bad, or terrible, things.
Equally its possible to think that Tesla is great, SpaceX is great, while Twitter is shit.
Or to think that someone who had Tesla and SpaceX who chose to then turn his attention to Twitter instead, shows rather shit priorities or a steep decline in his reasoning.
Agreed. But I'd also point out that he's always had some hald-arsed otr terrible ideas - the Boring Company being one, as was the Hyperloop concept that he just did to try to kill High Speed Rail in the US. And which many people fell for.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
I think it is entitlement and lack of courtesy to other road users that grates rather than a specific car. Many SUVs are big for the sake of being big, not practicality. We have limited road and parking space.
If you really want to travel in something large to annoy the neighbours, why not go the full Chris Eubank?
Need to change tax to the fourth power of axle weight x number of axles.
Lots of narrow roads around my neck of the woods. Would it be so bad if there were regulations for a maximum length and width of a car?
Narrow roads = likely (likely) one, or several of high hedgerows, drainage ditches, wide verges, muddy gateways, unknown obstacles eg fallen trees all of a sudden.
All of which argue for a large, robust, all wheel drive car.
If it's the driving you are worried about then that's a different matter.
Most of those things are an argument for slowing down, not driving a large car with more momentum.
All of those things are an argument for good driving. The weight of the car is a minor factor. And many "SUVs" aren't known for their nippiness in narrow winding lanes.
Off thread - we're rewatching Parks and Recreation. In series 5 (so probably about 2009), Joe Biden makes an appearance. Now, acting is hard (anyone remember Maggie's appearance in Yes Minister?). People who aren't actors tend to be wooden at best. But Joe Biden was not only very good, but also charming, articulate and charismatic. For those who didn't really come across him until he was president in his dotage, it was quite a shock. (And I know they can shoot and reshoot and reshoot, but presumably when he's recording stuff as president he can too.)
Interesting meandering thought on which world leaders would have made good actors. Reagan obviously had previous.
Blair's v natural Catherine Tate bit I think demonstrated at least a solid local am-dram level of acting competence. Obama could cut a decent scene as well.
The other end of the spectrum you've got maybe Brown and Thatcher, both of whom kind of struggled to play themselves in real life.
Other British PMs of my lifetime I could imagine acting reasonably competently: Johnson, and possibly May might be a dark horse. Definitely not Major, Truss or Sunak. Cameron I'd expect to be averagely wooden but not terrible.
Abroad, Berlusconi would surely have been a good character actor. I could imagine Sarkozy pulling off a menacing baddie role in a French arthouse movie too. In fact most French presidents strike me as likely to be decent thesps. Merkel would have been wooden, as would Scholz. Xi woeful. Putin probably annoyingly good.
Major, like Blair, had showbiz in his blood and so I am sure would be good at it. He has charisma and comic timing if you meet him in person, you have to remember our impression of him was filtered through the lens of the media who all hated him for some combination of dethroning Maggie, being a Tory and not going to Oxford. Johnson would have been good as long as he was only obliged to play the Bertie Wooster pastiche he's been working on all his life, but terrible in any other role. Cameron would be fine but not as good as in his own head. May, Brown, Thatcher, Sunak and Truss would have been wooden, although Thatcher and Brown I think would at least some kind of presence via the intensity of their personality.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
I think it is entitlement and lack of courtesy to other road users that grates rather than a specific car. Many SUVs are big for the sake of being big, not practicality. We have limited road and parking space.
If you really want to travel in something large to annoy the neighbours, why not go the full Chris Eubank?
Need to change tax to the fourth power of axle weight x number of axles.
The problem with the term SUV is that its so broad to be almost meaningless. You get small SUVs and big ones.
But parking space is mostly parking between the lines anyway in car parks, so long as you can park between the lines, how does the size of the vehicle matter?
Good designs for construction should include off-road parking. Whether that be at the home being able to park on your own property, or in a car park for shops, or for multistory buildings having multistory (and potentially underground) parking. Parking on the road should be a last resort and should only really exist for really old and out of date buildings.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park. And while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
People in that sort of car go shopping and self-catering? I appreciate you are probably joking but your first point sounds like a serious one.
I always emerge from junctions like that. If you are old enough and your truck is large, old and battered enough, it's a de facto right of way situation.
I'm amusing myself by thinking what I would do with one of those, but I think my general point is a reasonable one - if I buy a thing, it is because I think it will serve a particular purpose better than another thing. Presumably that's also true of whoever buys this - they're not buying it for it to sit in a garage. But what purpose does it serve? What journeys can you make for which it is better than an alternative? Not ease of use (going to the supermarket) or fitting a lot of stuff in. And presumably there are also better cars for speed, if that's your thing. And certainly not affordability. I can't imagine any circumstance that the oligarch goes out to his garage and thinks THAT is the car for the journey I'm making today.
The Roller is the car to be driven to important meetings and events particularly where photographers might be. It's not for practicality, speed or efficiency.
For arriving in, not travelling in?
Still hideous.
I know a bloke whose dad used to take his helicopter down from Cheshire to Smith's Lawn. He sent the chauffeur down in the car the night before, to pick him up for the less than a mile from helipad to final destination.
He was from Cheshire? Going to Smith's Lawn? How perfectly ghastly.
*googles Smith's Lawn* - ah - polo.
To weigh in on behalf of the splendid county of Cheshire, it is not JUST footballers and polo players (who, I would imagine, are exclusive: footballer country is in the east of the county: Alderley Edge, Prestbury, etc; while polo country is in the west, beyond Tarporley). Most of Cheshire is pleasant but not stellar; like anywhere else, the towns and villages of Cheshire range from the idyllic to the functional; for every Wilmslow there is a Winsford; for every Mottram St. Andrew there is a No Man's Heath.
I'm sure everyone there is lovely. You in particular.
Trump's indictment may be a matter of much interest, comment and amusement, but it also reflects well on the USofA. Inconceivable for the like to happen in Russia, China or Iran.
The indictment matters much less than the convictions, which we do not have yet.
The US *appears* to have very narrowly dodged a bullet. I don't expect them to learn any lessons from this, and there will soon be other charlatans - perhaps cleverer than Trump - playing similar games. Which would be bad for the USA and the world.
You seem to be assuming that Trump will be stopped by being in jail. I am not so sure.
TDS in full force.
He is not going to be Potus from prison.
Enough of the gratuitous bedwetting.
You really need to show your workings here. The probabilities are on the face of it easily non-zero that Trump is imprisoned, and is elected. Are you saying the probability of one of them is in fact zero, and if so which? Or are you saying that a country so bound by law and precedent that it murders tens of thousands of its citizens every year because of an 18th century rule about muskets, is going to say sod the technicalities, we'll find a workaround? If you are saying that, what is the workaround going to be?
I'm saying it ain't going to happen. We'll see if I'm right.
We agree that it is very unlikely to happen. Fine, but where does the "bedwetters" come from? Let's break this down in racing terms. You are effectively saying you are laying a 100/1 shot in the National, insulting people who reasonably say, unlikely but it might come in, and bigging yourself up as a man who knows his horses ("We'll see if I'm right") on the basis of a prediction which anyone can make, knowledge of racing or not.
And here's the twist: the horse is called Foinavon* and you look really, really silly. Just like, say, someone who spent December 2019 calling people bedwetters for saying Trump wouldn't go quietly, there'd be trouble before January 20. What happened next?
*It really is, as I have just discovered. Shouldn't be as it is named after Foinaven, Foinne Bheinn, and Foinavon grates as badly as Bon Nevis.
It's not going to happen. Trump isn't going to rule the United States from jail. Only in the world of those with either very weird fantasies or a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome is that a realistic outcome.
Take a cold shower.
I agree to the extent that if he's in prison when he's elected he's not going to stay in prison for long. That in itself would do further damage to the rule of law.
He won't even be elected if in jail, see the very sensible posts of @hyufd upthread
The problem is that even if you can rely on the voters of PA and WI not to elect somebody who's been convicted, which I'm less confident about than you are, the timing may not be helpful.
These cases seem to take 6 months at a minimum. 6 months from now we're nearly at Super Tuesday, so Trump already controls the convention delegates by the earliest chance the primary voters may get to notice he's been convicted of crimes.
The FL case seems like a slam-dunk but it's presided over a hack Trumpist judge who previously got slapped down in no uncertain terms by appeal courts. If you're the judge in a case, and it involves some novel issues like "defendant is a former president" you and the defendant can string it out for years.
The NY case seems like the weakest one, he may get off and it seems like it may get scheduled after the others to avoid scheduling conflicts.
The GA case doesn't seem to have been optimized for speed, it's got loads of co-defendants, it has various issues like whether it can be moved to federal court that could chew up time, and Trump's schedule can get tied up with the other cases.
The one that might get done by the election is the DC case, which seems to be very carefully designed to keep it simple and has a judge who isn't taking any shit. But even then there's no guarantee that will be done by the election if Trump is trying to slow it down. It could just as well get a result between the election and the next administration starting, then you get the GA case months or years later, which would give you the maximum Benny Hill result of Trump getting imprisoned, becoming president and pardoning himself and getting out the same day, then convicted again and sent back to a different jail...
I think with Trump you have to be careful of ruling out the ridiculous results off the bat. Generally the reason why a president couldn't be president from a jail cell is because if a president was sentenced to jail they'd resign from the presidency and hand the job over to the VP. But Trump may or may not do that so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
I think it is entitlement and lack of courtesy to other road users that grates rather than a specific car. Many SUVs are big for the sake of being big, not practicality. We have limited road and parking space.
If you really want to travel in something large to annoy the neighbours, why not go the full Chris Eubank?
Need to change tax to the fourth power of axle weight x number of axles.
Lots of narrow roads around my neck of the woods. Would it be so bad if there were regulations for a maximum length and width of a car?
Narrow roads = likely (likely) one, or several of high hedgerows, drainage ditches, wide verges, muddy gateways, unknown obstacles eg fallen trees all of a sudden.
All of which argue for a large, robust, all wheel drive car.
If it's the driving you are worried about then that's a different matter.
I drove across Namibia and Botswana in a VW Polo. Survived a slightly pissed off elephant.
The new Defender can "overcome hitting a 200mm high square-edged kerb at 40km/h". The terrorist weapon of choice.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park. And while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
People in that sort of car go shopping and self-catering? I appreciate you are probably joking but your first point sounds like a serious one.
I always emerge from junctions like that. If you are old enough and your truck is large, old and battered enough, it's a de facto right of way situation.
I'm amusing myself by thinking what I would do with one of those, but I think my general point is a reasonable one - if I buy a thing, it is because I think it will serve a particular purpose better than another thing. Presumably that's also true of whoever buys this - they're not buying it for it to sit in a garage. But what purpose does it serve? What journeys can you make for which it is better than an alternative? Not ease of use (going to the supermarket) or fitting a lot of stuff in. And presumably there are also better cars for speed, if that's your thing. And certainly not affordability. I can't imagine any circumstance that the oligarch goes out to his garage and thinks THAT is the car for the journey I'm making today.
The Roller is the car to be driven to important meetings and events particularly where photographers might be. It's not for practicality, speed or efficiency.
For arriving in, not travelling in?
Still hideous.
I know a bloke whose dad used to take his helicopter down from Cheshire to Smith's Lawn. He sent the chauffeur down in the car the night before, to pick him up for the less than a mile from helipad to final destination.
He was from Cheshire? Going to Smith's Lawn? How perfectly ghastly.
*googles Smith's Lawn* - ah - polo.
To weigh in on behalf of the splendid county of Cheshire, it is not JUST footballers and polo players (who, I would imagine, are exclusive: footballer country is in the east of the county: Alderley Edge, Prestbury, etc; while polo country is in the west, beyond Tarporley). Most of Cheshire is pleasant but not stellar; like anywhere else, the towns and villages of Cheshire range from the idyllic to the functional; for every Wilmslow there is a Winsford; for every Mottram St. Andrew there is a No Man's Heath.
It's a curiosity of political history that Friedrich Engels, when he lived in Manchester, was a keen subscriber to the Cheshire Hunt.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park. And while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
People in that sort of car go shopping and self-catering? I appreciate you are probably joking but your first point sounds like a serious one.
I always emerge from junctions like that. If you are old enough and your truck is large, old and battered enough, it's a de facto right of way situation.
I'm amusing myself by thinking what I would do with one of those, but I think my general point is a reasonable one - if I buy a thing, it is because I think it will serve a particular purpose better than another thing. Presumably that's also true of whoever buys this - they're not buying it for it to sit in a garage. But what purpose does it serve? What journeys can you make for which it is better than an alternative? Not ease of use (going to the supermarket) or fitting a lot of stuff in. And presumably there are also better cars for speed, if that's your thing. And certainly not affordability. I can't imagine any circumstance that the oligarch goes out to his garage and thinks THAT is the car for the journey I'm making today.
The Roller is the car to be driven to important meetings and events particularly where photographers might be. It's not for practicality, speed or efficiency.
For arriving in, not travelling in?
Still hideous.
I know a bloke whose dad used to take his helicopter down from Cheshire to Smith's Lawn. He sent the chauffeur down in the car the night before, to pick him up for the less than a mile from helipad to final destination.
He was from Cheshire? Going to Smith's Lawn? How perfectly ghastly.
*googles Smith's Lawn* - ah - polo.
To weigh in on behalf of the splendid county of Cheshire, it is not JUST footballers and polo players (who, I would imagine, are exclusive: footballer country is in the east of the county: Alderley Edge, Prestbury, etc; while polo country is in the west, beyond Tarporley). Most of Cheshire is pleasant but not stellar; like anywhere else, the towns and villages of Cheshire range from the idyllic to the functional; for every Wilmslow there is a Winsford; for every Mottram St. Andrew there is a No Man's Heath.
It's a curiosity of political history that Friedrich Engels, when he lived in Manchester, was a keen subscriber to the Cheshire Hunt.
Careful because that, together with the contemplation of the universe, is the sort of thing which sends Dura mad.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
TBH I think 'urgh' is a perfectly understandable reflex response to El Musko.
I'll make the point again: disliking Elon Musk for his continual shitbaggery does not mean you have to dislike his companies when they have achieved things. It's perfectly possible to think that Tesla is a great company, but that Musk is a tw@t. Ditto SpaceX.
Whereas sadly, it appears being a fan of Musk often means excusing his companies when they do bad, or terrible, things.
And equally sadly, hating Musk (for some) means demanding the right to hate on him whenever his companies get mentioned.
One discussion forum, an influx of people demanded the right to shit post every time SpaceX was mentioned. When explained that this wasn't of interest in a discussion about ISP/chamber pressure/combustion instability, they threw their toys out of the pram.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
I think it is entitlement and lack of courtesy to other road users that grates rather than a specific car. Many SUVs are big for the sake of being big, not practicality. We have limited road and parking space.
If you really want to travel in something large to annoy the neighbours, why not go the full Chris Eubank?
Need to change tax to the fourth power of axle weight x number of axles.
Lots of narrow roads around my neck of the woods. Would it be so bad if there were regulations for a maximum length and width of a car?
Narrow roads = likely (likely) one, or several of high hedgerows, drainage ditches, wide verges, muddy gateways, unknown obstacles eg fallen trees all of a sudden.
All of which argue for a large, robust, all wheel drive car.
If it's the driving you are worried about then that's a different matter.
Some of the most problematic pinch points are in local towns, with buildings on either side.
The bad driving seems to be reasonably well distributed across car size, age and type.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
I think it is entitlement and lack of courtesy to other road users that grates rather than a specific car. Many SUVs are big for the sake of being big, not practicality. We have limited road and parking space.
If you really want to travel in something large to annoy the neighbours, why not go the full Chris Eubank?
Need to change tax to the fourth power of axle weight x number of axles.
Lots of narrow roads around my neck of the woods. Would it be so bad if there were regulations for a maximum length and width of a car?
Narrow roads = likely (likely) one, or several of high hedgerows, drainage ditches, wide verges, muddy gateways, unknown obstacles eg fallen trees all of a sudden.
All of which argue for a large, robust, all wheel drive car.
If it's the driving you are worried about then that's a different matter.
Some of the most problematic pinch points are in local towns, with buildings on either side.
