Why do you all keep swallowing down what you see on Twitter or X or whatever without even doing some basic checks?
The Brexiteers:
Look, Brexit is done, it's time we all moved on and talked about other stuff.
Also the Brexiteers, breaking into girlish squeals at some unverified bit of news:
Rejoice, rejoice, Brexit is a success!!!
Brexiteers and Scottish Nationalists. Two cheeks of the same divisive bullshit filled arse.
Not the case at all. Since 2014, the overall split between Yes/No in Scotland is still about 45/55. But within that zero net effect, polling has shown that since 2016, Brexiteers have moved towards No, but Remainers have moved towards Yes.
They're ain't any devil dogs, just moronic owners. Obviously some dog breeds don't make good pets and I can understand limiting those breeds in some way. Far too many people want a dog to be something it's not. It's not a toy for the kids or a fashion accessory or a tool to show how hard you are. It's a living, sentiment being that has its own moods and foibles. Some days it might want to lick your face and chase after a ball. Other days it might want to lick its own balls and then bite your balls. They take time, money and commitment and they deserve to be respected and treated well. Some dogs shouldn't be pets, but there's more families that shouldn't be pet owners!
Wrong. There ARE devil dogs - do your research. The American bully XL has been specifically bred for unhinged aggression and ferocious tenacity - so as to win dog fights in the USA. It will fight and fight until it dies, it is extremely powerful and muscled, and it has also been severely inbred - so these lunatic urges have gotten worse, like the Habsburg chin
Very few breeds are inherently dangerous. But this one is
Can you provide some of this research? I would be really interested to read it. I've put in this thread further down from Science their research on how dog breed is not a good indicator of behaviour, and (whilst I accept that this source will be heavily biased in favour of dog ownership) the point they make that biting and fatalities have gone up since breed based bans, not down, does suggest that the policy is a failure:
My herding dog knows how to round up sheep and goats without any training and in the goats case before he'd even seen a goat. So clearly a dog bred for fighting comes hard wired with the knowledge and propensity for fighting
Are herding instincts and fighting instincts the same? I don't think that's how biology works. Again - the Science article suggests breed is not a good indicator of behaviour, and the selection bias of owners as described by the dogs magazine is as good a hypothesis as biological determinism; I am just asking for better data. Sans evidence that aggression in dogs is heritable - and with evidence backing the hypothesis it might not be - why should banning the breed lead to better outcomes?
Dogs have been bred for aggression and fighting skill for thousands of years. The Romans famously had terrifying soldier-dogs
Aggression and lethality are heritable traits just like intelligence, speed, smallness, herding skills, wiry coats for winter - and so on
For mad breeders in the USA looking to make money in dog fights it makes sense to select and breed the most horrifying dogs unimaginable. It makes no sense at all for these dogs to then be legal to own as pets
Loads of countries calmly and successfully ban these dogs. Their children are not torn to pieces. Why should Britain be uniquely stupid and NOT ban them?
Once again - this historical example does nothing to suggest aggression is heritable. Yes, the Romans may have bred for those things, but they also would have heavily trained them as well. So even with this example it is hard to know if it was breeding or training that made soldier dogs aggressive.
I don't think we have evidence that intelligence (in dogs or humans) is a heritable trait at all - again, would be interested in any evidence to the contrary (on dogs - I know the literature around humans and why it certainly isn't primarily a heritable trait).
We have ample evidence that intelligence is at least partly heritable in humans; no one seriously denies this. Why would intelligence be uniquely environmental when virtually every other human attribute - from height to hair colour to depression to alcoholism - is partly genetic?
Wiki:
“Early twin studies of adult individuals have found a heritability of IQ between 57% and 73%,[6] with some recent studies showing heritability for IQ as high as 80%.[7] IQ goes from being weakly correlated with genetics for children, to being strongly correlated with genetics for late teens and adults.”
Again, I will dip back in to parts of my psyche degree - but it some of it boils down to what are we defining as intelligence, and much of it boils down to resources and sociability. IQ scores, for example, do not measure intelligence; they measure the ability to answer IQ questions. A lot of the early studies into IQ and race (for example) used questions and language that did not work for the places they were testing - using questions with context about washing machines or ironing boards in countries where those were less common back in the 60s and 70s.
We also have ample evidence that throwing resources (being richer) makes kids score higher on IQ tests and in general schooling, as well as quite a bit of evidence supporting the idea that socialisation (having adults who read to you often, being exposed to lots of different adults of varying ages, etc) leads to earlier reading and talking (for example) that are correlated to intelligence - but that becomes compounded when the main way we teach now rewards those skills.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
They're ain't any devil dogs, just moronic owners. Obviously some dog breeds don't make good pets and I can understand limiting those breeds in some way. Far too many people want a dog to be something it's not. It's not a toy for the kids or a fashion accessory or a tool to show how hard you are. It's a living, sentiment being that has its own moods and foibles. Some days it might want to lick your face and chase after a ball. Other days it might want to lick its own balls and then bite your balls. They take time, money and commitment and they deserve to be respected and treated well. Some dogs shouldn't be pets, but there's more families that shouldn't be pet owners!
Wrong. There ARE devil dogs - do your research. The American bully XL has been specifically bred for unhinged aggression and ferocious tenacity - so as to win dog fights in the USA. It will fight and fight until it dies, it is extremely powerful and muscled, and it has also been severely inbred - so these lunatic urges have gotten worse, like the Habsburg chin
Very few breeds are inherently dangerous. But this one is
Can you provide some of this research? I would be really interested to read it. I've put in this thread further down from Science their research on how dog breed is not a good indicator of behaviour, and (whilst I accept that this source will be heavily biased in favour of dog ownership) the point they make that biting and fatalities have gone up since breed based bans, not down, does suggest that the policy is a failure:
My herding dog knows how to round up sheep and goats without any training and in the goats case before he'd even seen a goat. So clearly a dog bred for fighting comes hard wired with the knowledge and propensity for fighting
Are herding instincts and fighting instincts the same? I don't think that's how biology works. Again - the Science article suggests breed is not a good indicator of behaviour, and the selection bias of owners as described by the dogs magazine is as good a hypothesis as biological determinism; I am just asking for better data. Sans evidence that aggression in dogs is heritable - and with evidence backing the hypothesis it might not be - why should banning the breed lead to better outcomes?
Dogs have been bred for aggression and fighting skill for thousands of years. The Romans famously had terrifying soldier-dogs
Aggression and lethality are heritable traits just like intelligence, speed, smallness, herding skills, wiry coats for winter - and so on
For mad breeders in the USA looking to make money in dog fights it makes sense to select and breed the most horrifying dogs unimaginable. It makes no sense at all for these dogs to then be legal to own as pets
Loads of countries calmly and successfully ban these dogs. Their children are not torn to pieces. Why should Britain be uniquely stupid and NOT ban them?
Once again - this historical example does nothing to suggest aggression is heritable. Yes, the Romans may have bred for those things, but they also would have heavily trained them as well. So even with this example it is hard to know if it was breeding or training that made soldier dogs aggressive.
I don't think we have evidence that intelligence (in dogs or humans) is a heritable trait at all - again, would be interested in any evidence to the contrary (on dogs - I know the literature around humans and why it certainly isn't primarily a heritable trait).
Well, fighting dog owners in the USA have been breeding for aggression for many decades - and given that their money depends on it, I suggest they know what they’re doing, more than anyone else
Ditto horse breeders etc. Ask the people whose livelihood depends on this stuff
So I know people who breed and train horses - and speaking to them they talk about how sociable horses are and how their dominance hierarchy works; that horses are extremely sensitive to being liked or disliked and "know their place" in the herd by the behaviours that show that (the metaphor given to me was "like high school girls").
I think the difficulty here is that aggression is a social trait that is associated with biological trait. I do not argue that their are not heritable biological traits that would make a dog better at being aggressive / used to harm (size, bite strength, coat thickness, etc) but aggression is about how you interact with other animals.
We know how certain heritable traits are linked to biology - the famous russian experiments with red foxes springs to mind, showing that "friendliness" as a trait (although you could always call that something else, like courage or sociability, or even risk aversion) led to further generations of the foxes looking more "doggy", with floppy ears and changed body shape. No one here has shared anything that suggests aggression is such a trait - that is the level of evidence I would like to understand the appropriateness of banning by breed. Again, if the idea of banning breeds was to spend the time doing that research - I'd be up for that. But banning breeds when it could easily be the selection bias of people who are after dogs that look a specific manner and making them aggressive, rather than any inherent aggressiveness to begin with, is not evidence based policy. The increase in dog bites, for example, is that explainable by the breed hypothesis, or the social one? People seem to be pointing at getting dogs during lockdown not being socialised - that's a socialisation position.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
The Labour Party gave us Johnson by refusing to vote for May’s deal.
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
Who could have foreseen that hoovering up failed businesses would result in your own business failing.
See it all the time with pubs and restaurants closing, reopening, then closing again.
Or when Staples went bust, their local one was replaced with a new stationery store ... that went bust.
Failed business models are hard to turn around if the fundamental business model is broken.
As for the economy, its time to move with the times. Why the heck would you want to go to Wilko to buy a new washing line, or dustpan and brush, or whatever, when you can get it for the same price next day via Amazon dropped off at your door?
And if you do want to go to a store, then firms like The Range seem to have much more sensible estates, with much easier to access parking.
A lot of people like shopping / won't use online. The problem with a General Merchandise (GM) specialist retailer is that much of the product range can be bought elsewhere. The "all under one roof" thing which used to have so much appeal no longer does.
One thing which boggled my mind when I read it. Wilko have this mad idea to distribute items across their estate. Which means sending heavy items to town centre and high street stores. This is the same stupid which Woolies were diseased with towards the end - in their case store managers would phone each other up and do stock swaps in their personal cars. Woolies wouldn't know as their computer had no visibility once dispatched to store...
A similar anecdote from 20 years ago: Boots the Chemist did a similar thing. Promoted the same items across all its stores. Sometimes this was fine, other times it met opposition from store managers. One time, the company had acquired a shit-tonne of Brita water filters and insisted these occupy prime promotional space. Got very irate with, mainly, Scottish, Welsh and Northern English store managers who protested no-one would buy the things and it was a waste of promotional space - as of course turned out to be the case: because why buy a Brita water filter when your water is already nice? A grand total of zero Brita water filters were sold in the Inverness store, prompting a very long round trip to see if the store really was promoting it (it was, obediently but fruitlessly). Whether any lessons were learned I couldn't say.
That doesn't bode well for the PB plan to have them selling smack and skunk.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
Who could have foreseen that hoovering up failed businesses would result in your own business failing.
See it all the time with pubs and restaurants closing, reopening, then closing again.
Or when Staples went bust, their local one was replaced with a new stationery store ... that went bust.
Failed business models are hard to turn around if the fundamental business model is broken.
As for the economy, its time to move with the times. Why the heck would you want to go to Wilko to buy a new washing line, or dustpan and brush, or whatever, when you can get it for the same price next day via Amazon dropped off at your door?
And if you do want to go to a store, then firms like The Range seem to have much more sensible estates, with much easier to access parking.
A lot of people like shopping / won't use online. The problem with a General Merchandise (GM) specialist retailer is that much of the product range can be bought elsewhere. The "all under one roof" thing which used to have so much appeal no longer does.
One thing which boggled my mind when I read it. Wilko have this mad idea to distribute items across their estate. Which means sending heavy items to town centre and high street stores. This is the same stupid which Woolies were diseased with towards the end - in their case store managers would phone each other up and do stock swaps in their personal cars. Woolies wouldn't know as their computer had no visibility once dispatched to store...
A similar anecdote from 20 years ago: Boots the Chemist did a similar thing. Promoted the same items across all its stores. Sometimes this was fine, other times it met opposition from store managers. One time, the company had acquired a shit-tonne of Brita water filters and insisted these occupy prime promotional space. Got very irate with, mainly, Scottish, Welsh and Northern English store managers who protested no-one would buy the things and it was a waste of promotional space - as of course turned out to be the case: because why buy a Brita water filter when your water is already nice? A grand total of zero Brita water filters were sold in the Inverness store, prompting a very long round trip to see if the store really was promoting it (it was, obediently but fruitlessly). Whether any lessons were learned I couldn't say.
That doesn't bode well for the PB plan to have them selling smack and skunk.
No, the drug dealers change over to slinging Brita filters.
Seeing as we are talking about vicious dogs, this is mine. He is deadly. He has licked many into submission.
PS He seems to have fallen over.
In case you are wondering how I got him to sit so obediently I was eating an apple and he was waiting for the core. Second choice as a treat only to banana skins which people throw all over the place and he hoovers up.
You wouldn't believe it to look at him but he got expelled from training classes for quote 'being belligerent'. He caused havoc. He knows a huge number of commands and will even do them if he feels like it, but he is (and this is the consensus of everyone who has met him) the most excitable dog on the planet.
You shouldnt be feeding dogs apple cores tbh, as the seeds are toxic and the core a choke hazard
What we should be feeding him and what he eats are two completely different topics. We have spent a fortune on vets and the 'toxic helpline' (£45 a throw)
Banana skins and corn husks are other choke hazards, but you try getting them off him. He hunts for them and they are everywhere.
A couple of weeks ago he ate a cricket sized ball of tinfoil that had previously had a cake in it. He was pooing sparkling poo for several days.
He ate a bag of potatoes. We only found out because he was running around the garden with a sweet potato in his mouth. We got that off him and were relieved only to find an empty potato bag. That cost £45 (one of our cheaper bills).
He ate my wallet, money and all. Just a few chewed up credit cards left.
He is a skilled thief. He will steal something that matters (glasses, binoculars, etc) while you are eating. When you try and recover that he will have pinched your sandwich.
On his numerous visits to the vet, which he loves, they often have to sedate him. The vet said for most dogs this makes them a bit sleepy, for yours it will probably turn him into a normal dog for a bit.
Mere amateurs. If he gets the loo brush you can be chasing him for it for hours. They say you shouldn't do it as it just encourages him to steal more, but after he has stolen the 10th pair of glasses and you have the fear of him eating glass you can't help yourself.
He know the commands for sit, down, dead, paw, other(other paw), bed, wait, stay, stop, off you go(release), high five, come and will heel or do that trick where he walks through your legs as you walk forward and won't eat his food until commanded, but all of this is at his discretion (food motivated).
If we are out walking in a field and we call him to come he will do so. However if he is particularly muddy and he sees a lady with white trousers and we call him he will stop, look at us, and think 'no, not this time' and go and jump up at her leaving huge muddy footprints (why do people go walking in fields with white trousers?).
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
Who could have foreseen that hoovering up failed businesses would result in your own business failing.
See it all the time with pubs and restaurants closing, reopening, then closing again.
Or when Staples went bust, their local one was replaced with a new stationery store ... that went bust.
Failed business models are hard to turn around if the fundamental business model is broken.
As for the economy, its time to move with the times. Why the heck would you want to go to Wilko to buy a new washing line, or dustpan and brush, or whatever, when you can get it for the same price next day via Amazon dropped off at your door?
And if you do want to go to a store, then firms like The Range seem to have much more sensible estates, with much easier to access parking.
A lot of people like shopping / won't use online. The problem with a General Merchandise (GM) specialist retailer is that much of the product range can be bought elsewhere. The "all under one roof" thing which used to have so much appeal no longer does.
One thing which boggled my mind when I read it. Wilko have this mad idea to distribute items across their estate. Which means sending heavy items to town centre and high street stores. This is the same stupid which Woolies were diseased with towards the end - in their case store managers would phone each other up and do stock swaps in their personal cars. Woolies wouldn't know as their computer had no visibility once dispatched to store...
A similar anecdote from 20 years ago: Boots the Chemist did a similar thing. Promoted the same items across all its stores. Sometimes this was fine, other times it met opposition from store managers. One time, the company had acquired a shit-tonne of Brita water filters and insisted these occupy prime promotional space. Got very irate with, mainly, Scottish, Welsh and Northern English store managers who protested no-one would buy the things and it was a waste of promotional space - as of course turned out to be the case: because why buy a Brita water filter when your water is already nice? A grand total of zero Brita water filters were sold in the Inverness store, prompting a very long round trip to see if the store really was promoting it (it was, obediently but fruitlessly). Whether any lessons were learned I couldn't say.
That doesn't bode well for the PB plan to have them selling smack and skunk.
Don't worry, my understanding is that there's a decent amount of demand for smack in Inverness. (And to be fair, if I lived there, I might be tempted.)
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
Who could have foreseen that hoovering up failed businesses would result in your own business failing.
See it all the time with pubs and restaurants closing, reopening, then closing again.
Or when Staples went bust, their local one was replaced with a new stationery store ... that went bust.
