@MikeSmithson I emailed you an idea for a thread header on why Labour are likely to win a majority, I've not heard back and am wondering if I used the wrong address. No worries if you just didn't like it!
I think that Labour's antics in the Mid Beds byelection are putting people off. The top priority is to get rid of this corrupt, incompetent Conservative Government. And yet Labour's approach - a mixture of arrogance and greed - shows that their top priority is not to get the Tories out, but the grab power for themselves. In Mid Beds their priority is to prevent the Lib Dems from winning, rather than to get the Tory out themselves.
This is very much a mistake on their part. If they fail to win an overall majority, and try to start cosying up to the Lib Dems for support, what kind of reaction will they expect? If Labour had any sense at all, they would wind down their campaigning in Mid Beds and concentrate their efforts and resources on Rutherglen and Tamwoth to make sure of those, and leave it to the Lib Dems to put an end to Tory domination in Mid Beds.
True. The Tories would certainly lose Mid Beds if it was a straight Con/LD fight. As it is, the Tories have a good chance of holding it due to the divided oppositoin.
I don't really see why people are paying so much attention to polls....may was 20 points ahead till the election campaign started. When labour and tories publish manifesto's I expect polls to change
You make a good point but then again if we can't discuss polls here, what is PB.com for?
Discussing the forthcoming Slovak parliamentary election?
Speaking of which, it's looking quite exciting. The populist left (really a vehicle for ex-PM Fico) narrowly ahead of mainstream liberals and social democrats. Various conservative/nationalists parties some way behind, but no obvious majority.
Indeed. Complicating matters, the populist left are also pro-Russia, while the social democrats, a recent split from the populist left party, are, as I understand it, mired in corruption.
assuming you're always travelling at the maximum speed (not a valid assumption, but it gives the absolute worst case scenario): 4 miles @ 30mph = 8 minutes 4 miles @ 20mph = 12 minutes
Journey of ~40km. Google maps says 47 minutes. New travel time: 47 + 4 = 51 minutes.
It is not the worst case at all. Driving at 20 might mean you hit a red traffic light and wait 2 minutes at the lights during which a combine harvester merges in ahead of you...58 minutes.
Equally the faster car could have hit the light while the 20mph car pootled along till the green, or the faster car caught the combine harvester that the slower car didn't.
When a car speeds off faster than you on a country road, sometimes you never see them again but reasonably often circumstance pulls them back. (Probably doesn't apply to Dura_Ace though)
I think your scenarios are neutral and 4 minutes is what we should use as working assumption.
I am glad to see NZ followed the script last night with a thumping win over Namibia. But I cant see them winning this year. Todays matches have three predictable wins but still interesting: Samoa v Chile - This is first opportunuty to see Samoa - they should easily see off Chile by 40 pts - and be a good indicator of performance for their big games coming up against Argentina and England. I expect Samoa to make it out of their group. Wales v Portugal - the last time these teams played it resulted in the highest ever score for Wales. Wont happen this time but Wales should win comfortably by 40 pts. Ireland v Tonga. This should be closest match today. Tonga should provide some interesting moments but will lose by 20 pts. Ireland need to be very careful to avoid injury or red cards...
While it's quiet I'd like to say how much I enjoy your little summaries and predictions. I really like reading specialist pieces on sports I don't normally follow. Morris Dancer sets a high standard here, but others are well worth following too.
It takes some cojones to stick your head above the parapet and you can be sure to receive a lot of flak when you get it wrong, including from me! It's all part of the fun.
Do you actually bet on your predictions? I do, but only very modest amounts these days.
Too many lives expended for scorched earth and rubble. Perhaps in the peace settlement, Russia will be made to pay for reconstruction, if not compensation. More likely Ukraine will be faced with massive debt and hoping for Marshall Plan-like handouts from the EU or United States.
The debt is kind of irrelevant because their capacity to repay it will not exist in our lifetimes. It's a punctured blow-up doll of a country that needs regular infusions of cash from the US just to keep the lights on.
Their situation will be happier if they can get more of the industrial capacity and resources of Donbas before the SMO ends as they can offer those up for plunderous rapine by EU/US corporations and thus pique more interest in 'reconstruction'.
This reads like something from Russia Today.
The Ukrainians have a long and venerable history as a people. And the ones doing the plunder and raping of them aren't in the West.
I am glad to see NZ followed the script last night with a thumping win over Namibia. But I cant see them winning this year. Todays matches have three predictable wins but still interesting: Samoa v Chile - This is first opportunuty to see Samoa - they should easily see off Chile by 40 pts - and be a good indicator of performance for their big games coming up against Argentina and England. I expect Samoa to make it out of their group. Wales v Portugal - the last time these teams played it resulted in the highest ever score for Wales. Wont happen this time but Wales should win comfortably by 40 pts. Ireland v Tonga. This should be closest match today. Tonga should provide some interesting moments but will lose by 20 pts. Ireland need to be very careful to avoid injury or red cards...
While it's quiet I'd like to say how much I enjoy your little summaries and predictions. I really like reading specialist pieces on sports I don't normally follow. Morris Dancer sets a high standard here, but others are well worth following too.
It takes some cojones to stick your head above the parapet and you can be sure to receive a lot of flak when you get it wrong, including from me! It's all part of the fun.
Do you actually bet on your predictions? I do, but only very modest amounts these days.
Good luck and enjoy the Rugby.
I’m hoping @Northern_Al paid very careful attention to my tips for the county season.
If he’d bet on Durham to be promoted, Surrey to win the championship and Leicestershire to win the one day cup (possibly) he’d have made a killing.
And their success was inevitable the moment I said they’d have bad seasons.
The whole thing is pointless if it doesn't run into Euston.
Yes it is pointless, but also emblematic of what the Tories stand for. Do things, especially on investment, on the cheap, invest the minimum, then move the goalposts and cut corners as we go along. Applies not just to transport but our public sector workforce, school buildings, the courts, hospitals and everything else.
Penny rich and pound poor, forgetting we get what we pay for. Absurdly stupid as you say, and why it is time for change.
No, that's just partisan bluster - but I bet the reason my post got five likes rather than two was because it was perceived to be critical of Sunak, and therefore tickled the erogenous zones of posters like you.
Governments of any stripe get tempted to do this because it's easy to strike out capital spending for things that haven't been done yet from the national account. California are doing something similar with their construction of a high-speed line from nowhere to nowhere because to build it into LA and San Francisco is too expensive, thus wrecking its whole business case.
It's just the sort of thing Gordon Brown's Treasury would have been tempted to do too and you can be sure I'll call out poor policy and governance decisions under any administration.
The whole thing is pointless if it doesn't run into Euston.
Yes it is pointless, but also emblematic of what the Tories stand for. Do things, especially on investment, on the cheap, invest the minimum, then move the goalposts and cut corners as we go along. Applies not just to transport but our public sector workforce, school buildings, the courts, hospitals and everything else.
Penny rich and pound poor, forgetting we get what we pay for. Absurdly stupid as you say, and why it is time for change.
The issue as I see it is that there is still a lingering Thatcherite mindset from the 1980s, which says that the public sector shouldn't spend money. So things don't get built, maintained properly, or replaced. It is the opposite to most other countries where public infrastructure is built and maintained. As a result we live in a perpetual substandard mess.
Though as often happens, that's a bit of a cartoon Thatcherwasm that doesn't quite match the reality. Decent amounts of infrastructure were built on her watch, even if quality was skimped on and repairs were put off. And one of the ways she made the sums balance was moving pensions from a double lock to the inflation only lock.
Rishi, on the other hand, would be much happier as a US Republican. Not Trumpite as such, small taxes and a state that mainly existed to boss the little people around if they were insufficiently socially conservative.
We are absurdly sentimental about animals in this country.
The breed isn't like that anyway but dogs don't "love children and people in general"; they are pack animals and to the extent they appear to be it's because they see themselves as part of that pack with a clear role in its pecking order, and are loyal to who leads it and feeds them. Sometimes this extends to jealously, and then more basic instincts can kick in, which is why they can attack kids. They won't generally attack the owner unless they are absurdly indisciplined and want to make a play for pack leader.
Either way, basic dog psychology needs to be considered here. It's an animal - not a person with four legs.
Yes, but that’s dog psychology from the dark ages. As with your politics you seem to be way behind the times. Are you a relic from a bygone age?
No, it's fact. That's what how dogs are. Dog psychologists describe them as such.
Just because you're personally in love with your dog and blind to it doesn't change the fact.
We are absurdly sentimental about animals in this country.
The breed isn't like that anyway but dogs don't "love children and people in general"; they are pack animals and to the extent they appear to be it's because they see themselves as part of that pack with a clear role in its pecking order, and are loyal to who leads it and feeds them. Sometimes this extends to jealously, and then more basic instincts can kick in, which is why they can attack kids. They won't generally attack the owner unless they are absurdly indisciplined and want to make a play for pack leader.
Either way, basic dog psychology needs to be considered here. It's an animal - not a person with four legs.
Yes, but that’s dog psychology from the dark ages. As with your politics you seem to be way behind the times. Are you a relic from a bygone age?
No, it's fact. That's what how dogs are. Dog psychologists describe them as such.
Just because you're personally in love with your dog and blind to it doesn't change the fact.
You're as belligerent as a XL yourself at the moment.
It's that time again when you need to take a step back from here and go and do something nice, including for yourself? You seem to have become blinded by anger, including a blindness to seeing other people's points of view, or that those with whom you disagree might nevertheless sometimes actually make good points.
@MikeSmithson I emailed you an idea for a thread header on why Labour are likely to win a majority, I've not heard back and am wondering if I used the wrong address. No worries if you just didn't like it!
The whole thing is pointless if it doesn't run into Euston.
Yes it is pointless, but also emblematic of what the Tories stand for. Do things, especially on investment, on the cheap, invest the minimum, then move the goalposts and cut corners as we go along. Applies not just to transport but our public sector workforce, school buildings, the courts, hospitals and everything else.
Penny rich and pound poor, forgetting we get what we pay for. Absurdly stupid as you say, and why it is time for change.
No, that's just partisan bluster - but I bet the reason my post got five likes rather than two
As I'm saying ...
Seriously, take a break. You'll be better for it. For yourself and for the rest of us. xx
The whole thing is pointless if it doesn't run into Euston.
Yes it is pointless, but also emblematic of what the Tories stand for. Do things, especially on investment, on the cheap, invest the minimum, then move the goalposts and cut corners as we go along. Applies not just to transport but our public sector workforce, school buildings, the courts, hospitals and everything else.
Penny rich and pound poor, forgetting we get what we pay for. Absurdly stupid as you say, and why it is time for change.
No, that's just partisan bluster - but I bet the reason my post got five likes rather than two was because it was perceived to be critical of Sunak, and therefore tickled the erogenous zones of posters like you.
Governments of any stripe get tempted to do this because it's easy to strike out capital spending for things that haven't been done yet from the national account. California are doing something similar with their construction of a high-speed line from nowhere to nowhere because to build it into LA and San Francisco is too expensive, thus wrecking its whole business case.
It's just the sort of thing Gordon Brown's Treasury would have been tempted to do too and you can be sure I'll call out poor policy and governance decisions under any administration.
If Gordon Brown's Treasury had greenlit HS2 25 years ago - as they should have done - it would have been running for fifteen years all the way to both Manchester and Leeds having been built for about a third of the cost.
Instead the upgrade of the WCML - which actually proved more expensive, and less effective - was put forward instead.
Although, to be fair, we really need both.
One other thought occurs to me and that is, having driven alongside the WCML north of Blackpool recently those overhead gantries look in a shocking state. Is there any plan to replace them that you know of? If not, factor them falling over into any five year projections.
Too many lives expended for scorched earth and rubble. Perhaps in the peace settlement, Russia will be made to pay for reconstruction, if not compensation. More likely Ukraine will be faced with massive debt and hoping for Marshall Plan-like handouts from the EU or United States.
The debt is kind of irrelevant because their capacity to repay it will not exist in our lifetimes. It's a punctured blow-up doll of a country that needs regular infusions of cash from the US just to keep the lights on.
Their situation will be happier if they can get more of the industrial capacity and resources of Donbas before the SMO ends as they can offer those up for plunderous rapine by EU/US corporations and thus pique more interest in 'reconstruction'.