The bad driving seems to be reasonably well distributed across car size, age and type.
Yes I can see that bringing in sodding great cars to narrow-laned towns would be an issue. Is it a rural town?
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
TBH I think 'urgh' is a perfectly understandable reflex response to El Musko.
I'll make the point again: disliking Elon Musk for his continual shitbaggery does not mean you have to dislike his companies when they have achieved things. It's perfectly possible to think that Tesla is a great company, but that Musk is a tw@t. Ditto SpaceX.
Whereas sadly, it appears being a fan of Musk often means excusing his companies when they do bad, or terrible, things.
Equally its possible to think that Tesla is great, SpaceX is great, while Twitter is shit.
Or to think that someone who had Tesla and SpaceX who chose to then turn his attention to Twitter instead, shows rather shit priorities or a steep decline in his reasoning.
Musk is Musk. Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink - massively innovative and disruptive businesses. OK so he's also responsible for "interesting" ideas like the Boring Company, and then we have Twitter which has so many people having conniptions. Lets see how it plays out - if X has become the west's answer to WeChat in a few years, the scoffers will have had to turn their attentions to the next thing to attack.
Some of the things he has said - usually whilst stoned - have been awful. Attacking the rescuers in the Thai cave thing as a prime example. But the balance sheet is massively positive. People just don't like successful people, especially when they innovate and disrupt rather than just exploit others. He threatens too much existing big money.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
I think it is entitlement and lack of courtesy to other road users that grates rather than a specific car. Many SUVs are big for the sake of being big, not practicality. We have limited road and parking space.
If you really want to travel in something large to annoy the neighbours, why not go the full Chris Eubank?
Need to change tax to the fourth power of axle weight x number of axles.
The problem with the term SUV is that its so broad to be almost meaningless. You get small SUVs and big ones.
But parking space is mostly parking between the lines anyway in car parks, so long as you can park between the lines, how does the size of the vehicle matter?
Good designs for construction should include off-road parking. Whether that be at the home being able to park on your own property, or in a car park for shops, or for multistory buildings having multistory (and potentially underground) parking. Parking on the road should be a last resort and should only really exist for really old and out of date buildings.
There is about a 0.000001% chance of Trump being in jail by the next election.
Quite simply he is wealthy enough/can attract enough mugs to donate to fund himself that he can get armies of lawyers to find reasons to get continuances and delays and obstructions in courts that he will drag the cases out to the point that he's the nominee at which point the courts won't want to interfere with the election so will continue the cases beyond the election.
That's without considering how you find a jury without a couple of Trumpists in the jury who will acquit him, regardless of his guilt, so how do you actually get a verdict.
The fact he's guilty is neither here nor there. Guilty and going to jail are two very different things in America.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
TBH I think 'urgh' is a perfectly understandable reflex response to El Musko.
I'll make the point again: disliking Elon Musk for his continual shitbaggery does not mean you have to dislike his companies when they have achieved things. It's perfectly possible to think that Tesla is a great company, but that Musk is a tw@t. Ditto SpaceX.
Whereas sadly, it appears being a fan of Musk often means excusing his companies when they do bad, or terrible, things.
And equally sadly, hating Musk (for some) means demanding the right to hate on him whenever his companies get mentioned.
One discussion forum, an influx of people demanded the right to shit post every time SpaceX was mentioned. When explained that this wasn't of interest in a discussion about ISP/chamber pressure/combustion instability, they threw their toys out of the pram.
That's wrong; but so are the people who praise anything SpaceX do - e.g. the stupidity over the launchpad.
BTW, so far I've been correct over Raptor reliability...
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
I think it is entitlement and lack of courtesy to other road users that grates rather than a specific car. Many SUVs are big for the sake of being big, not practicality. We have limited road and parking space.
If you really want to travel in something large to annoy the neighbours, why not go the full Chris Eubank?
Need to change tax to the fourth power of axle weight x number of axles.
That Defender which killed two schoolgirls in Wimbledon would have bounced off the fence if it had been a nissan Micra.
Do we know what the story was there in the end?
Prosecution incoming I think. went a bit too quick and braked a bit too hard at a guess, though you'd expect ABS and stuff to be able to sort that problem.
Any thoughts on the suggested mandating of auto-braking based on collision sensors?
There is about a 0.000001% chance of Trump being in jail by the next election.
Quite simply he is wealthy enough/can attract enough mugs to donate to fund himself that he can get armies of lawyers to find reasons to get continuances and delays and obstructions in courts that he will drag the cases out to the point that he's the nominee at which point the courts won't want to interfere with the election so will continue the cases beyond the election.
That's without considering how you find a jury without a couple of Trumpists in the jury who will acquit him, regardless of his guilt, so how do you actually get a verdict.
The fact he's guilty is neither here nor there. Guilty and going to jail are two very different things in America.
Usually, of course, in the US it is the obverse*. You shoplift a can of soup and are offered by the prosecutors either to go to trial where the penalty for shoplifting is 400 years, or you can take a plea deal and go to jail for 15 years.
There is about a 0.000001% chance of Trump being in jail by the next election.
Quite simply he is wealthy enough/can attract enough mugs to donate to fund himself that he can get armies of lawyers to find reasons to get continuances and delays and obstructions in courts that he will drag the cases out to the point that he's the nominee at which point the courts won't want to interfere with the election so will continue the cases beyond the election.
That's without considering how you find a jury without a couple of Trumpists in the jury who will acquit him, regardless of his guilt, so how do you actually get a verdict.
The fact he's guilty is neither here nor there. Guilty and going to jail are two very different things in America.
So far, a jury has found him guilty of sexual assault in a civil case, unanimously. Two grand juries have supported prosecutions, I think also unanimously.
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
TBH I think 'urgh' is a perfectly understandable reflex response to El Musko.
I'll make the point again: disliking Elon Musk for his continual shitbaggery does not mean you have to dislike his companies when they have achieved things. It's perfectly possible to think that Tesla is a great company, but that Musk is a tw@t. Ditto SpaceX.
Whereas sadly, it appears being a fan of Musk often means excusing his companies when they do bad, or terrible, things.
Equally its possible to think that Tesla is great, SpaceX is great, while Twitter is shit.
Or to think that someone who had Tesla and SpaceX who chose to then turn his attention to Twitter instead, shows rather shit priorities or a steep decline in his reasoning.
Musk is Musk. Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink - massively innovative and disruptive businesses. OK so he's also responsible for "interesting" ideas like the Boring Company, and then we have Twitter which has so many people having conniptions. Lets see how it plays out - if X has become the west's answer to WeChat in a few years, the scoffers will have had to turn their attentions to the next thing to attack.
Some of the things he has said - usually whilst stoned - have been awful. Attacking the rescuers in the Thai cave thing as a prime example. But the balance sheet is massively positive. People just don't like successful people, especially when they innovate and disrupt rather than just exploit others. He threatens too much existing big money.
If you want to make a firm like WeChat then come up with a better name than X to start with.
And Twitter is not the best platform to start with to create that. Facebook would be almost infinitely better placed to do that.
The problem with Twitter is its never been a platform for mass chat or communications that everyone uses, Facebook was much closer to that though I'm long since bored with Facebook personally.
Twitter is a platform for people with loud opinions who want to broadcast those opinions. Its a platform for talking, not listening. It doesn't have that much actual engagement, it doesn't have billions of users like Facebook does.
If he creates it, then yes it will be a success. I'm extremely sceptical though - but its his money to burn, let him do what he wants with it.
There is about a 0.000001% chance of Trump being in jail by the next election.
Quite simply he is wealthy enough/can attract enough mugs to donate to fund himself that he can get armies of lawyers to find reasons to get continuances and delays and obstructions in courts that he will drag the cases out to the point that he's the nominee at which point the courts won't want to interfere with the election so will continue the cases beyond the election.
That's without considering how you find a jury without a couple of Trumpists in the jury who will acquit him, regardless of his guilt, so how do you actually get a verdict.
The fact he's guilty is neither here nor there. Guilty and going to jail are two very different things in America.
If it was just the FL case I'd agree with you. But the DC case seems pretty tight, there are hardly any GOP voters there, the judge has already sent a load of his Jan 6 chumps to jail and she's a former public defender who isn't likely to give Trump a free run because he's rich, or even the nominee. Trump's lawyers have been trying it on with timing and she's not falling for it so far. So plausibly at least that case gets done before or not long after the general election.
There is about a 0.000001% chance of Trump being in jail by the next election.
Quite simply he is wealthy enough/can attract enough mugs to donate to fund himself that he can get armies of lawyers to find reasons to get continuances and delays and obstructions in courts that he will drag the cases out to the point that he's the nominee at which point the courts won't want to interfere with the election so will continue the cases beyond the election.
That's without considering how you find a jury without a couple of Trumpists in the jury who will acquit him, regardless of his guilt, so how do you actually get a verdict.
The fact he's guilty is neither here nor there. Guilty and going to jail are two very different things in America.
Usually, of course, in the US it is the obverse*. You shoplift a can of soup and are offered by the prosecutors either to go to trial where the penalty for shoplifting is 400 years, or you can take a plea deal and go to jail for 15 years.
*According to every TV series I've watched.
That's not for wealthy people.
Plea deals are a way of getting poor* people into jail without having to go through the trial process.
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
A bonkers situation. No way for her to know whether they are deliberating on the big picture, or decided on day 1 she is bang to rights on 9 cases and are arguing about only a couple.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
TBH I think 'urgh' is a perfectly understandable reflex response to El Musko.
I'll make the point again: disliking Elon Musk for his continual shitbaggery does not mean you have to dislike his companies when they have achieved things. It's perfectly possible to think that Tesla is a great company, but that Musk is a tw@t. Ditto SpaceX.
Whereas sadly, it appears being a fan of Musk often means excusing his companies when they do bad, or terrible, things.
Equally its possible to think that Tesla is great, SpaceX is great, while Twitter is shit.
Or to think that someone who had Tesla and SpaceX who chose to then turn his attention to Twitter instead, shows rather shit priorities or a steep decline in his reasoning.
Musk is Musk. Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink - massively innovative and disruptive businesses. OK so he's also responsible for "interesting" ideas like the Boring Company, and then we have Twitter which has so many people having conniptions. Lets see how it plays out - if X has become the west's answer to WeChat in a few years, the scoffers will have had to turn their attentions to the next thing to attack.
Some of the things he has said - usually whilst stoned - have been awful. Attacking the rescuers in the Thai cave thing as a prime example. But the balance sheet is massively positive. People just don't like successful people, especially when they innovate and disrupt rather than just exploit others. He threatens too much existing big money.
Musk didn't really start Paypal, did he? And his original idea for the company that merged to become Paypal was, AIUI, rather different.
And don't excuse the stuff he says on him 'being stoned'. That's a terrible excuse.
The balance sheet is massively negative IMO. Remember that both Tesla and SpaceX only survived to 2010 because of massive government handouts.
I don't mind successful people - I've defended Bezos on here. It's just that Musk has so many negatives going for him.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
TBH I think 'urgh' is a perfectly understandable reflex response to El Musko.
I'll make the point again: disliking Elon Musk for his continual shitbaggery does not mean you have to dislike his companies when they have achieved things. It's perfectly possible to think that Tesla is a great company, but that Musk is a tw@t. Ditto SpaceX.
Whereas sadly, it appears being a fan of Musk often means excusing his companies when they do bad, or terrible, things.
Equally its possible to think that Tesla is great, SpaceX is great, while Twitter is shit.
Or to think that someone who had Tesla and SpaceX who chose to then turn his attention to Twitter instead, shows rather shit priorities or a steep decline in his reasoning.
Musk is Musk. Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink - massively innovative and disruptive businesses. OK so he's also responsible for "interesting" ideas like the Boring Company, and then we have Twitter which has so many people having conniptions. Lets see how it plays out - if X has become the west's answer to WeChat in a few years, the scoffers will have had to turn their attentions to the next thing to attack.
Some of the things he has said - usually whilst stoned - have been awful. Attacking the rescuers in the Thai cave thing as a prime example. But the balance sheet is massively positive. People just don't like successful people, especially when they innovate and disrupt rather than just exploit others. He threatens too much existing big money.
If you want to make a firm like WeChat then come up with a better name than X to start with.
And Twitter is not the best platform to start with to create that. Facebook would be almost infinitely better placed to do that.
The problem with Twitter is its never been a platform for mass chat or communications that everyone uses, Facebook was much closer to that though I'm long since bored with Facebook personally.
Twitter is a platform for people with loud opinions who want to broadcast those opinions. Its a platform for talking, not listening. It doesn't have that much actual engagement, it doesn't have billions of users like Facebook does.
If he creates it, then yes it will be a success. I'm extremely sceptical though - but its his money to burn, let him do what he wants with it.
Its very easy to think that he has ruined Twitter. Then again, Twitter was already ruined - a cesspit of online hate and more recently bots weaponising ignorance.
The guy has a boner for X as a brand. Its no dafter than sticking "easy" or "Virgin" on everything. As a Tesla and a Starlink customer I'd rather him focus a little more on those businesses, but if he settled down and became Mr Corporate then he wouldn't be the guy driving all this innovation.
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
A bonkers situation. No way for her to know whether they are deliberating on the big picture, or decided on day 1 she is bang to rights on 9 cases and are arguing about only a couple.
And what if they don't agree? Retrial?
Presumably, but as you say the Judge should take any decisions that are being offered on any of the charges to see if that can be avoided.
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
The trial started way back in October, and she’s accused of I think seven murders and a dozen attempted murders.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
I think it is entitlement and lack of courtesy to other road users that grates rather than a specific car. Many SUVs are big for the sake of being big, not practicality. We have limited road and parking space.
If you really want to travel in something large to annoy the neighbours, why not go the full Chris Eubank?
Need to change tax to the fourth power of axle weight x number of axles.
Lots of narrow roads around my neck of the woods. Would it be so bad if there were regulations for a maximum length and width of a car?
Narrow roads = likely (likely) one, or several of high hedgerows, drainage ditches, wide verges, muddy gateways, unknown obstacles eg fallen trees all of a sudden.
All of which argue for a large, robust, all wheel drive car.
If it's the driving you are worried about then that's a different matter.
Some of the most problematic pinch points are in local towns, with buildings on either side.
The bad driving seems to be reasonably well distributed across car size, age and type.
Yes I can see that bringing in sodding great cars to narrow-laned towns would be an issue. Is it a rural town?
Yes. The nearest city is an hour away.
You'd think HGVs and the like would be more problematic, but the drivers have extra training and a bit more awareness of their size and how to handle it. The drivers of larger cars seem a bit oblivious.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
TBH I think 'urgh' is a perfectly understandable reflex response to El Musko.
I'll make the point again: disliking Elon Musk for his continual shitbaggery does not mean you have to dislike his companies when they have achieved things. It's perfectly possible to think that Tesla is a great company, but that Musk is a tw@t. Ditto SpaceX.
Whereas sadly, it appears being a fan of Musk often means excusing his companies when they do bad, or terrible, things.
Equally its possible to think that Tesla is great, SpaceX is great, while Twitter is shit.
Or to think that someone who had Tesla and SpaceX who chose to then turn his attention to Twitter instead, shows rather shit priorities or a steep decline in his reasoning.
Musk is Musk. Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink - massively innovative and disruptive businesses. OK so he's also responsible for "interesting" ideas like the Boring Company, and then we have Twitter which has so many people having conniptions. Lets see how it plays out - if X has become the west's answer to WeChat in a few years, the scoffers will have had to turn their attentions to the next thing to attack.
Some of the things he has said - usually whilst stoned - have been awful. Attacking the rescuers in the Thai cave thing as a prime example. But the balance sheet is massively positive. People just don't like successful people, especially when they innovate and disrupt rather than just exploit others. He threatens too much existing big money.
Musk didn't really start Paypal, did he? And his original idea for the company that merged to become Paypal was, AIUI, rather different.
And don't excuse the stuff he says on him 'being stoned'. That's a terrible excuse.
The balance sheet is massively negative IMO. Remember that both Tesla and SpaceX only survived to 2010 because of massive government handouts.
I don't mind successful people - I've defended Bezos on here. It's just that Musk has so many negatives going for him.