Failed business models are hard to turn around if the fundamental business model is broken.
As for the economy, its time to move with the times. Why the heck would you want to go to Wilko to buy a new washing line, or dustpan and brush, or whatever, when you can get it for the same price next day via Amazon dropped off at your door?
And if you do want to go to a store, then firms like The Range seem to have much more sensible estates, with much easier to access parking.
A lot of people like shopping / won't use online. The problem with a General Merchandise (GM) specialist retailer is that much of the product range can be bought elsewhere. The "all under one roof" thing which used to have so much appeal no longer does.
One thing which boggled my mind when I read it. Wilko have this mad idea to distribute items across their estate. Which means sending heavy items to town centre and high street stores. This is the same stupid which Woolies were diseased with towards the end - in their case store managers would phone each other up and do stock swaps in their personal cars. Woolies wouldn't know as their computer had no visibility once dispatched to store...
A similar anecdote from 20 years ago: Boots the Chemist did a similar thing. Promoted the same items across all its stores. Sometimes this was fine, other times it met opposition from store managers. One time, the company had acquired a shit-tonne of Brita water filters and insisted these occupy prime promotional space. Got very irate with, mainly, Scottish, Welsh and Northern English store managers who protested no-one would buy the things and it was a waste of promotional space - as of course turned out to be the case: because why buy a Brita water filter when your water is already nice? A grand total of zero Brita water filters were sold in the Inverness store, prompting a very long round trip to see if the store really was promoting it (it was, obediently but fruitlessly). Whether any lessons were learned I couldn't say.
I once bought a Ben Sherman England shirt for a ridiculously low price, because a well-known sports chain hadn't realised their East Kilbride store is in Scotland.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
Could that be because they are scared of the tongue of @Alanbrooke?
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
I find I go into town less and less these days, even though there are shops there that I like and aren't anywhere else, because it's simply too hard to get to, what with one way systems, pedestrianisation, excessive parking charges and the like. I have two big boxes full of book donations for the charity shop, but I think they will be going to the tip soon as I can't get close enough to any of the shops to donate them.
I realise that we have to restrict car use to protect the environment but there are all sorts of unintended consequences.
Have a word with one of the shops - they usually collect such things if there is enough to be worthwhile. That's what we do.
I expect that deliveries are allowed - perhaps at certain times of day.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
The Labour Party gave us Johnson by refusing to vote for May’s deal.
Oppositions try to bring down governments and force elections if it looks like they have a chance. It's in their nature. In any case you can't put negative hypotheticals on the same footing as positive cause & effect.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
Could that be because they are scared of the tongue of @Alanbrooke?
Unlikely, my sons a Greeny and will argue his corner.
Thats if he can make himself heard through my non stop laughter
Talking about Commies infiltrating themselves at the heart of power.
King sends Kim Jong-un ‘good wishes’ as dictator prepares to meet Putin
North Korean leader travelling to Russia for talks on supplying weapons to Moscow in exchange for food
The King has sent a message to Kim Jong-un congratulating North Korea on its national day holiday and sending his “good wishes for the future”.
The message was not publicised by Buckingham Palace. The King was following the example set by Queen Elizabeth, who sent a number of such messages to the dynastic dictatorship in the past.
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
Who could have foreseen that hoovering up failed businesses would result in your own business failing.
See it all the time with pubs and restaurants closing, reopening, then closing again.
Or when Staples went bust, their local one was replaced with a new stationery store ... that went bust.
Failed business models are hard to turn around if the fundamental business model is broken.
As for the economy, its time to move with the times. Why the heck would you want to go to Wilko to buy a new washing line, or dustpan and brush, or whatever, when you can get it for the same price next day via Amazon dropped off at your door?
And if you do want to go to a store, then firms like The Range seem to have much more sensible estates, with much easier to access parking.
A lot of people like shopping / won't use online. The problem with a General Merchandise (GM) specialist retailer is that much of the product range can be bought elsewhere. The "all under one roof" thing which used to have so much appeal no longer does.
One thing which boggled my mind when I read it. Wilko have this mad idea to distribute items across their estate. Which means sending heavy items to town centre and high street stores. This is the same stupid which Woolies were diseased with towards the end - in their case store managers would phone each other up and do stock swaps in their personal cars. Woolies wouldn't know as their computer had no visibility once dispatched to store...
A similar anecdote from 20 years ago: Boots the Chemist did a similar thing. Promoted the same items across all its stores. Sometimes this was fine, other times it met opposition from store managers. One time, the company had acquired a shit-tonne of Brita water filters and insisted these occupy prime promotional space. Got very irate with, mainly, Scottish, Welsh and Northern English store managers who protested no-one would buy the things and it was a waste of promotional space - as of course turned out to be the case: because why buy a Brita water filter when your water is already nice? A grand total of zero Brita water filters were sold in the Inverness store, prompting a very long round trip to see if the store really was promoting it (it was, obediently but fruitlessly). Whether any lessons were learned I couldn't say.
That doesn't bode well for the PB plan to have them selling smack and skunk.
Don't worry, my understanding is that there's a decent amount of demand for smack in Inverness. (And to be fair, if I lived there, I might be tempted.)
I have a first cousin once removed in Inverness. I was chatting to him at a funeral a few years back and he encouraged me to visit. He vaguely tried to extol its virtues: "It's very central," he began, before faltering slightly, and realising that whatever merits Inverness has, centrality isn't obviously one of them, then, heroically, finishing off with "for the surrounding area." "Very central for the surrounding area" has since become family code for somewhere with no other obvious merits.
That said, on the one time I did go to Inverness, I found it rather pleasant.
Talking about Commies infiltrating themselves at the heart of power.
King sends Kim Jong-un ‘good wishes’ as dictator prepares to meet Putin
North Korean leader travelling to Russia for talks on supplying weapons to Moscow in exchange for food
The King has sent a message to Kim Jong-un congratulating North Korea on its national day holiday and sending his “good wishes for the future”.
The message was not publicised by Buckingham Palace. The King was following the example set by Queen Elizabeth, who sent a number of such messages to the dynastic dictatorship in the past.
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
Who could have foreseen that hoovering up failed businesses would result in your own business failing.
See it all the time with pubs and restaurants closing, reopening, then closing again.
Or when Staples went bust, their local one was replaced with a new stationery store ... that went bust.
Failed business models are hard to turn around if the fundamental business model is broken.
As for the economy, its time to move with the times. Why the heck would you want to go to Wilko to buy a new washing line, or dustpan and brush, or whatever, when you can get it for the same price next day via Amazon dropped off at your door?
And if you do want to go to a store, then firms like The Range seem to have much more sensible estates, with much easier to access parking.
A lot of people like shopping / won't use online. The problem with a General Merchandise (GM) specialist retailer is that much of the product range can be bought elsewhere. The "all under one roof" thing which used to have so much appeal no longer does.
One thing which boggled my mind when I read it. Wilko have this mad idea to distribute items across their estate. Which means sending heavy items to town centre and high street stores. This is the same stupid which Woolies were diseased with towards the end - in their case store managers would phone each other up and do stock swaps in their personal cars. Woolies wouldn't know as their computer had no visibility once dispatched to store...
It's crazy and an unmistakable sign of upper management who have lost touch and won't listen. My nearest Wilko sells heavy garden furniture, despite the shop being in the middle of a shopping centre with the nearest car parking being about quarter of a mile away.
So people just go to B&M, which is in a retail park and there are car loading spaces right outside the front door of the shop.
The store managers will be very aware of this kind of problem. The area managers will be aware. Digging though the sales data would show it, too. But Wilko's management is clearly not interested, with predictable results.
Talking about Commies infiltrating themselves at the heart of power.
King sends Kim Jong-un ‘good wishes’ as dictator prepares to meet Putin
North Korean leader travelling to Russia for talks on supplying weapons to Moscow in exchange for food
The King has sent a message to Kim Jong-un congratulating North Korea on its national day holiday and sending his “good wishes for the future”.
The message was not publicised by Buckingham Palace. The King was following the example set by Queen Elizabeth, who sent a number of such messages to the dynastic dictatorship in the past.
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
Who could have foreseen that hoovering up failed businesses would result in your own business failing.
See it all the time with pubs and restaurants closing, reopening, then closing again.
Or when Staples went bust, their local one was replaced with a new stationery store ... that went bust.
Failed business models are hard to turn around if the fundamental business model is broken.
As for the economy, its time to move with the times. Why the heck would you want to go to Wilko to buy a new washing line, or dustpan and brush, or whatever, when you can get it for the same price next day via Amazon dropped off at your door?
And if you do want to go to a store, then firms like The Range seem to have much more sensible estates, with much easier to access parking.
A lot of people like shopping / won't use online. The problem with a General Merchandise (GM) specialist retailer is that much of the product range can be bought elsewhere. The "all under one roof" thing which used to have so much appeal no longer does.
One thing which boggled my mind when I read it. Wilko have this mad idea to distribute items across their estate. Which means sending heavy items to town centre and high street stores. This is the same stupid which Woolies were diseased with towards the end - in their case store managers would phone each other up and do stock swaps in their personal cars. Woolies wouldn't know as their computer had no visibility once dispatched to store...
A similar anecdote from 20 years ago: Boots the Chemist did a similar thing. Promoted the same items across all its stores. Sometimes this was fine, other times it met opposition from store managers. One time, the company had acquired a shit-tonne of Brita water filters and insisted these occupy prime promotional space. Got very irate with, mainly, Scottish, Welsh and Northern English store managers who protested no-one would buy the things and it was a waste of promotional space - as of course turned out to be the case: because why buy a Brita water filter when your water is already nice? A grand total of zero Brita water filters were sold in the Inverness store, prompting a very long round trip to see if the store really was promoting it (it was, obediently but fruitlessly). Whether any lessons were learned I couldn't say.
That doesn't bode well for the PB plan to have them selling smack and skunk.
Don't worry, my understanding is that there's a decent amount of demand for smack in Inverness. (And to be fair, if I lived there, I might be tempted.)
I have a first cousin once removed in Inverness. I was chatting to him at a funeral a few years back and he encouraged me to visit. He vaguely tried to extol its virtues: "It's very central," he began, before faltering slightly, and realising that whatever merits Inverness has, centrality isn't obviously one of them, then, heroically, finishing off with "for the surrounding area." "Very central for the surrounding area" has since become family code for somewhere with no other obvious merits.
That said, on the one time I did go to Inverness, I found it rather pleasant.
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
Who could have foreseen that hoovering up failed businesses would result in your own business failing.
See it all the time with pubs and restaurants closing, reopening, then closing again.
Or when Staples went bust, their local one was replaced with a new stationery store ... that went bust.
Failed business models are hard to turn around if the fundamental business model is broken.
As for the economy, its time to move with the times. Why the heck would you want to go to Wilko to buy a new washing line, or dustpan and brush, or whatever, when you can get it for the same price next day via Amazon dropped off at your door?
And if you do want to go to a store, then firms like The Range seem to have much more sensible estates, with much easier to access parking.
A lot of people like shopping / won't use online. The problem with a General Merchandise (GM) specialist retailer is that much of the product range can be bought elsewhere. The "all under one roof" thing which used to have so much appeal no longer does.
One thing which boggled my mind when I read it. Wilko have this mad idea to distribute items across their estate. Which means sending heavy items to town centre and high street stores. This is the same stupid which Woolies were diseased with towards the end - in their case store managers would phone each other up and do stock swaps in their personal cars. Woolies wouldn't know as their computer had no visibility once dispatched to store...
A similar anecdote from 20 years ago: Boots the Chemist did a similar thing. Promoted the same items across all its stores. Sometimes this was fine, other times it met opposition from store managers. One time, the company had acquired a shit-tonne of Brita water filters and insisted these occupy prime promotional space. Got very irate with, mainly, Scottish, Welsh and Northern English store managers who protested no-one would buy the things and it was a waste of promotional space - as of course turned out to be the case: because why buy a Brita water filter when your water is already nice? A grand total of zero Brita water filters were sold in the Inverness store, prompting a very long round trip to see if the store really was promoting it (it was, obediently but fruitlessly). Whether any lessons were learned I couldn't say.
That doesn't bode well for the PB plan to have them selling smack and skunk.
Don't worry, my understanding is that there's a decent amount of demand for smack in Inverness. (And to be fair, if I lived there, I might be tempted.)
I have a first cousin once removed in Inverness. I was chatting to him at a funeral a few years back and he encouraged me to visit. He vaguely tried to extol its virtues: "It's very central," he began, before faltering slightly, and realising that whatever merits Inverness has, centrality isn't obviously one of them, then, heroically, finishing off with "for the surrounding area." "Very central for the surrounding area" has since become family code for somewhere with no other obvious merits.
That said, on the one time I did go to Inverness, I found it rather pleasant.
I am so stealing that line.
He is right, sort of. Inverness is central to the true Highlands. It's most peoples' port of call doing that area.
They're ain't any devil dogs, just moronic owners. Obviously some dog breeds don't make good pets and I can understand limiting those breeds in some way. Far too many people want a dog to be something it's not. It's not a toy for the kids or a fashion accessory or a tool to show how hard you are. It's a living, sentiment being that has its own moods and foibles. Some days it might want to lick your face and chase after a ball. Other days it might want to lick its own balls and then bite your balls. They take time, money and commitment and they deserve to be respected and treated well. Some dogs shouldn't be pets, but there's more families that shouldn't be pet owners!
Wrong. There ARE devil dogs - do your research. The American bully XL has been specifically bred for unhinged aggression and ferocious tenacity - so as to win dog fights in the USA. It will fight and fight until it dies, it is extremely powerful and muscled, and it has also been severely inbred - so these lunatic urges have gotten worse, like the Habsburg chin
Very few breeds are inherently dangerous. But this one is
Can you provide some of this research? I would be really interested to read it. I've put in this thread further down from Science their research on how dog breed is not a good indicator of behaviour, and (whilst I accept that this source will be heavily biased in favour of dog ownership) the point they make that biting and fatalities have gone up since breed based bans, not down, does suggest that the policy is a failure:
My herding dog knows how to round up sheep and goats without any training and in the goats case before he'd even seen a goat. So clearly a dog bred for fighting comes hard wired with the knowledge and propensity for fighting
Are herding instincts and fighting instincts the same? I don't think that's how biology works. Again - the Science article suggests breed is not a good indicator of behaviour, and the selection bias of owners as described by the dogs magazine is as good a hypothesis as biological determinism; I am just asking for better data. Sans evidence that aggression in dogs is heritable - and with evidence backing the hypothesis it might not be - why should banning the breed lead to better outcomes?
Dogs have been bred for aggression and fighting skill for thousands of years. The Romans famously had terrifying soldier-dogs
Aggression and lethality are heritable traits just like intelligence, speed, smallness, herding skills, wiry coats for winter - and so on
For mad breeders in the USA looking to make money in dog fights it makes sense to select and breed the most horrifying dogs unimaginable. It makes no sense at all for these dogs to then be legal to own as pets
Loads of countries calmly and successfully ban these dogs. Their children are not torn to pieces. Why should Britain be uniquely stupid and NOT ban them?
Once again - this historical example does nothing to suggest aggression is heritable. Yes, the Romans may have bred for those things, but they also would have heavily trained them as well. So even with this example it is hard to know if it was breeding or training that made soldier dogs aggressive.
I don't think we have evidence that intelligence (in dogs or humans) is a heritable trait at all - again, would be interested in any evidence to the contrary (on dogs - I know the literature around humans and why it certainly isn't primarily a heritable trait).
Well, fighting dog owners in the USA have been breeding for aggression for many decades - and given that their money depends on it, I suggest they know what they’re doing, more than anyone else
Ditto horse breeders etc. Ask the people whose livelihood depends on this stuff
So I know people who breed and train horses - and speaking to them they talk about how sociable horses are and how their dominance hierarchy works; that horses are extremely sensitive to being liked or disliked and "know their place" in the herd by the behaviours that show that (the metaphor given to me was "like high school girls").
I think the difficulty here is that aggression is a social trait that is associated with biological trait. I do not argue that their are not heritable biological traits that would make a dog better at being aggressive / used to harm (size, bite strength, coat thickness, etc) but aggression is about how you interact with other animals.
We know how certain heritable traits are linked to biology - the famous russian experiments with red foxes springs to mind, showing that "friendliness" as a trait (although you could always call that something else, like courage or sociability, or even risk aversion) led to further generations of the foxes looking more "doggy", with floppy ears and changed body shape. No one here has shared anything that suggests aggression is such a trait - that is the level of evidence I would like to understand the appropriateness of banning by breed. Again, if the idea of banning breeds was to spend the time doing that research - I'd be up for that. But banning breeds when it could easily be the selection bias of people who are after dogs that look a specific manner and making them aggressive, rather than any inherent aggressiveness to begin with, is not evidence based policy. The increase in dog bites, for example, is that explainable by the breed hypothesis, or the social one? People seem to be pointing at getting dogs during lockdown not being socialised - that's a socialisation position.