Yes, comrade.
What you say *may* be true, but that assumes that Ukraine follows the Russian path. There are at least two other examples of countries that perhaps started from a worse position than Ukraine currently faces, and have become significant players: Taiwan and South Korea.
As I've said before, Russia *had* the industry, technology, people, resources and education system to turn their 1990s slump into a golden time. That would have required a lot of hard decisions. Instead, the leaders chose to steal and squander that opportunity.
Ukraine could do the same. Or it could try a different path, one that makes it a far richer country than the fascist country immediately to its east. Ukraine has some resources, a good industrial base, and some high technology.
@MikeSmithson I emailed you an idea for a thread header on why Labour are likely to win a majority, I've not heard back and am wondering if I used the wrong address. No worries if you just didn't like it!
assuming you're always travelling at the maximum speed (not a valid assumption, but it gives the absolute worst case scenario): 4 miles @ 30mph = 8 minutes 4 miles @ 20mph = 12 minutes
Journey of ~40km. Google maps says 47 minutes. New travel time: 47 + 4 = 51 minutes.
It is not the worst case at all. Driving at 20 might mean you hit a red traffic light and wait 2 minutes at the lights during which a combine harvester merges in ahead of you...58 minutes.
Equally the faster car could have hit the light while the 20mph car pootled along till the green, or the faster car caught the combine harvester that the slower car didn't.
When a car speeds off faster than you on a country road, sometimes you never see them again but reasonably often circumstance pulls them back. (Probably doesn't apply to Dura_Ace though)
I think your scenarios are neutral and 4 minutes is what we should use as working assumption.
The poster used the words absolute worst case, not a fair working assumption, and this is pedantsbeting.com.
@MikeSmithson I emailed you an idea for a thread header on why Labour are likely to win a majority, I've not heard back and am wondering if I used the wrong address. No worries if you just didn't like it!
Though as I have said previously if the Police Scotland investigation into the SNP is a damp squib, then I expect their loses may be reasonably contained
Hard to see how it can be a damp squid after more than 2 years and even more chicanery has been found. The issue is the messing up of the system such that police and crown are best pals of the politicians. Lots more court cases to come as well.
The whole thing is pointless if it doesn't run into Euston.
Yes it is pointless, but also emblematic of what the Tories stand for. Do things, especially on investment, on the cheap, invest the minimum, then move the goalposts and cut corners as we go along. Applies not just to transport but our public sector workforce, school buildings, the courts, hospitals and everything else.
Penny rich and pound poor, forgetting we get what we pay for. Absurdly stupid as you say, and why it is time for change.
No, that's just partisan bluster - but I bet the reason my post got five likes rather than two was because it was perceived to be critical of Sunak, and therefore tickled the erogenous zones of posters like you.
Governments of any stripe get tempted to do this because it's easy to strike out capital spending for things that haven't been done yet from the national account. California are doing something similar with their construction of a high-speed line from nowhere to nowhere because to build it into LA and San Francisco is too expensive, thus wrecking its whole business case.
It's just the sort of thing Gordon Brown's Treasury would have been tempted to do too and you can be sure I'll call out poor policy and governance decisions under any administration.
It got a like from me because it is idiotic, and would do whether the govt was Labour, LDem, Green or Yogic Flyers as well. If you really can't see that there is a penny rich pound poor approach to government from your party that is part of our decline then not sure how to persuade you as it is so blatantly obvious.
Yes, other governments and parties will make the same type of mistake, but not nearly every single time.....
The whole thing is pointless if it doesn't run into Euston.
Yes it is pointless, but also emblematic of what the Tories stand for. Do things, especially on investment, on the cheap, invest the minimum, then move the goalposts and cut corners as we go along. Applies not just to transport but our public sector workforce, school buildings, the courts, hospitals and everything else.
Penny rich and pound poor, forgetting we get what we pay for. Absurdly stupid as you say, and why it is time for change.
No, that's just partisan bluster - but I bet the reason my post got five likes rather than two was because it was perceived to be critical of Sunak, and therefore tickled the erogenous zones of posters like you.
Governments of any stripe get tempted to do this because it's easy to strike out capital spending for things that haven't been done yet from the national account. California are doing something similar with their construction of a high-speed line from nowhere to nowhere because to build it into LA and San Francisco is too expensive, thus wrecking its whole business case.
It's just the sort of thing Gordon Brown's Treasury would have been tempted to do too and you can be sure I'll call out poor policy and governance decisions under any administration.
If Gordon Brown's Treasury had greenlit HS2 25 years ago - as they should have done - it would have been running for fifteen years all the way to both Manchester and Leeds having been built for about a third of the cost.
Instead the upgrade of the WCML - which actually proved more expensive, and less effective - was put forward instead.
Although, to be fair, we really need both.
One other thought occurs to me and that is, having driven alongside the WCML north of Blackpool recently those overhead gantries look in a shocking state. Is there any plan to replace them that you know of? If not, factor them falling over into any five year projections.
I cannot wait for all those Scottish benefits we paid for and were promised would transform our lives.
We are absurdly sentimental about animals in this country.
The breed isn't like that anyway but dogs don't "love children and people in general"; they are pack animals and to the extent they appear to be it's because they see themselves as part of that pack with a clear role in its pecking order, and are loyal to who leads it and feeds them. Sometimes this extends to jealously, and then more basic instincts can kick in, which is why they can attack kids. They won't generally attack the owner unless they are absurdly indisciplined and want to make a play for pack leader.
Either way, basic dog psychology needs to be considered here. It's an animal - not a person with four legs.
Yes, but that’s dog psychology from the dark ages. As with your politics you seem to be way behind the times. Are you a relic from a bygone age?
No, it's fact. That's what how dogs are. Dog psychologists describe them as such.
Just because you're personally in love with your dog and blind to it doesn't change the fact.
No, really it isn’t. All that pack and owner-as-pack-Leader Cesar Milan stuff is widely discredited. Dogs know the difference between humans and other dogs, trust me.
assuming you're always travelling at the maximum speed (not a valid assumption, but it gives the absolute worst case scenario): 4 miles @ 30mph = 8 minutes 4 miles @ 20mph = 12 minutes
Journey of ~40km. Google maps says 47 minutes. New travel time: 47 + 4 = 51 minutes.
It is not the worst case at all. Driving at 20 might mean you hit a red traffic light and wait 2 minutes at the lights during which a combine harvester merges in ahead of you...58 minutes.
Equally the faster car could have hit the light while the 20mph car pootled along till the green, or the faster car caught the combine harvester that the slower car didn't.
When a car speeds off faster than you on a country road, sometimes you never see them again but reasonably often circumstance pulls them back. (Probably doesn't apply to Dura_Ace though)
I think your scenarios are neutral and 4 minutes is what we should use as working assumption.
The poster used the words absolute worst case, not a fair working assumption, and this is pedantsbeting.com.
@MikeSmithson I emailed you an idea for a thread header on why Labour are likely to win a majority, I've not heard back and am wondering if I used the wrong address. No worries if you just didn't like it!
The EU might change to calling jam marmalade, and marmalade will become citrus marmalade. Britain (huzzah for Brexit) will need to choose whether to follow suit or diverge from the continent by keeping the proper names.
But in Northern Ireland, thanks to Boris's broken Brexit and Rishi's Windsor Framework, locally-made jams and marmalades will have to follow EU rules but those imported from mainland Britain will not, although of course the government might change our rules in parallel with Brussels.
The continentals have always called some jams marmalade. Quince marmalade for instance.
Just thinking re UK, in that case why are there different marmalades in the shop labelled eg seville marmalade and lime marmalade?
The whole thing is pointless if it doesn't run into Euston.
Yes it is pointless, but also emblematic of what the Tories stand for. Do things, especially on investment, on the cheap, invest the minimum, then move the goalposts and cut corners as we go along. Applies not just to transport but our public sector workforce, school buildings, the courts, hospitals and everything else.
Penny rich and pound poor, forgetting we get what we pay for. Absurdly stupid as you say, and why it is time for change.
No, that's just partisan bluster - but I bet the reason my post got five likes rather than two was because it was perceived to be critical of Sunak, and therefore tickled the erogenous zones of posters like you.
Governments of any stripe get tempted to do this because it's easy to strike out capital spending for things that haven't been done yet from the national account. California are doing something similar with their construction of a high-speed line from nowhere to nowhere because to build it into LA and San Francisco is too expensive, thus wrecking its whole business case.
It's just the sort of thing Gordon Brown's Treasury would have been tempted to do too and you can be sure I'll call out poor policy and governance decisions under any administration.
It’s the whole Treasury Orthodoxy, their mindset of managed declinism, that needs to change. It doesn’t help that Rishi Sunak is one of its proudest members.
Just on the HS2 project. First they said it’s not going to Heathrow, then they said it’s not going to link to HS1, and now they’re trying to get everyone off the train several miles from their destination.
As with the California HS rail example, it faces becoming a massive white elephant, because the Treasury doesn’t want to do the job properly.
Someone needs to grab the No.11 mandarins by the neck, and tell them to get on with things like infrastructure projects. Meanwhile, shall we run a sweepstake on which of HS2, Heathrow’s new runway, or the Stonehenge tunnel, opens first? All three of these projects are now at least two decades old.
The EU might change to calling jam marmalade, and marmalade will become citrus marmalade. Britain (huzzah for Brexit) will need to choose whether to follow suit or diverge from the continent by keeping the proper names.
But in Northern Ireland, thanks to Boris's broken Brexit and Rishi's Windsor Framework, locally-made jams and marmalades will have to follow EU rules but those imported from mainland Britain will not, although of course the government might change our rules in parallel with Brussels.
The continentals have always called some jams marmalade. Quince marmalade for instance.
Just thinking re UK, in that case why are there different marmalades in the shop labelled eg seville marmalade and lime marmalade?
In many European languages the word for jam is pretty close to (or indeed is precisely) ‘marmalade’ in any event.
All the common jams are made with fruit that grows in the UK, except for oranges which come from the southern continent. Presumably why we ended up calling orange jam by the continental name for jam.
I am glad to see NZ followed the script last night with a thumping win over Namibia. But I cant see them winning this year. Todays matches have three predictable wins but still interesting: Samoa v Chile - This is first opportunuty to see Samoa - they should easily see off Chile by 40 pts - and be a good indicator of performance for their big games coming up against Argentina and England. I expect Samoa to make it out of their group. Wales v Portugal - the last time these teams played it resulted in the highest ever score for Wales. Wont happen this time but Wales should win comfortably by 40 pts. Ireland v Tonga. This should be closest match today. Tonga should provide some interesting moments but will lose by 20 pts. Ireland need to be very careful to avoid injury or red cards...
While it's quiet I'd like to say how much I enjoy your little summaries and predictions. I really like reading specialist pieces on sports I don't normally follow. Morris Dancer sets a high standard here, but others are well worth following too.
It takes some cojones to stick your head above the parapet and you can be sure to receive a lot of flak when you get it wrong, including from me! It's all part of the fun.
Do you actually bet on your predictions? I do, but only very modest amounts these days.
Good luck and enjoy the Rugby.
I’m hoping @Northern_Al paid very careful attention to my tips for the county season.
If he’d bet on Durham to be promoted, Surrey to win the championship and Leicestershire to win the one day cup (possibly) he’d have made a killing.
And their success was inevitable the moment I said they’d have bad seasons.
I think hants are nailed on today, weather permitting.
The EU might change to calling jam marmalade, and marmalade will become citrus marmalade. Britain (huzzah for Brexit) will need to choose whether to follow suit or diverge from the continent by keeping the proper names.
But in Northern Ireland, thanks to Boris's broken Brexit and Rishi's Windsor Framework, locally-made jams and marmalades will have to follow EU rules but those imported from mainland Britain will not, although of course the government might change our rules in parallel with Brussels.
The continentals have always called some jams marmalade. Quince marmalade for instance.
Just thinking re UK, in that case why are there different marmalades in the shop labelled eg seville marmalade and lime marmalade?
The name marmalade originates in the Portuguese, from marmalo, the Portuguese for quince.
They've altered the track layout to try and make overtaking easier/possible. Also, plenty of teams with upgrades.