Did I say he started them all? But he did have a massive role in all of them - very safe to say that Tesla wouldn't be what it is without him.
On bailouts how is that any different to all of the other businesses that have needed government largesse? In Tesla's case they're now not only multiples larger than the competition, they actually make money. With a blank sheet of paper approach to manufacturing which has seriously threatened the viability of the long-established competition. And have largely driven the EV revolution which is transforming the industry.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
TBH I think 'urgh' is a perfectly understandable reflex response to El Musko.
I'll make the point again: disliking Elon Musk for his continual shitbaggery does not mean you have to dislike his companies when they have achieved things. It's perfectly possible to think that Tesla is a great company, but that Musk is a tw@t. Ditto SpaceX.
Whereas sadly, it appears being a fan of Musk often means excusing his companies when they do bad, or terrible, things.
Equally its possible to think that Tesla is great, SpaceX is great, while Twitter is shit.
Or to think that someone who had Tesla and SpaceX who chose to then turn his attention to Twitter instead, shows rather shit priorities or a steep decline in his reasoning.
Musk is Musk. Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink - massively innovative and disruptive businesses. OK so he's also responsible for "interesting" ideas like the Boring Company, and then we have Twitter which has so many people having conniptions. Lets see how it plays out - if X has become the west's answer to WeChat in a few years, the scoffers will have had to turn their attentions to the next thing to attack.
Some of the things he has said - usually whilst stoned - have been awful. Attacking the rescuers in the Thai cave thing as a prime example. But the balance sheet is massively positive. People just don't like successful people, especially when they innovate and disrupt rather than just exploit others. He threatens too much existing big money.
Musk didn't really start Paypal, did he? And his original idea for the company that merged to become Paypal was, AIUI, rather different.
And don't excuse the stuff he says on him 'being stoned'. That's a terrible excuse.
The balance sheet is massively negative IMO. Remember that both Tesla and SpaceX only survived to 2010 because of massive government handouts.
I don't mind successful people - I've defended Bezos on here. It's just that Musk has so many negatives going for him.
Wait, what? The balance sheet is so clearly massively positive which is how he's got where he is. Both on a pure fiscal sense, and in an overall/environmental sense.
As for government handouts, yes they existed, but at least as far as Tesla is concerned they existed for a very good reason and existed for other firms too.
The state incentivising the switch to clean energy vehicles was round supported by almost anyone who'd criticise Musk now and for good reason too. As far as I'm concerned, not picking winners but creating incentives is the state doing its job well too - its what the state should be doing, create incentives to get what you want (clean vehicles) and tax what you don't (externalities) then let the market sort it out.
Pre-Tesla all the talk for electric/clean vehicles was going to things like the Prius, or the Leaf.
That Tesla have shown that quality vehicles can be electric has encouraged the rest of the market to do the same, which is fantastic for the planet - and just what the incentives taxpayers were doing was designed to encourage.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
TBH I think 'urgh' is a perfectly understandable reflex response to El Musko.
I'll make the point again: disliking Elon Musk for his continual shitbaggery does not mean you have to dislike his companies when they have achieved things. It's perfectly possible to think that Tesla is a great company, but that Musk is a tw@t. Ditto SpaceX.
Whereas sadly, it appears being a fan of Musk often means excusing his companies when they do bad, or terrible, things.
Equally its possible to think that Tesla is great, SpaceX is great, while Twitter is shit.
Or to think that someone who had Tesla and SpaceX who chose to then turn his attention to Twitter instead, shows rather shit priorities or a steep decline in his reasoning.
Musk is Musk. Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink - massively innovative and disruptive businesses. OK so he's also responsible for "interesting" ideas like the Boring Company, and then we have Twitter which has so many people having conniptions. Lets see how it plays out - if X has become the west's answer to WeChat in a few years, the scoffers will have had to turn their attentions to the next thing to attack.
Some of the things he has said - usually whilst stoned - have been awful. Attacking the rescuers in the Thai cave thing as a prime example. But the balance sheet is massively positive. People just don't like successful people, especially when they innovate and disrupt rather than just exploit others. He threatens too much existing big money.
Musk didn't really start Paypal, did he? And his original idea for the company that merged to become Paypal was, AIUI, rather different.
And don't excuse the stuff he says on him 'being stoned'. That's a terrible excuse.
The balance sheet is massively negative IMO. Remember that both Tesla and SpaceX only survived to 2010 because of massive government handouts.
I don't mind successful people - I've defended Bezos on here. It's just that Musk has so many negatives going for him.
In 2010, Tesla received a government loan, which they paid back.
SpaceX got a contract to provide services to NASA. Which they provided.
In both cases their industry equivalents received far more. In some cases for doing nothing. Looking at you, American ISPs.
A favourite was Boeing taking the money for a rapid launch program. And then announced they wouldn’t be doing anything, because it was too hard. But kept the money.
Do you mean High Street or Sidwell Street/Paris Street?
The High Street has a lot of post-war dross on it, but also some older and rather fine architecture, and the Princesshay shopping centre, which isn't my sort of thing but not bad as they go.
Sidwell Street/Paris Street has long been slated for demolition/redevelopment, although as so often with these things, it isn't totally clear when.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park. And while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
People in that sort of car go shopping and self-catering? I appreciate you are probably joking but your first point sounds like a serious one.
I always emerge from junctions like that. If you are old enough and your truck is large, old and battered enough, it's a de facto right of way situation.
I'm amusing myself by thinking what I would do with one of those, but I think my general point is a reasonable one - if I buy a thing, it is because I think it will serve a particular purpose better than another thing. Presumably that's also true of whoever buys this - they're not buying it for it to sit in a garage. But what purpose does it serve? What journeys can you make for which it is better than an alternative? Not ease of use (going to the supermarket) or fitting a lot of stuff in. And presumably there are also better cars for speed, if that's your thing. And certainly not affordability. I can't imagine any circumstance that the oligarch goes out to his garage and thinks THAT is the car for the journey I'm making today.
The Roller is the car to be driven to important meetings and events particularly where photographers might be. It's not for practicality, speed or efficiency.
For arriving in, not travelling in?
Still hideous.
I know a bloke whose dad used to take his helicopter down from Cheshire to Smith's Lawn. He sent the chauffeur down in the car the night before, to pick him up for the less than a mile from helipad to final destination.
He was from Cheshire? Going to Smith's Lawn? How perfectly ghastly.
*googles Smith's Lawn* - ah - polo.
To weigh in on behalf of the splendid county of Cheshire, it is not JUST footballers and polo players (who, I would imagine, are exclusive: footballer country is in the east of the county: Alderley Edge, Prestbury, etc; while polo country is in the west, beyond Tarporley). Most of Cheshire is pleasant but not stellar; like anywhere else, the towns and villages of Cheshire range from the idyllic to the functional; for every Wilmslow there is a Winsford; for every Mottram St. Andrew there is a No Man's Heath.
Cheshire, the Essex of the North, new Money and celebs and old money and farming and lots of ordinary towns in between too
Do you mean High Street or Sidwell Street/Paris Street?
The High Street has a lot of post-war dross on it, but also some older and rather fine architecture, and the Princesshay shopping centre, which isn't my sort of thing but not bad as they go.
Sidwell Street/Paris Street has long been slated for demolition/redevelopment, although as so often with these things, it isn't totally clear when.
Sidwell. Grotesque
I am now in a charming restaurant having lunch but, distressingly, it is full of photos of luscious pre war Exeter before the Luftwaffe and the left wing developers got the better of it
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
TBH I think 'urgh' is a perfectly understandable reflex response to El Musko.
I'll make the point again: disliking Elon Musk for his continual shitbaggery does not mean you have to dislike his companies when they have achieved things. It's perfectly possible to think that Tesla is a great company, but that Musk is a tw@t. Ditto SpaceX.
Whereas sadly, it appears being a fan of Musk often means excusing his companies when they do bad, or terrible, things.
Equally its possible to think that Tesla is great, SpaceX is great, while Twitter is shit.
Or to think that someone who had Tesla and SpaceX who chose to then turn his attention to Twitter instead, shows rather shit priorities or a steep decline in his reasoning.
Musk is Musk. Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink - massively innovative and disruptive businesses. OK so he's also responsible for "interesting" ideas like the Boring Company, and then we have Twitter which has so many people having conniptions. Lets see how it plays out - if X has become the west's answer to WeChat in a few years, the scoffers will have had to turn their attentions to the next thing to attack.
Some of the things he has said - usually whilst stoned - have been awful. Attacking the rescuers in the Thai cave thing as a prime example. But the balance sheet is massively positive. People just don't like successful people, especially when they innovate and disrupt rather than just exploit others. He threatens too much existing big money.
Musk didn't really start Paypal, did he? And his original idea for the company that merged to become Paypal was, AIUI, rather different.
And don't excuse the stuff he says on him 'being stoned'. That's a terrible excuse.
The balance sheet is massively negative IMO. Remember that both Tesla and SpaceX only survived to 2010 because of massive government handouts.
I don't mind successful people - I've defended Bezos on here. It's just that Musk has so many negatives going for him.
Bezos is the only one of the current crop of super-billionaires who can truly say he built up a vast global empire with his own ideas, from the ground up.
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
A bonkers situation. No way for her to know whether they are deliberating on the big picture, or decided on day 1 she is bang to rights on 9 cases and are arguing about only a couple.
And what if they don't agree? Retrial?
Hmm, thinking about it, wouldn't they have returned verdicts on the unanimous decisions already? Didn't David Cameron get into trouble for slagging off Andy Coulson after a couple of guilty verdicts but before the rest of them were in?
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
The trial started way back in October, and she’s accused of I think seven murders and a dozen attempted murders.
If a jury is out for that long, it must mean doubt. So I think they can either fail to reach a verdict or find her not guilty.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
TBH I think 'urgh' is a perfectly understandable reflex response to El Musko.
I'll make the point again: disliking Elon Musk for his continual shitbaggery does not mean you have to dislike his companies when they have achieved things. It's perfectly possible to think that Tesla is a great company, but that Musk is a tw@t. Ditto SpaceX.
Whereas sadly, it appears being a fan of Musk often means excusing his companies when they do bad, or terrible, things.
Equally its possible to think that Tesla is great, SpaceX is great, while Twitter is shit.
Or to think that someone who had Tesla and SpaceX who chose to then turn his attention to Twitter instead, shows rather shit priorities or a steep decline in his reasoning.
Musk is Musk. Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink - massively innovative and disruptive businesses. OK so he's also responsible for "interesting" ideas like the Boring Company, and then we have Twitter which has so many people having conniptions. Lets see how it plays out - if X has become the west's answer to WeChat in a few years, the scoffers will have had to turn their attentions to the next thing to attack.
Some of the things he has said - usually whilst stoned - have been awful. Attacking the rescuers in the Thai cave thing as a prime example. But the balance sheet is massively positive. People just don't like successful people, especially when they innovate and disrupt rather than just exploit others. He threatens too much existing big money.
Musk didn't really start Paypal, did he? And his original idea for the company that merged to become Paypal was, AIUI, rather different.
And don't excuse the stuff he says on him 'being stoned'. That's a terrible excuse.
The balance sheet is massively negative IMO. Remember that both Tesla and SpaceX only survived to 2010 because of massive government handouts.
I don't mind successful people - I've defended Bezos on here. It's just that Musk has so many negatives going for him.
Amazon was not initially intended to turn in to what it turned into, and anyway it's just a mail order company, updated. Sears for the new century. Blue Origin looks like a rich man's toy. Tesla and SpaceX are as important and groundbreaking as General Electric and Standard Oil and Microsoft. He may well not be a good or nice man, but he is a great one.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
TBH I think 'urgh' is a perfectly understandable reflex response to El Musko.
I'll make the point again: disliking Elon Musk for his continual shitbaggery does not mean you have to dislike his companies when they have achieved things. It's perfectly possible to think that Tesla is a great company, but that Musk is a tw@t. Ditto SpaceX.
Whereas sadly, it appears being a fan of Musk often means excusing his companies when they do bad, or terrible, things.
Equally its possible to think that Tesla is great, SpaceX is great, while Twitter is shit.
Or to think that someone who had Tesla and SpaceX who chose to then turn his attention to Twitter instead, shows rather shit priorities or a steep decline in his reasoning.
Musk is Musk. Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink - massively innovative and disruptive businesses. OK so he's also responsible for "interesting" ideas like the Boring Company, and then we have Twitter which has so many people having conniptions. Lets see how it plays out - if X has become the west's answer to WeChat in a few years, the scoffers will have had to turn their attentions to the next thing to attack.
Some of the things he has said - usually whilst stoned - have been awful. Attacking the rescuers in the Thai cave thing as a prime example. But the balance sheet is massively positive. People just don't like successful people, especially when they innovate and disrupt rather than just exploit others. He threatens too much existing big money.
If you want to make a firm like WeChat then come up with a better name than X to start with.
And Twitter is not the best platform to start with to create that. Facebook would be almost infinitely better placed to do that.
The problem with Twitter is its never been a platform for mass chat or communications that everyone uses, Facebook was much closer to that though I'm long since bored with Facebook personally.
Twitter is a platform for people with loud opinions who want to broadcast those opinions. Its a platform for talking, not listening. It doesn't have that much actual engagement, it doesn't have billions of users like Facebook does.
If he creates it, then yes it will be a success. I'm extremely sceptical though - but its his money to burn, let him do what he wants with it.
Its very easy to think that he has ruined Twitter. Then again, Twitter was already ruined - a cesspit of online hate and more recently bots weaponising ignorance.
The guy has a boner for X as a brand. Its no dafter than sticking "easy" or "Virgin" on everything. As a Tesla and a Starlink customer I'd rather him focus a little more on those businesses, but if he settled down and became Mr Corporate then he wouldn't be the guy driving all this innovation.
Absolutely agreed, Twitter was always awful, which is why him taking it over was just weird in my eyes and shows odd priorities.
As I said, I think Tesla and SpaceX/Starlink are great businesses. Twitter, not so much - and Twitter as a foundation for a WeChat platform just seems weird too, considering how few people actually use Twitter. Its not a major everyday platform like Facebook, its a platform for obnoxious loudmouthed talking heads who love to shot their opinions into the ether.
X as a brand is nothing weird attached to other things, like SpaceX or had it been TwitterX or whatever is nothing odd. As you say like easy or Virgin or another example is Apple adding i to everything. And had he made his holding company simply called X (like Facebook has Meta) then that'd be reasonable but X as a brandname for Twitter itself is just weird.
Especially when Tweeting now is a verb, how does that translate to X? He spent tens of billions on buying a brand, then killed the brandname, that's just an odd choice to me. If it works, good luck to him, I wish him no ill, but I don't see it.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park. And while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
People in that sort of car go shopping and self-catering? I appreciate you are probably joking but your first point sounds like a serious one.
I always emerge from junctions like that. If you are old enough and your truck is large, old and battered enough, it's a de facto right of way situation.
I'm amusing myself by thinking what I would do with one of those, but I think my general point is a reasonable one - if I buy a thing, it is because I think it will serve a particular purpose better than another thing. Presumably that's also true of whoever buys this - they're not buying it for it to sit in a garage. But what purpose does it serve? What journeys can you make for which it is better than an alternative? Not ease of use (going to the supermarket) or fitting a lot of stuff in. And presumably there are also better cars for speed, if that's your thing. And certainly not affordability. I can't imagine any circumstance that the oligarch goes out to his garage and thinks THAT is the car for the journey I'm making today.
The Roller is the car to be driven to important meetings and events particularly where photographers might be. It's not for practicality, speed or efficiency.
For arriving in, not travelling in?
Still hideous.
I know a bloke whose dad used to take his helicopter down from Cheshire to Smith's Lawn. He sent the chauffeur down in the car the night before, to pick him up for the less than a mile from helipad to final destination.
He was from Cheshire? Going to Smith's Lawn? How perfectly ghastly.
*googles Smith's Lawn* - ah - polo.
To weigh in on behalf of the splendid county of Cheshire, it is not JUST footballers and polo players (who, I would imagine, are exclusive: footballer country is in the east of the county: Alderley Edge, Prestbury, etc; while polo country is in the west, beyond Tarporley). Most of Cheshire is pleasant but not stellar; like anywhere else, the towns and villages of Cheshire range from the idyllic to the functional; for every Wilmslow there is a Winsford; for every Mottram St. Andrew there is a No Man's Heath.