I see no reason why it wouldnt be the same for other species
From my (limited) understanding, that gene isn't necessarily about inherent aggression, but the reaction to stressful situations and social factors which makes them more likely to react to negative social situations and, indeed, childhood trauma (which in itself could be a causal factor to genetic change as we know trauma can leave literal biological imprints in dna). Considering that everything I see in the literature emphasises this is a factor in responses to a social input (such as punishing someone who has done you wrong, or disproportionate responses to threats) and is something more noticeable in people where you could also point to socialisation trauma as a factor, I would put this down in the "would like more research" column. It's interesting, for sure, but social factors seem to be quite significant.
Also, looking into it a bit further, am seeing this being conflated to a "criminal gene" as well as other less scientific discussions linking it to race - which always then leads to questions about how much of this is post hoc rationalisation for something social (much like the history of false conflation of intelligence, race and inheritability).
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
Who could have foreseen that hoovering up failed businesses would result in your own business failing.
See it all the time with pubs and restaurants closing, reopening, then closing again.
Or when Staples went bust, their local one was replaced with a new stationery store ... that went bust.
Failed business models are hard to turn around if the fundamental business model is broken.
As for the economy, its time to move with the times. Why the heck would you want to go to Wilko to buy a new washing line, or dustpan and brush, or whatever, when you can get it for the same price next day via Amazon dropped off at your door?
And if you do want to go to a store, then firms like The Range seem to have much more sensible estates, with much easier to access parking.
A lot of people like shopping / won't use online. The problem with a General Merchandise (GM) specialist retailer is that much of the product range can be bought elsewhere. The "all under one roof" thing which used to have so much appeal no longer does.
One thing which boggled my mind when I read it. Wilko have this mad idea to distribute items across their estate. Which means sending heavy items to town centre and high street stores. This is the same stupid which Woolies were diseased with towards the end - in their case store managers would phone each other up and do stock swaps in their personal cars. Woolies wouldn't know as their computer had no visibility once dispatched to store...
A similar anecdote from 20 years ago: Boots the Chemist did a similar thing. Promoted the same items across all its stores. Sometimes this was fine, other times it met opposition from store managers. One time, the company had acquired a shit-tonne of Brita water filters and insisted these occupy prime promotional space. Got very irate with, mainly, Scottish, Welsh and Northern English store managers who protested no-one would buy the things and it was a waste of promotional space - as of course turned out to be the case: because why buy a Brita water filter when your water is already nice? A grand total of zero Brita water filters were sold in the Inverness store, prompting a very long round trip to see if the store really was promoting it (it was, obediently but fruitlessly). Whether any lessons were learned I couldn't say.
That doesn't bode well for the PB plan to have them selling smack and skunk.
Don't worry, my understanding is that there's a decent amount of demand for smack in Inverness. (And to be fair, if I lived there, I might be tempted.)
I have a first cousin once removed in Inverness. I was chatting to him at a funeral a few years back and he encouraged me to visit. He vaguely tried to extol its virtues: "It's very central," he began, before faltering slightly, and realising that whatever merits Inverness has, centrality isn't obviously one of them, then, heroically, finishing off with "for the surrounding area." "Very central for the surrounding area" has since become family code for somewhere with no other obvious merits.
That said, on the one time I did go to Inverness, I found it rather pleasant.
I am so stealing that line.
He is right, sort of. Inverness is central to the true Highlands. It's most peoples' port of call doing that area.
Yes, and I assume that is what he meant. But the joy of the line is it can be happily applied to literally anywhere on earth.
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
Who could have foreseen that hoovering up failed businesses would result in your own business failing.
See it all the time with pubs and restaurants closing, reopening, then closing again.
Or when Staples went bust, their local one was replaced with a new stationery store ... that went bust.
Failed business models are hard to turn around if the fundamental business model is broken.
As for the economy, its time to move with the times. Why the heck would you want to go to Wilko to buy a new washing line, or dustpan and brush, or whatever, when you can get it for the same price next day via Amazon dropped off at your door?
And if you do want to go to a store, then firms like The Range seem to have much more sensible estates, with much easier to access parking.
A lot of people like shopping / won't use online. The problem with a General Merchandise (GM) specialist retailer is that much of the product range can be bought elsewhere. The "all under one roof" thing which used to have so much appeal no longer does.
One thing which boggled my mind when I read it. Wilko have this mad idea to distribute items across their estate. Which means sending heavy items to town centre and high street stores. This is the same stupid which Woolies were diseased with towards the end - in their case store managers would phone each other up and do stock swaps in their personal cars. Woolies wouldn't know as their computer had no visibility once dispatched to store...
A similar anecdote from 20 years ago: Boots the Chemist did a similar thing. Promoted the same items across all its stores. Sometimes this was fine, other times it met opposition from store managers. One time, the company had acquired a shit-tonne of Brita water filters and insisted these occupy prime promotional space. Got very irate with, mainly, Scottish, Welsh and Northern English store managers who protested no-one would buy the things and it was a waste of promotional space - as of course turned out to be the case: because why buy a Brita water filter when your water is already nice? A grand total of zero Brita water filters were sold in the Inverness store, prompting a very long round trip to see if the store really was promoting it (it was, obediently but fruitlessly). Whether any lessons were learned I couldn't say.
That doesn't bode well for the PB plan to have them selling smack and skunk.
Don't worry, my understanding is that there's a decent amount of demand for smack in Inverness. (And to be fair, if I lived there, I might be tempted.)
I have a first cousin once removed in Inverness. I was chatting to him at a funeral a few years back and he encouraged me to visit. He vaguely tried to extol its virtues: "It's very central," he began, before faltering slightly, and realising that whatever merits Inverness has, centrality isn't obviously one of them, then, heroically, finishing off with "for the surrounding area." "Very central for the surrounding area" has since become family code for somewhere with no other obvious merits.
That said, on the one time I did go to Inverness, I found it rather pleasant.
I am so stealing that line.
He is right, sort of. Inverness is central to the true Highlands. It's most peoples' port of call doing that area.
I'm not entirely sure what is so bad about it.
The weather isn't dire (rain shadow), housing isn't stupidly expensive and there's a lifetime of things to do outdoors. The centre is a bit meh but the River Ness is nice enough (when not flooding). Looking back from the bridge it could just about pass for Norway.
You can even watch Super Caley Go Ballistic if you must.
Are the jobs on offer that bad? Does that even matter these days?
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
Who could have foreseen that hoovering up failed businesses would result in your own business failing.
See it all the time with pubs and restaurants closing, reopening, then closing again.
Or when Staples went bust, their local one was replaced with a new stationery store ... that went bust.
Failed business models are hard to turn around if the fundamental business model is broken.
As for the economy, its time to move with the times. Why the heck would you want to go to Wilko to buy a new washing line, or dustpan and brush, or whatever, when you can get it for the same price next day via Amazon dropped off at your door?
And if you do want to go to a store, then firms like The Range seem to have much more sensible estates, with much easier to access parking.
A lot of people like shopping / won't use online. The problem with a General Merchandise (GM) specialist retailer is that much of the product range can be bought elsewhere. The "all under one roof" thing which used to have so much appeal no longer does.
One thing which boggled my mind when I read it. Wilko have this mad idea to distribute items across their estate. Which means sending heavy items to town centre and high street stores. This is the same stupid which Woolies were diseased with towards the end - in their case store managers would phone each other up and do stock swaps in their personal cars. Woolies wouldn't know as their computer had no visibility once dispatched to store...
I have an interest in retail, and some jobs have touched on speciality retail (not to the same extent as your career), and I wonder if there isn't 'something' in the idea of having a 'roadshow' with live product demos etc., move from store to store within a chain. Making it into an event. It's probably impracticable. But there is an issue with the unwieldiness of every store in a chain having to replicate exactly the same stock.
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
Who could have foreseen that hoovering up failed businesses would result in your own business failing.
See it all the time with pubs and restaurants closing, reopening, then closing again.
Or when Staples went bust, their local one was replaced with a new stationery store ... that went bust.
Failed business models are hard to turn around if the fundamental business model is broken.
As for the economy, its time to move with the times. Why the heck would you want to go to Wilko to buy a new washing line, or dustpan and brush, or whatever, when you can get it for the same price next day via Amazon dropped off at your door?
And if you do want to go to a store, then firms like The Range seem to have much more sensible estates, with much easier to access parking.
A lot of people like shopping / won't use online. The problem with a General Merchandise (GM) specialist retailer is that much of the product range can be bought elsewhere. The "all under one roof" thing which used to have so much appeal no longer does.
One thing which boggled my mind when I read it. Wilko have this mad idea to distribute items across their estate. Which means sending heavy items to town centre and high street stores. This is the same stupid which Woolies were diseased with towards the end - in their case store managers would phone each other up and do stock swaps in their personal cars. Woolies wouldn't know as their computer had no visibility once dispatched to store...
A similar anecdote from 20 years ago: Boots the Chemist did a similar thing. Promoted the same items across all its stores. Sometimes this was fine, other times it met opposition from store managers. One time, the company had acquired a shit-tonne of Brita water filters and insisted these occupy prime promotional space. Got very irate with, mainly, Scottish, Welsh and Northern English store managers who protested no-one would buy the things and it was a waste of promotional space - as of course turned out to be the case: because why buy a Brita water filter when your water is already nice? A grand total of zero Brita water filters were sold in the Inverness store, prompting a very long round trip to see if the store really was promoting it (it was, obediently but fruitlessly). Whether any lessons were learned I couldn't say.
That doesn't bode well for the PB plan to have them selling smack and skunk.
Don't worry, my understanding is that there's a decent amount of demand for smack in Inverness. (And to be fair, if I lived there, I might be tempted.)
I have a first cousin once removed in Inverness. I was chatting to him at a funeral a few years back and he encouraged me to visit. He vaguely tried to extol its virtues: "It's very central," he began, before faltering slightly, and realising that whatever merits Inverness has, centrality isn't obviously one of them, then, heroically, finishing off with "for the surrounding area." "Very central for the surrounding area" has since become family code for somewhere with no other obvious merits.
That said, on the one time I did go to Inverness, I found it rather pleasant.
I am so stealing that line.
He is right, sort of. Inverness is central to the true Highlands. It's most peoples' port of call doing that area.
I'm not entirely sure what is so bad about it.
The weather isn't dire (rain shadow), housing isn't stupidly expensive and there's a lifetime of things to do outdoors. The centre is a bit meh but the River Ness is nice enough (when not flooding). Looking back from the bridge it could just about pass for Norway.
You can even watch Super Caley Go Ballistic if you must.
Are the jobs on offer that bad? Does that even matter these days?
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
Who could have foreseen that hoovering up failed businesses would result in your own business failing.
See it all the time with pubs and restaurants closing, reopening, then closing again.
Or when Staples went bust, their local one was replaced with a new stationery store ... that went bust.
Failed business models are hard to turn around if the fundamental business model is broken.
As for the economy, its time to move with the times. Why the heck would you want to go to Wilko to buy a new washing line, or dustpan and brush, or whatever, when you can get it for the same price next day via Amazon dropped off at your door?
And if you do want to go to a store, then firms like The Range seem to have much more sensible estates, with much easier to access parking.
A lot of people like shopping / won't use online. The problem with a General Merchandise (GM) specialist retailer is that much of the product range can be bought elsewhere. The "all under one roof" thing which used to have so much appeal no longer does.
One thing which boggled my mind when I read it. Wilko have this mad idea to distribute items across their estate. Which means sending heavy items to town centre and high street stores. This is the same stupid which Woolies were diseased with towards the end - in their case store managers would phone each other up and do stock swaps in their personal cars. Woolies wouldn't know as their computer had no visibility once dispatched to store...
A similar anecdote from 20 years ago: Boots the Chemist did a similar thing. Promoted the same items across all its stores. Sometimes this was fine, other times it met opposition from store managers. One time, the company had acquired a shit-tonne of Brita water filters and insisted these occupy prime promotional space. Got very irate with, mainly, Scottish, Welsh and Northern English store managers who protested no-one would buy the things and it was a waste of promotional space - as of course turned out to be the case: because why buy a Brita water filter when your water is already nice? A grand total of zero Brita water filters were sold in the Inverness store, prompting a very long round trip to see if the store really was promoting it (it was, obediently but fruitlessly). Whether any lessons were learned I couldn't say.
That doesn't bode well for the PB plan to have them selling smack and skunk.
Don't worry, my understanding is that there's a decent amount of demand for smack in Inverness. (And to be fair, if I lived there, I might be tempted.)
I have a first cousin once removed in Inverness. I was chatting to him at a funeral a few years back and he encouraged me to visit. He vaguely tried to extol its virtues: "It's very central," he began, before faltering slightly, and realising that whatever merits Inverness has, centrality isn't obviously one of them, then, heroically, finishing off with "for the surrounding area." "Very central for the surrounding area" has since become family code for somewhere with no other obvious merits.
That said, on the one time I did go to Inverness, I found it rather pleasant.
I am so stealing that line.
He is right, sort of. Inverness is central to the true Highlands. It's most peoples' port of call doing that area.
I'm not entirely sure what is so bad about it.
The weather isn't dire (rain shadow), housing isn't stupidly expensive and there's a lifetime of things to do outdoors. The centre is a bit meh but the River Ness is nice enough (when not flooding). Looking back from the bridge it could just about pass for Norway.
You can even watch Super Caley Go Ballistic if you must.
Are the jobs on offer that bad? Does that even matter these days?
I am sure it's a lovely place to live. It is tucked away though. Central Highlands (Perthshire) or Aberdeenshire or the Angus Glens, or the East Neuk of Fife make a lot better case for themselves as beautiful scenic places in Scotland with far quicker connections to the major cities.
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
Who could have foreseen that hoovering up failed businesses would result in your own business failing.
See it all the time with pubs and restaurants closing, reopening, then closing again.
Or when Staples went bust, their local one was replaced with a new stationery store ... that went bust.
Failed business models are hard to turn around if the fundamental business model is broken.
As for the economy, its time to move with the times. Why the heck would you want to go to Wilko to buy a new washing line, or dustpan and brush, or whatever, when you can get it for the same price next day via Amazon dropped off at your door?
And if you do want to go to a store, then firms like The Range seem to have much more sensible estates, with much easier to access parking.
A lot of people like shopping / won't use online. The problem with a General Merchandise (GM) specialist retailer is that much of the product range can be bought elsewhere. The "all under one roof" thing which used to have so much appeal no longer does.
One thing which boggled my mind when I read it. Wilko have this mad idea to distribute items across their estate. Which means sending heavy items to town centre and high street stores. This is the same stupid which Woolies were diseased with towards the end - in their case store managers would phone each other up and do stock swaps in their personal cars. Woolies wouldn't know as their computer had no visibility once dispatched to store...
A similar anecdote from 20 years ago: Boots the Chemist did a similar thing. Promoted the same items across all its stores. Sometimes this was fine, other times it met opposition from store managers. One time, the company had acquired a shit-tonne of Brita water filters and insisted these occupy prime promotional space. Got very irate with, mainly, Scottish, Welsh and Northern English store managers who protested no-one would buy the things and it was a waste of promotional space - as of course turned out to be the case: because why buy a Brita water filter when your water is already nice? A grand total of zero Brita water filters were sold in the Inverness store, prompting a very long round trip to see if the store really was promoting it (it was, obediently but fruitlessly). Whether any lessons were learned I couldn't say.
That doesn't bode well for the PB plan to have them selling smack and skunk.
Don't worry, my understanding is that there's a decent amount of demand for smack in Inverness. (And to be fair, if I lived there, I might be tempted.)
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
It's strange that such an issue should have become almost religious. Like religion, what a mess!
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
I think Alan has unusual dinner guests. I find no matter where you go or who you meet Brexit invariably raises it's ugly head. 'No Brexit at the table' may I suggest is a good rule to prevent it endlessly being discussed, not because people aren't discussing it.
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
Who could have foreseen that hoovering up failed businesses would result in your own business failing.
See it all the time with pubs and restaurants closing, reopening, then closing again.
Or when Staples went bust, their local one was replaced with a new stationery store ... that went bust.
Failed business models are hard to turn around if the fundamental business model is broken.
As for the economy, its time to move with the times. Why the heck would you want to go to Wilko to buy a new washing line, or dustpan and brush, or whatever, when you can get it for the same price next day via Amazon dropped off at your door?
And if you do want to go to a store, then firms like The Range seem to have much more sensible estates, with much easier to access parking.