They’ve altered the track layout because there’s redevelopment going in in the area by the old Bay Grandstand. It’ll be back in a couple of years. Yes, the changes make the track much faster this year.
assuming you're always travelling at the maximum speed (not a valid assumption, but it gives the absolute worst case scenario): 4 miles @ 30mph = 8 minutes 4 miles @ 20mph = 12 minutes
Journey of ~40km. Google maps says 47 minutes. New travel time: 47 + 4 = 51 minutes.
It is not the worst case at all. Driving at 20 might mean you hit a red traffic light and wait 2 minutes at the lights during which a combine harvester merges in ahead of you...58 minutes.
Equally the faster car could have hit the light while the 20mph car pootled along till the green, or the faster car caught the combine harvester that the slower car didn't.
When a car speeds off faster than you on a country road, sometimes you never see them again but reasonably often circumstance pulls them back. (Probably doesn't apply to Dura_Ace though)
I think your scenarios are neutral and 4 minutes is what we should use as working assumption.
The poster used the words absolute worst case, not a fair working assumption, and this is pedantsbeting.com.
Or indeed pedantsbetting.com.
See, this is what happens when you live in a 20mph zone. Get delayed by the combine harvester on the way back home and have to rush your post. 20mph just leads to typos galore.
Though as I have said previously if the Police Scotland investigation into the SNP is a damp squib, then I expect their loses may be reasonably contained
Hard to see how it can be a damp squid after more than 2 years and even more chicanery has been found. The issue is the messing up of the system such that police and crown are best pals of the politicians. Lots more court cases to come as well.
If not, there are plenty more damp squid in the sea.
We are absurdly sentimental about animals in this country.
The breed isn't like that anyway but dogs don't "love children and people in general"; they are pack animals and to the extent they appear to be it's because they see themselves as part of that pack with a clear role in its pecking order, and are loyal to who leads it and feeds them. Sometimes this extends to jealously, and then more basic instincts can kick in, which is why they can attack kids. They won't generally attack the owner unless they are absurdly indisciplined and want to make a play for pack leader.
Either way, basic dog psychology needs to be considered here. It's an animal - not a person with four legs.
Yes, but that’s dog psychology from the dark ages. As with your politics you seem to be way behind the times. Are you a relic from a bygone age?
No, it's fact. That's what how dogs are. Dog psychologists describe them as such.
Just because you're personally in love with your dog and blind to it doesn't change the fact.
No, really it isn’t. All that pack and owner-as-pack-Leader Cesar Milan stuff is widely discredited. Dogs know the difference between humans and other dogs, trust me.
Interesting. I was unaware, but a quick bit of googling says you are correct. A dog is a domestic animal. A wolf isn't. Just because the dog has derived from wolves, doesn't make it a wolf. Domestication has changed that. I'll bear that in mind in future when such referenced are made to training our dog. We are considering more advanced training as he is a spectacularly active dog and seems to enjoy puzzles particularly involving searching (probably the springer in him).
Interesting reminder that Trump is corrupt, self-obsessed and ruthless, but not especially and consistently conservative in the classic far-right guns'n'pro-life sense:
The EU might change to calling jam marmalade, and marmalade will become citrus marmalade. Britain (huzzah for Brexit) will need to choose whether to follow suit or diverge from the continent by keeping the proper names.
But in Northern Ireland, thanks to Boris's broken Brexit and Rishi's Windsor Framework, locally-made jams and marmalades will have to follow EU rules but those imported from mainland Britain will not, although of course the government might change our rules in parallel with Brussels.
Of course, one of the Good Things about Brexit is that we don't have to pay any attention to Ghastly Brussels Politics any more. There will be no opportunities for a future Boris Johnson or Kelvin McKenzie to make a reputation by making readers' flesh creep by making up stuff about the EU.
The whole thing is pointless if it doesn't run into Euston.
Yes it is pointless, but also emblematic of what the Tories stand for. Do things, especially on investment, on the cheap, invest the minimum, then move the goalposts and cut corners as we go along. Applies not just to transport but our public sector workforce, school buildings, the courts, hospitals and everything else.
Penny rich and pound poor, forgetting we get what we pay for. Absurdly stupid as you say, and why it is time for change.
No, that's just partisan bluster - but I bet the reason my post got five likes rather than two was because it was perceived to be critical of Sunak, and therefore tickled the erogenous zones of posters like you.
Governments of any stripe get tempted to do this because it's easy to strike out capital spending for things that haven't been done yet from the national account. California are doing something similar with their construction of a high-speed line from nowhere to nowhere because to build it into LA and San Francisco is too expensive, thus wrecking its whole business case.
It's just the sort of thing Gordon Brown's Treasury would have been tempted to do too and you can be sure I'll call out poor policy and governance decisions under any administration.
It’s the whole Treasury Orthodoxy, their mindset of managed declinism, that needs to change. It doesn’t help that Rishi Sunak is one of its proudest members.
Just on the HS2 project. First they said it’s not going to Heathrow, then they said it’s not going to link to HS1, and now they’re trying to get everyone off the train several miles from their destination.
As with the California HS rail example, it faces becoming a massive white elephant, because the Treasury doesn’t want to do the job properly.
Someone needs to grab the No.11 mandarins by the neck, and tell them to get on with things like infrastructure projects. Meanwhile, shall we run a sweepstake on which of HS2, Heathrow’s new runway, or the Stonehenge tunnel, opens first? All three of these projects are now at least two decades old.
Just think of the *huge* political impact on anyone north of Birmingham. Hell, even the Brummies won't be impressed. And this before a GE.
We are absurdly sentimental about animals in this country.
The breed isn't like that anyway but dogs don't "love children and people in general"; they are pack animals and to the extent they appear to be it's because they see themselves as part of that pack with a clear role in its pecking order, and are loyal to who leads it and feeds them. Sometimes this extends to jealously, and then more basic instincts can kick in, which is why they can attack kids. They won't generally attack the owner unless they are absurdly indisciplined and want to make a play for pack leader.
Either way, basic dog psychology needs to be considered here. It's an animal - not a person with four legs.
Yes, but that’s dog psychology from the dark ages. As with your politics you seem to be way behind the times. Are you a relic from a bygone age?
No, it's fact. That's what how dogs are. Dog psychologists describe them as such.
Just because you're personally in love with your dog and blind to it doesn't change the fact.
No, really it isn’t. All that pack and owner-as-pack-Leader Cesar Milan stuff is widely discredited. Dogs know the difference between humans and other dogs, trust me.
Interesting. I was unaware, but a quick bit of googling says you are correct. A dog is a domestic animal. A wolf isn't. Just because a the dog has derived from wolves, doesn't make it a wolf. Domestication has changed that. I'll bear that in mind in future when such referenced are made to training our dog. We are considering more advanced training as he is a spectacularly active dog and seems to enjoy puzzles particularly involving searching (probably the springer in him).
Yes. The idea that the owner is pack Leader and needs to dominate their dog is the traditional form of training; many of us may dimly remember Barbara Woodhouse from our youth, and popularised more recently by Cesar Milan. Extending to punishing the dog when it steps out of line, with the shock collars and choke chains that are slowly being made illegal around the world.
In these more enlightened times, dog psychologists understand that dogs know humans are superior - pretty obvious as we start with almost total control over the key aspects of their lives - and don’t need to be ‘dominated’ to establish the owner as ‘alpha dog’, which is all nonsense. And indeed can be counter-productive, setting up the dog for one day reacting in precisely the violent way that we’re all trying to avoid.
Which isn’t to say that dogs don’t react to people through the prism of their instincts, just as humans often react to dogs as if they are merely little humans. That’s only natural. Yet sharing your life with a creature from another species is both a privilege and a hugely rewarding experience; the closest we will get to interacting with aliens (assuming that as usual Leon is wrong). Finding ways in which a dog can make his or her decisions, as far as possible, is a much better prism through which to see how to build a relationship of give-and-take with a dog. No creature likes to be told what to do all of the time.
Definitely hunt out some good training; there’s tons of stuff you can do - agility is the obvious one but also scent work, man-trailing. My dog has his first man-trailing class next month.
I have consulted my girlfriend on the dog bites she has dealt with and:
- high risk of infection so don't close the wound - usually go to theatre for plastic surgery - lots of antibiotics - some bites are just punctures but others have a kind of shredding effect which is tricky to deal with
(This is a rough approximate. She spouts acronyms at a rate that puts Dura Ace to shame).
I don't really see why people are paying so much attention to polls....may was 20 points ahead till the election campaign started. When labour and tories publish manifesto's I expect polls to change
You make a good point but then again if we can't discuss polls here, what is PB.com for?
Discussing the forthcoming Slovak parliamentary election?
Speaking of which, it's looking quite exciting. The populist left (really a vehicle for ex-PM Fico) narrowly ahead of mainstream liberals and social democrats. Various conservative/nationalists parties some way behind, but no obvious majority.
Indeed. Complicating matters, the populist left are also pro-Russia, while the social democrats, a recent split from the populist left party, are, as I understand it, mired in corruption.
The EU might change to calling jam marmalade, and marmalade will become citrus marmalade. Britain (huzzah for Brexit) will need to choose whether to follow suit or diverge from the continent by keeping the proper names.
But in Northern Ireland, thanks to Boris's broken Brexit and Rishi's Windsor Framework, locally-made jams and marmalades will have to follow EU rules but those imported from mainland Britain will not, although of course the government might change our rules in parallel with Brussels.
The continentals have always called some jams marmalade. Quince marmalade for instance.
Just thinking re UK, in that case why are there different marmalades in the shop labelled eg seville marmalade and lime marmalade?
What's the EU's position on Lady Marmalade? Will we have to sing about Lady Citrus Marmalade??
Interesting reminder that Trump is corrupt, self-obsessed and ruthless, but not especially and consistently conservative in the classic far-right guns'n'pro-life sense:
Precisely. Trump is quite moderate as far as Republicans go, and that, along with a hope he will shake up a corrupt and ineffective political process, is why he is in with a shout of winning the WH again. The fact that he is a grifter and a crook and has no idea what he is doing is not a big deal to some people. It should be, of course, but it isn't.
Talking of other species, me and the dog are off to Ljubljana zoo today; one of the tiny number of zoos in the world where dogs are allowed in to see the other animals.
I always thought he was a bad ‘un. Ditto David Walliams.
In fact Williams is famous in my household for being an out-and-out awful human being.
Hard to find much to disagree with in the interview @Andy_JS posted. But it’s easy to tear the system down; Brand seems to have no interest in what might replace it. Which in turn leaves his politics open to capture by the sorts of libertarians who think that freeing corporations of bureaucratic shackles will lead to a land of milk and honey for us all.
However @Gardenwalker i think it’s a mistake to classify him as a has-been. He’s one of the figureheads of a certain type of populism that is weirdly both hard left and hard right, and very dangerous for it.
Part of the danger, as ever, is that there is really quite a bit of truth (and a huge amount of charisma) in his diagnosis of the problems we face.
I have consulted my girlfriend on the dog bites she has dealt with and:
- high risk of infection so don't close the wound - usually go to theatre for plastic surgery - lots of antibiotics - some bites are just punctures but others have a kind of shredding effect which is tricky to deal with
(This is a rough approximate. She spouts acronyms at a rate that puts Dura Ace to shame).
And it's overtaken the anti-Bully petition like DA overtaking a Welsh combnine harvester. The latter petition is on 22K or so when they were neck and neck yesterday afternoon. Latter still focussed on Merseyside.
Map of pro-Bullyism shows some correlation with support for a certain Scottish football team. But that is probably correlated with other factors rather than causation! Other possible correlations are wildly out. London and Leicester are meh in complete contrast to other conurbations.
Also some negative correlation with the anti-Bully map on Merseyside - unsurprising if it is local reaction to an attack.
Mr. Sandpit, hmm. Be interesting to see if it does make a change during the race. Not holding my breath.
They’ve missed a trick in not making the new straight a DRS zone, but the shorter straights before and after are DRS zones, and the new layout should make it easier to follow another car around the last sector of the lap.
Too many lives expended for scorched earth and rubble. Perhaps in the peace settlement, Russia will be made to pay for reconstruction, if not compensation. More likely Ukraine will be faced with massive debt and hoping for Marshall Plan-like handouts from the EU or United States.