Cheshire, the Essex of the North, new Money and celebs and old money and farming and lots of ordinary towns in between too
Surely the Home Secretary now has to put a temporary bar on all police FOI requests via secondary instrument until the Information Commissioner has completed an inquiry on all these recent police breaches? For starters why weren't Information managers required to approve FOI responses before release to ensure no sensitive date was sent out
Which is the reaction to the “lock em up for 100 years” stuff.
In this whole chain, no one is taking responsibility for anything.
These kind of group shoplifting mobs were happening fifteen years ago & people were predicting the collapse of the US as a result then. Unless & until you see statistics that make clear that things are measurably much worse these kind of Tweets are just fear-mongering for clout.
Even more so now that Musk will pay them for farming engagement directly.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
TBH I think 'urgh' is a perfectly understandable reflex response to El Musko.
I'll make the point again: disliking Elon Musk for his continual shitbaggery does not mean you have to dislike his companies when they have achieved things. It's perfectly possible to think that Tesla is a great company, but that Musk is a tw@t. Ditto SpaceX.
Whereas sadly, it appears being a fan of Musk often means excusing his companies when they do bad, or terrible, things.
Equally its possible to think that Tesla is great, SpaceX is great, while Twitter is shit.
Or to think that someone who had Tesla and SpaceX who chose to then turn his attention to Twitter instead, shows rather shit priorities or a steep decline in his reasoning.
Musk is Musk. Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink - massively innovative and disruptive businesses. OK so he's also responsible for "interesting" ideas like the Boring Company, and then we have Twitter which has so many people having conniptions. Lets see how it plays out - if X has become the west's answer to WeChat in a few years, the scoffers will have had to turn their attentions to the next thing to attack.
Some of the things he has said - usually whilst stoned - have been awful. Attacking the rescuers in the Thai cave thing as a prime example. But the balance sheet is massively positive. People just don't like successful people, especially when they innovate and disrupt rather than just exploit others. He threatens too much existing big money.
Musk didn't really start Paypal, did he? And his original idea for the company that merged to become Paypal was, AIUI, rather different.
And don't excuse the stuff he says on him 'being stoned'. That's a terrible excuse.
The balance sheet is massively negative IMO. Remember that both Tesla and SpaceX only survived to 2010 because of massive government handouts.
I don't mind successful people - I've defended Bezos on here. It's just that Musk has so many negatives going for him.
He didn't start PayPal and they kicked him out to stop him bollocksing it up. But he did start SpaceX. I don't think getting government handouts is a knock against an entrepreneur, it's part of the job especially if you're doing something that the entire world needs so the government is subsidizing it.
My grand theory of Elon is that he's really easily led, so if he's hanging around visionaries and stoner musicians he makes the electric car cool and revolutionizes space travel, whereas if he's hanging around rich old reactionaries who took too much cocaine when they were younger he buys social networks and bollockses them up.
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
The trial started way back in October, and she’s accused of I think seven murders and a dozen attempted murders.
Is each case supposed to be considered entirely independently of the others? I don't see how that works.
Which is the reaction to the “lock em up for 100 years” stuff.
In this whole chain, no one is taking responsibility for anything.
These kind of group shoplifting mobs were happening fifteen years ago & people were predicting the collapse of the US as a result then. Unless & until you see statistics that make clear that things are measurably much worse these kind of Tweets are just fear-mongering for clout.
Even more so now that Musk will pay them for farming engagement directly.
Entire urban districts are losing shops to shoplifting. They close because they can’t make a profit any more. This is new
You are delusional
“Shoplifting threatens closure of SE DC grocery store, creating potential food desert”
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
The trial started way back in October, and she’s accused of I think seven murders and a dozen attempted murders.
Is each case supposed to be considered entirely independently of the others? I don't see how that works.
Back to Sally Clark again, I know.
I've had a very brief look at the detail and am I correct in thinking that apart from a dodgy post-it, there's no actual evidence against Ms Letby other than circumstantial (ie statistical)? If that is the case then why was it brought to trial? We've been here before, surely?
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
TBH I think 'urgh' is a perfectly understandable reflex response to El Musko.
I'll make the point again: disliking Elon Musk for his continual shitbaggery does not mean you have to dislike his companies when they have achieved things. It's perfectly possible to think that Tesla is a great company, but that Musk is a tw@t. Ditto SpaceX.
Whereas sadly, it appears being a fan of Musk often means excusing his companies when they do bad, or terrible, things.
Equally its possible to think that Tesla is great, SpaceX is great, while Twitter is shit.
Or to think that someone who had Tesla and SpaceX who chose to then turn his attention to Twitter instead, shows rather shit priorities or a steep decline in his reasoning.
Musk is Musk. Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink - massively innovative and disruptive businesses. OK so he's also responsible for "interesting" ideas like the Boring Company, and then we have Twitter which has so many people having conniptions. Lets see how it plays out - if X has become the west's answer to WeChat in a few years, the scoffers will have had to turn their attentions to the next thing to attack.
Some of the things he has said - usually whilst stoned - have been awful. Attacking the rescuers in the Thai cave thing as a prime example. But the balance sheet is massively positive. People just don't like successful people, especially when they innovate and disrupt rather than just exploit others. He threatens too much existing big money.
Musk didn't really start Paypal, did he? And his original idea for the company that merged to become Paypal was, AIUI, rather different.
And don't excuse the stuff he says on him 'being stoned'. That's a terrible excuse.
The balance sheet is massively negative IMO. Remember that both Tesla and SpaceX only survived to 2010 because of massive government handouts.
I don't mind successful people - I've defended Bezos on here. It's just that Musk has so many negatives going for him.
Wait, what? The balance sheet is so clearly massively positive which is how he's got where he is. Both on a pure fiscal sense, and in an overall/environmental sense.
As for government handouts, yes they existed, but at least as far as Tesla is concerned they existed for a very good reason and existed for other firms too.
The state incentivising the switch to clean energy vehicles was round supported by almost anyone who'd criticise Musk now and for good reason too. As far as I'm concerned, not picking winners but creating incentives is the state doing its job well too - its what the state should be doing, create incentives to get what you want (clean vehicles) and tax what you don't (externalities) then let the market sort it out.
Pre-Tesla all the talk for electric/clean vehicles was going to things like the Prius, or the Leaf.
That Tesla have shown that quality vehicles can be electric has encouraged the rest of the market to do the same, which is fantastic for the planet - and just what the incentives taxpayers were doing was designed to encourage.
I think it's quite possible he was a net positive contributor to the world until quite recently but may now be passed it, as a result of a mixture of being high on his own supply, losing any sense of perspective and going down some ideological blind alleys. It happens all the time to politicians, sportsmen, musicians, authors, scientists/academics and others. People peak and then decline either because they refuse to move with the times or stop listening to criticism.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park. And while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
People in that sort of car go shopping and self-catering? I appreciate you are probably joking but your first point sounds like a serious one.
I always emerge from junctions like that. If you are old enough and your truck is large, old and battered enough, it's a de facto right of way situation.
I'm amusing myself by thinking what I would do with one of those, but I think my general point is a reasonable one - if I buy a thing, it is because I think it will serve a particular purpose better than another thing. Presumably that's also true of whoever buys this - they're not buying it for it to sit in a garage. But what purpose does it serve? What journeys can you make for which it is better than an alternative? Not ease of use (going to the supermarket) or fitting a lot of stuff in. And presumably there are also better cars for speed, if that's your thing. And certainly not affordability. I can't imagine any circumstance that the oligarch goes out to his garage and thinks THAT is the car for the journey I'm making today.
The Roller is the car to be driven to important meetings and events particularly where photographers might be. It's not for practicality, speed or efficiency.
For arriving in, not travelling in?
Still hideous.
I know a bloke whose dad used to take his helicopter down from Cheshire to Smith's Lawn. He sent the chauffeur down in the car the night before, to pick him up for the less than a mile from helipad to final destination.
He was from Cheshire? Going to Smith's Lawn? How perfectly ghastly.
*googles Smith's Lawn* - ah - polo.
To weigh in on behalf of the splendid county of Cheshire, it is not JUST footballers and polo players (who, I would imagine, are exclusive: footballer country is in the east of the county: Alderley Edge, Prestbury, etc; while polo country is in the west, beyond Tarporley). Most of Cheshire is pleasant but not stellar; like anywhere else, the towns and villages of Cheshire range from the idyllic to the functional; for every Wilmslow there is a Winsford; for every Mottram St. Andrew there is a No Man's Heath.
Cheshire, the Essex of the North, new Money and celebs and old money and farming and lots of ordinary towns in between too
Unlike Essex, not a good county for grapevines.
Hop country though. Am geographically on the Cheshire Plain and mine grow like topsy with zero input from me.
Cheshire has a deep underlying culture of folkloric strangeness too - Alan Garner's work is the starting point for this.
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
The trial started way back in October, and she’s accused of I think seven murders and a dozen attempted murders.
If a jury is out for that long, it must mean doubt. So I think they can either fail to reach a verdict or find her not guilty.
I think there is lots of doubt as there is little if any direct evidence.
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
The trial started way back in October, and she’s accused of I think seven murders and a dozen attempted murders.
Is each case supposed to be considered entirely independently of the others? I don't see how that works.
Back to Sally Clark again, I know.
That is indeed the law and juries are always directed that way but I really wonder.
So, you start with charge 1 and find that you are satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the accused is a rapist*. Charge 2 is a different complainer but if you start from the premise that Mr Rapist is well capable of such an act is the standard of proof really the same? My experience is that there is a domino effect and once they start falling it takes something pretty specific to a particular allegation to keep one upright.
I see as predicted I'mnofanofTrumpbutism is back in vogue. To be scrupulously fair, I think some of these lads (despite the occasional fig leaf protestation) are fans of Trump.
Lots of thinly veiled Trumptons on PB.
Speaking personally, I really can't be bothered with prefacing my thoughts on any given issue with 'now I'm no fan of'. Anyone worth discussing something with will engage with the issues. Idiots looking for 'thinly veiled Trumptons' weren't likely to bring much of value to the discussion anyway.
There's no need for you to do that, we already know you're a fan of Putin and anyone who wishes harm on America - like Trump.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
TBH I think 'urgh' is a perfectly understandable reflex response to El Musko.
I'll make the point again: disliking Elon Musk for his continual shitbaggery does not mean you have to dislike his companies when they have achieved things. It's perfectly possible to think that Tesla is a great company, but that Musk is a tw@t. Ditto SpaceX.
Whereas sadly, it appears being a fan of Musk often means excusing his companies when they do bad, or terrible, things.
Equally its possible to think that Tesla is great, SpaceX is great, while Twitter is shit.
Or to think that someone who had Tesla and SpaceX who chose to then turn his attention to Twitter instead, shows rather shit priorities or a steep decline in his reasoning.
Musk is Musk. Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink - massively innovative and disruptive businesses. OK so he's also responsible for "interesting" ideas like the Boring Company, and then we have Twitter which has so many people having conniptions. Lets see how it plays out - if X has become the west's answer to WeChat in a few years, the scoffers will have had to turn their attentions to the next thing to attack.
Some of the things he has said - usually whilst stoned - have been awful. Attacking the rescuers in the Thai cave thing as a prime example. But the balance sheet is massively positive. People just don't like successful people, especially when they innovate and disrupt rather than just exploit others. He threatens too much existing big money.
Musk didn't really start Paypal, did he? And his original idea for the company that merged to become Paypal was, AIUI, rather different.
And don't excuse the stuff he says on him 'being stoned'. That's a terrible excuse.
The balance sheet is massively negative IMO. Remember that both Tesla and SpaceX only survived to 2010 because of massive government handouts.
I don't mind successful people - I've defended Bezos on here. It's just that Musk has so many negatives going for him.
Wait, what? The balance sheet is so clearly massively positive which is how he's got where he is. Both on a pure fiscal sense, and in an overall/environmental sense.
As for government handouts, yes they existed, but at least as far as Tesla is concerned they existed for a very good reason and existed for other firms too.
The state incentivising the switch to clean energy vehicles was round supported by almost anyone who'd criticise Musk now and for good reason too. As far as I'm concerned, not picking winners but creating incentives is the state doing its job well too - its what the state should be doing, create incentives to get what you want (clean vehicles) and tax what you don't (externalities) then let the market sort it out.
Pre-Tesla all the talk for electric/clean vehicles was going to things like the Prius, or the Leaf.
That Tesla have shown that quality vehicles can be electric has encouraged the rest of the market to do the same, which is fantastic for the planet - and just what the incentives taxpayers were doing was designed to encourage.
I think it's quite possible he was a net positive contributor to the world until quite recently but may now be passed it, as a result of a mixture of being high on his own supply, losing any sense of perspective and going down some ideological blind alleys. It happens all the time to politicians, sportsmen, musicians, authors, scientists/academics and others. People peak and then decline either because they refuse to move with the times or stop listening to criticism.
Yes, I think you may be right. And its why in politics we have a steady turnover of politicians, some people bemoan that lack of stability but if you look at countries where leaders are in charge for decades like Putin, Saddam Hussein, Mugabe etc then I think we're far better for it.
If he's past it now, then what's the worst that happens? He burns off his own money, he loses money he's made. No big deal. If he takes Twitter down on the way out, then bonus, but I don't think we're that lucky.
Meanwhile the world is still a better place for having had Tesla and SpaceX. Even if Tesla were to go out of business altogether (improbable) their legacy and the way they have inspired other firms to go electric would still live on.
Musk could end his life penniless, broke and humiliated. He'll still have left his mark on the world. In the past, great visionaries have ended up penniless as they didn't know when to stop.
EDIT: From memory didn't Tesla himself die broke? From memory he did, but we still remember him now and the world still uses what he added to the sum of human knowledge.
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
The trial started way back in October, and she’s accused of I think seven murders and a dozen attempted murders.
Is each case supposed to be considered entirely independently of the others? I don't see how that works.
Back to Sally Clark again, I know.
That is indeed the law and juries are always directed that way but I really wonder.
So, you start with charge 1 and find that you are satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the accused is a rapist*. Charge 2 is a different complainer but if you start from the premise that Mr Rapist is well capable of such an act is the standard of proof really the same? My experience is that there is a domino effect and once they start falling it takes something pretty specific to a particular allegation to keep one upright.
* Obviously a completely different case
The Human propensity to perform pattern-matching. You can see how easy it would be to fill in the gaps in the charges where there is less evidence.
I see as predicted I'mnofanofTrumpbutism is back in vogue. To be scrupulously fair, I think some of these lads (despite the occasional fig leaf protestation) are fans of Trump.
Lots of thinly veiled Trumptons on PB.
Speaking personally, I really can't be bothered with prefacing my thoughts on any given issue with 'now I'm no fan of'. Anyone worth discussing something with will engage with the issues. Idiots looking for 'thinly veiled Trumptons' weren't likely to bring much of value to the discussion anyway.
There's no need for you to do that, we already know you're a fan of Putin and anyone who wishes harm on America - like Trump.
Ask for an idiot...
I'm no fan of Trump, but.....
Seriously, you have to understand the visceral hatred so many Americans have for Liberals and Democrats if you are to comprehend how a crook and charlatan like Trump can gain widespread support. His supporters simply do not care what he does or plans to do as long as he voices their loathing for the democratic elite which they believe runs government and treats them with contempt.
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
The trial started way back in October, and she’s accused of I think seven murders and a dozen attempted murders.
Is each case supposed to be considered entirely independently of the others? I don't see how that works.
Back to Sally Clark again, I know.
I've had a very brief look at the detail and am I correct in thinking that apart from a dodgy post-it, there's no actual evidence against Ms Letby other than circumstantial (ie statistical)? If that is the case then why was it brought to trial? We've been here before, surely?
I wish we had this in Camden. An excellent local restaurant. Classic bistro food with some Italian flair and British gastropub influences and quite reasonable prices
Do you mean High Street or Sidwell Street/Paris Street?