A lot of people like shopping / won't use online. The problem with a General Merchandise (GM) specialist retailer is that much of the product range can be bought elsewhere. The "all under one roof" thing which used to have so much appeal no longer does.
One thing which boggled my mind when I read it. Wilko have this mad idea to distribute items across their estate. Which means sending heavy items to town centre and high street stores. This is the same stupid which Woolies were diseased with towards the end - in their case store managers would phone each other up and do stock swaps in their personal cars. Woolies wouldn't know as their computer had no visibility once dispatched to store...
A similar anecdote from 20 years ago: Boots the Chemist did a similar thing. Promoted the same items across all its stores. Sometimes this was fine, other times it met opposition from store managers. One time, the company had acquired a shit-tonne of Brita water filters and insisted these occupy prime promotional space. Got very irate with, mainly, Scottish, Welsh and Northern English store managers who protested no-one would buy the things and it was a waste of promotional space - as of course turned out to be the case: because why buy a Brita water filter when your water is already nice? A grand total of zero Brita water filters were sold in the Inverness store, prompting a very long round trip to see if the store really was promoting it (it was, obediently but fruitlessly). Whether any lessons were learned I couldn't say.
That doesn't bode well for the PB plan to have them selling smack and skunk.
Don't worry, my understanding is that there's a decent amount of demand for smack in Inverness. (And to be fair, if I lived there, I might be tempted.)
I have a first cousin once removed in Inverness. I was chatting to him at a funeral a few years back and he encouraged me to visit. He vaguely tried to extol its virtues: "It's very central," he began, before faltering slightly, and realising that whatever merits Inverness has, centrality isn't obviously one of them, then, heroically, finishing off with "for the surrounding area." "Very central for the surrounding area" has since become family code for somewhere with no other obvious merits.
That said, on the one time I did go to Inverness, I found it rather pleasant.
I am so stealing that line.
He is right, sort of. Inverness is central to the true Highlands. It's most peoples' port of call doing that area.
I'm not entirely sure what is so bad about it.
The weather isn't dire (rain shadow), housing isn't stupidly expensive and there's a lifetime of things to do outdoors. The centre is a bit meh but the River Ness is nice enough (when not flooding). Looking back from the bridge it could just about pass for Norway.
You can even watch Super Caley Go Ballistic if you must.
Are the jobs on offer that bad? Does that even matter these days?
Centre isn't exciting around the bus and train stations, but it improves a lot moving west towards and over the river. Many nice looking Victorian and later houses between there and the canal which itself is quite something too.
Airport, trains to north, south, east and west. At least some shops (last time I went). No Waitrose though there is a M&S.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
It's strange that such an issue should have become almost religious. Like religion, what a mess!
I mean, it was a huge constitutional change with massive practical impacts on people - varying based on their age and work - that was essentially sold as a simple and easy thing to do.
Of course people will still talk about it - some people are still learning new ways it affects them.
Lose both by elections and Sunak may well depart the scene next month
Based on what precedent?
A year will passed since Rishi became PM so if the appropriate number of complaint letters have been sent a vote of no confidence can be called
And a number of Tory MPs are utterly insane enough to thi k there are better options available - because 4 different PMs in a Parliament is a Great Look...
Lose both by elections and Sunak may well depart the scene next month
Based on what precedent?
A year will passed since Rishi became PM so if the appropriate number of complaint letters have been sent a vote of no confidence can be called
And a number of Tory MPs are utterly insane enough to thi k there are better options available - because 4 different PMs in a Parliament is a Great Look...
Liz Truss thinks that removing BoJo was fundamentally wrong.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
It's strange that such an issue should have become almost religious. Like religion, what a mess!
Well yes, but you also wouldn't really want out and out party politics at the dinner table. The old 'no religion or politics' rule was not out of squeamishness but because discussion of these issues would cause more anger than good cheer. Of course, we discuss those things here. But everyone here is tacitly signed up to it. IRL, that's not necessarily the case. The exception is where those doing the discussing are under the assumption that everyone agrees with them. Then they can all have a jolly good time cheerfully and furiously agreeing with one another. The other exception is on issues which are political but are so technical and non-partisan that there is no obvious reason to fall out e.g. planning. Actually, I'd say our relationship with the EU once almost fell into this category, but for a variety of reasons an interesting discussion about pros and cons of membership of a supranational organisation became a hugely partisan shouting match.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
It's strange that such an issue should have become almost religious. Like religion, what a mess!
Well it's just a specific of the general 'no politics' etiquette that I think you often get at family gatherings. It's not always the case of course. Some people like to have heated arguments with their loved ones that leave everyone red faced and trembling.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
It's strange that such an issue should have become almost religious. Like religion, what a mess!
I mean, it was a huge constitutional change with massive practical impacts on people - varying based on their age and work - that was essentially sold as a simple and easy thing to do.
Of course people will still talk about it - some people are still learning new ways it affects them.
True, but (not unlike ULEZ) it is only a tiny minority whom it will affect in any meaningful way. For most people the changes to their lives are utterly unnoticeable. But we spent so long digging in on each side of the argument than the argument has become more important than the reality.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
It's strange that such an issue should have become almost religious. Like religion, what a mess!
I mean, it was a huge constitutional change with massive practical impacts on people - varying based on their age and work - that was essentially sold as a simple and easy thing to do.
Of course people will still talk about it - some people are still learning new ways it affects them.
It was and it wasn't though. Anyone that happened to be in a coma over the period wouldn't have woken up and said 'my god, did we leave the EU'. In fact anyone in such a position might still be in the dark if it wasn't for the noise about it. The only slight indication and annoyance is when travelling, but I'd be hard pressed to pick it out as an obvious sign.
They're ain't any devil dogs, just moronic owners. Obviously some dog breeds don't make good pets and I can understand limiting those breeds in some way. Far too many people want a dog to be something it's not. It's not a toy for the kids or a fashion accessory or a tool to show how hard you are. It's a living, sentiment being that has its own moods and foibles. Some days it might want to lick your face and chase after a ball. Other days it might want to lick its own balls and then bite your balls. They take time, money and commitment and they deserve to be respected and treated well. Some dogs shouldn't be pets, but there's more families that shouldn't be pet owners!
Wrong. There ARE devil dogs - do your research. The American bully XL has been specifically bred for unhinged aggression and ferocious tenacity - so as to win dog fights in the USA. It will fight and fight until it dies, it is extremely powerful and muscled, and it has also been severely inbred - so these lunatic urges have gotten worse, like the Habsburg chin
Very few breeds are inherently dangerous. But this one is
Can you provide some of this research? I would be really interested to read it. I've put in this thread further down from Science their research on how dog breed is not a good indicator of behaviour, and (whilst I accept that this source will be heavily biased in favour of dog ownership) the point they make that biting and fatalities have gone up since breed based bans, not down, does suggest that the policy is a failure:
My herding dog knows how to round up sheep and goats without any training and in the goats case before he'd even seen a goat. So clearly a dog bred for fighting comes hard wired with the knowledge and propensity for fighting
Are herding instincts and fighting instincts the same? I don't think that's how biology works. Again - the Science article suggests breed is not a good indicator of behaviour, and the selection bias of owners as described by the dogs magazine is as good a hypothesis as biological determinism; I am just asking for better data. Sans evidence that aggression in dogs is heritable - and with evidence backing the hypothesis it might not be - why should banning the breed lead to better outcomes?
Dogs have been bred for aggression and fighting skill for thousands of years. The Romans famously had terrifying soldier-dogs
Aggression and lethality are heritable traits just like intelligence, speed, smallness, herding skills, wiry coats for winter - and so on
For mad breeders in the USA looking to make money in dog fights it makes sense to select and breed the most horrifying dogs unimaginable. It makes no sense at all for these dogs to then be legal to own as pets
Loads of countries calmly and successfully ban these dogs. Their children are not torn to pieces. Why should Britain be uniquely stupid and NOT ban them?
The Roman military dogs reminds me of a funny story I heard where a guy was watching Gladiator with his girlfriend and at the beginning the legionaries are lined up ready to face the German’s and Russell Crowe is walking along with his Alsatian on a chain. He instructs someone “on my command unleash Hell” and the guys girlfriend said “that’s a strange name for a dog.”
On the subject of comical dog names, a friend had one called Timber. She was Canadian, and often walked it in the woods.
I genuinely heard a middle aged couple refer to their small curly haired black dog as 'Rover' on Friday. This was Chorlton Green so may have been ironic, or something.
I might be being slow, but what's wrong with 'Rover' as a name to give a dog?
I know it's the archetypal dog name, but it isn't all that common in practice, is quite pleasing to say, and is a dog name rather than a re-purposed human name (which is common but always sounds vaguely weird to me).
Well there's nothing wrong with it per se - but as you say it is the archetypal dog name which isn't all that common in practice - so uncommon in fact (because it is the archetypal dog name) that I have never come across one before.
Most dogs I know nowadays have names which could conceivably be given to humans - Max, Minnie, Charlie, Georgie, Olive.
I was told a dog’s name should be two syllables, both hard.
Easier to call them that way
Two syllables, both hard. So, Hardhard? Odd name, but I trust you.
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
Who could have foreseen that hoovering up failed businesses would result in your own business failing.
See it all the time with pubs and restaurants closing, reopening, then closing again.
Or when Staples went bust, their local one was replaced with a new stationery store ... that went bust.
Failed business models are hard to turn around if the fundamental business model is broken.
As for the economy, its time to move with the times. Why the heck would you want to go to Wilko to buy a new washing line, or dustpan and brush, or whatever, when you can get it for the same price next day via Amazon dropped off at your door?
And if you do want to go to a store, then firms like The Range seem to have much more sensible estates, with much easier to access parking.
A lot of people like shopping / won't use online. The problem with a General Merchandise (GM) specialist retailer is that much of the product range can be bought elsewhere. The "all under one roof" thing which used to have so much appeal no longer does.
One thing which boggled my mind when I read it. Wilko have this mad idea to distribute items across their estate. Which means sending heavy items to town centre and high street stores. This is the same stupid which Woolies were diseased with towards the end - in their case store managers would phone each other up and do stock swaps in their personal cars. Woolies wouldn't know as their computer had no visibility once dispatched to store...
A similar anecdote from 20 years ago: Boots the Chemist did a similar thing. Promoted the same items across all its stores. Sometimes this was fine, other times it met opposition from store managers. One time, the company had acquired a shit-tonne of Brita water filters and insisted these occupy prime promotional space. Got very irate with, mainly, Scottish, Welsh and Northern English store managers who protested no-one would buy the things and it was a waste of promotional space - as of course turned out to be the case: because why buy a Brita water filter when your water is already nice? A grand total of zero Brita water filters were sold in the Inverness store, prompting a very long round trip to see if the store really was promoting it (it was, obediently but fruitlessly). Whether any lessons were learned I couldn't say.
That doesn't bode well for the PB plan to have them selling smack and skunk.
Don't worry, my understanding is that there's a decent amount of demand for smack in Inverness. (And to be fair, if I lived there, I might be tempted.)
I have a first cousin once removed in Inverness. I was chatting to him at a funeral a few years back and he encouraged me to visit. He vaguely tried to extol its virtues: "It's very central," he began, before faltering slightly, and realising that whatever merits Inverness has, centrality isn't obviously one of them, then, heroically, finishing off with "for the surrounding area." "Very central for the surrounding area" has since become family code for somewhere with no other obvious merits.
That said, on the one time I did go to Inverness, I found it rather pleasant.
I am so stealing that line.
He is right, sort of. Inverness is central to the true Highlands. It's most peoples' port of call doing that area.
I'm not entirely sure what is so bad about it.
The weather isn't dire (rain shadow), housing isn't stupidly expensive and there's a lifetime of things to do outdoors. The centre is a bit meh but the River Ness is nice enough (when not flooding). Looking back from the bridge it could just about pass for Norway.
You can even watch Super Caley Go Ballistic if you must.
Are the jobs on offer that bad? Does that even matter these days?
Centre isn't exciting around the bus and train stations, but it improves a lot moving west towards and over the river. Many nice looking Victorian and later houses between there and the canal which itself is quite something too.
Airport, trains to north, south, east and west. At least some shops (last time I went). No Waitrose though there is a M&S.
OTOH I do like Elgin.
My first cousin once removed's son - i.e., my second cousin - I think* - told me that Elgin was where people from Inverness went for a night out. (It may have been Nairn. But I think it was Elgin.) This was 20-odd years ago mind, so things may have changed.
This man was definitely my second cousin i.e. my mum's cousin's son - which I think makes his Dad my first cousin once removed (i.e. my mum's cousin). But I may have the terminology wrong.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
Brexit is not a big event per se . Very little has actually changed. Its only "big" in the sense that the people who thought they ran the country found out they didnt and have been sulking ever since.
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
Who could have foreseen that hoovering up failed businesses would result in your own business failing.
See it all the time with pubs and restaurants closing, reopening, then closing again.
Or when Staples went bust, their local one was replaced with a new stationery store ... that went bust.
Failed business models are hard to turn around if the fundamental business model is broken.
As for the economy, its time to move with the times. Why the heck would you want to go to Wilko to buy a new washing line, or dustpan and brush, or whatever, when you can get it for the same price next day via Amazon dropped off at your door?
And if you do want to go to a store, then firms like The Range seem to have much more sensible estates, with much easier to access parking.
A lot of people like shopping / won't use online. The problem with a General Merchandise (GM) specialist retailer is that much of the product range can be bought elsewhere. The "all under one roof" thing which used to have so much appeal no longer does.
One thing which boggled my mind when I read it. Wilko have this mad idea to distribute items across their estate. Which means sending heavy items to town centre and high street stores. This is the same stupid which Woolies were diseased with towards the end - in their case store managers would phone each other up and do stock swaps in their personal cars. Woolies wouldn't know as their computer had no visibility once dispatched to store...
A similar anecdote from 20 years ago: Boots the Chemist did a similar thing. Promoted the same items across all its stores. Sometimes this was fine, other times it met opposition from store managers. One time, the company had acquired a shit-tonne of Brita water filters and insisted these occupy prime promotional space. Got very irate with, mainly, Scottish, Welsh and Northern English store managers who protested no-one would buy the things and it was a waste of promotional space - as of course turned out to be the case: because why buy a Brita water filter when your water is already nice? A grand total of zero Brita water filters were sold in the Inverness store, prompting a very long round trip to see if the store really was promoting it (it was, obediently but fruitlessly). Whether any lessons were learned I couldn't say.
That doesn't bode well for the PB plan to have them selling smack and skunk.
Don't worry, my understanding is that there's a decent amount of demand for smack in Inverness. (And to be fair, if I lived there, I might be tempted.)
I have a first cousin once removed in Inverness. I was chatting to him at a funeral a few years back and he encouraged me to visit. He vaguely tried to extol its virtues: "It's very central," he began, before faltering slightly, and realising that whatever merits Inverness has, centrality isn't obviously one of them, then, heroically, finishing off with "for the surrounding area." "Very central for the surrounding area" has since become family code for somewhere with no other obvious merits.
That said, on the one time I did go to Inverness, I found it rather pleasant.
I am so stealing that line.
He is right, sort of. Inverness is central to the true Highlands. It's most peoples' port of call doing that area.
I'm not entirely sure what is so bad about it.
The weather isn't dire (rain shadow), housing isn't stupidly expensive and there's a lifetime of things to do outdoors. The centre is a bit meh but the River Ness is nice enough (when not flooding). Looking back from the bridge it could just about pass for Norway.
You can even watch Super Caley Go Ballistic if you must.
Are the jobs on offer that bad? Does that even matter these days?
Centre isn't exciting around the bus and train stations, but it improves a lot moving west towards and over the river. Many nice looking Victorian and later houses between there and the canal which itself is quite something too.
Airport, trains to north, south, east and west. At least some shops (last time I went). No Waitrose though there is a M&S.
OTOH I do like Elgin.
My first cousin once removed's son - i.e., my second cousin - I think* - told me that Elgin was where people from Inverness went for a night out. (It may have been Nairn. But I think it was Elgin.) This was 20-odd years ago mind, so things may have changed.
This man was definitely my second cousin i.e. my mum's cousin's son - which I think makes his Dad my first cousin once removed (i.e. my mum's cousin). But I may have the terminology wrong.
If your parents are first cousins, then you’re second cousins.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
Could that be because they are scared of the tongue of @Alanbrooke?
They're also puzzled why he has to keep going on about it not being an issue, if it's not an issue anymore. But are too polite to say so.