The debt is kind of irrelevant because their capacity to repay it will not exist in our lifetimes. It's a punctured blow-up doll of a country that needs regular infusions of cash from the US just to keep the lights on.
Their situation will be happier if they can get more of the industrial capacity and resources of Donbas before the SMO ends as they can offer those up for plunderous rapine by EU/US corporations and thus pique more interest in 'reconstruction'.
This reads like something from Russia Today.
The Ukrainians have a long and venerable history as a people. And the ones doing the plunder and raping of them aren't in the West.
It's so edgy and rebellious though. One simply cannot take a less optimistic view of the situation without talking about the SMO and the like, its obviously impossible.
I am glad to see NZ followed the script last night with a thumping win over Namibia. But I cant see them winning this year. Todays matches have three predictable wins but still interesting: Samoa v Chile - This is first opportunuty to see Samoa - they should easily see off Chile by 40 pts - and be a good indicator of performance for their big games coming up against Argentina and England. I expect Samoa to make it out of their group. Wales v Portugal - the last time these teams played it resulted in the highest ever score for Wales. Wont happen this time but Wales should win comfortably by 40 pts. Ireland v Tonga. This should be closest match today. Tonga should provide some interesting moments but will lose by 20 pts. Ireland need to be very careful to avoid injury or red cards...
While it's quiet I'd like to say how much I enjoy your little summaries and predictions. I really like reading specialist pieces on sports I don't normally follow. Morris Dancer sets a high standard here, but others are well worth following too.
It takes some cojones to stick your head above the parapet and you can be sure to receive a lot of flak when you get it wrong, including from me! It's all part of the fun.
Do you actually bet on your predictions? I do, but only very modest amounts these days.
Good luck and enjoy the Rugby.
Thanks - much apprediated. I do bet on rugby but stick to one very firm principle. Never bet on what I want to happen. So I never place bets on Wales.
given his star has waned in the last few years he should be flattered that media still think he is a something
I don't think Brand has been particularly famous for at least a decade. Between 2006 and 2013, the media and 'the kidz' couldn't get enough of him, but its been a decade since he's done anything of note.
Spends his time on YouTube now, raging against 'the man'.
I always thought he was a bad ‘un. Ditto David Walliams.
In fact Williams is famous in my household for being an out-and-out awful human being.
Hard to find much to disagree with in the interview @Andy_JS posted. But it’s easy to tear the system down; Brand seems to have no interest in what might replace it. Which in turn leaves his politics open to capture by the sorts of libertarians who think that freeing corporations of bureaucratic shackles will lead to a land of milk and honey for us all.
However @Gardenwalker i think it’s a mistake to classify him as a has-been. He’s one of the figureheads of a certain type of populism that is weirdly both hard left and hard right, and very dangerous for it.
Part of the danger, as ever, is that there is really quite a bit of truth (and a huge amount of charisma) in his diagnosis of the problems we face.
If this massive big “story of the year” turns out to be Russell Brand and David Walliams, then it’s going to be a very damp squib indeed.
I am glad to see NZ followed the script last night with a thumping win over Namibia. But I cant see them winning this year. Todays matches have three predictable wins but still interesting: Samoa v Chile - This is first opportunuty to see Samoa - they should easily see off Chile by 40 pts - and be a good indicator of performance for their big games coming up against Argentina and England. I expect Samoa to make it out of their group. Wales v Portugal - the last time these teams played it resulted in the highest ever score for Wales. Wont happen this time but Wales should win comfortably by 40 pts. Ireland v Tonga. This should be closest match today. Tonga should provide some interesting moments but will lose by 20 pts. Ireland need to be very careful to avoid injury or red cards...
While it's quiet I'd like to say how much I enjoy your little summaries and predictions. I really like reading specialist pieces on sports I don't normally follow. Morris Dancer sets a high standard here, but others are well worth following too.
It takes some cojones to stick your head above the parapet and you can be sure to receive a lot of flak when you get it wrong, including from me! It's all part of the fun.
Do you actually bet on your predictions? I do, but only very modest amounts these days.
Good luck and enjoy the Rugby.
Thanks - much apprediated. I do bet on rugby but stick to one very firm principle. Never bet on what I want to happen. So I never place bets on Wales.
Did you say that you’re living in Qatar at the moment? I might be out there for the F1 in a few weeks…
given his star has waned in the last few years he should be flattered that media still think he is a something
I don't think Brand has been particularly famous for at least a decade. Between 2006 and 2013, the media and 'the kidz' couldn't get enough of him, but its been a decade since he's done anything of note.
Spends his time on YouTube now, raging against 'the man'.
Never forgiven him for telling da yoof not to vote. Stupid sod.
The whole thing is pointless if it doesn't run into Euston.
Yes it is pointless, but also emblematic of what the Tories stand for. Do things, especially on investment, on the cheap, invest the minimum, then move the goalposts and cut corners as we go along. Applies not just to transport but our public sector workforce, school buildings, the courts, hospitals and everything else.
Penny rich and pound poor, forgetting we get what we pay for. Absurdly stupid as you say, and why it is time for change.
No, that's just partisan bluster - but I bet the reason my post got five likes rather than two was because it was perceived to be critical of Sunak, and therefore tickled the erogenous zones of posters like you.
Governments of any stripe get tempted to do this because it's easy to strike out capital spending for things that haven't been done yet from the national account. California are doing something similar with their construction of a high-speed line from nowhere to nowhere because to build it into LA and San Francisco is too expensive, thus wrecking its whole business case.
It's just the sort of thing Gordon Brown's Treasury would have been tempted to do too and you can be sure I'll call out poor policy and governance decisions under any administration.
It’s the whole Treasury Orthodoxy, their mindset of managed declinism, that needs to change. It doesn’t help that Rishi Sunak is one of its proudest members.
Just on the HS2 project. First they said it’s not going to Heathrow, then they said it’s not going to link to HS1, and now they’re trying to get everyone off the train several miles from their destination.
As with the California HS rail example, it faces becoming a massive white elephant, because the Treasury doesn’t want to do the job properly.
Someone needs to grab the No.11 mandarins by the neck, and tell them to get on with things like infrastructure projects. Meanwhile, shall we run a sweepstake on which of HS2, Heathrow’s new runway, or the Stonehenge tunnel, opens first? All three of these projects are now at least two decades old.
Just think of the *huge* political impact on anyone north of Birmingham. Hell, even the Brummies won't be impressed. And this before a GE.
And according to the piece in The Times, the saving by cutting Old Oak Common to Euston is £5 billion.
Which, in terms of capital spending, and given that a lot of the benefit is going to come from reaching central London, is pretty pathetic.
Interesting reminder that Trump is corrupt, self-obsessed and ruthless, but not especially and consistently conservative in the classic far-right guns'n'pro-life sense:
Precisely. Trump is quite moderate as far as Republicans go, and that, along with a hope he will shake up a corrupt and ineffective political process, is why he is in with a shout of winning the WH again. The fact that he is a grifter and a crook and has no idea what he is doing is not a big deal to some people. It should be, of course, but it isn't.
It's one reason his capture of all wings of the party is strange in some ways. He's not a consistent conservative, he clearly doesn't care very much about abortion or guns, he is not someone of deep faith, but all those groups adore him. He did deliver on the justices appointed to help with several of those issues, but on his end its transactional, whereas they think he is deeply religious and the like.
The whole thing is pointless if it doesn't run into Euston.
Yes it is pointless, but also emblematic of what the Tories stand for. Do things, especially on investment, on the cheap, invest the minimum, then move the goalposts and cut corners as we go along. Applies not just to transport but our public sector workforce, school buildings, the courts, hospitals and everything else.
Penny rich and pound poor, forgetting we get what we pay for. Absurdly stupid as you say, and why it is time for change.
No, that's just partisan bluster - but I bet the reason my post got five likes rather than two was because it was perceived to be critical of Sunak, and therefore tickled the erogenous zones of posters like you.
Governments of any stripe get tempted to do this because it's easy to strike out capital spending for things that haven't been done yet from the national account. California are doing something similar with their construction of a high-speed line from nowhere to nowhere because to build it into LA and San Francisco is too expensive, thus wrecking its whole business case.
It's just the sort of thing Gordon Brown's Treasury would have been tempted to do too and you can be sure I'll call out poor policy and governance decisions under any administration.
It’s the whole Treasury Orthodoxy, their mindset of managed declinism, that needs to change. It doesn’t help that Rishi Sunak is one of its proudest members.
Just on the HS2 project. First they said it’s not going to Heathrow, then they said it’s not going to link to HS1, and now they’re trying to get everyone off the train several miles from their destination.
As with the California HS rail example, it faces becoming a massive white elephant, because the Treasury doesn’t want to do the job properly.
Someone needs to grab the No.11 mandarins by the neck, and tell them to get on with things like infrastructure projects. Meanwhile, shall we run a sweepstake on which of HS2, Heathrow’s new runway, or the Stonehenge tunnel, opens first? All three of these projects are now at least two decades old.
Just think of the *huge* political impact on anyone north of Birmingham. Hell, even the Brummies won't be impressed. And this before a GE.
And according to the piece in The Times, the saving by cutting Old Oak Common to Euston is £5 billion.
Which, in terms of capital spending, and given that a lot of the benefit is going to come from reaching central London, is pretty pathetic.
It was bad enough not connecting to HS1 in the first place. But now ... this is just taking the piss, and the prostate gland and bladder as well. Given the vast amount of work already done cis to OOC. I have a friend who lives next to the new line and it's spectacular.
Mr Sunak really is setting himself up well for when he next takes Budgie the Helicopter north of Watford Gap.
I always thought he was a bad ‘un. Ditto David Walliams.
In fact Williams is famous in my household for being an out-and-out awful human being.
Hard to find much to disagree with in the interview @Andy_JS posted. But it’s easy to tear the system down; Brand seems to have no interest in what might replace it. Which in turn leaves his politics open to capture by the sorts of libertarians who think that freeing corporations of bureaucratic shackles will lead to a land of milk and honey for us all.
However @Gardenwalker i think it’s a mistake to classify him as a has-been. He’s one of the figureheads of a certain type of populism that is weirdly both hard left and hard right, and very dangerous for it.
Part of the danger, as ever, is that there is really quite a bit of truth (and a huge amount of charisma) in his diagnosis of the problems we face.
If this massive big “story of the year” turns out to be Russell Brand and David Walliams, then it’s going to be a very damp squib indeed.
Entirely agree. I was off on a political tangent in response to ‘why do we care about RB’ but if the question is ‘why do we care about this story’ I agree that Brand is no household name any longer.
I always thought he was a bad ‘un. Ditto David Walliams.
In fact Williams is famous in my household for being an out-and-out awful human being.
Hard to find much to disagree with in the interview @Andy_JS posted. But it’s easy to tear the system down; Brand seems to have no interest in what might replace it. Which in turn leaves his politics open to capture by the sorts of libertarians who think that freeing corporations of bureaucratic shackles will lead to a land of milk and honey for us all.
However @Gardenwalker i think it’s a mistake to classify him as a has-been. He’s one of the figureheads of a certain type of populism that is weirdly both hard left and hard right, and very dangerous for it.
Part of the danger, as ever, is that there is really quite a bit of truth (and a huge amount of charisma) in his diagnosis of the problems we face.
If this massive big “story of the year” turns out to be Russell Brand and David Walliams, then it’s going to be a very damp squib indeed.
Quite. Any story, no matter how serious, involving a C-list celebrity is a story involving a C-list celebrity. Unless there is cover-up higher up and institutional failings (see Savile etc), then there comes a point where if the allegations are serious enough, the story is about those allegations and the celebrity factor is secondary.
Interesting reminder that Trump is corrupt, self-obsessed and ruthless, but not especially and consistently conservative in the classic far-right guns'n'pro-life sense:
Precisely. Trump is quite moderate as far as Republicans go, and that, along with a hope he will shake up a corrupt and ineffective political process, is why he is in with a shout of winning the WH again. The fact that he is a grifter and a crook and has no idea what he is doing is not a big deal to some people. It should be, of course, but it isn't.
It's one reason his capture of all wings of the party is strange in some ways. He's not a consistent conservative, he clearly doesn't care very much about abortion or guns, he is not someone of deep faith, but all those groups adore him. He did deliver on the justices appointed to help with several of those issues, but on his end its transactional, whereas they think he is deeply religious and the like.