The High Street has a lot of post-war dross on it, but also some older and rather fine architecture, and the Princesshay shopping centre, which isn't my sort of thing but not bad as they go.
Sidwell Street/Paris Street has long been slated for demolition/redevelopment, although as so often with these things, it isn't totally clear when.
Sidwell. Grotesque
I am now in a charming restaurant having lunch but, distressingly, it is full of photos of luscious pre war Exeter before the Luftwaffe and the left wing developers got the better of it
None of those responsible for the postwar rebuilding of Exeter could be considered left wing. The city council was run by the Conservatives, had a Tory MP (who praised the reconstruction efforts) and rebuilding efforts only gained momentum when the Tories returned to government in Westminster and relaxed the planning rules. Much of the development was left to the private sector, including an enterprising development firm that saw big opportunities in postwar reconstruction and later became Land Securities. I doubt that they were a hotbed of Marxism. Postwar reconstruction was generally shoddy not for ideological reasons but because politicians and the public were desperate for it to happen quickly, and the country was broke. In construction you can have it nice, you can have it quick or you can have it cheap. If you aim for quick and cheap too, you are certainly not going to get nice.
I see as predicted I'mnofanofTrumpbutism is back in vogue. To be scrupulously fair, I think some of these lads (despite the occasional fig leaf protestation) are fans of Trump.
Lots of thinly veiled Trumptons on PB.
Speaking personally, I really can't be bothered with prefacing my thoughts on any given issue with 'now I'm no fan of'. Anyone worth discussing something with will engage with the issues. Idiots looking for 'thinly veiled Trumptons' weren't likely to bring much of value to the discussion anyway.
There's no need for you to do that, we already know you're a fan of Putin and anyone who wishes harm on America - like Trump.
Ask for an idiot...
I'm no fan of Trump, but.....
Seriously, you have to understand the visceral hatred so many Americans have for Liberals and Democrats if you are to comprehend how a crook and charlatan like Trump can gain widespread support. His supporters simply do not care what he does or plans to do as long as he voices their loathing for the democratic elite which they believe runs government and treats them with contempt.
The problem is too many people believe in the fallacy that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".
The likes of Alanbrooke on here show that when they excuse Trump's blatant corruption and criminality and think justice against him is purely politically motivated, rather than the fact that he's a criminal. Or Leon's on again/off again fascination with and excusing of Putin for being "anti-woke".
Even if you dislike "liberals", Trump should be no friend.
Even if you dislike "Tories", Corbyn should be no friend.
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
The trial started way back in October, and she’s accused of I think seven murders and a dozen attempted murders.
Is each case supposed to be considered entirely independently of the others? I don't see how that works.
Back to Sally Clark again, I know.
I've had a very brief look at the detail and am I correct in thinking that apart from a dodgy post-it, there's no actual evidence against Ms Letby other than circumstantial (ie statistical)? If that is the case then why was it brought to trial? We've been here before, surely?
No, that is wrong, I believe.
There was months of evidence presented. There are, the prosecution claim, multiple notes written by her showing her guilt, of various sorts. Her behaviour was frequently unusual. A doctor said he witnessed her failing to do anything for a baby whose oxygen levels were dropping in front of her. Another witness has her dismissing obvious signs of distress in another baby. Witnesses have her spending unusual amounts of time with babies not in her care, while neglecting to pay attention to the babies she was meant to be covering. There are several cases of babies deteriorating under her care and then recovering when she was not involved in their care.
Bad news for England Rugby, Farrell has escaped a ban as the (Australian) panel decided that he was shoved last minute by Jamie George and so not at fault for the dangerous tackle.
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
The trial started way back in October, and she’s accused of I think seven murders and a dozen attempted murders.
Is each case supposed to be considered entirely independently of the others? I don't see how that works.
Back to Sally Clark again, I know.
I've had a very brief look at the detail and am I correct in thinking that apart from a dodgy post-it, there's no actual evidence against Ms Letby other than circumstantial (ie statistical)? If that is the case then why was it brought to trial? We've been here before, surely?
No, that is wrong, I believe.
Are we allowed to speculate here?
Its hard to tell from only media reports, but the compelling piece of "evidence" seems to be her diary saying that she's guilty - which she explained as being self-guilt over not being able to keep those babies alive and not a confession that she murdered them.
Its hard to tell from afar, but from what I've seen on the media reports there seems to be reasonable doubt here and I'm not surprised it might end up in a hung jury situation.
But the jury sees a heck of a lot more than the media reports. Especially since I've not been following the case in detail, but what I've seen isn't convincing that she's a clear-cut murderer.
I wish we had this in Camden. An excellent local restaurant. Classic bistro food with some Italian flair and British gastropub influences and quite reasonable prices
More importantly, Tripadvisor nailed it. These apps become increasingly usefui
If booking.com rates a hotel over 9/10 it is nearly always excellent (in its genre) - much better/more reliable than any hotel guide
Tripadvisor is best when people leave detailed balanced reviews. That way you really get to understand how a restaurant or hotel is. I try to do this, in fact I enjoy the challenge of imagining myself a newspaper restaurant critic while I write.
5 star reviews are usually too short and uninformative: "great food, wonderful service - will be back", but so too are the usual couple of 1 star reviews. They tend to involve long-winded complaints about how the manager was rude to them or they booked a table but there was no record of the booking. Or they arrived on a Saturday evening as a group of 10 and nobody could accommodate them. Whereas the 3 and (some) 4 star reviews are gold dust. 3 stars usually mean someone has thought carefully about the pluses and minuses and written a thoughtful review. So I tend to zone in on those.
I wish we had this in Camden. An excellent local restaurant. Classic bistro food with some Italian flair and British gastropub influences and quite reasonable prices
More importantly, Tripadvisor nailed it. These apps become increasingly usefui
If booking.com rates a hotel over 9/10 it is nearly always excellent (in its genre) - much better/more reliable than any hotel guide
Walk around the castle is quite nice - record office tucked inside. Also the (riverine-canaline) docks. And the mediaeval bridge at the bottom of the main street. Cathedral close and what's left of a fine house terrace nearby, courtesy Goering H.
I see as predicted I'mnofanofTrumpbutism is back in vogue. To be scrupulously fair, I think some of these lads (despite the occasional fig leaf protestation) are fans of Trump.
Lots of thinly veiled Trumptons on PB.
Speaking personally, I really can't be bothered with prefacing my thoughts on any given issue with 'now I'm no fan of'. Anyone worth discussing something with will engage with the issues. Idiots looking for 'thinly veiled Trumptons' weren't likely to bring much of value to the discussion anyway.
There's no need for you to do that, we already know you're a fan of Putin and anyone who wishes harm on America - like Trump.
Ask for an idiot...
I'm no fan of Trump, but.....
Seriously, you have to understand the visceral hatred so many Americans have for Liberals and Democrats if you are to comprehend how a crook and charlatan like Trump can gain widespread support. His supporters simply do not care what he does or plans to do as long as he voices their loathing for the democratic elite which they believe runs government and treats them with contempt.
The direct parallel with Trump is Michael Curley, the Mayor of Boston, who kept getting elected despite it being widely accepted he was a crook and that he served actual jail time more than one. The reason was simple. Most Bostonians hated the Boston Brahmins and so re-elected Curley whom they knew the Brahmins hated.
I noticed @BartholomewRoberts says that Trump should be no friend for those who have grievances with the elite. But that gives those elite no incentive to change. They continue their behaviour ad infinitum and continue to shove it in the face of the poor. It lets them off too easily.
As Dave Chapelle said, what Trump did was open up the doors to the gravy train and showed everyone in the country how everyone on the inside was helping themselves and didn't give a damn about the populace. Now, that included himself but he - at least - was open about that (not paying taxes etc).
Sometimes - and in this phrase I am talking about the American elite - people have to have their faces shoved right in the shit to actually change their behaviour meaningfully. A 2024 Trump victory would probably do that.
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
The trial started way back in October, and she’s accused of I think seven murders and a dozen attempted murders.
Is each case supposed to be considered entirely independently of the others? I don't see how that works.
Back to Sally Clark again, I know.
I've had a very brief look at the detail and am I correct in thinking that apart from a dodgy post-it, there's no actual evidence against Ms Letby other than circumstantial (ie statistical)? If that is the case then why was it brought to trial? We've been here before, surely?
No, that is wrong, I believe.
There was months of evidence presented. There are, the prosecution claim, multiple notes written by her showing her guilt, of various sorts. Her behaviour was frequently unusual. A doctor said he witnessed her failing to do anything for a baby whose oxygen levels were dropping in front of her. Another witness has her dismissing obvious signs of distress in another baby. Witnesses have her spending unusual amounts of time with babies not in her care, while neglecting to pay attention to the babies she was meant to be covering. There are several cases of babies deteriorating under her care and then recovering when she was not involved in their care.
How does this compare to the evidence against Shipman?
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
The trial started way back in October, and she’s accused of I think seven murders and a dozen attempted murders.
Is each case supposed to be considered entirely independently of the others? I don't see how that works.
Back to Sally Clark again, I know.
I've had a very brief look at the detail and am I correct in thinking that apart from a dodgy post-it, there's no actual evidence against Ms Letby other than circumstantial (ie statistical)? If that is the case then why was it brought to trial? We've been here before, surely?
No, that is wrong, I believe.
Are we allowed to speculate here?
Its hard to tell from only media reports, but the compelling piece of "evidence" seems to be her diary saying that she's guilty - which she explained as being self-guilt over not being able to keep those babies alive and not a confession that she murdered them.
Its hard to tell from afar, but from what I've seen on the media reports there seems to be reasonable doubt here and I'm not surprised it might end up in a hung jury situation.
But the jury sees a heck of a lot more than the media reports. Especially since I've not been following the case in detail, but what I've seen isn't convincing that she's a clear-cut murderer.
One juror had to withdraw, so there’s 11 on the jury and the judge has said they need to be at least 10-1 for a verdict. The jurors have obviously heard much more than us and considered this much more than us. Jurors aren’t always correct, but I think you have to have faith that they usually get it right. We’ll see what they say. I don’t see much value in random people online who have heard bits of the story opining as to her guilt or innocence.
Do you mean High Street or Sidwell Street/Paris Street?
The High Street has a lot of post-war dross on it, but also some older and rather fine architecture, and the Princesshay shopping centre, which isn't my sort of thing but not bad as they go.
Sidwell Street/Paris Street has long been slated for demolition/redevelopment, although as so often with these things, it isn't totally clear when.
Sidwell. Grotesque
I am now in a charming restaurant having lunch but, distressingly, it is full of photos of luscious pre war Exeter before the Luftwaffe and the left wing developers got the better of it
None of those responsible for the postwar rebuilding of Exeter could be considered left wing. The city council was run by the Conservatives, had a Tory MP (who praised the reconstruction efforts) and rebuilding efforts only gained momentum when the Tories returned to government in Westminster and relaxed the planning rules. Much of the development was left to the private sector, including an enterprising development firm that saw big opportunities in postwar reconstruction and later became Land Securities. I doubt that they were a hotbed of Marxism. Postwar reconstruction was generally shoddy not for ideological reasons but because politicians and the public were desperate for it to happen quickly, and the country was broke. In construction you can have it nice, you can have it quick or you can have it cheap. If you aim for quick and cheap too, you are certainly not going to get nice.
And Britain was by no means alone in this, although we do seem to have visited the damage disproportionately on city centres, more so than the suburbs. We imposed green belts while hollowing out the CBD with or without the help of the Luftwaffe. Whereas the Italians or Spanish, say, erected ugly sprawls for miles outside their cities but kept the centre intact. And the Dutch replaced utterly destroyed cities with modernist architecture that was somewhat nicer and better built than the British equivalent.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
TBH I think 'urgh' is a perfectly understandable reflex response to El Musko.
I'll make the point again: disliking Elon Musk for his continual shitbaggery does not mean you have to dislike his companies when they have achieved things. It's perfectly possible to think that Tesla is a great company, but that Musk is a tw@t. Ditto SpaceX.
Whereas sadly, it appears being a fan of Musk often means excusing his companies when they do bad, or terrible, things.
Equally its possible to think that Tesla is great, SpaceX is great, while Twitter is shit.
Or to think that someone who had Tesla and SpaceX who chose to then turn his attention to Twitter instead, shows rather shit priorities or a steep decline in his reasoning.
Musk is Musk. Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink - massively innovative and disruptive businesses. OK so he's also responsible for "interesting" ideas like the Boring Company, and then we have Twitter which has so many people having conniptions. Lets see how it plays out - if X has become the west's answer to WeChat in a few years, the scoffers will have had to turn their attentions to the next thing to attack.
Some of the things he has said - usually whilst stoned - have been awful. Attacking the rescuers in the Thai cave thing as a prime example. But the balance sheet is massively positive. People just don't like successful people, especially when they innovate and disrupt rather than just exploit others. He threatens too much existing big money.
Musk didn't really start Paypal, did he? And his original idea for the company that merged to become Paypal was, AIUI, rather different.
And don't excuse the stuff he says on him 'being stoned'. That's a terrible excuse.
The balance sheet is massively negative IMO. Remember that both Tesla and SpaceX only survived to 2010 because of massive government handouts.
I don't mind successful people - I've defended Bezos on here. It's just that Musk has so many negatives going for him.
Bezos is the only one of the current crop of super-billionaires who can truly say he built up a vast global empire with his own ideas, from the ground up.
I think his secret strength is that he is always open to changing his mind. For example, he once had a Musk-esque disdain for advertising (in the mid-2000's there was essentially no above-the-line advertising for Amazon, the 'I'm doing fine, why would I waste money advertising' thing). He was persuaded otherwise, and their marketing has been a key pillar of their mega-growth.
I get the impression there is a freedom to fail in the organisation as well (witness the , which is a sign of a good corporate culture. I could be wrong, of course.
I wish we had this in Camden. An excellent local restaurant. Classic bistro food with some Italian flair and British gastropub influences and quite reasonable prices
More importantly, Tripadvisor nailed it. These apps become increasingly usefui
If booking.com rates a hotel over 9/10 it is nearly always excellent (in its genre) - much better/more reliable than any hotel guide
Walk around the castle is quite nice - record office tucked inside. Also the (riverine-canaline) docks. And the mediaeval bridge at the bottom of the main street. Cathedral close and what's left of a fine house terrace nearby, courtesy Goering H.
Top tip to visit in Exeter is the Met Office. They do a very informative tour.
I see as predicted I'mnofanofTrumpbutism is back in vogue. To be scrupulously fair, I think some of these lads (despite the occasional fig leaf protestation) are fans of Trump.
Lots of thinly veiled Trumptons on PB.
Speaking personally, I really can't be bothered with prefacing my thoughts on any given issue with 'now I'm no fan of'. Anyone worth discussing something with will engage with the issues. Idiots looking for 'thinly veiled Trumptons' weren't likely to bring much of value to the discussion anyway.
There's no need for you to do that, we already know you're a fan of Putin and anyone who wishes harm on America - like Trump.
Ask for an idiot...
I'm no fan of Trump, but.....
Seriously, you have to understand the visceral hatred so many Americans have for Liberals and Democrats if you are to comprehend how a crook and charlatan like Trump can gain widespread support. His supporters simply do not care what he does or plans to do as long as he voices their loathing for the democratic elite which they believe runs government and treats them with contempt.
The direct parallel with Trump is Michael Curley, the Mayor of Boston, who kept getting elected despite it being widely accepted he was a crook and that he served actual jail time more than one. The reason was simple. Most Bostonians hated the Boston Brahmins and so re-elected Curley whom they knew the Brahmins hated.
I noticed @BartholomewRoberts says that Trump should be no friend for those who have grievances with the elite. But that gives those elite no incentive to change. They continue their behaviour ad infinitum and continue to shove it in the face of the poor. It lets them off too easily.
As Dave Chapelle said, what Trump did was open up the doors to the gravy train and showed everyone in the country how everyone on the inside was helping themselves and didn't give a damn about the populace. Now, that included himself but he - at least - was open about that (not paying taxes etc).
Sometimes - and in this phrase I am talking about the American elite - people have to have their faces shoved right in the shit to actually change their behaviour meaningfully. A 2024 Trump victory would probably do that.