They're ain't any devil dogs, just moronic owners. Obviously some dog breeds don't make good pets and I can understand limiting those breeds in some way. Far too many people want a dog to be something it's not. It's not a toy for the kids or a fashion accessory or a tool to show how hard you are. It's a living, sentiment being that has its own moods and foibles. Some days it might want to lick your face and chase after a ball. Other days it might want to lick its own balls and then bite your balls. They take time, money and commitment and they deserve to be respected and treated well. Some dogs shouldn't be pets, but there's more families that shouldn't be pet owners!
Wrong. There ARE devil dogs - do your research. The American bully XL has been specifically bred for unhinged aggression and ferocious tenacity - so as to win dog fights in the USA. It will fight and fight until it dies, it is extremely powerful and muscled, and it has also been severely inbred - so these lunatic urges have gotten worse, like the Habsburg chin
Very few breeds are inherently dangerous. But this one is
Can you provide some of this research? I would be really interested to read it. I've put in this thread further down from Science their research on how dog breed is not a good indicator of behaviour, and (whilst I accept that this source will be heavily biased in favour of dog ownership) the point they make that biting and fatalities have gone up since breed based bans, not down, does suggest that the policy is a failure:
My herding dog knows how to round up sheep and goats without any training and in the goats case before he'd even seen a goat. So clearly a dog bred for fighting comes hard wired with the knowledge and propensity for fighting
Are herding instincts and fighting instincts the same? I don't think that's how biology works. Again - the Science article suggests breed is not a good indicator of behaviour, and the selection bias of owners as described by the dogs magazine is as good a hypothesis as biological determinism; I am just asking for better data. Sans evidence that aggression in dogs is heritable - and with evidence backing the hypothesis it might not be - why should banning the breed lead to better outcomes?
Dogs have been bred for aggression and fighting skill for thousands of years. The Romans famously had terrifying soldier-dogs
Aggression and lethality are heritable traits just like intelligence, speed, smallness, herding skills, wiry coats for winter - and so on
For mad breeders in the USA looking to make money in dog fights it makes sense to select and breed the most horrifying dogs unimaginable. It makes no sense at all for these dogs to then be legal to own as pets
Loads of countries calmly and successfully ban these dogs. Their children are not torn to pieces. Why should Britain be uniquely stupid and NOT ban them?
The Roman military dogs reminds me of a funny story I heard where a guy was watching Gladiator with his girlfriend and at the beginning the legionaries are lined up ready to face the German’s and Russell Crowe is walking along with his Alsatian on a chain. He instructs someone “on my command unleash Hell” and the guys girlfriend said “that’s a strange name for a dog.”
On the subject of comical dog names, a friend had one called Timber. She was Canadian, and often walked it in the woods.
I genuinely heard a middle aged couple refer to their small curly haired black dog as 'Rover' on Friday. This was Chorlton Green so may have been ironic, or something.
I might be being slow, but what's wrong with 'Rover' as a name to give a dog?
I know it's the archetypal dog name, but it isn't all that common in practice, is quite pleasing to say, and is a dog name rather than a re-purposed human name (which is common but always sounds vaguely weird to me).
Well there's nothing wrong with it per se - but as you say it is the archetypal dog name which isn't all that common in practice - so uncommon in fact (because it is the archetypal dog name) that I have never come across one before.
Most dogs I know nowadays have names which could conceivably be given to humans - Max, Minnie, Charlie, Georgie, Olive.
I was told a dog’s name should be two syllables, both hard.
Easier to call them that way
Two syllables, both hard. So, Hardhard? Odd name, but I trust you.
That's a brilliant name for an Alsatian. Threatening, but also slightly posh. (Try saying hardhard out loud and not sounding posh.)
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
It's strange that such an issue should have become almost religious. Like religion, what a mess!
I mean, it was a huge constitutional change with massive practical impacts on people - varying based on their age and work - that was essentially sold as a simple and easy thing to do.
Of course people will still talk about it - some people are still learning new ways it affects them.
True, but (not unlike ULEZ) it is only a tiny minority whom it will affect in any meaningful way. For most people the changes to their lives are utterly unnoticeable. But we spent so long digging in on each side of the argument than the argument has become more important than the reality.
That's not true. An entire generation had freedom of movement across a continent taken away from them - something even working class people from the UK took advantage of. And all of import / export has been greatly impacted - with businesses that were specifically set up to do business cross continentally buggered with increases in red tape, and those who just did "normal" business stuff suddenly being like "wait, this affects me too!".
ULEZ also impacts a lot of people - not necessarily the drivers who will be charged (because most drivers have a compliant car anyway) but because London's poor air quality affects a lot of people over the long term. It's just an externality of driving that people tend to ignore.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
Brexit is not a big event per se . Very little has actually changed. Its only "big" in the sense that the people who thought they ran the country found out they didnt and have been sulking ever since.
Meanwhile the world moves on.
Oh it is a big event for some people albeit a niche. I used to fly across europe solving problems for people now I'm stuck at home solving problems for 1 (very idiotic) company..
And because of that my gold status with KLM has finally disappeared..
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
It's strange that such an issue should have become almost religious. Like religion, what a mess!
I mean, it was a huge constitutional change with massive practical impacts on people - varying based on their age and work - that was essentially sold as a simple and easy thing to do.
Of course people will still talk about it - some people are still learning new ways it affects them.
True, but (not unlike ULEZ) it is only a tiny minority whom it will affect in any meaningful way. For most people the changes to their lives are utterly unnoticeable. But we spent so long digging in on each side of the argument than the argument has become more important than the reality.
Something can be unnoticeable but still important. Let’s say Brexit his growth by 1% per year over 5 years. Most people might not directly notice that, but the cumulative effect of reduced growth impacts on jobs, wages, taxation etc. is very real.
They're ain't any devil dogs, just moronic owners. Obviously some dog breeds don't make good pets and I can understand limiting those breeds in some way. Far too many people want a dog to be something it's not. It's not a toy for the kids or a fashion accessory or a tool to show how hard you are. It's a living, sentiment being that has its own moods and foibles. Some days it might want to lick your face and chase after a ball. Other days it might want to lick its own balls and then bite your balls. They take time, money and commitment and they deserve to be respected and treated well. Some dogs shouldn't be pets, but there's more families that shouldn't be pet owners!
Wrong. There ARE devil dogs - do your research. The American bully XL has been specifically bred for unhinged aggression and ferocious tenacity - so as to win dog fights in the USA. It will fight and fight until it dies, it is extremely powerful and muscled, and it has also been severely inbred - so these lunatic urges have gotten worse, like the Habsburg chin
Very few breeds are inherently dangerous. But this one is
Can you provide some of this research? I would be really interested to read it. I've put in this thread further down from Science their research on how dog breed is not a good indicator of behaviour, and (whilst I accept that this source will be heavily biased in favour of dog ownership) the point they make that biting and fatalities have gone up since breed based bans, not down, does suggest that the policy is a failure:
My herding dog knows how to round up sheep and goats without any training and in the goats case before he'd even seen a goat. So clearly a dog bred for fighting comes hard wired with the knowledge and propensity for fighting
Are herding instincts and fighting instincts the same? I don't think that's how biology works. Again - the Science article suggests breed is not a good indicator of behaviour, and the selection bias of owners as described by the dogs magazine is as good a hypothesis as biological determinism; I am just asking for better data. Sans evidence that aggression in dogs is heritable - and with evidence backing the hypothesis it might not be - why should banning the breed lead to better outcomes?
Dogs have been bred for aggression and fighting skill for thousands of years. The Romans famously had terrifying soldier-dogs
Aggression and lethality are heritable traits just like intelligence, speed, smallness, herding skills, wiry coats for winter - and so on
For mad breeders in the USA looking to make money in dog fights it makes sense to select and breed the most horrifying dogs unimaginable. It makes no sense at all for these dogs to then be legal to own as pets
Loads of countries calmly and successfully ban these dogs. Their children are not torn to pieces. Why should Britain be uniquely stupid and NOT ban them?
The Roman military dogs reminds me of a funny story I heard where a guy was watching Gladiator with his girlfriend and at the beginning the legionaries are lined up ready to face the German’s and Russell Crowe is walking along with his Alsatian on a chain. He instructs someone “on my command unleash Hell” and the guys girlfriend said “that’s a strange name for a dog.”
On the subject of comical dog names, a friend had one called Timber. She was Canadian, and often walked it in the woods.
I genuinely heard a middle aged couple refer to their small curly haired black dog as 'Rover' on Friday. This was Chorlton Green so may have been ironic, or something.
I might be being slow, but what's wrong with 'Rover' as a name to give a dog?
I know it's the archetypal dog name, but it isn't all that common in practice, is quite pleasing to say, and is a dog name rather than a re-purposed human name (which is common but always sounds vaguely weird to me).
Well there's nothing wrong with it per se - but as you say it is the archetypal dog name which isn't all that common in practice - so uncommon in fact (because it is the archetypal dog name) that I have never come across one before.
Most dogs I know nowadays have names which could conceivably be given to humans - Max, Minnie, Charlie, Georgie, Olive.
I was told a dog’s name should be two syllables, both hard.
Easier to call them that way
Two syllables, both hard. So, Hardhard? Odd name, but I trust you.
As a dog is not just for Christmas you could call it Die Hard.
They're ain't any devil dogs, just moronic owners. Obviously some dog breeds don't make good pets and I can understand limiting those breeds in some way. Far too many people want a dog to be something it's not. It's not a toy for the kids or a fashion accessory or a tool to show how hard you are. It's a living, sentiment being that has its own moods and foibles. Some days it might want to lick your face and chase after a ball. Other days it might want to lick its own balls and then bite your balls. They take time, money and commitment and they deserve to be respected and treated well. Some dogs shouldn't be pets, but there's more families that shouldn't be pet owners!
Wrong. There ARE devil dogs - do your research. The American bully XL has been specifically bred for unhinged aggression and ferocious tenacity - so as to win dog fights in the USA. It will fight and fight until it dies, it is extremely powerful and muscled, and it has also been severely inbred - so these lunatic urges have gotten worse, like the Habsburg chin
Very few breeds are inherently dangerous. But this one is
Can you provide some of this research? I would be really interested to read it. I've put in this thread further down from Science their research on how dog breed is not a good indicator of behaviour, and (whilst I accept that this source will be heavily biased in favour of dog ownership) the point they make that biting and fatalities have gone up since breed based bans, not down, does suggest that the policy is a failure:
My herding dog knows how to round up sheep and goats without any training and in the goats case before he'd even seen a goat. So clearly a dog bred for fighting comes hard wired with the knowledge and propensity for fighting
Are herding instincts and fighting instincts the same? I don't think that's how biology works. Again - the Science article suggests breed is not a good indicator of behaviour, and the selection bias of owners as described by the dogs magazine is as good a hypothesis as biological determinism; I am just asking for better data. Sans evidence that aggression in dogs is heritable - and with evidence backing the hypothesis it might not be - why should banning the breed lead to better outcomes?
Dogs have been bred for aggression and fighting skill for thousands of years. The Romans famously had terrifying soldier-dogs
Aggression and lethality are heritable traits just like intelligence, speed, smallness, herding skills, wiry coats for winter - and so on
For mad breeders in the USA looking to make money in dog fights it makes sense to select and breed the most horrifying dogs unimaginable. It makes no sense at all for these dogs to then be legal to own as pets
Loads of countries calmly and successfully ban these dogs. Their children are not torn to pieces. Why should Britain be uniquely stupid and NOT ban them?
The Roman military dogs reminds me of a funny story I heard where a guy was watching Gladiator with his girlfriend and at the beginning the legionaries are lined up ready to face the German’s and Russell Crowe is walking along with his Alsatian on a chain. He instructs someone “on my command unleash Hell” and the guys girlfriend said “that’s a strange name for a dog.”
On the subject of comical dog names, a friend had one called Timber. She was Canadian, and often walked it in the woods.
I genuinely heard a middle aged couple refer to their small curly haired black dog as 'Rover' on Friday. This was Chorlton Green so may have been ironic, or something.
I might be being slow, but what's wrong with 'Rover' as a name to give a dog?
I know it's the archetypal dog name, but it isn't all that common in practice, is quite pleasing to say, and is a dog name rather than a re-purposed human name (which is common but always sounds vaguely weird to me).
Well there's nothing wrong with it per se - but as you say it is the archetypal dog name which isn't all that common in practice - so uncommon in fact (because it is the archetypal dog name) that I have never come across one before.
Most dogs I know nowadays have names which could conceivably be given to humans - Max, Minnie, Charlie, Georgie, Olive.
I was told a dog’s name should be two syllables, both hard.
Easier to call them that way
Two syllables, both hard. So, Hardhard? Odd name, but I trust you.
That's a brilliant name for an Alsatian. Threatening, but also slightly posh. (Try saying hardhard out loud and not sounding posh.)
Bothhard would work as well. It sounds like a remnant of Norman French.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
Brexit is not a big event per se . Very little has actually changed. Its only "big" in the sense that the people who thought they ran the country found out they didnt and have been sulking ever since.
Meanwhile the world moves on.
Oh it is a big event for some people albeit a niche. I used to fly across europe solving problems for people now I'm stuck at home solving problems for 1 (very idiotic) company..
And because of that my gold status with KLM has finally disappeared..
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
I think Alan has unusual dinner guests. I find no matter where you go or who you meet Brexit invariably raises it's ugly head. 'No Brexit at the table' may I suggest is a good rule to prevent it endlessly being discussed, not because people aren't discussing it.
Yes. It's big and it's live but you don't want it crowding out everything else. We're able to 'do' Brexit at gatherings of our clan and this is probably because we're all Remainers. Not the same type of Remainer (eg my siblings were pro 'People's Vote' and I wasn't) but Remainers nevertheless. In fact Brexit is a useful topic for us. If, say, one of those awkward silences ever descends halfway through a meal, all one of us has to do is go 'Brexit, what a bag of stupid!' and everyone will smirk and we'll be back on track.
Lose both by elections and Sunak may well depart the scene next month
Based on what precedent?
A year will passed since Rishi became PM so if the appropriate number of complaint letters have been sent a vote of no confidence can be called
And a number of Tory MPs are utterly insane enough to thi k there are better options available - because 4 different PMs in a Parliament is a Great Look...
The single greatest reason why Sunak will stay is that this particular moment is an insane one for someone with career ambitions to take over when they can do so fairly soon without having to hold the baby on General Election day when the music stops.
In the current psychiatry of the Tory party that does not make it impossible of course, but less likely. Sunak won't want to leave as he can chalk up 2 years as PM by going in Oct/Nov - which looks not too bad in the history books.
Talking about Commies infiltrating themselves at the heart of power.
King sends Kim Jong-un ‘good wishes’ as dictator prepares to meet Putin
North Korean leader travelling to Russia for talks on supplying weapons to Moscow in exchange for food
The King has sent a message to Kim Jong-un congratulating North Korea on its national day holiday and sending his “good wishes for the future”.
The message was not publicised by Buckingham Palace. The King was following the example set by Queen Elizabeth, who sent a number of such messages to the dynastic dictatorship in the past.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
It's strange that such an issue should have become almost religious. Like religion, what a mess!
Well yes, but you also wouldn't really want out and out party politics at the dinner table. The old 'no religion or politics' rule was not out of squeamishness but because discussion of these issues would cause more anger than good cheer. Of course, we discuss those things here. But everyone here is tacitly signed up to it. IRL, that's not necessarily the case. The exception is where those doing the discussing are under the assumption that everyone agrees with them. Then they can all have a jolly good time cheerfully and furiously agreeing with one another. The other exception is on issues which are political but are so technical and non-partisan that there is no obvious reason to fall out e.g. planning. Actually, I'd say our relationship with the EU once almost fell into this category, but for a variety of reasons an interesting discussion about pros and cons of membership of a supranational organisation became a hugely partisan shouting match.
I have some European friends that said they'd never talk to me ever again if I voted leave. It was (and still is a bit) an odd thing. When politics becomes a religion it seems to me that it has gone wrong.
They're ain't any devil dogs, just moronic owners. Obviously some dog breeds don't make good pets and I can understand limiting those breeds in some way. Far too many people want a dog to be something it's not. It's not a toy for the kids or a fashion accessory or a tool to show how hard you are. It's a living, sentiment being that has its own moods and foibles. Some days it might want to lick your face and chase after a ball. Other days it might want to lick its own balls and then bite your balls. They take time, money and commitment and they deserve to be respected and treated well. Some dogs shouldn't be pets, but there's more families that shouldn't be pet owners!