The evangelicals know he isn’t one of them, but they do know that he followed through on his promise to get judges on the Supreme Court who would overturn Roe v Wade.
The whole thing is pointless if it doesn't run into Euston.
Yes it is pointless, but also emblematic of what the Tories stand for. Do things, especially on investment, on the cheap, invest the minimum, then move the goalposts and cut corners as we go along. Applies not just to transport but our public sector workforce, school buildings, the courts, hospitals and everything else.
Penny rich and pound poor, forgetting we get what we pay for. Absurdly stupid as you say, and why it is time for change.
No, that's just partisan bluster - but I bet the reason my post got five likes rather than two was because it was perceived to be critical of Sunak, and therefore tickled the erogenous zones of posters like you.
Governments of any stripe get tempted to do this because it's easy to strike out capital spending for things that haven't been done yet from the national account. California are doing something similar with their construction of a high-speed line from nowhere to nowhere because to build it into LA and San Francisco is too expensive, thus wrecking its whole business case.
It's just the sort of thing Gordon Brown's Treasury would have been tempted to do too and you can be sure I'll call out poor policy and governance decisions under any administration.
It’s the whole Treasury Orthodoxy, their mindset of managed declinism, that needs to change. It doesn’t help that Rishi Sunak is one of its proudest members.
Just on the HS2 project. First they said it’s not going to Heathrow, then they said it’s not going to link to HS1, and now they’re trying to get everyone off the train several miles from their destination.
As with the California HS rail example, it faces becoming a massive white elephant, because the Treasury doesn’t want to do the job properly.
Someone needs to grab the No.11 mandarins by the neck, and tell them to get on with things like infrastructure projects. Meanwhile, shall we run a sweepstake on which of HS2, Heathrow’s new runway, or the Stonehenge tunnel, opens first? All three of these projects are now at least two decades old.
I thought the runway was officially stalled, and the tunnel will be tied up in more legal issues for years, so i guess HS2 will, in some form, on the basis things are occasionally happening with it? Even if it's cut back a lot. But I may have gotten Heathrow wrong.
Twice as long, ten times the price, half the delivery - that's the British way.
I am glad to see NZ followed the script last night with a thumping win over Namibia. But I cant see them winning this year. Todays matches have three predictable wins but still interesting: Samoa v Chile - This is first opportunuty to see Samoa - they should easily see off Chile by 40 pts - and be a good indicator of performance for their big games coming up against Argentina and England. I expect Samoa to make it out of their group. Wales v Portugal - the last time these teams played it resulted in the highest ever score for Wales. Wont happen this time but Wales should win comfortably by 40 pts. Ireland v Tonga. This should be closest match today. Tonga should provide some interesting moments but will lose by 20 pts. Ireland need to be very careful to avoid injury or red cards...
While it's quiet I'd like to say how much I enjoy your little summaries and predictions. I really like reading specialist pieces on sports I don't normally follow. Morris Dancer sets a high standard here, but others are well worth following too.
It takes some cojones to stick your head above the parapet and you can be sure to receive a lot of flak when you get it wrong, including from me! It's all part of the fun.
Do you actually bet on your predictions? I do, but only very modest amounts these days.
Good luck and enjoy the Rugby.
Thanks - much apprediated. I do bet on rugby but stick to one very firm principle. Never bet on what I want to happen. So I never place bets on Wales.
I have found the scheduling to be really crap. I know they use a blind draw system to determine who plays who and when in a group but we are getting a lot of really duff days due to tier one teams playing minnows in batches. From Thursday to Sunday there will really only be two matches where there is proper jeopardy- Eng v Jap and Aus v Fiji - otherwise it’s been rubbish. Thursday the only game was France v Uruguay which was better than expected but still hard to get the neutrals to tune in at 8pm to watch. Last night NZ v Namibia was the only Friday match, again I imagine only die hard neutrals would tune in.
I understand they want to try and give approximately a week between matches but the group stage is going to drag and doesn’t help build momentum or really attract new followers who might have to wait two weeks between seeing their team play a big risky match.
My own personal bugbear though is matches at 8pm. For me watching rugby matches is an afternoon joy and a bit annoyed that both Englands first two games are late starts.
I am glad to see NZ followed the script last night with a thumping win over Namibia. But I cant see them winning this year. Todays matches have three predictable wins but still interesting: Samoa v Chile - This is first opportunuty to see Samoa - they should easily see off Chile by 40 pts - and be a good indicator of performance for their big games coming up against Argentina and England. I expect Samoa to make it out of their group. Wales v Portugal - the last time these teams played it resulted in the highest ever score for Wales. Wont happen this time but Wales should win comfortably by 40 pts. Ireland v Tonga. This should be closest match today. Tonga should provide some interesting moments but will lose by 20 pts. Ireland need to be very careful to avoid injury or red cards...
While it's quiet I'd like to say how much I enjoy your little summaries and predictions. I really like reading specialist pieces on sports I don't normally follow. Morris Dancer sets a high standard here, but others are well worth following too.
It takes some cojones to stick your head above the parapet and you can be sure to receive a lot of flak when you get it wrong, including from me! It's all part of the fun.
Do you actually bet on your predictions? I do, but only very modest amounts these days.
Good luck and enjoy the Rugby.
Thanks - much apprediated. I do bet on rugby but stick to one very firm principle. Never bet on what I want to happen. So I never place bets on Wales.
Did you say that you’re living in Qatar at the moment? I might be out there for the F1 in a few weeks…
I am going. Send me a message nearer the time and I will buy you a shandy.
I am glad to see NZ followed the script last night with a thumping win over Namibia. But I cant see them winning this year. Todays matches have three predictable wins but still interesting: Samoa v Chile - This is first opportunuty to see Samoa - they should easily see off Chile by 40 pts - and be a good indicator of performance for their big games coming up against Argentina and England. I expect Samoa to make it out of their group. Wales v Portugal - the last time these teams played it resulted in the highest ever score for Wales. Wont happen this time but Wales should win comfortably by 40 pts. Ireland v Tonga. This should be closest match today. Tonga should provide some interesting moments but will lose by 20 pts. Ireland need to be very careful to avoid injury or red cards...
While it's quiet I'd like to say how much I enjoy your little summaries and predictions. I really like reading specialist pieces on sports I don't normally follow. Morris Dancer sets a high standard here, but others are well worth following too.
It takes some cojones to stick your head above the parapet and you can be sure to receive a lot of flak when you get it wrong, including from me! It's all part of the fun.
Do you actually bet on your predictions? I do, but only very modest amounts these days.
Good luck and enjoy the Rugby.
Thanks - much apprediated. I do bet on rugby but stick to one very firm principle. Never bet on what I want to happen. So I never place bets on Wales.
Did you say that you’re living in Qatar at the moment? I might be out there for the F1 in a few weeks…
I am going. Send me a message nearer the time and I will buy you a shandy.
I am glad to see NZ followed the script last night with a thumping win over Namibia. But I cant see them winning this year. Todays matches have three predictable wins but still interesting: Samoa v Chile - This is first opportunuty to see Samoa - they should easily see off Chile by 40 pts - and be a good indicator of performance for their big games coming up against Argentina and England. I expect Samoa to make it out of their group. Wales v Portugal - the last time these teams played it resulted in the highest ever score for Wales. Wont happen this time but Wales should win comfortably by 40 pts. Ireland v Tonga. This should be closest match today. Tonga should provide some interesting moments but will lose by 20 pts. Ireland need to be very careful to avoid injury or red cards...
While it's quiet I'd like to say how much I enjoy your little summaries and predictions. I really like reading specialist pieces on sports I don't normally follow. Morris Dancer sets a high standard here, but others are well worth following too.
It takes some cojones to stick your head above the parapet and you can be sure to receive a lot of flak when you get it wrong, including from me! It's all part of the fun.
Do you actually bet on your predictions? I do, but only very modest amounts these days.
Good luck and enjoy the Rugby.
Thanks - much apprediated. I do bet on rugby but stick to one very firm principle. Never bet on what I want to happen. So I never place bets on Wales.
I have found the scheduling to be really crap. I know they use a blind draw system to determine who plays who and when in a group but we are getting a lot of really duff days due to tier one teams playing minnows in batches. From Thursday to Sunday there will really only be two matches where there is proper jeopardy- Eng v Jap and Aus v Fiji - otherwise it’s been rubbish. Thursday the only game was France v Uruguay which was better than expected but still hard to get the neutrals to tune in at 8pm to watch. Last night NZ v Namibia was the only Friday match, again I imagine only die hard neutrals would tune in.
I understand they want to try and give approximately a week between matches but the group stage is going to drag and doesn’t help build momentum or really attract new followers who might have to wait two weeks between seeing their team play a big risky match.
My own personal bugbear though is matches at 8pm. For me watching rugby matches is an afternoon joy and a bit annoyed that both Englands first two games are late starts.
Match scheduling is almost unavoidable due to need to let players recover. But the late kickoffs are entirely due to the French - their 8pm dinnertime is sacrosanct...so 9pm kickoff.
I am glad to see NZ followed the script last night with a thumping win over Namibia. But I cant see them winning this year. Todays matches have three predictable wins but still interesting: Samoa v Chile - This is first opportunuty to see Samoa - they should easily see off Chile by 40 pts - and be a good indicator of performance for their big games coming up against Argentina and England. I expect Samoa to make it out of their group. Wales v Portugal - the last time these teams played it resulted in the highest ever score for Wales. Wont happen this time but Wales should win comfortably by 40 pts. Ireland v Tonga. This should be closest match today. Tonga should provide some interesting moments but will lose by 20 pts. Ireland need to be very careful to avoid injury or red cards...
While it's quiet I'd like to say how much I enjoy your little summaries and predictions. I really like reading specialist pieces on sports I don't normally follow. Morris Dancer sets a high standard here, but others are well worth following too.
It takes some cojones to stick your head above the parapet and you can be sure to receive a lot of flak when you get it wrong, including from me! It's all part of the fun.
Do you actually bet on your predictions? I do, but only very modest amounts these days.
Good luck and enjoy the Rugby.
Thanks - much apprediated. I do bet on rugby but stick to one very firm principle. Never bet on what I want to happen. So I never place bets on Wales.
I have found the scheduling to be really crap. I know they use a blind draw system to determine who plays who and when in a group but we are getting a lot of really duff days due to tier one teams playing minnows in batches. From Thursday to Sunday there will really only be two matches where there is proper jeopardy- Eng v Jap and Aus v Fiji - otherwise it’s been rubbish. Thursday the only game was France v Uruguay which was better than expected but still hard to get the neutrals to tune in at 8pm to watch. Last night NZ v Namibia was the only Friday match, again I imagine only die hard neutrals would tune in.
I understand they want to try and give approximately a week between matches but the group stage is going to drag and doesn’t help build momentum or really attract new followers who might have to wait two weeks between seeing their team play a big risky match.
My own personal bugbear though is matches at 8pm. For me watching rugby matches is an afternoon joy and a bit annoyed that both Englands first two games are late starts.
Match scheduling is almost unavoidable due to need to let players recover. But the late kickoffs are entirely due to the French - their 8pm dinnertime is sacrosanct...so 9pm kickoff.
Which is annoying as hell when you’re several time zones ahead! No I don’t want rugby matches on from 11pm until 1am.
We are absurdly sentimental about animals in this country.
The breed isn't like that anyway but dogs don't "love children and people in general"; they are pack animals and to the extent they appear to be it's because they see themselves as part of that pack with a clear role in its pecking order, and are loyal to who leads it and feeds them. Sometimes this extends to jealously, and then more basic instincts can kick in, which is why they can attack kids. They won't generally attack the owner unless they are absurdly indisciplined and want to make a play for pack leader.
Either way, basic dog psychology needs to be considered here. It's an animal - not a person with four legs.
Yes, but that’s dog psychology from the dark ages. As with your politics you seem to be way behind the times. Are you a relic from a bygone age?
No, it's fact. That's what how dogs are. Dog psychologists describe them as such.
Just because you're personally in love with your dog and blind to it doesn't change the fact.