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
The trial started way back in October, and she’s accused of I think seven murders and a dozen attempted murders.
Is each case supposed to be considered entirely independently of the others? I don't see how that works.
Back to Sally Clark again, I know.
I've had a very brief look at the detail and am I correct in thinking that apart from a dodgy post-it, there's no actual evidence against Ms Letby other than circumstantial (ie statistical)? If that is the case then why was it brought to trial? We've been here before, surely?
No, that is wrong, I believe.
Are we allowed to speculate here?
Its hard to tell from only media reports, but the compelling piece of "evidence" seems to be her diary saying that she's guilty - which she explained as being self-guilt over not being able to keep those babies alive and not a confession that she murdered them.
Its hard to tell from afar, but from what I've seen on the media reports there seems to be reasonable doubt here and I'm not surprised it might end up in a hung jury situation.
But the jury sees a heck of a lot more than the media reports. Especially since I've not been following the case in detail, but what I've seen isn't convincing that she's a clear-cut murderer.
One juror had to withdraw, so there’s 11 on the jury and the judge has said they need to be at least 10-1 for a verdict. The jurors have obviously heard much more than us and considered this much more than us. Jurors aren’t always correct, but I think you have to have faith that they usually get it right. We’ll see what they say. I don’t see much value in random people online who have heard bits of the story opining as to her guilt or innocence.
I agree with that entirely. Only opined as it was a conversation.
From what I've seen though, it doesn't seem surprising that its a case that has led to long deliberations. It doesn't seem open and shut either way.
Hopefully the jurors are taking their responsibilities seriously and can come to the right decision. Better than rushing to judgment.
I wish we had this in Camden. An excellent local restaurant. Classic bistro food with some Italian flair and British gastropub influences and quite reasonable prices
More importantly, Tripadvisor nailed it. These apps become increasingly usefui
If booking.com rates a hotel over 9/10 it is nearly always excellent (in its genre) - much better/more reliable than any hotel guide
Tripadvisor is best when people leave detailed balanced reviews. That way you really get to understand how a restaurant or hotel is. I try to do this, in fact I enjoy the challenge of imagining myself a newspaper restaurant critic while I write.
5 star reviews are usually too short and uninformative: "great food, wonderful service - will be back", but so too are the usual couple of 1 star reviews. They tend to involve long-winded complaints about how the manager was rude to them or they booked a table but there was no record of the booking. Or they arrived on a Saturday evening as a group of 10 and nobody could accommodate them. Whereas the 3 and (some) 4 star reviews are gold dust. 3 stars usually mean someone has thought carefully about the pluses and minuses and written a thoughtful review. So I tend to zone in on those.
Yes. Avoid the 1 star reviews and be wary of the 5s
The first are often pointless rants or bitter rivals, the latter can be people gaming the system (or trying to)
But at a certain point you get so many reviews it can’t be gamed and that’s where many of these places are now. Which makes the apps really useful
I see as predicted I'mnofanofTrumpbutism is back in vogue. To be scrupulously fair, I think some of these lads (despite the occasional fig leaf protestation) are fans of Trump.
Lots of thinly veiled Trumptons on PB.
Speaking personally, I really can't be bothered with prefacing my thoughts on any given issue with 'now I'm no fan of'. Anyone worth discussing something with will engage with the issues. Idiots looking for 'thinly veiled Trumptons' weren't likely to bring much of value to the discussion anyway.
There's no need for you to do that, we already know you're a fan of Putin and anyone who wishes harm on America - like Trump.
Ask for an idiot...
I'm no fan of Trump, but.....
Seriously, you have to understand the visceral hatred so many Americans have for Liberals and Democrats if you are to comprehend how a crook and charlatan like Trump can gain widespread support. His supporters simply do not care what he does or plans to do as long as he voices their loathing for the democratic elite which they believe runs government and treats them with contempt.
The direct parallel with Trump is Michael Curley, the Mayor of Boston, who kept getting elected despite it being widely accepted he was a crook and that he served actual jail time more than one. The reason was simple. Most Bostonians hated the Boston Brahmins and so re-elected Curley whom they knew the Brahmins hated.
I noticed @BartholomewRoberts says that Trump should be no friend for those who have grievances with the elite. But that gives those elite no incentive to change. They continue their behaviour ad infinitum and continue to shove it in the face of the poor. It lets them off too easily.
As Dave Chapelle said, what Trump did was open up the doors to the gravy train and showed everyone in the country how everyone on the inside was helping themselves and didn't give a damn about the populace. Now, that included himself but he - at least - was open about that (not paying taxes etc).
Sometimes - and in this phrase I am talking about the American elite - people have to have their faces shoved right in the shit to actually change their behaviour meaningfully. A 2024 Trump victory would probably do that.
Ridiculous. A 2024 Trump victory would just swap some self-serving elite people with different self-serving elite people. It doesn't change anything in a positive manner.
If you want change then vote for change, but Trump isn't that. Please name any lasting, positive, changes that in your eyes Trump made in his first term. I can't think of a single one. His only lasting change was reinforcing the pre-existing conservative majority in the Supreme Court.
Biden, Obama, Dubya etc - everyone else had policies they pushed that got through Congress and made a lasting change, Trump was just interested in self-aggrandisement and enrichment.
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
The trial started way back in October, and she’s accused of I think seven murders and a dozen attempted murders.
Is each case supposed to be considered entirely independently of the others? I don't see how that works.
Back to Sally Clark again, I know.
I've had a very brief look at the detail and am I correct in thinking that apart from a dodgy post-it, there's no actual evidence against Ms Letby other than circumstantial (ie statistical)? If that is the case then why was it brought to trial? We've been here before, surely?
No, that is wrong, I believe.
Are we allowed to speculate here?
Its hard to tell from only media reports, but the compelling piece of "evidence" seems to be her diary saying that she's guilty - which she explained as being self-guilt over not being able to keep those babies alive and not a confession that she murdered them.
Its hard to tell from afar, but from what I've seen on the media reports there seems to be reasonable doubt here and I'm not surprised it might end up in a hung jury situation.
But the jury sees a heck of a lot more than the media reports. Especially since I've not been following the case in detail, but what I've seen isn't convincing that she's a clear-cut murderer.
One juror had to withdraw, so there’s 11 on the jury and the judge has said they need to be at least 10-1 for a verdict. The jurors have obviously heard much more than us and considered this much more than us. Jurors aren’t always correct, but I think you have to have faith that they usually get it right. We’ll see what they say. I don’t see much value in random people online who have heard bits of the story opining as to her guilt or innocence.
Do you mean High Street or Sidwell Street/Paris Street?
The High Street has a lot of post-war dross on it, but also some older and rather fine architecture, and the Princesshay shopping centre, which isn't my sort of thing but not bad as they go.
Sidwell Street/Paris Street has long been slated for demolition/redevelopment, although as so often with these things, it isn't totally clear when.
Sidwell. Grotesque
I am now in a charming restaurant having lunch but, distressingly, it is full of photos of luscious pre war Exeter before the Luftwaffe and the left wing developers got the better of it
None of those responsible for the postwar rebuilding of Exeter could be considered left wing. The city council was run by the Conservatives, had a Tory MP (who praised the reconstruction efforts) and rebuilding efforts only gained momentum when the Tories returned to government in Westminster and relaxed the planning rules. Much of the development was left to the private sector, including an enterprising development firm that saw big opportunities in postwar reconstruction and later became Land Securities. I doubt that they were a hotbed of Marxism. Postwar reconstruction was generally shoddy not for ideological reasons but because politicians and the public were desperate for it to happen quickly, and the country was broke. In construction you can have it nice, you can have it quick or you can have it cheap. If you aim for quick and cheap too, you are certainly not going to get nice.
And yet the impoverished Poles managed to rebuild all of central Warsaw, intact, as it was, and it is now delightful and quaint (and entirely “fake”, but who cares)
A lot of the urge to build ugly crap came from left wing architects and town planners ideologically opposed to traditional “beauty” - which was seen as regressive and Tory and hierarchical and all that shite. They still do it NOW - see the way lefty architects react to anything proposed by Prince Charles
I agree evil greedy right wing developers could be at fault as well
Do you mean High Street or Sidwell Street/Paris Street?
The High Street has a lot of post-war dross on it, but also some older and rather fine architecture, and the Princesshay shopping centre, which isn't my sort of thing but not bad as they go.
Sidwell Street/Paris Street has long been slated for demolition/redevelopment, although as so often with these things, it isn't totally clear when.
Sidwell. Grotesque
I am now in a charming restaurant having lunch but, distressingly, it is full of photos of luscious pre war Exeter before the Luftwaffe and the left wing developers got the better of it
None of those responsible for the postwar rebuilding of Exeter could be considered left wing. The city council was run by the Conservatives, had a Tory MP (who praised the reconstruction efforts) and rebuilding efforts only gained momentum when the Tories returned to government in Westminster and relaxed the planning rules. Much of the development was left to the private sector, including an enterprising development firm that saw big opportunities in postwar reconstruction and later became Land Securities. I doubt that they were a hotbed of Marxism. Postwar reconstruction was generally shoddy not for ideological reasons but because politicians and the public were desperate for it to happen quickly, and the country was broke. In construction you can have it nice, you can have it quick or you can have it cheap. If you aim for quick and cheap too, you are certainly not going to get nice.
And yet the impoverished Poles managed to rebuild all of central Warsaw, intact, as it was, and it is now delightful and quaint (and entirely “fake”, but who cares)
A lot of the urge to build ugly crap came from left wing architects and town planners ideologically opposed to traditional “beauty” - which was seen as regressive and Tory and hierarchical and all that shite. They still do it NOW - see the way lefty architects react to anything proposed by Prince Charles
I agree evil greedy right wing developers could be at fault as well
Yes, you see that crap with idiotic idealists choosing to be against parking, so people end up parking on the road rather than having cleverly thought through, integrated parking to go with the buildings.
A multi story block of flats, or multistory office block, there's no reason one or more of the stories can't be a garage for everyone's vehicles, then nobody ends up on the road. But instead idiots who think they know better are against planning for vehicles, so they end up making the vehicles overspill elsewhere and make problems much worse.
Roads should never be a place for parking ideally. They should be a place for driving/cycling/whatever not standing still.
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
The trial started way back in October, and she’s accused of I think seven murders and a dozen attempted murders.
Is each case supposed to be considered entirely independently of the others? I don't see how that works.
Back to Sally Clark again, I know.
I've had a very brief look at the detail and am I correct in thinking that apart from a dodgy post-it, there's no actual evidence against Ms Letby other than circumstantial (ie statistical)? If that is the case then why was it brought to trial? We've been here before, surely?
No, that is wrong, I believe.
Are we allowed to speculate here?
Its hard to tell from only media reports, but the compelling piece of "evidence" seems to be her diary saying that she's guilty - which she explained as being self-guilt over not being able to keep those babies alive and not a confession that she murdered them.
Its hard to tell from afar, but from what I've seen on the media reports there seems to be reasonable doubt here and I'm not surprised it might end up in a hung jury situation.
But the jury sees a heck of a lot more than the media reports. Especially since I've not been following the case in detail, but what I've seen isn't convincing that she's a clear-cut murderer.
One juror had to withdraw, so there’s 11 on the jury and the judge has said they need to be at least 10-1 for a verdict. The jurors have obviously heard much more than us and considered this much more than us. Jurors aren’t always correct, but I think you have to have faith that they usually get it right. We’ll see what they say. I don’t see much value in random people online who have heard bits of the story opining as to her guilt or innocence.
Have you not done the same though?
I have summarised the evidence presented by the prosecution. I have not offered an opinion as to her guilt or innocence.
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
The trial started way back in October, and she’s accused of I think seven murders and a dozen attempted murders.
Is each case supposed to be considered entirely independently of the others? I don't see how that works.
Back to Sally Clark again, I know.
I've had a very brief look at the detail and am I correct in thinking that apart from a dodgy post-it, there's no actual evidence against Ms Letby other than circumstantial (ie statistical)? If that is the case then why was it brought to trial? We've been here before, surely?
No, that is wrong, I believe.
Are we allowed to speculate here?
Its hard to tell from only media reports, but the compelling piece of "evidence" seems to be her diary saying that she's guilty - which she explained as being self-guilt over not being able to keep those babies alive and not a confession that she murdered them.
Its hard to tell from afar, but from what I've seen on the media reports there seems to be reasonable doubt here and I'm not surprised it might end up in a hung jury situation.
But the jury sees a heck of a lot more than the media reports. Especially since I've not been following the case in detail, but what I've seen isn't convincing that she's a clear-cut murderer.
One juror had to withdraw, so there’s 11 on the jury and the judge has said they need to be at least 10-1 for a verdict. The jurors have obviously heard much more than us and considered this much more than us. Jurors aren’t always correct, but I think you have to have faith that they usually get it right. We’ll see what they say. I don’t see much value in random people online who have heard bits of the story opining as to her guilt or innocence.
Have you not done the same though?
I have summarised the evidence presented by the prosecution. I have not offered an opinion as to her guilt or innocence.
It came across to me too like you were suggesting she was guilty, as you summarised the claims/evidence on one side only, without balance.
Hence why I responded with comments on what the defence had said. Because only summarising the prosecutions side heavily hints at a guilty verdict.
I see as predicted I'mnofanofTrumpbutism is back in vogue. To be scrupulously fair, I think some of these lads (despite the occasional fig leaf protestation) are fans of Trump.
Lots of thinly veiled Trumptons on PB.
Speaking personally, I really can't be bothered with prefacing my thoughts on any given issue with 'now I'm no fan of'. Anyone worth discussing something with will engage with the issues. Idiots looking for 'thinly veiled Trumptons' weren't likely to bring much of value to the discussion anyway.
There's no need for you to do that, we already know you're a fan of Putin and anyone who wishes harm on America - like Trump.
Ask for an idiot...
I'm no fan of Trump, but.....
Seriously, you have to understand the visceral hatred so many Americans have for Liberals and Democrats if you are to comprehend how a crook and charlatan like Trump can gain widespread support. His supporters simply do not care what he does or plans to do as long as he voices their loathing for the democratic elite which they believe runs government and treats them with contempt.
The problem is too many people believe in the fallacy that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".
The likes of Alanbrooke on here show that when they excuse Trump's blatant corruption and criminality and think justice against him is purely politically motivated, rather than the fact that he's a criminal. Or Leon's on again/off again fascination with and excusing of Putin for being "anti-woke".
Even if you dislike "liberals", Trump should be no friend.
Even if you dislike "Tories", Corbyn should be no friend.
I don't dislike "liberals", and I get no particular thrill out of them being scandalised and upset. What I am is deeply suspicious of any situation where we're all encouraged to see particular 'happenings', people, or political viewpoints as an inconceivable evil that we must suspend all norms to stop. If the American people elect Trump, that's their choice; the American Government is an expression of their democratic will. I refuse to wobble my collies about it, especially since it's not even an unknown, given that he's been President before, and (especially from a UK perspective) was fairly benign.
Do you mean High Street or Sidwell Street/Paris Street?
The High Street has a lot of post-war dross on it, but also some older and rather fine architecture, and the Princesshay shopping centre, which isn't my sort of thing but not bad as they go.
Sidwell Street/Paris Street has long been slated for demolition/redevelopment, although as so often with these things, it isn't totally clear when.
Sidwell. Grotesque
I am now in a charming restaurant having lunch but, distressingly, it is full of photos of luscious pre war Exeter before the Luftwaffe and the left wing developers got the better of it
None of those responsible for the postwar rebuilding of Exeter could be considered left wing. The city council was run by the Conservatives, had a Tory MP (who praised the reconstruction efforts) and rebuilding efforts only gained momentum when the Tories returned to government in Westminster and relaxed the planning rules. Much of the development was left to the private sector, including an enterprising development firm that saw big opportunities in postwar reconstruction and later became Land Securities. I doubt that they were a hotbed of Marxism. Postwar reconstruction was generally shoddy not for ideological reasons but because politicians and the public were desperate for it to happen quickly, and the country was broke. In construction you can have it nice, you can have it quick or you can have it cheap. If you aim for quick and cheap too, you are certainly not going to get nice.