Wrong. There ARE devil dogs - do your research. The American bully XL has been specifically bred for unhinged aggression and ferocious tenacity - so as to win dog fights in the USA. It will fight and fight until it dies, it is extremely powerful and muscled, and it has also been severely inbred - so these lunatic urges have gotten worse, like the Habsburg chin
Very few breeds are inherently dangerous. But this one is
Can you provide some of this research? I would be really interested to read it. I've put in this thread further down from Science their research on how dog breed is not a good indicator of behaviour, and (whilst I accept that this source will be heavily biased in favour of dog ownership) the point they make that biting and fatalities have gone up since breed based bans, not down, does suggest that the policy is a failure:
My herding dog knows how to round up sheep and goats without any training and in the goats case before he'd even seen a goat. So clearly a dog bred for fighting comes hard wired with the knowledge and propensity for fighting
Are herding instincts and fighting instincts the same? I don't think that's how biology works. Again - the Science article suggests breed is not a good indicator of behaviour, and the selection bias of owners as described by the dogs magazine is as good a hypothesis as biological determinism; I am just asking for better data. Sans evidence that aggression in dogs is heritable - and with evidence backing the hypothesis it might not be - why should banning the breed lead to better outcomes?
Dogs have been bred for aggression and fighting skill for thousands of years. The Romans famously had terrifying soldier-dogs
Aggression and lethality are heritable traits just like intelligence, speed, smallness, herding skills, wiry coats for winter - and so on
For mad breeders in the USA looking to make money in dog fights it makes sense to select and breed the most horrifying dogs unimaginable. It makes no sense at all for these dogs to then be legal to own as pets
Loads of countries calmly and successfully ban these dogs. Their children are not torn to pieces. Why should Britain be uniquely stupid and NOT ban them?
The Roman military dogs reminds me of a funny story I heard where a guy was watching Gladiator with his girlfriend and at the beginning the legionaries are lined up ready to face the German’s and Russell Crowe is walking along with his Alsatian on a chain. He instructs someone “on my command unleash Hell” and the guys girlfriend said “that’s a strange name for a dog.”
On the subject of comical dog names, a friend had one called Timber. She was Canadian, and often walked it in the woods.
I genuinely heard a middle aged couple refer to their small curly haired black dog as 'Rover' on Friday. This was Chorlton Green so may have been ironic, or something.
I might be being slow, but what's wrong with 'Rover' as a name to give a dog?
I know it's the archetypal dog name, but it isn't all that common in practice, is quite pleasing to say, and is a dog name rather than a re-purposed human name (which is common but always sounds vaguely weird to me).
Well there's nothing wrong with it per se - but as you say it is the archetypal dog name which isn't all that common in practice - so uncommon in fact (because it is the archetypal dog name) that I have never come across one before.
Most dogs I know nowadays have names which could conceivably be given to humans - Max, Minnie, Charlie, Georgie, Olive.
I was told a dog’s name should be two syllables, both hard.
Easier to call them that way
Two syllables, both hard. So, Hardhard? Odd name, but I trust you.
That's a brilliant name for an Alsatian. Threatening, but also slightly posh. (Try saying hardhard out loud and not sounding posh.)
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
It's strange that such an issue should have become almost religious. Like religion, what a mess!
I mean, it was a huge constitutional change with massive practical impacts on people - varying based on their age and work - that was essentially sold as a simple and easy thing to do.
Of course people will still talk about it - some people are still learning new ways it affects them.
True, but (not unlike ULEZ) it is only a tiny minority whom it will affect in any meaningful way. For most people the changes to their lives are utterly unnoticeable. But we spent so long digging in on each side of the argument than the argument has become more important than the reality.
That's not true. An entire generation had freedom of movement across a continent taken away from them - something even working class people from the UK took advantage of. And all of import / export has been greatly impacted - with businesses that were specifically set up to do business cross continentally buggered with increases in red tape, and those who just did "normal" business stuff suddenly being like "wait, this affects me too!".
ULEZ also impacts a lot of people - not necessarily the drivers who will be charged (because most drivers have a compliant car anyway) but because London's poor air quality affects a lot of people over the long term. It's just an externality of driving that people tend to ignore.
Yes but how many people has this affected? For the vast majority "freedom of movement" meant no more than going on holiday, something which they can still do with almost no perceptible change. For the minority who wanted to work abroad, the majority of that minority are still able to work abroad. The number of hoops that have to be jumped through to work abroad are dwarfed by all the other practical considerations of going to work on another landmass with different language and customs which existed whether we were in the EU or not. And yes, it affects businesses. You can make a good case that some people have been tremendously affected. But the vast majority of individuals won't notice.
Ian Miles Cheong and Matt Goodwin are awful sources for commentary on literally anything.
Also, I could literally do and say the same thing about London? I could also point to Nazis doing the Nazi salute on bridges in Florida to make a completely different point about how the whole world views America? Are Ian Miles Cheong and Matt Goodwin saying authorities in America should also do something about that?
Also, also - I posted about the Canadian study that gave $7500 to a load of homeless people, no strings attached, and found that most of them got their life back together, saving the state just over $1000 per person annually on what it typically cost the state to keep rehousing them / moving them on, etc. etc. Do you support that policy solution? Do you think Ian Miles Cheong or Matt Goodwin do?
Will HMG stamp its feet in impotent rage or actually try and challenge this? I know they’ve run out of spunk for most stuff, but Nat bashing is their comfort zone.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
I think Alan has unusual dinner guests. I find no matter where you go or who you meet Brexit invariably raises it's ugly head. 'No Brexit at the table' may I suggest is a good rule to prevent it endlessly being discussed, not because people aren't discussing it.
Yes. It's big and it's live but you don't want it crowding out everything else. We're able to 'do' Brexit at gatherings of our clan and this is probably because we're all Remainers. Not the same type of Remainer (eg my siblings were pro 'People's Vote' and I wasn't) but Remainers nevertheless. In fact Brexit is a useful topic for us. If, say, one of those awkward silences ever descends halfway through a meal, all one of us has to do is go 'Brexit, what a bag of stupid!' and everyone will smirk and we'll be back on track.
Talking about Commies infiltrating themselves at the heart of power.
King sends Kim Jong-un ‘good wishes’ as dictator prepares to meet Putin
North Korean leader travelling to Russia for talks on supplying weapons to Moscow in exchange for food
The King has sent a message to Kim Jong-un congratulating North Korea on its national day holiday and sending his “good wishes for the future”.
The message was not publicised by Buckingham Palace. The King was following the example set by Queen Elizabeth, who sent a number of such messages to the dynastic dictatorship in the past.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
It's strange that such an issue should have become almost religious. Like religion, what a mess!
I mean, it was a huge constitutional change with massive practical impacts on people - varying based on their age and work - that was essentially sold as a simple and easy thing to do.
Of course people will still talk about it - some people are still learning new ways it affects them.
True, but (not unlike ULEZ) it is only a tiny minority whom it will affect in any meaningful way. For most people the changes to their lives are utterly unnoticeable. But we spent so long digging in on each side of the argument than the argument has become more important than the reality.
That's not true. An entire generation had freedom of movement across a continent taken away from them - something even working class people from the UK took advantage of. And all of import / export has been greatly impacted - with businesses that were specifically set up to do business cross continentally buggered with increases in red tape, and those who just did "normal" business stuff suddenly being like "wait, this affects me too!".
ULEZ also impacts a lot of people - not necessarily the drivers who will be charged (because most drivers have a compliant car anyway) but because London's poor air quality affects a lot of people over the long term. It's just an externality of driving that people tend to ignore.
Yes but how many people has this affected? For the vast majority "freedom of movement" meant no more than going on holiday, something which they can still do with almost no perceptible change. For the minority who wanted to work abroad, the majority of that minority are still able to work abroad. The number of hoops that have to be jumped through to work abroad are dwarfed by all the other practical considerations of going to work on another landmass with different language and customs which existed whether we were in the EU or not. And yes, it affects businesses. You can make a good case that some people have been tremendously affected. But the vast majority of individuals won't notice.
If Brexit is even partially a cause for inflation being what it is in the UK, which some economists have said it is, that has affected literally everyone. Just because people aren't necessarily pointing to Brexit as the cause of things that affect them doesn't mean it isn't.
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
Who could have foreseen that hoovering up failed businesses would result in your own business failing.
See it all the time with pubs and restaurants closing, reopening, then closing again.
Or when Staples went bust, their local one was replaced with a new stationery store ... that went bust.
Failed business models are hard to turn around if the fundamental business model is broken.
As for the economy, its time to move with the times. Why the heck would you want to go to Wilko to buy a new washing line, or dustpan and brush, or whatever, when you can get it for the same price next day via Amazon dropped off at your door?
And if you do want to go to a store, then firms like The Range seem to have much more sensible estates, with much easier to access parking.
A lot of people like shopping / won't use online. The problem with a General Merchandise (GM) specialist retailer is that much of the product range can be bought elsewhere. The "all under one roof" thing which used to have so much appeal no longer does.
One thing which boggled my mind when I read it. Wilko have this mad idea to distribute items across their estate. Which means sending heavy items to town centre and high street stores. This is the same stupid which Woolies were diseased with towards the end - in their case store managers would phone each other up and do stock swaps in their personal cars. Woolies wouldn't know as their computer had no visibility once dispatched to store...
A similar anecdote from 20 years ago: Boots the Chemist did a similar thing. Promoted the same items across all its stores. Sometimes this was fine, other times it met opposition from store managers. One time, the company had acquired a shit-tonne of Brita water filters and insisted these occupy prime promotional space. Got very irate with, mainly, Scottish, Welsh and Northern English store managers who protested no-one would buy the things and it was a waste of promotional space - as of course turned out to be the case: because why buy a Brita water filter when your water is already nice? A grand total of zero Brita water filters were sold in the Inverness store, prompting a very long round trip to see if the store really was promoting it (it was, obediently but fruitlessly). Whether any lessons were learned I couldn't say.
That doesn't bode well for the PB plan to have them selling smack and skunk.
Don't worry, my understanding is that there's a decent amount of demand for smack in Inverness. (And to be fair, if I lived there, I might be tempted.)
I have a first cousin once removed in Inverness. I was chatting to him at a funeral a few years back and he encouraged me to visit. He vaguely tried to extol its virtues: "It's very central," he began, before faltering slightly, and realising that whatever merits Inverness has, centrality isn't obviously one of them, then, heroically, finishing off with "for the surrounding area." "Very central for the surrounding area" has since become family code for somewhere with no other obvious merits.
That said, on the one time I did go to Inverness, I found it rather pleasant.
I am so stealing that line.
He is right, sort of. Inverness is central to the true Highlands. It's most peoples' port of call doing that area.
I'm not entirely sure what is so bad about it.
The weather isn't dire (rain shadow), housing isn't stupidly expensive and there's a lifetime of things to do outdoors. The centre is a bit meh but the River Ness is nice enough (when not flooding). Looking back from the bridge it could just about pass for Norway.
You can even watch Super Caley Go Ballistic if you must.
Are the jobs on offer that bad? Does that even matter these days?
Centre isn't exciting around the bus and train stations, but it improves a lot moving west towards and over the river. Many nice looking Victorian and later houses between there and the canal which itself is quite something too.
Airport, trains to north, south, east and west. At least some shops (last time I went). No Waitrose though there is a M&S.
OTOH I do like Elgin.
My first cousin once removed's son - i.e., my second cousin - I think* - told me that Elgin was where people from Inverness went for a night out. (It may have been Nairn. But I think it was Elgin.) This was 20-odd years ago mind, so things may have changed.
This man was definitely my second cousin i.e. my mum's cousin's son - which I think makes his Dad my first cousin once removed (i.e. my mum's cousin). But I may have the terminology wrong.
If your parents are first cousins, then you’re second cousins.
Yes, but what relation is my mum's cousin to me? I think he is my first cousin once removed.
It doesn't really matter. He was just a character in an anecdote about Inverness. I have expended a disproportionate amount of energy on explaining this only because I don't want to Misleading Pb.Com.
"Another sign of Sweden’s rapid breakdown of meaning can be found in the battle over Quran burnings that have garnered wide attention in the rest of the world. To mollify Turkey – a country which has been very recalcitrant when it comes to Sweden’s accession to Nato – the current right-wing Swedish government is now seeking to change the law to make it harder or even impossible to stage protests that would possibly exacerbate tensions with the Muslim world, de facto cutting into Swedish citizens’ rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. It is a right-wing government (with support from the Sweden Democrats, who are by far the most critical of Islam of all the major parties) traditionally opposed to Nato membership that is trying to make these changes, and it is the Social Democrats and the progressive Green Party that are trying to stop this. This is, quite frankly, a political situation that barely makes any sense. Is it then any wonder that people are once again retreating into various short-lived moral panics?"
They're ain't any devil dogs, just moronic owners. Obviously some dog breeds don't make good pets and I can understand limiting those breeds in some way. Far too many people want a dog to be something it's not. It's not a toy for the kids or a fashion accessory or a tool to show how hard you are. It's a living, sentiment being that has its own moods and foibles. Some days it might want to lick your face and chase after a ball. Other days it might want to lick its own balls and then bite your balls. They take time, money and commitment and they deserve to be respected and treated well. Some dogs shouldn't be pets, but there's more families that shouldn't be pet owners!
Wrong. There ARE devil dogs - do your research. The American bully XL has been specifically bred for unhinged aggression and ferocious tenacity - so as to win dog fights in the USA. It will fight and fight until it dies, it is extremely powerful and muscled, and it has also been severely inbred - so these lunatic urges have gotten worse, like the Habsburg chin
Very few breeds are inherently dangerous. But this one is
Can you provide some of this research? I would be really interested to read it. I've put in this thread further down from Science their research on how dog breed is not a good indicator of behaviour, and (whilst I accept that this source will be heavily biased in favour of dog ownership) the point they make that biting and fatalities have gone up since breed based bans, not down, does suggest that the policy is a failure:
My herding dog knows how to round up sheep and goats without any training and in the goats case before he'd even seen a goat. So clearly a dog bred for fighting comes hard wired with the knowledge and propensity for fighting
Are herding instincts and fighting instincts the same? I don't think that's how biology works. Again - the Science article suggests breed is not a good indicator of behaviour, and the selection bias of owners as described by the dogs magazine is as good a hypothesis as biological determinism; I am just asking for better data. Sans evidence that aggression in dogs is heritable - and with evidence backing the hypothesis it might not be - why should banning the breed lead to better outcomes?
Dogs have been bred for aggression and fighting skill for thousands of years. The Romans famously had terrifying soldier-dogs
Aggression and lethality are heritable traits just like intelligence, speed, smallness, herding skills, wiry coats for winter - and so on
For mad breeders in the USA looking to make money in dog fights it makes sense to select and breed the most horrifying dogs unimaginable. It makes no sense at all for these dogs to then be legal to own as pets
Loads of countries calmly and successfully ban these dogs. Their children are not torn to pieces. Why should Britain be uniquely stupid and NOT ban them?
Once again - this historical example does nothing to suggest aggression is heritable. Yes, the Romans may have bred for those things, but they also would have heavily trained them as well. So even with this example it is hard to know if it was breeding or training that made soldier dogs aggressive.
I don't think we have evidence that intelligence (in dogs or humans) is a heritable trait at all - again, would be interested in any evidence to the contrary (on dogs - I know the literature around humans and why it certainly isn't primarily a heritable trait).
Well, fighting dog owners in the USA have been breeding for aggression for many decades - and given that their money depends on it, I suggest they know what they’re doing, more than anyone else
Ditto horse breeders etc. Ask the people whose livelihood depends on this stuff
So I know people who breed and train horses - and speaking to them they talk about how sociable horses are and how their dominance hierarchy works; that horses are extremely sensitive to being liked or disliked and "know their place" in the herd by the behaviours that show that (the metaphor given to me was "like high school girls").
I think the difficulty here is that aggression is a social trait that is associated with biological trait. I do not argue that their are not heritable biological traits that would make a dog better at being aggressive / used to harm (size, bite strength, coat thickness, etc) but aggression is about how you interact with other animals.
We know how certain heritable traits are linked to biology - the famous russian experiments with red foxes springs to mind, showing that "friendliness" as a trait (although you could always call that something else, like courage or sociability, or even risk aversion) led to further generations of the foxes looking more "doggy", with floppy ears and changed body shape. No one here has shared anything that suggests aggression is such a trait - that is the level of evidence I would like to understand the appropriateness of banning by breed. Again, if the idea of banning breeds was to spend the time doing that research - I'd be up for that. But banning breeds when it could easily be the selection bias of people who are after dogs that look a specific manner and making them aggressive, rather than any inherent aggressiveness to begin with, is not evidence based policy. The increase in dog bites, for example, is that explainable by the breed hypothesis, or the social one? People seem to be pointing at getting dogs during lockdown not being socialised - that's a socialisation position.