No, really it isn’t. All that pack and owner-as-pack-Leader Cesar Milan stuff is widely discredited. Dogs know the difference between humans and other dogs, trust me.
Interesting. I was unaware, but a quick bit of googling says you are correct. A dog is a domestic animal. A wolf isn't. Just because a the dog has derived from wolves, doesn't make it a wolf. Domestication has changed that. I'll bear that in mind in future when such referenced are made to training our dog. We are considering more advanced training as he is a spectacularly active dog and seems to enjoy puzzles particularly involving searching (probably the springer in him).
Yes. The idea that the owner is pack Leader and needs to dominate their dog is the traditional form of training; many of us may dimly remember Barbara Woodhouse from our youth, and popularised more recently by Cesar Milan. Extending to punishing the dog when it steps out of line, with the shock collars and choke chains that are slowly being made illegal around the world.
In these more enlightened times, dog psychologists understand that dogs know humans are superior - pretty obvious as we start with almost total control over the key aspects of their lives - and don’t need to be ‘dominated’ to establish the owner as ‘alpha dog’, which is all nonsense. And indeed can be counter-productive, setting up the dog for one day reacting in precisely the violent way that we’re all trying to avoid.
Which isn’t to say that dogs don’t react to people through the prism of their instincts, just as humans often react to dogs as if they are merely little humans. That’s only natural. Yet sharing your life with a creature from another species is both a privilege and a hugely rewarding experience; the closest we will get to interacting with aliens (assuming that as usual Leon is wrong). Finding ways in which a dog can make his or her decisions, as far as possible, is a much better prism through which to see how to build a relationship of give-and-take with a dog. No creature likes to be told what to do all of the time.
Definitely hunt out some good training; there’s tons of stuff you can do - agility is the obvious one but also scent work, man-trailing. My dog has his first man-trailing class next month.
I am glad to see NZ followed the script last night with a thumping win over Namibia. But I cant see them winning this year. Todays matches have three predictable wins but still interesting: Samoa v Chile - This is first opportunuty to see Samoa - they should easily see off Chile by 40 pts - and be a good indicator of performance for their big games coming up against Argentina and England. I expect Samoa to make it out of their group. Wales v Portugal - the last time these teams played it resulted in the highest ever score for Wales. Wont happen this time but Wales should win comfortably by 40 pts. Ireland v Tonga. This should be closest match today. Tonga should provide some interesting moments but will lose by 20 pts. Ireland need to be very careful to avoid injury or red cards...
While it's quiet I'd like to say how much I enjoy your little summaries and predictions. I really like reading specialist pieces on sports I don't normally follow. Morris Dancer sets a high standard here, but others are well worth following too.
It takes some cojones to stick your head above the parapet and you can be sure to receive a lot of flak when you get it wrong, including from me! It's all part of the fun.
Do you actually bet on your predictions? I do, but only very modest amounts these days.
Good luck and enjoy the Rugby.
Thanks - much apprediated. I do bet on rugby but stick to one very firm principle. Never bet on what I want to happen. So I never place bets on Wales.
I have found the scheduling to be really crap. I know they use a blind draw system to determine who plays who and when in a group but we are getting a lot of really duff days due to tier one teams playing minnows in batches. From Thursday to Sunday there will really only be two matches where there is proper jeopardy- Eng v Jap and Aus v Fiji - otherwise it’s been rubbish. Thursday the only game was France v Uruguay which was better than expected but still hard to get the neutrals to tune in at 8pm to watch. Last night NZ v Namibia was the only Friday match, again I imagine only die hard neutrals would tune in.
I understand they want to try and give approximately a week between matches but the group stage is going to drag and doesn’t help build momentum or really attract new followers who might have to wait two weeks between seeing their team play a big risky match.
My own personal bugbear though is matches at 8pm. For me watching rugby matches is an afternoon joy and a bit annoyed that both Englands first two games are late starts.
Match scheduling is almost unavoidable due to need to let players recover. But the late kickoffs are entirely due to the French - their 8pm dinnertime is sacrosanct...so 9pm kickoff.
Which is annoying as hell when you’re several time zones ahead! No I don’t want rugby matches on from 11pm until 1am.
Put them on at 2pm, 4pm, and 6pm local time.
Totally agree. Watching matches from 10 to 12 (1 hour easier than you) is hard work on a worknight (Saturday and Sunday are work days in Qatar - unlike Dubai)
On topic, the Scottish poll may just be a bump in the numbers but even if not, a few percent one way or the other in a sub-region of the UK accounting for 8% of the seats doesn't make all that much difference, particularly when the last six GB-wide polls have given Labour leads in the range of 17-22%. Each one of those polls has a higher lead than *any* poll conducted between the Iraq War and the Covid crisis.
I agree that to realise anything like those numbers at an actual election would mean an unprecedented number of gains - well in excess of 1997. However, I do think some people, and particularly the likes of Lib Dem activists, place excessive emphasis on groundwork and insufficient on the national campaign, or just the organic movement of opinion independent of campaign efforts. That might explain why the LDs are so good at by-elections and so crap at ones that matter.
Public opinion is perhaps more transactional than ever; fewer people identify with political parties - and those that do tend to be on the left anyway, certainly below the age of 65. That's a huge opportunity for Labour, all the more so because Sunak isn't a great campaigner. True, neither is Starmer but that doesn't matter because it's the relative contest that matters.
In football terms, Labour is 4-0 up and can quite happily play out time without taking too many risks. They do need to keep pressing when the opportunities come (and they will) because more goals is better and to maintain pressure and momentum but as long as they do, they're more likely to score another than concede. Only if they make a huge strategic mistake like May did in 2017, swapping all their players' boots for clown shoes, might they concede four late goals (though even then she won on penalties).
The football analogy only goes so far. Obviously, there are only two teams in a match, whereas there are many parties in an election, even if only two could credibly win on a national scale. That does write out the SNP factor and I could believe they have recovered a bit after not being quite so obviously corrupt and ridiculous as they were at the end of the Sturgeon leadership. But - eyes on the big picture.
I am glad to see NZ followed the script last night with a thumping win over Namibia. But I cant see them winning this year. Todays matches have three predictable wins but still interesting: Samoa v Chile - This is first opportunuty to see Samoa - they should easily see off Chile by 40 pts - and be a good indicator of performance for their big games coming up against Argentina and England. I expect Samoa to make it out of their group. Wales v Portugal - the last time these teams played it resulted in the highest ever score for Wales. Wont happen this time but Wales should win comfortably by 40 pts. Ireland v Tonga. This should be closest match today. Tonga should provide some interesting moments but will lose by 20 pts. Ireland need to be very careful to avoid injury or red cards...
While it's quiet I'd like to say how much I enjoy your little summaries and predictions. I really like reading specialist pieces on sports I don't normally follow. Morris Dancer sets a high standard here, but others are well worth following too.
It takes some cojones to stick your head above the parapet and you can be sure to receive a lot of flak when you get it wrong, including from me! It's all part of the fun.
Do you actually bet on your predictions? I do, but only very modest amounts these days.
Good luck and enjoy the Rugby.
Thanks - much apprediated. I do bet on rugby but stick to one very firm principle. Never bet on what I want to happen. So I never place bets on Wales.
I have found the scheduling to be really crap. I know they use a blind draw system to determine who plays who and when in a group but we are getting a lot of really duff days due to tier one teams playing minnows in batches. From Thursday to Sunday there will really only be two matches where there is proper jeopardy- Eng v Jap and Aus v Fiji - otherwise it’s been rubbish. Thursday the only game was France v Uruguay which was better than expected but still hard to get the neutrals to tune in at 8pm to watch. Last night NZ v Namibia was the only Friday match, again I imagine only die hard neutrals would tune in.
I understand they want to try and give approximately a week between matches but the group stage is going to drag and doesn’t help build momentum or really attract new followers who might have to wait two weeks between seeing their team play a big risky match.
My own personal bugbear though is matches at 8pm. For me watching rugby matches is an afternoon joy and a bit annoyed that both Englands first two games are late starts.
Match scheduling is almost unavoidable due to need to let players recover. But the late kickoffs are entirely due to the French - their 8pm dinnertime is sacrosanct...so 9pm kickoff.
Which is annoying as hell when you’re several time zones ahead! No I don’t want rugby matches on from 11pm until 1am.
Put them on at 2pm, 4pm, and 6pm local time.
Totally agree. Watching matches from 10 to 12 (1 hour easier than you) is hard work on a worknight (Saturday and Sunday are work days in Qatar - unlike Dubai)
What really gets me out here are the midweek football matches. We really notice the clocks changing in Europe, because the difference between a football match finishing at 12:45, and finishing at 1:45, is massive on a school night.
Yes, we now do Sat and Sun as the weekend over here, which was a welcome change when it happened at the start of 2022.
It's one reason his capture of all wings of the party is strange in some ways. He's not a consistent conservative, he clearly doesn't care very much about abortion or guns, he is not someone of deep faith, but all those groups adore him.
I think he managed to persuade them he hates the same people they do.
I am glad to see NZ followed the script last night with a thumping win over Namibia. But I cant see them winning this year. Todays matches have three predictable wins but still interesting: Samoa v Chile - This is first opportunuty to see Samoa - they should easily see off Chile by 40 pts - and be a good indicator of performance for their big games coming up against Argentina and England. I expect Samoa to make it out of their group. Wales v Portugal - the last time these teams played it resulted in the highest ever score for Wales. Wont happen this time but Wales should win comfortably by 40 pts. Ireland v Tonga. This should be closest match today. Tonga should provide some interesting moments but will lose by 20 pts. Ireland need to be very careful to avoid injury or red cards...
While it's quiet I'd like to say how much I enjoy your little summaries and predictions. I really like reading specialist pieces on sports I don't normally follow. Morris Dancer sets a high standard here, but others are well worth following too.
It takes some cojones to stick your head above the parapet and you can be sure to receive a lot of flak when you get it wrong, including from me! It's all part of the fun.
Do you actually bet on your predictions? I do, but only very modest amounts these days.
Good luck and enjoy the Rugby.
Thanks - much apprediated. I do bet on rugby but stick to one very firm principle. Never bet on what I want to happen. So I never place bets on Wales.
I have found the scheduling to be really crap. I know they use a blind draw system to determine who plays who and when in a group but we are getting a lot of really duff days due to tier one teams playing minnows in batches. From Thursday to Sunday there will really only be two matches where there is proper jeopardy- Eng v Jap and Aus v Fiji - otherwise it’s been rubbish. Thursday the only game was France v Uruguay which was better than expected but still hard to get the neutrals to tune in at 8pm to watch. Last night NZ v Namibia was the only Friday match, again I imagine only die hard neutrals would tune in.
I understand they want to try and give approximately a week between matches but the group stage is going to drag and doesn’t help build momentum or really attract new followers who might have to wait two weeks between seeing their team play a big risky match.
My own personal bugbear though is matches at 8pm. For me watching rugby matches is an afternoon joy and a bit annoyed that both Englands first two games are late starts.
Match scheduling is almost unavoidable due to need to let players recover. But the late kickoffs are entirely due to the French - their 8pm dinnertime is sacrosanct...so 9pm kickoff.
Which is annoying as hell when you’re several time zones ahead! No I don’t want rugby matches on from 11pm until 1am.
Put them on at 2pm, 4pm, and 6pm local time.
On the other hand, a 7am kickoff Australia time is more watchable than something kicking off at 3am.
Yes that’s fair. You need to optimise for the audience in many different time zones, and someone is always going to be annoyed with the schedule.
F1’s Las Vegas race in November, is going to be on at 10pm Saturday local time, 6am Sunday UK time, 10am for me. It’s the same slot as they use for a boxing match, and guarantees the largest US TV audience.
I am glad to see NZ followed the script last night with a thumping win over Namibia. But I cant see them winning this year. Todays matches have three predictable wins but still interesting: Samoa v Chile - This is first opportunuty to see Samoa - they should easily see off Chile by 40 pts - and be a good indicator of performance for their big games coming up against Argentina and England. I expect Samoa to make it out of their group. Wales v Portugal - the last time these teams played it resulted in the highest ever score for Wales. Wont happen this time but Wales should win comfortably by 40 pts. Ireland v Tonga. This should be closest match today. Tonga should provide some interesting moments but will lose by 20 pts. Ireland need to be very careful to avoid injury or red cards...