And yet the impoverished Poles managed to rebuild all of central Warsaw, intact, as it was, and it is now delightful and quaint (and entirely “fake”, but who cares)
A lot of the urge to build ugly crap came from left wing architects and town planners ideologically opposed to traditional “beauty” - which was seen as regressive and Tory and hierarchical and all that shite. They still do it NOW - see the way lefty architects react to anything proposed by Prince Charles
I agree evil greedy right wing developers could be at fault as well
Yes, you see that crap with idiotic idealists choosing to be against parking, so people end up parking on the road rather than having cleverly thought through, integrated parking to go with the buildings.
A multi story block of flats, or multistory office block, there's no reason one or more of the stories can't be a garage for everyone's vehicles, then nobody ends up on the road. But instead idiots who think they know better are against planning for vehicles, so they end up making the vehicles overspill elsewhere and make problems much worse.
Roads should never be a place for parking ideally. They should be a place for driving/cycling/whatever not standing still.
That's usually because car parks are expensive to build / dig and most people (strangely) prefer to be able to look out of a window and see their car..
I wish we had this in Camden. An excellent local restaurant. Classic bistro food with some Italian flair and British gastropub influences and quite reasonable prices
More importantly, Tripadvisor nailed it. These apps become increasingly usefui
If booking.com rates a hotel over 9/10 it is nearly always excellent (in its genre) - much better/more reliable than any hotel guide
Walk around the castle is quite nice - record office tucked inside. Also the (riverine-canaline) docks. And the mediaeval bridge at the bottom of the main street. Cathedral close and what's left of a fine house terrace nearby, courtesy Goering H.
Top tip to visit in Exeter is the Met Office. They do a very informative tour.
There's a nice little guildhall or something on the main street of the old town IIRC.
They used to have a really weird but fascinating museum of boats down at the canal - closed long ago. Was very surrpised to visit Eyemouth in the Scottish Borders some years later and spot some very familiar looking watercraft around the harbour - no idea if they are still there.
Other nice placxe is the pub at the end of the Ship Canal, nice view of the estuary. Might be the ferry terminal for Topsham, but I'm not sure. Cannot speak for its qualities as a pub qua pub, though, as have not been in.
I see as predicted I'mnofanofTrumpbutism is back in vogue. To be scrupulously fair, I think some of these lads (despite the occasional fig leaf protestation) are fans of Trump.
Lots of thinly veiled Trumptons on PB.
Speaking personally, I really can't be bothered with prefacing my thoughts on any given issue with 'now I'm no fan of'. Anyone worth discussing something with will engage with the issues. Idiots looking for 'thinly veiled Trumptons' weren't likely to bring much of value to the discussion anyway.
There's no need for you to do that, we already know you're a fan of Putin and anyone who wishes harm on America - like Trump.
Ask for an idiot...
I'm no fan of Trump, but.....
Seriously, you have to understand the visceral hatred so many Americans have for Liberals and Democrats if you are to comprehend how a crook and charlatan like Trump can gain widespread support. His supporters simply do not care what he does or plans to do as long as he voices their loathing for the democratic elite which they believe runs government and treats them with contempt.
The problem is too many people believe in the fallacy that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".
The likes of Alanbrooke on here show that when they excuse Trump's blatant corruption and criminality and think justice against him is purely politically motivated, rather than the fact that he's a criminal. Or Leon's on again/off again fascination with and excusing of Putin for being "anti-woke".
Even if you dislike "liberals", Trump should be no friend.
Even if you dislike "Tories", Corbyn should be no friend.
I don't dislike "liberals", and I get no particular thrill out of them being scandalised and upset. What I am is deeply suspicious of any situation where we're all encouraged to see particular 'happenings', people, or political viewpoints as an inconceivable evil that we must suspend all norms to stop. If the American people elect Trump, that's their choice; the American Government is an expression of their democratic will. I refuse to wobble my collies about it, especially since it's not even an unknown, given that he's been President before, and (especially from a UK perspective) was fairly benign.
"Benign" is not what I would call someone who refused to stand up to our enemies, tried to blackmail our friends and threatened that which is most valuable - democracy itself.
But since you don't see Ukraine as a friendly nation, see Putin's Russia as a friend not an enemy, and aren't opposed to Russia invading Ukraine, then its no surprise we'll never see eye to eye here.
For those interested, an update on the trial of Lucy Letby (which of course is still subject to all the rules of sub judice), the jury went out on July 10th, a majority direction was given on 8th August, and the jury continues deliberating today.
That is astounding. I only occasionally have a jury out overnight. Yesterday's took about 2 hours. I have never had a jury take more than a day and a bit.
The trial started way back in October, and she’s accused of I think seven murders and a dozen attempted murders.
Is each case supposed to be considered entirely independently of the others? I don't see how that works.
Back to Sally Clark again, I know.
I've had a very brief look at the detail and am I correct in thinking that apart from a dodgy post-it, there's no actual evidence against Ms Letby other than circumstantial (ie statistical)? If that is the case then why was it brought to trial? We've been here before, surely?
No, that is wrong, I believe.
Are we allowed to speculate here?
Its hard to tell from only media reports, but the compelling piece of "evidence" seems to be her diary saying that she's guilty - which she explained as being self-guilt over not being able to keep those babies alive and not a confession that she murdered them.
Its hard to tell from afar, but from what I've seen on the media reports there seems to be reasonable doubt here and I'm not surprised it might end up in a hung jury situation.
But the jury sees a heck of a lot more than the media reports. Especially since I've not been following the case in detail, but what I've seen isn't convincing that she's a clear-cut murderer.
One juror had to withdraw, so there’s 11 on the jury and the judge has said they need to be at least 10-1 for a verdict. The jurors have obviously heard much more than us and considered this much more than us. Jurors aren’t always correct, but I think you have to have faith that they usually get it right. We’ll see what they say. I don’t see much value in random people online who have heard bits of the story opining as to her guilt or innocence.
Have you not done the same though?
I have summarised the evidence presented by the prosecution. I have not offered an opinion as to her guilt or innocence.
It came across to me too like you were suggesting she was guilty, as you summarised the claims/evidence on one side only, without balance.
Hence why I responded with comments on what the defence had said. Because only summarising the prosecutions side heavily hints at a guilty verdict.
I wished to challenge the suggestion made that the evidence against her consisted of only a Post-It note and statistics. There was more evidence than that.
My apologies for not summarising the entire case to your satisfaction.
Do you mean High Street or Sidwell Street/Paris Street?
The High Street has a lot of post-war dross on it, but also some older and rather fine architecture, and the Princesshay shopping centre, which isn't my sort of thing but not bad as they go.
Sidwell Street/Paris Street has long been slated for demolition/redevelopment, although as so often with these things, it isn't totally clear when.
Sidwell. Grotesque
I am now in a charming restaurant having lunch but, distressingly, it is full of photos of luscious pre war Exeter before the Luftwaffe and the left wing developers got the better of it
None of those responsible for the postwar rebuilding of Exeter could be considered left wing. The city council was run by the Conservatives, had a Tory MP (who praised the reconstruction efforts) and rebuilding efforts only gained momentum when the Tories returned to government in Westminster and relaxed the planning rules. Much of the development was left to the private sector, including an enterprising development firm that saw big opportunities in postwar reconstruction and later became Land Securities. I doubt that they were a hotbed of Marxism. Postwar reconstruction was generally shoddy not for ideological reasons but because politicians and the public were desperate for it to happen quickly, and the country was broke. In construction you can have it nice, you can have it quick or you can have it cheap. If you aim for quick and cheap too, you are certainly not going to get nice.
And yet the impoverished Poles managed to rebuild all of central Warsaw, intact, as it was, and it is now delightful and quaint (and entirely “fake”, but who cares)
A lot of the urge to build ugly crap came from left wing architects and town planners ideologically opposed to traditional “beauty” - which was seen as regressive and Tory and hierarchical and all that shite. They still do it NOW - see the way lefty architects react to anything proposed by Prince Charles
I agree evil greedy right wing developers could be at fault as well
Yes, you see that crap with idiotic idealists choosing to be against parking, so people end up parking on the road rather than having cleverly thought through, integrated parking to go with the buildings.
A multi story block of flats, or multistory office block, there's no reason one or more of the stories can't be a garage for everyone's vehicles, then nobody ends up on the road. But instead idiots who think they know better are against planning for vehicles, so they end up making the vehicles overspill elsewhere and make problems much worse.
Roads should never be a place for parking ideally. They should be a place for driving/cycling/whatever not standing still.
The problem with this is a large reason why people don't buy a second car, or a car in the first place, is a lack of car parking spots in town and city centres. Demand will follow supply, and in a few years you'll be back to square one.
Then there are all the secondary effects - more cars means more congestion, fewer people feeling comfortable enough to walk and cycle around, and the viability of mass transit like buses falls.
Those car parks eat up space for more flats, adding more pressure on house prices.
I wish we had this in Camden. An excellent local restaurant. Classic bistro food with some Italian flair and British gastropub influences and quite reasonable prices
More importantly, Tripadvisor nailed it. These apps become increasingly usefui
If booking.com rates a hotel over 9/10 it is nearly always excellent (in its genre) - much better/more reliable than any hotel guide
Walk around the castle is quite nice - record office tucked inside. Also the (riverine-canaline) docks. And the mediaeval bridge at the bottom of the main street. Cathedral close and what's left of a fine house terrace nearby, courtesy Goering H.
Top tip to visit in Exeter is the Met Office. They do a very informative tour.
There's a nice little guildhall or something on the main street of the old town IIRC.
They used to have a really weird but fascinating museum of boats down at the canal - closed long ago. Was very surrpised to visit Eyemouth in the Scottish Borders some years later and spot some very familiar looking watercraft around the harbour - no idea if they are still there.
Other nice placxe is the pub at the end of the Ship Canal, nice view of the estuary. Might be the ferry terminal for Topsham, but I'm not sure. Cannot speak for its qualities as a pub qua pub, though, as have not been in.
There's a good website about the post-war demolition of a lot of historic buildings in Exeter:
I see as predicted I'mnofanofTrumpbutism is back in vogue. To be scrupulously fair, I think some of these lads (despite the occasional fig leaf protestation) are fans of Trump.
Lots of thinly veiled Trumptons on PB.
Speaking personally, I really can't be bothered with prefacing my thoughts on any given issue with 'now I'm no fan of'. Anyone worth discussing something with will engage with the issues. Idiots looking for 'thinly veiled Trumptons' weren't likely to bring much of value to the discussion anyway.
There's no need for you to do that, we already know you're a fan of Putin and anyone who wishes harm on America - like Trump.
Ask for an idiot...
I'm no fan of Trump, but.....
Seriously, you have to understand the visceral hatred so many Americans have for Liberals and Democrats if you are to comprehend how a crook and charlatan like Trump can gain widespread support. His supporters simply do not care what he does or plans to do as long as he voices their loathing for the democratic elite which they believe runs government and treats them with contempt.
The problem is too many people believe in the fallacy that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".
The likes of Alanbrooke on here show that when they excuse Trump's blatant corruption and criminality and think justice against him is purely politically motivated, rather than the fact that he's a criminal. Or Leon's on again/off again fascination with and excusing of Putin for being "anti-woke".
Even if you dislike "liberals", Trump should be no friend.
Even if you dislike "Tories", Corbyn should be no friend.
I don't dislike "liberals", and I get no particular thrill out of them being scandalised and upset. What I am is deeply suspicious of any situation where we're all encouraged to see particular 'happenings', people, or political viewpoints as an inconceivable evil that we must suspend all norms to stop. If the American people elect Trump, that's their choice; the American Government is an expression of their democratic will. I refuse to wobble my collies about it, especially since it's not even an unknown, given that he's been President before, and (especially from a UK perspective) was fairly benign.
No norms are being suspended. Trump is being prosecuted through regular processes, which include a grand jury considering the case before the indictment is brought.
And -as usual- there will be the usual far right cant about "bleeding heart Liberals", but -as usual- they will fail to accept their own culpability since over the past 40 years it is the far right insistence on stupidly disproportionate and draconian punishments for such crimes that means prosecutions are reluctantly undertaken and ineptly executed.
Instead of listening to clowns like Lee Anderson, or indeed any given far right columnist (present company excepted, of course), we should actually listen to, you know, actual experts like the Police or the Justice system or, yes, even Social workers whose policy prescriptions do not involve attempting to lock shoplifters up in Chateau d´Íf for fifty years but who recognize that actually dealing with crime successfully is not just a matter of gimmicks for headlines but requires an IQ higher than double figures.
Short, sharp, shocks without any kind of follow up are a waste of time and money. You want to deal with crime, you are going to have to triple the number of Police and spend serious money on infrastructure. Nah... too difficult, lets just pretend to do what we always pretend to do and pretend it works.
It is yet another policy area where the Tories have run out of road.
Piece on polling how things affect your view of things. They reckon the previous findings that Republicans like Trump more because of indictments are artifacts of a duff question format and if you ask it a better way they like him less, albeit not by much.
Which is the reaction to the “lock em up for 100 years” stuff.
In this whole chain, no one is taking responsibility for anything.
These kind of group shoplifting mobs were happening fifteen years ago & people were predicting the collapse of the US as a result then. Unless & until you see statistics that make clear that things are measurably much worse these kind of Tweets are just fear-mongering for clout.
Even more so now that Musk will pay them for farming engagement directly.
Entire urban districts are losing shops to shoplifting. They close because they can’t make a profit any more. This is new
You are delusional
“Shoplifting threatens closure of SE DC grocery store, creating potential food desert”
Just as the federal government is trying to get their staff back in the office, a federal office in San Francisco has just told staff to work from home - because the area around their office is turning into a no-go zone thanks to crime and homelessness. Major shops in the area have already closed because of out-of-control shoplifting. https://youtube.com/watch?v=v2rxMzEQTA0
Do you mean High Street or Sidwell Street/Paris Street?
The High Street has a lot of post-war dross on it, but also some older and rather fine architecture, and the Princesshay shopping centre, which isn't my sort of thing but not bad as they go.
Sidwell Street/Paris Street has long been slated for demolition/redevelopment, although as so often with these things, it isn't totally clear when.
Sidwell. Grotesque
I am now in a charming restaurant having lunch but, distressingly, it is full of photos of luscious pre war Exeter before the Luftwaffe and the left wing developers got the better of it
None of those responsible for the postwar rebuilding of Exeter could be considered left wing. The city council was run by the Conservatives, had a Tory MP (who praised the reconstruction efforts) and rebuilding efforts only gained momentum when the Tories returned to government in Westminster and relaxed the planning rules. Much of the development was left to the private sector, including an enterprising development firm that saw big opportunities in postwar reconstruction and later became Land Securities. I doubt that they were a hotbed of Marxism. Postwar reconstruction was generally shoddy not for ideological reasons but because politicians and the public were desperate for it to happen quickly, and the country was broke. In construction you can have it nice, you can have it quick or you can have it cheap. If you aim for quick and cheap too, you are certainly not going to get nice.
And yet the impoverished Poles managed to rebuild all of central Warsaw, intact, as it was, and it is now delightful and quaint (and entirely “fake”, but who cares)
A lot of the urge to build ugly crap came from left wing architects and town planners ideologically opposed to traditional “beauty” - which was seen as regressive and Tory and hierarchical and all that shite. They still do it NOW - see the way lefty architects react to anything proposed by Prince Charles
I agree evil greedy right wing developers could be at fault as well
Yes, you see that crap with idiotic idealists choosing to be against parking, so people end up parking on the road rather than having cleverly thought through, integrated parking to go with the buildings.
A multi story block of flats, or multistory office block, there's no reason one or more of the stories can't be a garage for everyone's vehicles, then nobody ends up on the road. But instead idiots who think they know better are against planning for vehicles, so they end up making the vehicles overspill elsewhere and make problems much worse.
Roads should never be a place for parking ideally. They should be a place for driving/cycling/whatever not standing still.
That's usually because car parks are expensive to build / dig and most people (strangely) prefer to be able to look out of a window and see their car..
Land is also expensive. Parking on the road is free, and is parking on communal land rather than your own land. It is an externality and our system encourages it.