I see no reason why it wouldnt be the same for other species
From my (limited) understanding, that gene isn't necessarily about inherent aggression, but the reaction to stressful situations and social factors which makes them more likely to react to negative social situations and, indeed, childhood trauma (which in itself could be a causal factor to genetic change as we know trauma can leave literal biological imprints in dna). Considering that everything I see in the literature emphasises this is a factor in responses to a social input (such as punishing someone who has done you wrong, or disproportionate responses to threats) and is something more noticeable in people where you could also point to socialisation trauma as a factor, I would put this down in the "would like more research" column. It's interesting, for sure, but social factors seem to be quite significant.
Also, looking into it a bit further, am seeing this being conflated to a "criminal gene" as well as other less scientific discussions linking it to race - which always then leads to questions about how much of this is post hoc rationalisation for something social (much like the history of false conflation of intelligence, race and inheritability).
Humans are complicated. Human behaviour is complicated. There are very, very few things that come down to a single gene. So, no, a “warrior gene” is not accepted as fact. Geneticists can get overexcited in their claims, but don’t pay them too much attention. It’s probably just something they get from their parents.
They're ain't any devil dogs, just moronic owners. Obviously some dog breeds don't make good pets and I can understand limiting those breeds in some way. Far too many people want a dog to be something it's not. It's not a toy for the kids or a fashion accessory or a tool to show how hard you are. It's a living, sentiment being that has its own moods and foibles. Some days it might want to lick your face and chase after a ball. Other days it might want to lick its own balls and then bite your balls. They take time, money and commitment and they deserve to be respected and treated well. Some dogs shouldn't be pets, but there's more families that shouldn't be pet owners!
Wrong. There ARE devil dogs - do your research. The American bully XL has been specifically bred for unhinged aggression and ferocious tenacity - so as to win dog fights in the USA. It will fight and fight until it dies, it is extremely powerful and muscled, and it has also been severely inbred - so these lunatic urges have gotten worse, like the Habsburg chin
Very few breeds are inherently dangerous. But this one is
Can you provide some of this research? I would be really interested to read it. I've put in this thread further down from Science their research on how dog breed is not a good indicator of behaviour, and (whilst I accept that this source will be heavily biased in favour of dog ownership) the point they make that biting and fatalities have gone up since breed based bans, not down, does suggest that the policy is a failure:
My herding dog knows how to round up sheep and goats without any training and in the goats case before he'd even seen a goat. So clearly a dog bred for fighting comes hard wired with the knowledge and propensity for fighting
Are herding instincts and fighting instincts the same? I don't think that's how biology works. Again - the Science article suggests breed is not a good indicator of behaviour, and the selection bias of owners as described by the dogs magazine is as good a hypothesis as biological determinism; I am just asking for better data. Sans evidence that aggression in dogs is heritable - and with evidence backing the hypothesis it might not be - why should banning the breed lead to better outcomes?
Dogs have been bred for aggression and fighting skill for thousands of years. The Romans famously had terrifying soldier-dogs
Aggression and lethality are heritable traits just like intelligence, speed, smallness, herding skills, wiry coats for winter - and so on
For mad breeders in the USA looking to make money in dog fights it makes sense to select and breed the most horrifying dogs unimaginable. It makes no sense at all for these dogs to then be legal to own as pets
Loads of countries calmly and successfully ban these dogs. Their children are not torn to pieces. Why should Britain be uniquely stupid and NOT ban them?
The Roman military dogs reminds me of a funny story I heard where a guy was watching Gladiator with his girlfriend and at the beginning the legionaries are lined up ready to face the German’s and Russell Crowe is walking along with his Alsatian on a chain. He instructs someone “on my command unleash Hell” and the guys girlfriend said “that’s a strange name for a dog.”
On the subject of comical dog names, a friend had one called Timber. She was Canadian, and often walked it in the woods.
I genuinely heard a middle aged couple refer to their small curly haired black dog as 'Rover' on Friday. This was Chorlton Green so may have been ironic, or something.
I might be being slow, but what's wrong with 'Rover' as a name to give a dog?
I know it's the archetypal dog name, but it isn't all that common in practice, is quite pleasing to say, and is a dog name rather than a re-purposed human name (which is common but always sounds vaguely weird to me).
Well there's nothing wrong with it per se - but as you say it is the archetypal dog name which isn't all that common in practice - so uncommon in fact (because it is the archetypal dog name) that I have never come across one before.
Most dogs I know nowadays have names which could conceivably be given to humans - Max, Minnie, Charlie, Georgie, Olive.
I was told a dog’s name should be two syllables, both hard.
Easier to call them that way
Two syllables, both hard. So, Hardhard? Odd name, but I trust you.
That's a brilliant name for an Alsatian. Threatening, but also slightly posh. (Try saying hardhard out loud and not sounding posh.)
Which hard does one stress ? Or both equally ?
The first. We're British. Names with the stress on the second syllable (e.g. Cherie) sound weird.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
It's strange that such an issue should have become almost religious. Like religion, what a mess!
I mean, it was a huge constitutional change with massive practical impacts on people - varying based on their age and work - that was essentially sold as a simple and easy thing to do.
Of course people will still talk about it - some people are still learning new ways it affects them.
True, but (not unlike ULEZ) it is only a tiny minority whom it will affect in any meaningful way. For most people the changes to their lives are utterly unnoticeable. But we spent so long digging in on each side of the argument than the argument has become more important than the reality.
That's not true. An entire generation had freedom of movement across a continent taken away from them - something even working class people from the UK took advantage of. And all of import / export has been greatly impacted - with businesses that were specifically set up to do business cross continentally buggered with increases in red tape, and those who just did "normal" business stuff suddenly being like "wait, this affects me too!".
ULEZ also impacts a lot of people - not necessarily the drivers who will be charged (because most drivers have a compliant car anyway) but because London's poor air quality affects a lot of people over the long term. It's just an externality of driving that people tend to ignore.
Yes but how many people has this affected? For the vast majority "freedom of movement" meant no more than going on holiday, something which they can still do with almost no perceptible change. For the minority who wanted to work abroad, the majority of that minority are still able to work abroad. The number of hoops that have to be jumped through to work abroad are dwarfed by all the other practical considerations of going to work on another landmass with different language and customs which existed whether we were in the EU or not. And yes, it affects businesses. You can make a good case that some people have been tremendously affected. But the vast majority of individuals won't notice.
If Brexit is even partially a cause for inflation being what it is in the UK, which some economists have said it is, that has affected literally everyone. Just because people aren't necessarily pointing to Brexit as the cause of things that affect them doesn't mean it isn't.
Well some economists are saying that, but some economists have made a living out of saying everything is Because Brexit. It does seem likely that any effect Brexit has had has been dwarfed by Covid and Ukraine. Which is why they have inflation on the continent too.
Getting read to protect power plants from drone attacks over the winter, perhaps.
German defense group Rheinmetall will deliver 40 more Marder infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine Thus, the total number of Marder IFVs supplied by Rheinmetall to Ukraine will increase to 80.. https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1701241938274333176
Lose both by elections and Sunak may well depart the scene next month
Based on what precedent?
A year will passed since Rishi became PM so if the appropriate number of complaint letters have been sent a vote of no confidence can be called
And a number of Tory MPs are utterly insane enough to thi k there are better options available - because 4 different PMs in a Parliament is a Great Look...
Liz Truss thinks that removing BoJo was fundamentally wrong.
Hardly a revelation that that is her stated view, given she was one of the relatively few members of his Cabinet who did not resign from his Government as part of the July 2022 crisis. It would be quite the change of position to now say it was right to remove him.
She did say, when he finally quit, that he was right to do so in the interests of the party and country. But that's quite different - it's saying he had to bow to the inevitable given so much opposition among MPs, rather than that she agreed with his opponents.
Whether she really believes it, or her public loyalty was essentially tactical, is another matter.
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
Who could have foreseen that hoovering up failed businesses would result in your own business failing.
See it all the time with pubs and restaurants closing, reopening, then closing again.
Or when Staples went bust, their local one was replaced with a new stationery store ... that went bust.
Failed business models are hard to turn around if the fundamental business model is broken.
As for the economy, its time to move with the times. Why the heck would you want to go to Wilko to buy a new washing line, or dustpan and brush, or whatever, when you can get it for the same price next day via Amazon dropped off at your door?
And if you do want to go to a store, then firms like The Range seem to have much more sensible estates, with much easier to access parking.
A lot of people like shopping / won't use online. The problem with a General Merchandise (GM) specialist retailer is that much of the product range can be bought elsewhere. The "all under one roof" thing which used to have so much appeal no longer does.
One thing which boggled my mind when I read it. Wilko have this mad idea to distribute items across their estate. Which means sending heavy items to town centre and high street stores. This is the same stupid which Woolies were diseased with towards the end - in their case store managers would phone each other up and do stock swaps in their personal cars. Woolies wouldn't know as their computer had no visibility once dispatched to store...
A similar anecdote from 20 years ago: Boots the Chemist did a similar thing. Promoted the same items across all its stores. Sometimes this was fine, other times it met opposition from store managers. One time, the company had acquired a shit-tonne of Brita water filters and insisted these occupy prime promotional space. Got very irate with, mainly, Scottish, Welsh and Northern English store managers who protested no-one would buy the things and it was a waste of promotional space - as of course turned out to be the case: because why buy a Brita water filter when your water is already nice? A grand total of zero Brita water filters were sold in the Inverness store, prompting a very long round trip to see if the store really was promoting it (it was, obediently but fruitlessly). Whether any lessons were learned I couldn't say.
That doesn't bode well for the PB plan to have them selling smack and skunk.
Don't worry, my understanding is that there's a decent amount of demand for smack in Inverness. (And to be fair, if I lived there, I might be tempted.)
I have a first cousin once removed in Inverness. I was chatting to him at a funeral a few years back and he encouraged me to visit. He vaguely tried to extol its virtues: "It's very central," he began, before faltering slightly, and realising that whatever merits Inverness has, centrality isn't obviously one of them, then, heroically, finishing off with "for the surrounding area." "Very central for the surrounding area" has since become family code for somewhere with no other obvious merits.
That said, on the one time I did go to Inverness, I found it rather pleasant.
I am so stealing that line.
He is right, sort of. Inverness is central to the true Highlands. It's most peoples' port of call doing that area.
I'm not entirely sure what is so bad about it.
The weather isn't dire (rain shadow), housing isn't stupidly expensive and there's a lifetime of things to do outdoors. The centre is a bit meh but the River Ness is nice enough (when not flooding). Looking back from the bridge it could just about pass for Norway.
You can even watch Super Caley Go Ballistic if you must.
Are the jobs on offer that bad? Does that even matter these days?
Centre isn't exciting around the bus and train stations, but it improves a lot moving west towards and over the river. Many nice looking Victorian and later houses between there and the canal which itself is quite something too.
Airport, trains to north, south, east and west. At least some shops (last time I went). No Waitrose though there is a M&S.
OTOH I do like Elgin.
My first cousin once removed's son - i.e., my second cousin - I think* - told me that Elgin was where people from Inverness went for a night out. (It may have been Nairn. But I think it was Elgin.) This was 20-odd years ago mind, so things may have changed.
This man was definitely my second cousin i.e. my mum's cousin's son - which I think makes his Dad my first cousin once removed (i.e. my mum's cousin). But I may have the terminology wrong.
If your parents are first cousins, then you’re second cousins.
Yes, but what relation is my mum's cousin to me? I think he is my first cousin once removed.
It doesn't really matter. He was just a character in an anecdote about Inverness. I have expended a disproportionate amount of energy on explaining this only because I don't want to Misleading Pb.Com.
Yes. If you’re out by a generation, they’re once removed.
At least your cousin exists, unlike some PB anecdotes about taxi drivers.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
It's strange that such an issue should have become almost religious. Like religion, what a mess!
I mean, it was a huge constitutional change with massive practical impacts on people - varying based on their age and work - that was essentially sold as a simple and easy thing to do.
Of course people will still talk about it - some people are still learning new ways it affects them.
True, but (not unlike ULEZ) it is only a tiny minority whom it will affect in any meaningful way. For most people the changes to their lives are utterly unnoticeable. But we spent so long digging in on each side of the argument than the argument has become more important than the reality.
Something can be unnoticeable but still important. Let’s say Brexit his growth by 1% per year over 5 years. Most people might not directly notice that, but the cumulative effect of reduced growth impacts on jobs, wages, taxation etc. is very real.
Well it might. But that size of impact seems massively unlikely to me.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
It's strange that such an issue should have become almost religious. Like religion, what a mess!
I mean, it was a huge constitutional change with massive practical impacts on people - varying based on their age and work - that was essentially sold as a simple and easy thing to do.
Of course people will still talk about it - some people are still learning new ways it affects them.
True, but (not unlike ULEZ) it is only a tiny minority whom it will affect in any meaningful way. For most people the changes to their lives are utterly unnoticeable. But we spent so long digging in on each side of the argument than the argument has become more important than the reality.
Something can be unnoticeable but still important. Let’s say Brexit his growth by 1% per year over 5 years. Most people might not directly notice that, but the cumulative effect of reduced growth impacts on jobs, wages, taxation etc. is very real.
Well it might. But that size of impact seems massively unlikely to me.
Well, if there wasn't a disparity between what seems massively unlikely to certain people and what actually happens, then there would be a lot less money to be made in political betting!
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
Brexit is not a big event per se . Very little has actually changed. Its only "big" in the sense that the people who thought they ran the country found out they didnt and have been sulking ever since.
Meanwhile the world moves on.
It's a massive event in British politics. Ok so that's a small subset of All That Goes On Everywhere, but so is almost everything.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I think they will, yes. Not purely and directly because of Brexit but because of the chain of events. Tories gave us Brexit. Brexit gave us Johnson ... and the rest is history.
When I sit down with my family and have a meal we talk about whos been doing what or where we want to go on holiday.
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
'No Brexit at the table' is a popular family rule, I'd imagine. But not because it's in the past. All events are in the past after all. You won't discuss much if that's how you roll. And this is a big big event which happened not so long ago. It's still live alright.
Brexit is not a big event per se . Very little has actually changed. Its only "big" in the sense that the people who thought they ran the country found out they didnt and have been sulking ever since.
Meanwhile the world moves on.
It's a massive event in British politics. Ok so that's a small subset of All That Goes On Everywhere, but so is almost everything.
And in the wider world nobody gives a shit - bar RoI perhaps,
And in the UK its a bunch of people who had bagged the result before the votes were counted who cant understand why they got it wrong, and cant get on with their lives,
Australians should be forced to pay inheritance tax for the first time in 40 years, the incoming adviser to the Canberra government has suggested.
In a speech to the Economic Society of Australia earlier this month, respected economist at think tank the Grattan Institute and incoming head of the Productivity Commission, Danielle Wood, said an inheritance tax on estates between one to two million Australian dollars (around £500,000 to £1m) should be considered to ease the tax burden on workers.
The Productivity Commission, which Ms Wood will head from November, is a prominent body that advises the government on economic, social and environmental issues.
In her speech, Ms Wood said the federal government needed to “seriously grapple” with the possibility of taxing large inheritances, although she admitted it would be “political dynamite”.
Will HMG stamp its feet in impotent rage or actually try and challenge this? I know they’ve run out of spunk for most stuff, but Nat bashing is their comfort zone.
Possession is not 'simple'. If there were no willing purchasers of drugs there would be no dealers and no Mr Bigs at the top. Compare it with prostitution, where there is lots of progressive backing for placing the moral opprobrium on the user not the supplier.
I am agnostic about all aspects of legalisation, but to regard suppliers as utterly evil and users as victims is slightly perverse.
Lose both by elections and Sunak may well depart the scene next month
Based on what precedent?
A year will passed since Rishi became PM so if the appropriate number of complaint letters have been sent a vote of no confidence can be called
And a number of Tory MPs are utterly insane enough to thi k there are better options available - because 4 different PMs in a Parliament is a Great Look...
The single greatest reason why Sunak will stay is that this particular moment is an insane one for someone with career ambitions to take over when they can do so fairly soon without having to hold the baby on General Election day when the music stops.
In the current psychiatry of the Tory party that does not make it impossible of course, but less likely. Sunak won't want to leave as he can chalk up 2 years as PM by going in Oct/Nov - which looks not too bad in the history books.
I agree nobody with career ambitions would want it now and that's why it probably won't happen.
They might reflect on the fact Michael Portillo sat on his hands when John Major issued his "back me or sack me" in 1995, and that David Miliband pretty clearly toyed with taking on Brown but felt he was better waiting for election defeat, then lost out to his brother. I'm very doubtful either would've got the crown had they tried to seize the moment, but equally we now know that waiting didn't work for them as it turns out.
If there are letters, and if there's a challenger, I'd strongly expect it to be from the lunatic fringe, and for it to be easily seen off.
Lose both by elections and Sunak may well depart the scene next month
Based on what precedent?