While it's quiet I'd like to say how much I enjoy your little summaries and predictions. I really like reading specialist pieces on sports I don't normally follow. Morris Dancer sets a high standard here, but others are well worth following too.
It takes some cojones to stick your head above the parapet and you can be sure to receive a lot of flak when you get it wrong, including from me! It's all part of the fun.
Do you actually bet on your predictions? I do, but only very modest amounts these days.
Good luck and enjoy the Rugby.
Thanks - much apprediated. I do bet on rugby but stick to one very firm principle. Never bet on what I want to happen. So I never place bets on Wales.
I have found the scheduling to be really crap. I know they use a blind draw system to determine who plays who and when in a group but we are getting a lot of really duff days due to tier one teams playing minnows in batches. From Thursday to Sunday there will really only be two matches where there is proper jeopardy- Eng v Jap and Aus v Fiji - otherwise it’s been rubbish. Thursday the only game was France v Uruguay which was better than expected but still hard to get the neutrals to tune in at 8pm to watch. Last night NZ v Namibia was the only Friday match, again I imagine only die hard neutrals would tune in.
I understand they want to try and give approximately a week between matches but the group stage is going to drag and doesn’t help build momentum or really attract new followers who might have to wait two weeks between seeing their team play a big risky match.
My own personal bugbear though is matches at 8pm. For me watching rugby matches is an afternoon joy and a bit annoyed that both Englands first two games are late starts.
Match scheduling is almost unavoidable due to need to let players recover. But the late kickoffs are entirely due to the French - their 8pm dinnertime is sacrosanct...so 9pm kickoff.
Which is annoying as hell when you’re several time zones ahead! No I don’t want rugby matches on from 11pm until 1am.
Put them on at 2pm, 4pm, and 6pm local time.
Why? To satisfy the huge mid-Asian market for rugby 🤦♂️. The 8pm kickoffs are fine, what an absolutely bizarre thing to moan about. And, the tournament has been great so far.
On topic, the Scottish poll may just be a bump in the numbers but even if not, a few percent one way or the other in a sub-region of the UK accounting for 8% of the seats doesn't make all that much difference, particularly when the last six GB-wide polls have given Labour leads in the range of 17-22%. Each one of those polls has a higher lead than *any* poll conducted between the Iraq War and the Covid crisis.
I agree that to realise anything like those numbers at an actual election would mean an unprecedented number of gains - well in excess of 1997. However, I do think some people, and particularly the likes of Lib Dem activists, place excessive emphasis on groundwork and insufficient on the national campaign, or just the organic movement of opinion independent of campaign efforts. That might explain why the LDs are so good at by-elections and so crap at ones that matter.
Public opinion is perhaps more transactional than ever; fewer people identify with political parties - and those that do tend to be on the left anyway, certainly below the age of 65. That's a huge opportunity for Labour, all the more so because Sunak isn't a great campaigner. True, neither is Starmer but that doesn't matter because it's the relative contest that matters.
In football terms, Labour is 4-0 up and can quite happily play out time without taking too many risks. They do need to keep pressing when the opportunities come (and they will) because more goals is better and to maintain pressure and momentum but as long as they do, they're more likely to score another than concede. Only if they make a huge strategic mistake like May did in 2017, swapping all their players' boots for clown shoes, might they concede four late goals (though even then she won on penalties).
The football analogy only goes so far. Obviously, there are only two teams in a match, whereas there are many parties in an election, even if only two could credibly win on a national scale. That does write out the SNP factor and I could believe they have recovered a bit after not being quite so obviously corrupt and ridiculous as they were at the end of the Sturgeon leadership. But - eyes on the big picture.
What happens in Scotland between Labour and SNP is entirely irrelevant to the identity of the government in Westminster after the coming election. The SNP won't be invited into any formal arrangement, will not support a Confidence vote in a possible conservative government, and will not cause a possible Labour government to lose a confidence vote. If you're thinking about next PM, you can safely ignore Scotland's red/yellow mix. It'll be somewhat refreshing to have an election that possibly isn't going to be about either Brexit or Scotland. After a decade and half, we're due one.
Disagree. I think that the result in Scotland makes the difference between a minority and a majority Labour government. Starmer faces an uphill task to form a government, if the SNP retains 50 seats North of the border.
assuming you're always travelling at the maximum speed (not a valid assumption, but it gives the absolute worst case scenario): 4 miles @ 30mph = 8 minutes 4 miles @ 20mph = 12 minutes
Journey of ~40km. Google maps says 47 minutes. New travel time: 47 + 4 = 51 minutes.
It is not the worst case at all. Driving at 20 might mean you hit a red traffic light and wait 2 minutes at the lights during which a combine harvester merges in ahead of you...58 minutes.
Equally the faster car could have hit the light while the 20mph car pootled along till the green, or the faster car caught the combine harvester that the slower car didn't.
When a car speeds off faster than you on a country road, sometimes you never see them again but reasonably often circumstance pulls them back. (Probably doesn't apply to Dura_Ace though)
I think your scenarios are neutral and 4 minutes is what we should use as working assumption.
The poster used the words absolute worst case, not a fair working assumption, and this is pedantsbeting.com.
I remember one of the IT Change Management teams insisting to a colleague that an absolute worst case scenario should be included on the change for a hardware swap, a realistic worst case having been covered.
To which he wrote up a scenario where the visiting engineer's brake failed and his car ploughed through the Data Centre destroying all before it. (of course, full on destruction of the data centre is something always to be considered, just probably not for that piece of work).
On topic, the Scottish poll may just be a bump in the numbers but even if not, a few percent one way or the other in a sub-region of the UK accounting for 8% of the seats doesn't make all that much difference, particularly when the last six GB-wide polls have given Labour leads in the range of 17-22%. Each one of those polls has a higher lead than *any* poll conducted between the Iraq War and the Covid crisis.
I agree that to realise anything like those numbers at an actual election would mean an unprecedented number of gains - well in excess of 1997. However, I do think some people, and particularly the likes of Lib Dem activists, place excessive emphasis on groundwork and insufficient on the national campaign, or just the organic movement of opinion independent of campaign efforts. That might explain why the LDs are so good at by-elections and so crap at ones that matter.
Public opinion is perhaps more transactional than ever; fewer people identify with political parties - and those that do tend to be on the left anyway, certainly below the age of 65. That's a huge opportunity for Labour, all the more so because Sunak isn't a great campaigner. True, neither is Starmer but that doesn't matter because it's the relative contest that matters.
In football terms, Labour is 4-0 up and can quite happily play out time without taking too many risks. They do need to keep pressing when the opportunities come (and they will) because more goals is better and to maintain pressure and momentum but as long as they do, they're more likely to score another than concede. Only if they make a huge strategic mistake like May did in 2017, swapping all their players' boots for clown shoes, might they concede four late goals (though even then she won on penalties).
The football analogy only goes so far. Obviously, there are only two teams in a match, whereas there are many parties in an election, even if only two could credibly win on a national scale. That does write out the SNP factor and I could believe they have recovered a bit after not being quite so obviously corrupt and ridiculous as they were at the end of the Sturgeon leadership. But - eyes on the big picture.
The other thing to say about the ground game is that social media has tilted the balance a lot. The sort of stuff Vote Leave did in 2016 and the Conservatives did in 2019 was fundamentally what Focus and In Touch and whatever the Labour one was called have done since the 1980s at least. Survey people to find their grumbles then play them back on a personalised basis.
In the analogue days, that was slow and labour intensive. With computers and the sort of data sets that can be bought on people, a handful of boffins can generate the same effect nationwide pretty cheaply.
And whilst the 2010s saw the first movers have a big advantage, I imagine everyone will be doing it now.
When a car speeds off faster than you on a country road, sometimes you never see them again but reasonably often circumstance pulls them back. (Probably doesn't apply to Dura_Ace though)
Really fast road driving is more art than science. Being fast on a track is a combination of track knowledge, car setup and ability. Being (very) fast on the road is largely a function of how much risk, legal and mortal, you're prepared to take.
We are absurdly sentimental about animals in this country.
The breed isn't like that anyway but dogs don't "love children and people in general"; they are pack animals and to the extent they appear to be it's because they see themselves as part of that pack with a clear role in its pecking order, and are loyal to who leads it and feeds them. Sometimes this extends to jealously, and then more basic instincts can kick in, which is why they can attack kids. They won't generally attack the owner unless they are absurdly indisciplined and want to make a play for pack leader.
Either way, basic dog psychology needs to be considered here. It's an animal - not a person with four legs.
Yes, but that’s dog psychology from the dark ages. As with your politics you seem to be way behind the times. Are you a relic from a bygone age?
No, it's fact. That's what how dogs are. Dog psychologists describe them as such.
Just because you're personally in love with your dog and blind to it doesn't change the fact.
No, really it isn’t. All that pack and owner-as-pack-Leader Cesar Milan stuff is widely discredited. Dogs know the difference between humans and other dogs, trust me.
Interesting. I was unaware, but a quick bit of googling says you are correct. A dog is a domestic animal. A wolf isn't. Just because a the dog has derived from wolves, doesn't make it a wolf. Domestication has changed that. I'll bear that in mind in future when such referenced are made to training our dog. We are considering more advanced training as he is a spectacularly active dog and seems to enjoy puzzles particularly involving searching (probably the springer in him).
Yes. The idea that the owner is pack Leader and needs to dominate their dog is the traditional form of training; many of us may dimly remember Barbara Woodhouse from our youth, and popularised more recently by Cesar Milan. Extending to punishing the dog when it steps out of line, with the shock collars and choke chains that are slowly being made illegal around the world.
In these more enlightened times, dog psychologists understand that dogs know humans are superior - pretty obvious as we start with almost total control over the key aspects of their lives - and don’t need to be ‘dominated’ to establish the owner as ‘alpha dog’, which is all nonsense. And indeed can be counter-productive, setting up the dog for one day reacting in precisely the violent way that we’re all trying to avoid.
Which isn’t to say that dogs don’t react to people through the prism of their instincts, just as humans often react to dogs as if they are merely little humans. That’s only natural. Yet sharing your life with a creature from another species is both a privilege and a hugely rewarding experience; the closest we will get to interacting with aliens (assuming that as usual Leon is wrong). Finding ways in which a dog can make his or her decisions, as far as possible, is a much better prism through which to see how to build a relationship of give-and-take with a dog. No creature likes to be told what to do all of the time.
Definitely hunt out some good training; there’s tons of stuff you can do - agility is the obvious one but also scent work, man-trailing. My dog has his first man-trailing class next month.
Have you ever thought of having a human friend? Rather than a dog?
On topic, the Scottish poll may just be a bump in the numbers but even if not, a few percent one way or the other in a sub-region of the UK accounting for 8% of the seats doesn't make all that much difference, particularly when the last six GB-wide polls have given Labour leads in the range of 17-22%. Each one of those polls has a higher lead than *any* poll conducted between the Iraq War and the Covid crisis.
I agree that to realise anything like those numbers at an actual election would mean an unprecedented number of gains - well in excess of 1997. However, I do think some people, and particularly the likes of Lib Dem activists, place excessive emphasis on groundwork and insufficient on the national campaign, or just the organic movement of opinion independent of campaign efforts. That might explain why the LDs are so good at by-elections and so crap at ones that matter.
Public opinion is perhaps more transactional than ever; fewer people identify with political parties - and those that do tend to be on the left anyway, certainly below the age of 65. That's a huge opportunity for Labour, all the more so because Sunak isn't a great campaigner. True, neither is Starmer but that doesn't matter because it's the relative contest that matters.
In football terms, Labour is 4-0 up and can quite happily play out time without taking too many risks. They do need to keep pressing when the opportunities come (and they will) because more goals is better and to maintain pressure and momentum but as long as they do, they're more likely to score another than concede. Only if they make a huge strategic mistake like May did in 2017, swapping all their players' boots for clown shoes, might they concede four late goals (though even then she won on penalties).
The football analogy only goes so far. Obviously, there are only two teams in a match, whereas there are many parties in an election, even if only two could credibly win on a national scale. That does write out the SNP factor and I could believe they have recovered a bit after not being quite so obviously corrupt and ridiculous as they were at the end of the Sturgeon leadership. But - eyes on the big picture.