Off-road parking is often actively discouraged by politicians when it should be positively encouraged - Nottingham is the worst example of this, firms offering private off-road parking for their employees are taxed for it, while those who have on-road parking are not taxed, whereas the tax incentive should be the polar opposite.
Comments
To weigh in on behalf of the splendid county of Cheshire, it is not JUST footballers and polo players (who, I would imagine, are exclusive: footballer country is in the east of the county: Alderley Edge, Prestbury, etc; while polo country is in the west, beyond Tarporley). Most of Cheshire is pleasant but not stellar; like anywhere else, the towns and villages of Cheshire range from the idyllic to the functional; for every Wilmslow there is a Winsford; for every Mottram St. Andrew there is a No Man's Heath.
https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1571628269555826688?lang=en
But parking space is mostly parking between the lines anyway in car parks, so long as you can park between the lines, how does the size of the vehicle matter?
Good designs for construction should include off-road parking. Whether that be at the home being able to park on your own property, or in a car park for shops, or for multistory buildings having multistory (and potentially underground) parking. Parking on the road should be a last resort and should only really exist for really old and out of date buildings.
These cases seem to take 6 months at a minimum. 6 months from now we're nearly at Super Tuesday, so Trump already controls the convention delegates by the earliest chance the primary voters may get to notice he's been convicted of crimes.
The FL case seems like a slam-dunk but it's presided over a hack Trumpist judge who previously got slapped down in no uncertain terms by appeal courts. If you're the judge in a case, and it involves some novel issues like "defendant is a former president" you and the defendant can string it out for years.
The NY case seems like the weakest one, he may get off and it seems like it may get scheduled after the others to avoid scheduling conflicts.
The GA case doesn't seem to have been optimized for speed, it's got loads of co-defendants, it has various issues like whether it can be moved to federal court that could chew up time, and Trump's schedule can get tied up with the other cases.
The one that might get done by the election is the DC case, which seems to be very carefully designed to keep it simple and has a judge who isn't taking any shit. But even then there's no guarantee that will be done by the election if Trump is trying to slow it down. It could just as well get a result between the election and the next administration starting, then you get the GA case months or years later, which would give you the maximum Benny Hill result of Trump getting imprisoned, becoming president and pardoning himself and getting out the same day, then convicted again and sent back to a different jail...
I think with Trump you have to be careful of ruling out the ridiculous results off the bat. Generally the reason why a president couldn't be president from a jail cell is because if a president was sentenced to jail they'd resign from the presidency and hand the job over to the VP. But Trump may or may not do that so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The new Defender can "overcome hitting a 200mm high square-edged kerb at 40km/h". The terrorist weapon of choice.
One discussion forum, an influx of people demanded the right to shit post every time SpaceX was mentioned. When explained that this wasn't of interest in a discussion about ISP/chamber pressure/combustion instability, they threw their toys out of the pram.
The bad driving seems to be reasonably well distributed across car size, age and type.
Some of the things he has said - usually whilst stoned - have been awful. Attacking the rescuers in the Thai cave thing as a prime example. But the balance sheet is massively positive. People just don't like successful people, especially when they innovate and disrupt rather than just exploit others. He threatens too much existing big money.
Quite simply he is wealthy enough/can attract enough mugs to donate to fund himself that he can get armies of lawyers to find reasons to get continuances and delays and obstructions in courts that he will drag the cases out to the point that he's the nominee at which point the courts won't want to interfere with the election so will continue the cases beyond the election.
That's without considering how you find a jury without a couple of Trumpists in the jury who will acquit him, regardless of his guilt, so how do you actually get a verdict.
The fact he's guilty is neither here nor there. Guilty and going to jail are two very different things in America.
BTW, so far I've been correct over Raptor reliability...
*According to every TV series I've watched.
And Twitter is not the best platform to start with to create that. Facebook would be almost infinitely better placed to do that.
The problem with Twitter is its never been a platform for mass chat or communications that everyone uses, Facebook was much closer to that though I'm long since bored with Facebook personally.
Twitter is a platform for people with loud opinions who want to broadcast those opinions. Its a platform for talking, not listening. It doesn't have that much actual engagement, it doesn't have billions of users like Facebook does.
If he creates it, then yes it will be a success. I'm extremely sceptical though - but its his money to burn, let him do what he wants with it.
Loving it.
The fact he cant pardon himself is great
Plea deals are a way of getting poor* people into jail without having to go through the trial process.
* According to woke TV series I've watched.
And what if they don't agree? Retrial?
And don't excuse the stuff he says on him 'being stoned'. That's a terrible excuse.
The balance sheet is massively negative IMO. Remember that both Tesla and SpaceX only survived to 2010 because of massive government handouts.
I don't mind successful people - I've defended Bezos on here. It's just that Musk has so many negatives going for him.
Absolutely fantastic.
Amazon ad service FreeVee I think it's called.
The guy has a boner for X as a brand. Its no dafter than sticking "easy" or "Virgin" on everything. As a Tesla and a Starlink customer I'd rather him focus a little more on those businesses, but if he settled down and became Mr Corporate then he wouldn't be the guy driving all this innovation.
You'd think HGVs and the like would be more problematic, but the drivers have extra training and a bit more awareness of their size and how to handle it. The drivers of larger cars seem a bit oblivious.
On bailouts how is that any different to all of the other businesses that have needed government largesse? In Tesla's case they're now not only multiples larger than the competition, they actually make money. With a blank sheet of paper approach to manufacturing which has seriously threatened the viability of the long-established competition. And have largely driven the EV revolution which is transforming the industry.
As for government handouts, yes they existed, but at least as far as Tesla is concerned they existed for a very good reason and existed for other firms too.
The state incentivising the switch to clean energy vehicles was round supported by almost anyone who'd criticise Musk now and for good reason too. As far as I'm concerned, not picking winners but creating incentives is the state doing its job well too - its what the state should be doing, create incentives to get what you want (clean vehicles) and tax what you don't (externalities) then let the market sort it out.
Pre-Tesla all the talk for electric/clean vehicles was going to things like the Prius, or the Leaf.
That Tesla have shown that quality vehicles can be electric has encouraged the rest of the market to do the same, which is fantastic for the planet - and just what the incentives taxpayers were doing was designed to encourage.
SpaceX got a contract to provide services to NASA. Which they provided.
In both cases their industry equivalents received far more. In some cases for doing nothing. Looking at you, American ISPs.
A favourite was Boeing taking the money for a rapid launch program. And then announced they wouldn’t be doing anything, because it was too hard. But kept the money.
The High Street has a lot of post-war dross on it, but also some older and rather fine architecture, and the Princesshay shopping centre, which isn't my sort of thing but not bad as they go.
Sidwell Street/Paris Street has long been slated for demolition/redevelopment, although as so often with these things, it isn't totally clear when.
Which leads directly to scenes like this
https://x.com/ben_kew/status/1690555544216510465?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Britain might not be far behind
I am now in a charming restaurant having lunch but, distressingly, it is full of photos of luscious pre war Exeter before the Luftwaffe and the left wing developers got the better of it
In this whole chain, no one is taking responsibility for anything.
As I said, I think Tesla and SpaceX/Starlink are great businesses. Twitter, not so much - and Twitter as a foundation for a WeChat platform just seems weird too, considering how few people actually use Twitter. Its not a major everyday platform like Facebook, its a platform for obnoxious loudmouthed talking heads who love to shot their opinions into the ether.
X as a brand is nothing weird attached to other things, like SpaceX or had it been TwitterX or whatever is nothing odd. As you say like easy or Virgin or another example is Apple adding i to everything. And had he made his holding company simply called X (like Facebook has Meta) then that'd be reasonable but X as a brandname for Twitter itself is just weird.
Especially when Tweeting now is a verb, how does that translate to X? He spent tens of billions on buying a brand, then killed the brandname, that's just an odd choice to me. If it works, good luck to him, I wish him no ill, but I don't see it.
Even more so now that Musk will pay them for farming engagement directly.
My grand theory of Elon is that he's really easily led, so if he's hanging around visionaries and stoner musicians he makes the electric car cool and revolutionizes space travel, whereas if he's hanging around rich old reactionaries who took too much cocaine when they were younger he buys social networks and bollockses them up.
Back to Sally Clark again, I know.
46.9% v. 48.1%
* of those expressing a preference
You are delusional
“Shoplifting threatens closure of SE DC grocery store, creating potential food desert”
https://wjla.com/news/local/washington-dc-ward-8-neighborhood-southeast-district-grocery-stores-safeway-giant-food-community-theft-shoplifting-risks-councilman-trayon-white-mayor-muriel-bowser-crime-anc-commissioner-desert
But yes “trumpite propaganda” blah blah
Cheshire has a deep underlying culture of folkloric strangeness too - Alan Garner's work is the starting point for this.
So, you start with charge 1 and find that you are satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the accused is a rapist*.
Charge 2 is a different complainer but if you start from the premise that Mr Rapist is well capable of such an act is the standard of proof really the same? My experience is that there is a domino effect and once they start falling it takes something pretty specific to a particular allegation to keep one upright.
* Obviously a completely different case
If he's past it now, then what's the worst that happens? He burns off his own money, he loses money he's made. No big deal. If he takes Twitter down on the way out, then bonus, but I don't think we're that lucky.
Meanwhile the world is still a better place for having had Tesla and SpaceX. Even if Tesla were to go out of business altogether (improbable) their legacy and the way they have inspired other firms to go electric would still live on.
Musk could end his life penniless, broke and humiliated. He'll still have left his mark on the world. In the past, great visionaries have ended up penniless as they didn't know when to stop.
EDIT: From memory didn't Tesla himself die broke? From memory he did, but we still remember him now and the world still uses what he added to the sum of human knowledge.
Seriously, you have to understand the visceral hatred so many Americans have for Liberals and Democrats if you are to comprehend how a crook and charlatan like Trump can gain widespread support. His supporters simply do not care what he does or plans to do as long as he voices their loathing for the democratic elite which they believe runs government and treats them with contempt.
I wish we had this in Camden. An excellent local restaurant. Classic bistro food with some Italian flair and British gastropub influences and quite reasonable prices
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g186254-d775884-Reviews-Harry_s_Restaurant-Exeter_Devon_England.html
More importantly, Tripadvisor nailed it. These apps become increasingly usefui
If booking.com rates a hotel over 9/10 it is nearly always excellent (in its genre) - much better/more reliable than any hotel guide
Postwar reconstruction was generally shoddy not for ideological reasons but because politicians and the public were desperate for it to happen quickly, and the country was broke. In construction you can have it nice, you can have it quick or you can have it cheap. If you aim for quick and cheap too, you are certainly not going to get nice.
The likes of Alanbrooke on here show that when they excuse Trump's blatant corruption and criminality and think justice against him is purely politically motivated, rather than the fact that he's a criminal. Or Leon's on again/off again fascination with and excusing of Putin for being "anti-woke".
Even if you dislike "liberals", Trump should be no friend.
Even if you dislike "Tories", Corbyn should be no friend.
Sneaky by the Aussies.
Its hard to tell from only media reports, but the compelling piece of "evidence" seems to be her diary saying that she's guilty - which she explained as being self-guilt over not being able to keep those babies alive and not a confession that she murdered them.
Its hard to tell from afar, but from what I've seen on the media reports there seems to be reasonable doubt here and I'm not surprised it might end up in a hung jury situation.
But the jury sees a heck of a lot more than the media reports. Especially since I've not been following the case in detail, but what I've seen isn't convincing that she's a clear-cut murderer.
5 star reviews are usually too short and uninformative: "great food, wonderful service - will be back", but so too are the usual couple of 1 star reviews. They tend to involve long-winded complaints about how the manager was rude to them or they booked a table but there was no record of the booking. Or they arrived on a Saturday evening as a group of 10 and nobody could accommodate them. Whereas the 3 and (some) 4 star reviews are gold dust. 3 stars usually mean someone has thought carefully about the pluses and minuses and written a thoughtful review. So I tend to zone in on those.
I noticed @BartholomewRoberts says that Trump should be no friend for those who have grievances with the elite. But that gives those elite no incentive to change. They continue their behaviour ad infinitum and continue to shove it in the face of the poor. It lets them off too easily.
As Dave Chapelle said, what Trump did was open up the doors to the gravy train and showed everyone in the country how everyone on the inside was helping themselves and didn't give a damn about the populace. Now, that included himself but he - at least - was open about that (not paying taxes etc).
Sometimes - and in this phrase I am talking about the American elite - people have to have their faces shoved right in the shit to actually change their behaviour meaningfully. A 2024 Trump victory would probably do that.
I get the impression there is a freedom to fail in the organisation as well (witness the , which is a sign of a good corporate culture. I could be wrong, of course.
From what I've seen though, it doesn't seem surprising that its a case that has led to long deliberations. It doesn't seem open and shut either way.
Hopefully the jurors are taking their responsibilities seriously and can come to the right decision. Better than rushing to judgment.
The first are often pointless rants or bitter rivals, the latter can be people gaming the system (or trying to)
But at a certain point you get so many reviews it can’t be gamed and that’s where many of these places are now. Which makes the apps really useful
If you want change then vote for change, but Trump isn't that. Please name any lasting, positive, changes that in your eyes Trump made in his first term. I can't think of a single one. His only lasting change was reinforcing the pre-existing conservative majority in the Supreme Court.
Biden, Obama, Dubya etc - everyone else had policies they pushed that got through Congress and made a lasting change, Trump was just interested in self-aggrandisement and enrichment.
A lot of the urge to build ugly crap came from left wing architects and town planners ideologically opposed to traditional “beauty” - which was seen as regressive and Tory and hierarchical and all that shite. They still do it NOW - see the way lefty architects react to anything proposed by Prince Charles
I agree evil greedy right wing developers could be at fault as well
A multi story block of flats, or multistory office block, there's no reason one or more of the stories can't be a garage for everyone's vehicles, then nobody ends up on the road. But instead idiots who think they know better are against planning for vehicles, so they end up making the vehicles overspill elsewhere and make problems much worse.
Roads should never be a place for parking ideally. They should be a place for driving/cycling/whatever not standing still.
Hence why I responded with comments on what the defence had said. Because only summarising the prosecutions side heavily hints at a guilty verdict.
They used to have a really weird but fascinating museum of boats down at the canal - closed long ago. Was very surrpised to visit Eyemouth in the Scottish Borders some years later and spot some very familiar looking watercraft around the harbour - no idea if they are still there.
Other nice placxe is the pub at the end of the Ship Canal, nice view of the estuary. Might be the ferry terminal for Topsham, but I'm not sure. Cannot speak for its qualities as a pub qua pub, though, as have not been in.
But since you don't see Ukraine as a friendly nation, see Putin's Russia as a friend not an enemy, and aren't opposed to Russia invading Ukraine, then its no surprise we'll never see eye to eye here.
My apologies for not summarising the entire case to your satisfaction.
Then there are all the secondary effects - more cars means more congestion, fewer people feeling comfortable enough to walk and cycle around, and the viability of mass transit like buses falls.
Those car parks eat up space for more flats, adding more pressure on house prices.
https://demolition-exeter.blogspot.com/2010/10/destruction-of-exeter-in-20th-century.html
The best bits are away from the High Street. i would suggest following the line of the walls around
Instead of listening to clowns like Lee Anderson, or indeed any given far right columnist (present company excepted, of course), we should actually listen to, you know, actual experts like the Police or the Justice system or, yes, even Social workers whose policy prescriptions do not involve attempting to lock shoplifters up in Chateau d´Íf for fifty years but who recognize that actually dealing with crime successfully is not just a matter of gimmicks for headlines but requires an IQ higher than double figures.
Short, sharp, shocks without any kind of follow up are a waste of time and money. You want to deal with crime, you are going to have to triple the number of Police and spend serious money on infrastructure. Nah... too difficult, lets just pretend to do what we always pretend to do and pretend it works.
It is yet another policy area where the Tories have run out of road.
https://osf.io/csh8g/
https://youtube.com/watch?v=v2rxMzEQTA0
Off-road parking is often actively discouraged by politicians when it should be positively encouraged - Nottingham is the worst example of this, firms offering private off-road parking for their employees are taxed for it, while those who have on-road parking are not taxed, whereas the tax incentive should be the polar opposite.