A year will passed since Rishi became PM so if the appropriate number of complaint letters have been sent a vote of no confidence can be called
And a number of Tory MPs are utterly insane enough to thi k there are better options available - because 4 different PMs in a Parliament is a Great Look...
The single greatest reason why Sunak will stay is that this particular moment is an insane one for someone with career ambitions to take over when they can do so fairly soon without having to hold the baby on General Election day when the music stops.
In the current psychiatry of the Tory party that does not make it impossible of course, but less likely. Sunak won't want to leave as he can chalk up 2 years as PM by going in Oct/Nov - which looks not too bad in the history books.
I agree nobody with career ambitions would want it now and that's why it probably won't happen.
They might reflect on the fact Michael Portillo sat on his hands when John Major issued his "back me or sack me" in 1995, and that David Miliband pretty clearly toyed with taking on Brown but felt he was better waiting for election defeat, then lost out to his brother. I'm very doubtful either would've got the crown had they tried to seize the moment, but equally we now know that waiting didn't work for them as it turns out.
If there are letters, and if there's a challenger, I'd strongly expect it to be from the lunatic fringe, and for it to be easily seen off.
Surely it has now been established as the lunatic mainstream and sensible fringe?
Lose both by elections and Sunak may well depart the scene next month
Based on what precedent?
A year will passed since Rishi became PM so if the appropriate number of complaint letters have been sent a vote of no confidence can be called
And a number of Tory MPs are utterly insane enough to thi k there are better options available - because 4 different PMs in a Parliament is a Great Look...
The single greatest reason why Sunak will stay is that this particular moment is an insane one for someone with career ambitions to take over when they can do so fairly soon without having to hold the baby on General Election day when the music stops.
In the current psychiatry of the Tory party that does not make it impossible of course, but less likely. Sunak won't want to leave as he can chalk up 2 years as PM by going in Oct/Nov - which looks not too bad in the history books.
I agree nobody with career ambitions would want it now and that's why it probably won't happen.
They might reflect on the fact Michael Portillo sat on his hands when John Major issued his "back me or sack me" in 1995, and that David Miliband pretty clearly toyed with taking on Brown but felt he was better waiting for election defeat, then lost out to his brother. I'm very doubtful either would've got the crown had they tried to seize the moment, but equally we now know that waiting didn't work for them as it turns out.
If there are letters, and if there's a challenger, I'd strongly expect it to be from the lunatic fringe, and for it to be easily seen off.
Portillo forgot to take his own advice: "Who dares, wins."
Will HMG stamp its feet in impotent rage or actually try and challenge this? I know they’ve run out of spunk for most stuff, but Nat bashing is their comfort zone.
Possession is not 'simple'. If there were no willing purchasers of drugs there would be no dealers and no Mr Bigs at the top. Compare it with prostitution, where there is lots of progressive backing for placing the moral opprobrium on the user not the supplier.
I am agnostic about all aspects of legalisation, but to regard suppliers as utterly evil and users as victims is slightly perverse.
I’m reminded of the time when, long when I was working and paying taxes, when I was involved with running a syringe and needle exchange scheme for users/addicts. We had a very successful site not far from a South Essex town centre, when a new Inspector of Police was appointed. We met him and he asked where our site was, and we told him. Good, he said, we know where to pick up the users!
Meanwhile, the fat lady has sung with regards to Wilco...
That is sad. And also baffling. It always seemed to be doing well when I went in there. And you'd have thought it recession-proof - sell stuff that people actually need, cheaply. It's not like when Whittard teas went out of business.
Any retail experts have a view on what went wrong? Competition from the likes of B&M and the Range? The wrong estate? (My local Wilko is at the back end of a long dead end and has nowhere convenient to park near it). Too much debt?
Is Wilko closing down the kind of "all is ok, lots of discretionary spending going on" thing you were talking about earlier?
Many many reasons. General Merchandise is a bugger of a category. Old-fashioned supply chain principles despite modern new-build DCs. A growing reluctance of the family to keep throwing money at it.
But what has killed them is where they are. Wilko are predominantly on high streets and shopping parades - a relic of it hoovering up former Woolworths stores. In so many towns the high street and the whole town centres are dying, with footfall is on average -30% vs pre-Covid.
You and a few others were trying to ramp the amazing economy earlier. Where? Go to any town and chances are its quiet and shuttered and visibly struggling. And these are the places where Wilko trade.
Who could have foreseen that hoovering up failed businesses would result in your own business failing.
See it all the time with pubs and restaurants closing, reopening, then closing again.
Or when Staples went bust, their local one was replaced with a new stationery store ... that went bust.
Failed business models are hard to turn around if the fundamental business model is broken.
As for the economy, its time to move with the times. Why the heck would you want to go to Wilko to buy a new washing line, or dustpan and brush, or whatever, when you can get it for the same price next day via Amazon dropped off at your door?
And if you do want to go to a store, then firms like The Range seem to have much more sensible estates, with much easier to access parking.
A lot of people like shopping / won't use online. The problem with a General Merchandise (GM) specialist retailer is that much of the product range can be bought elsewhere. The "all under one roof" thing which used to have so much appeal no longer does.
One thing which boggled my mind when I read it. Wilko have this mad idea to distribute items across their estate. Which means sending heavy items to town centre and high street stores. This is the same stupid which Woolies were diseased with towards the end - in their case store managers would phone each other up and do stock swaps in their personal cars. Woolies wouldn't know as their computer had no visibility once dispatched to store...
A similar anecdote from 20 years ago: Boots the Chemist did a similar thing. Promoted the same items across all its stores. Sometimes this was fine, other times it met opposition from store managers. One time, the company had acquired a shit-tonne of Brita water filters and insisted these occupy prime promotional space. Got very irate with, mainly, Scottish, Welsh and Northern English store managers who protested no-one would buy the things and it was a waste of promotional space - as of course turned out to be the case: because why buy a Brita water filter when your water is already nice? A grand total of zero Brita water filters were sold in the Inverness store, prompting a very long round trip to see if the store really was promoting it (it was, obediently but fruitlessly). Whether any lessons were learned I couldn't say.
That doesn't bode well for the PB plan to have them selling smack and skunk.
Don't worry, my understanding is that there's a decent amount of demand for smack in Inverness. (And to be fair, if I lived there, I might be tempted.)
I have a first cousin once removed in Inverness. I was chatting to him at a funeral a few years back and he encouraged me to visit. He vaguely tried to extol its virtues: "It's very central," he began, before faltering slightly, and realising that whatever merits Inverness has, centrality isn't obviously one of them, then, heroically, finishing off with "for the surrounding area." "Very central for the surrounding area" has since become family code for somewhere with no other obvious merits.
That said, on the one time I did go to Inverness, I found it rather pleasant.
If you can cope with the climate inverness is a handsome place. Yes it’s raw in parts but it is a Highland city. It’s not twee
Will HMG stamp its feet in impotent rage or actually try and challenge this? I know they’ve run out of spunk for most stuff, but Nat bashing is their comfort zone.
Possession is not 'simple'. If there were no willing purchasers of drugs there would be no dealers and no Mr Bigs at the top. Compare it with prostitution, where there is lots of progressive backing for placing the moral opprobrium on the user not the supplier.
I am agnostic about all aspects of legalisation, but to regard suppliers as utterly evil and users as victims is slightly perverse.
I tend to think the government elected by the people affected by the drug problem and bound by their own legal system are the ones to make the distinction rather some rsoles who don’t give a toss about how many Scottish junkies die. In fact I believe it suits said rsoles that Scottish drug deaths stay high so the can beat up the SG while denying all responsibility themselves.
See we’re back talking about the self-inflicted calamity named Brexit. As an alumni of pb suggested elsewhere, Brexit is like childbirth - the only thing I’ll add is that sadly both mother and child passed away.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
Comments
Since 2014, the overall split between Yes/No in Scotland is still about 45/55.
But within that zero net effect, polling has shown that since 2016, Brexiteers have moved towards No, but Remainers have moved towards Yes.
We also have ample evidence that throwing resources (being richer) makes kids score higher on IQ tests and in general schooling, as well as quite a bit of evidence supporting the idea that socialisation (having adults who read to you often, being exposed to lots of different adults of varying ages, etc) leads to earlier reading and talking (for example) that are correlated to intelligence - but that becomes compounded when the main way we teach now rewards those skills.
The Tories will be out of power for a generation for presiding over this sh*tshow.
I see no reason why it wouldnt be the same for other species
Nobody talks about Brexit, its an event in the past. It's only the anoraks on here who still think its a live campaign,
Boots sells high quality drugs.
What’s not to like?
He know the commands for sit, down, dead, paw, other(other paw), bed, wait, stay, stop, off you go(release), high five, come and will heel or do that trick where he walks through your legs as you walk forward and won't eat his food until commanded, but all of this is at his discretion (food motivated).
If we are out walking in a field and we call him to come he will do so. However if he is particularly muddy and he sees a lady with white trousers and we call him he will stop, look at us, and think 'no, not this time' and go and jump up at her leaving huge muddy footprints (why do people go walking in fields with white trousers?).
https://news.sky.com/story/birmingham-xl-bully-attack-dog-in-secure-kennels-as-police-wait-to-speak-to-owner-in-hospital-12959176
He his primary interests were politics and getting laid.
Thats if he can make himself heard through my non stop laughter
King sends Kim Jong-un ‘good wishes’ as dictator prepares to meet Putin
North Korean leader travelling to Russia for talks on supplying weapons to Moscow in exchange for food
The King has sent a message to Kim Jong-un congratulating North Korea on its national day holiday and sending his “good wishes for the future”.
The message was not publicised by Buckingham Palace. The King was following the example set by Queen Elizabeth, who sent a number of such messages to the dynastic dictatorship in the past.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/putin-kim-jong-un-korea-russia-2023-x827kjttg
It's just like the show The Americans, a family of spies teaching future generations about spying.
That said, on the one time I did go to Inverness, I found it rather pleasant.
So people just go to B&M, which is in a retail park and there are car loading spaces right outside the front door of the shop.
The store managers will be very aware of this kind of problem. The area managers will be aware. Digging though the sales data would show it, too. But Wilko's management is clearly not interested, with predictable results.
Also, looking into it a bit further, am seeing this being conflated to a "criminal gene" as well as other less scientific discussions linking it to race - which always then leads to questions about how much of this is post hoc rationalisation for something social (much like the history of false conflation of intelligence, race and inheritability).
The weather isn't dire (rain shadow), housing isn't stupidly expensive and there's a lifetime of things to do outdoors. The centre is a bit meh but the River Ness is nice enough (when not flooding). Looking back from the bridge it could just about pass for Norway.
You can even watch Super Caley Go Ballistic if you must.
Are the jobs on offer that bad? Does that even matter these days?
Airport, trains to north, south, east and west. At least some shops (last time I went). No Waitrose though there is a M&S.
OTOH I do like Elgin.
Of course people will still talk about it - some people are still learning new ways it affects them.
And a number of Tory MPs are utterly insane enough to thi k there are better options available - because 4 different PMs in a Parliament is a Great Look...
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/sep/09/liz-truss-to-share-lessons-of-her-time-in-government-in-new-book
Of course, we discuss those things here. But everyone here is tacitly signed up to it. IRL, that's not necessarily the case.
The exception is where those doing the discussing are under the assumption that everyone agrees with them. Then they can all have a jolly good time cheerfully and furiously agreeing with one another.
The other exception is on issues which are political but are so technical and non-partisan that there is no obvious reason to fall out e.g. planning.
Actually, I'd say our relationship with the EU once almost fell into this category, but for a variety of reasons an interesting discussion about pros and cons of membership of a supranational organisation became a hugely partisan shouting match.
This was 20-odd years ago mind, so things may have changed.
This man was definitely my second cousin i.e. my mum's cousin's son - which I think makes his Dad my first cousin once removed (i.e. my mum's cousin). But I may have the terminology wrong.
"Matt Goodwin
@GoodwinMJ
Zombie Land
Quote
Ian Miles Cheong
@stillgray
·Sep 10
Things are not okay in Philadelphia."
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1700984274055549358
Meanwhile the world moves on.
But are too polite to say so.
ULEZ also impacts a lot of people - not necessarily the drivers who will be charged (because most drivers have a compliant car anyway) but because London's poor air quality affects a lot of people over the long term. It's just an externality of driving that people tend to ignore.
And because of that my gold status with KLM has finally disappeared..
In the current psychiatry of the Tory party that does not make it impossible of course, but less likely. Sunak won't want to leave as he can chalk up 2 years as PM by going in Oct/Nov - which looks not too bad in the history books.
Or both equally ?
And yes, it affects businesses. You can make a good case that some people have been tremendously affected. But the vast majority of individuals won't notice.
Ian Miles Cheong and Matt Goodwin are awful sources for commentary on literally anything.
Also, I could literally do and say the same thing about London? I could also point to Nazis doing the Nazi salute on bridges in Florida to make a completely different point about how the whole world views America? Are Ian Miles Cheong and Matt Goodwin saying authorities in America should also do something about that?
https://news.sky.com/video/neo-nazi-group-salutes-hitler-in-florida-demonstration-12955833
Also, also - I posted about the Canadian study that gave $7500 to a load of homeless people, no strings attached, and found that most of them got their life back together, saving the state just over $1000 per person annually on what it typically cost the state to keep rehousing them / moving them on, etc. etc. Do you support that policy solution? Do you think Ian Miles Cheong or Matt Goodwin do?
It doesn't really matter. He was just a character in an anecdote about Inverness. I have expended a disproportionate amount of energy on explaining this only because I don't want to Misleading Pb.Com.
https://www.newstatesman.com/international-content/2023/08/how-sweden-lost-the-plot
"Another sign of Sweden’s rapid breakdown of meaning can be found in the battle over Quran burnings that have garnered wide attention in the rest of the world. To mollify Turkey – a country which has been very recalcitrant when it comes to Sweden’s accession to Nato – the current right-wing Swedish government is now seeking to change the law to make it harder or even impossible to stage protests that would possibly exacerbate tensions with the Muslim world, de facto cutting into Swedish citizens’ rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. It is a right-wing government (with support from the Sweden Democrats, who are by far the most critical of Islam of all the major parties) traditionally opposed to Nato membership that is trying to make these changes, and it is the Social Democrats and the progressive Green Party that are trying to stop this. This is, quite frankly, a political situation that barely makes any sense. Is it then any wonder that people are once again retreating into various short-lived moral panics?"
It does seem likely that any effect Brexit has had has been dwarfed by Covid and Ukraine. Which is why they have inflation on the continent too.
German defense group Rheinmetall will deliver 40 more Marder infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine
Thus, the total number of Marder IFVs supplied by Rheinmetall to Ukraine will increase to 80..
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1701241938274333176
She did say, when he finally quit, that he was right to do so in the interests of the party and country. But that's quite different - it's saying he had to bow to the inevitable given so much opposition among MPs, rather than that she agreed with his opponents.
Whether she really believes it, or her public loyalty was essentially tactical, is another matter.
At least your cousin exists, unlike some PB anecdotes about taxi drivers.
And in the UK its a bunch of people who had bagged the result before the votes were counted who cant understand why they got it wrong, and cant get on with their lives,
In a speech to the Economic Society of Australia earlier this month, respected economist at think tank the Grattan Institute and incoming head of the Productivity Commission, Danielle Wood, said an inheritance tax on estates between one to two million Australian dollars (around £500,000 to £1m) should be considered to ease the tax burden on workers.
The Productivity Commission, which Ms Wood will head from November, is a prominent body that advises the government on economic, social and environmental issues.
In her speech, Ms Wood said the federal government needed to “seriously grapple” with the possibility of taxing large inheritances, although she admitted it would be “political dynamite”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/inheritance/danielle-wood-economist-restore-inheritance-tax-australia/
I am agnostic about all aspects of legalisation, but to regard suppliers as utterly evil and users as victims is slightly perverse.
They might reflect on the fact Michael Portillo sat on his hands when John Major issued his "back me or sack me" in 1995, and that David Miliband pretty clearly toyed with taking on Brown but felt he was better waiting for election defeat, then lost out to his brother. I'm very doubtful either would've got the crown had they tried to seize the moment, but equally we now know that waiting didn't work for them as it turns out.
If there are letters, and if there's a challenger, I'd strongly expect it to be from the lunatic fringe, and for it to be easily seen off.
Good, he said, we know where to pick up the users!
FFS
And surrounded by glorious wildness
Westminster VI (10 September):
Labour 45% (+1)
Conservative 25% (-3)
Liberal Democrat 12% (-2)
Reform UK 6% (–)
Green 6% (+2)
Scottish National Party 4% (+1)
Other 1% (–)
Changes +/- 3 September
https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1701264340312031450
NEW THREAD
That’s quicker than I expected