What happens in Scotland between Labour and SNP is entirely irrelevant to the identity of the government in Westminster after the coming election. The SNP won't be invited into any formal arrangement, will not support a Confidence vote in a possible conservative government, and will not cause a possible Labour government to lose a confidence vote. If you're thinking about next PM, you can safely ignore Scotland's red/yellow mix. It'll be somewhat refreshing to have an election that possibly isn't going to be about either Brexit or Scotland. After a decade and half, we're due one.
Disagree. I think that the result in Scotland makes the difference between a minority and a majority Labour government. Starmer faces an uphill task to form a government, if the SNP retains 50 seats North of the border.
Everybody may face an uphill task to form a government if that happens, given how many Labour might win in England, and the Tories being unable to govern if they get anything less than 310-320.
The SNP won't be invited into any formal arrangement, will not support a Confidence vote in a possible conservative government, and will not cause a possible Labour government to lose a confidence vote.
What would the SNP's price for support be? I have no fucking idea but if they don't force an Indy Ref when they have a chance then what is the point of them?
I have consulted my girlfriend on the dog bites she has dealt with and:
- high risk of infection so don't close the wound - usually go to theatre for plastic surgery - lots of antibiotics - some bites are just punctures but others have a kind of shredding effect which is tricky to deal with
(This is a rough approximate. She spouts acronyms at a rate that puts Dura Ace to shame).
I’ve been hearing claims that dog bites of considerable severity - needing plastic surgery - are common.
assuming you're always travelling at the maximum speed (not a valid assumption, but it gives the absolute worst case scenario): 4 miles @ 30mph = 8 minutes 4 miles @ 20mph = 12 minutes
Journey of ~40km. Google maps says 47 minutes. New travel time: 47 + 4 = 51 minutes.
It is not the worst case at all. Driving at 20 might mean you hit a red traffic light and wait 2 minutes at the lights during which a combine harvester merges in ahead of you...58 minutes.
Equally the faster car could have hit the light while the 20mph car pootled along till the green, or the faster car caught the combine harvester that the slower car didn't.
When a car speeds off faster than you on a country road, sometimes you never see them again but reasonably often circumstance pulls them back. (Probably doesn't apply to Dura_Ace though)
I think your scenarios are neutral and 4 minutes is what we should use as working assumption.
The poster used the words absolute worst case, not a fair working assumption, and this is pedantsbeting.com.
I remember one of the IT Change Management teams insisting to a colleague that an absolute worst case scenario should be included on the change for a hardware swap, a realistic worst case having been covered.
To which he wrote up a scenario where the visiting engineer's brake failed and his car ploughed through the Data Centre destroying all before it. (of course, full on destruction of the data centre is something always to be considered, just probably not for that piece of work).
Did he include the election of Trump, not just once but twice......
The whole thing is pointless if it doesn't run into Euston.
Actually, it shouldn't run into Euston; it should run into a new terminal between KX-StP, so as to link with Eurostar services without an annoyingly long transfer. But that's another story.
Mr. Sandpit, hmm. Be interesting to see if it does make a change during the race. Not holding my breath.
They’ve missed a trick in not making the new straight a DRS zone, but the shorter straights before and after are DRS zones, and the new layout should make it easier to follow another car around the last sector of the lap.
I am looking forward to the forthcoming Welsh Grand Prix in which all the cars race round the track at 20mph! 😀
Interesting reminder that Trump is corrupt, self-obsessed and ruthless, but not especially and consistently conservative in the classic far-right guns'n'pro-life sense:
The evangelicals backed Trump (IIRC the statistic was 81% of them) to return America back to the dark days of bigotry and discrimination that they desire. However, it seems that the evangelical leaders have turned against him because he appeals to their flock more than they do
We are absurdly sentimental about animals in this country.
The breed isn't like that anyway but dogs don't "love children and people in general"; they are pack animals and to the extent they appear to be it's because they see themselves as part of that pack with a clear role in its pecking order, and are loyal to who leads it and feeds them. Sometimes this extends to jealously, and then more basic instincts can kick in, which is why they can attack kids. They won't generally attack the owner unless they are absurdly indisciplined and want to make a play for pack leader.
Either way, basic dog psychology needs to be considered here. It's an animal - not a person with four legs.
Yes, but that’s dog psychology from the dark ages. As with your politics you seem to be way behind the times. Are you a relic from a bygone age?
No, it's fact. That's what how dogs are. Dog psychologists describe them as such.
Just because you're personally in love with your dog and blind to it doesn't change the fact.
No, really it isn’t. All that pack and owner-as-pack-Leader Cesar Milan stuff is widely discredited. Dogs know the difference between humans and other dogs, trust me.
Interesting. I was unaware, but a quick bit of googling says you are correct. A dog is a domestic animal. A wolf isn't. Just because a the dog has derived from wolves, doesn't make it a wolf. Domestication has changed that. I'll bear that in mind in future when such referenced are made to training our dog. We are considering more advanced training as he is a spectacularly active dog and seems to enjoy puzzles particularly involving searching (probably the springer in him).
Yes. The idea that the owner is pack Leader and needs to dominate their dog is the traditional form of training; many of us may dimly remember Barbara Woodhouse from our youth, and popularised more recently by Cesar Milan. Extending to punishing the dog when it steps out of line, with the shock collars and choke chains that are slowly being made illegal around the world.
In these more enlightened times, dog psychologists understand that dogs know humans are superior - pretty obvious as we start with almost total control over the key aspects of their lives - and don’t need to be ‘dominated’ to establish the owner as ‘alpha dog’, which is all nonsense. And indeed can be counter-productive, setting up the dog for one day reacting in precisely the violent way that we’re all trying to avoid.
Which isn’t to say that dogs don’t react to people through the prism of their instincts, just as humans often react to dogs as if they are merely little humans. That’s only natural. Yet sharing your life with a creature from another species is both a privilege and a hugely rewarding experience; the closest we will get to interacting with aliens (assuming that as usual Leon is wrong). Finding ways in which a dog can make his or her decisions, as far as possible, is a much better prism through which to see how to build a relationship of give-and-take with a dog. No creature likes to be told what to do all of the time.
Definitely hunt out some good training; there’s tons of stuff you can do - agility is the obvious one but also scent work, man-trailing. My dog has his first man-trailing class next month.
Have you ever thought of having a human friend? Rather than a dog?
You might like it. Needs a bit of work tho
I don't recall if this pet hatred was a longstanding Leon trope or a new one, but it has some strange elements to it, and with a smidge of uncharacteristic anger too - So you think people shouldn't have pets, that's fine, but why do you think people are unable to have pets and have human friends?
The SNP won't be invited into any formal arrangement, will not support a Confidence vote in a possible conservative government, and will not cause a possible Labour government to lose a confidence vote.
What would the SNP's price for support be? I have no fucking idea but if they don't force an Indy Ref when they have a chance then what is the point of them?
Unless they can plausibly do a deal with the Tories, how much clout do they actually have?
I have heard stories about Brand that are quite eyebrow raising. I suspect I know what is coming
Walliams ditto. An industry secret. But I’ll say no more coz OGH/lawyers
I quite like Brand. He’s clearly eccentric and he’s got major issues but I don’t think he’s evil and he manages to engage people with political debates they would otherwise ignore. Probably a force for good, in his quirky, broken way
We are absurdly sentimental about animals in this country.
The breed isn't like that anyway but dogs don't "love children and people in general"; they are pack animals and to the extent they appear to be it's because they see themselves as part of that pack with a clear role in its pecking order, and are loyal to who leads it and feeds them. Sometimes this extends to jealously, and then more basic instincts can kick in, which is why they can attack kids. They won't generally attack the owner unless they are absurdly indisciplined and want to make a play for pack leader.
Either way, basic dog psychology needs to be considered here. It's an animal - not a person with four legs.
Yes, but that’s dog psychology from the dark ages. As with your politics you seem to be way behind the times. Are you a relic from a bygone age?
No, it's fact. That's what how dogs are. Dog psychologists describe them as such.
Just because you're personally in love with your dog and blind to it doesn't change the fact.
No, really it isn’t. All that pack and owner-as-pack-Leader Cesar Milan stuff is widely discredited. Dogs know the difference between humans and other dogs, trust me.
Interesting. I was unaware, but a quick bit of googling says you are correct. A dog is a domestic animal. A wolf isn't. Just because a the dog has derived from wolves, doesn't make it a wolf. Domestication has changed that. I'll bear that in mind in future when such referenced are made to training our dog. We are considering more advanced training as he is a spectacularly active dog and seems to enjoy puzzles particularly involving searching (probably the springer in him).
Yes. The idea that the owner is pack Leader and needs to dominate their dog is the traditional form of training; many of us may dimly remember Barbara Woodhouse from our youth, and popularised more recently by Cesar Milan. Extending to punishing the dog when it steps out of line, with the shock collars and choke chains that are slowly being made illegal around the world.
In these more enlightened times, dog psychologists understand that dogs know humans are superior - pretty obvious as we start with almost total control over the key aspects of their lives - and don’t need to be ‘dominated’ to establish the owner as ‘alpha dog’, which is all nonsense. And indeed can be counter-productive, setting up the dog for one day reacting in precisely the violent way that we’re all trying to avoid.
Which isn’t to say that dogs don’t react to people through the prism of their instincts, just as humans often react to dogs as if they are merely little humans. That’s only natural. Yet sharing your life with a creature from another species is both a privilege and a hugely rewarding experience; the closest we will get to interacting with aliens (assuming that as usual Leon is wrong). Finding ways in which a dog can make his or her decisions, as far as possible, is a much better prism through which to see how to build a relationship of give-and-take with a dog. No creature likes to be told what to do all of the time.
Definitely hunt out some good training; there’s tons of stuff you can do - agility is the obvious one but also scent work, man-trailing. My dog has his first man-trailing class next month.
Just discussed with my wife. It seems she was a lot more informed than me. She was also aware of the Mexican trainer (I had never heard of him). The lesson I guess is not to make assumptions and jump to conclusions. Our sproodle is very affectionate so a joy, but also the most lively dog anyone seems to have come across to an extreme. The vet says this can be treated, but we have avoided this as he just seems to enjoy life and all we would be doing is making life easier for us, which seems wrong. It is also a pleasure to watch, even if it does present issues. We are looking at ways in which he can enjoy his excitement more. Man trailing classes seems interesting. The trouble with training with other dogs is he gets so excited and just wants to play and destroys the class. He got expelled as a puppy even though he could do everything, because he would reduce the class to mayhem with nobody able to control their dog.
Hi. Long-term lurker here. Are there any spread markets yet on seat numbers in the next general election? If not, when might they appear?
The maths of it seems interesting, because the probability curve obviously isn't normal, or even symmetrical. E.g. if you think a party is most likely to win x seats, where x is a small number, then the probability of ≤ x-50 will be smaller (in your view) than the probability of ≥ x +50, so (mumble mumble, assumptions) you might invest at x+10. Then if everyone thinks like that...
Mr. Sandpit, hmm. Be interesting to see if it does make a change during the race. Not holding my breath.
They’ve missed a trick in not making the new straight a DRS zone, but the shorter straights before and after are DRS zones, and the new layout should make it easier to follow another car around the last sector of the lap.
I am looking forward to the forthcoming Welsh Grand Prix in which all the cars race round the track at 20mph! 😀
Wasn't there a rally in Wales some years ago where loads of drivers got speeding fines?
Comments
When a car speeds off faster than you on a country road, sometimes you never see them again but reasonably often circumstance pulls them back. (Probably doesn't apply to Dura_Ace though)
I think your scenarios are neutral and 4 minutes is what we should use as working assumption.
It takes some cojones to stick your head above the parapet and you can be sure to receive a lot of flak when you get it wrong, including from me! It's all part of the fun.
Do you actually bet on your predictions? I do, but only very modest amounts these days.
Good luck and enjoy the Rugby.
The Ukrainians have a long and venerable history as a people. And the ones doing the plunder and raping of them aren't in the West.
If he’d bet on Durham to be promoted, Surrey to win the championship and Leicestershire to win the one day cup (possibly) he’d have made a killing.
And their success was inevitable the moment I said they’d have bad seasons.
Governments of any stripe get tempted to do this because it's easy to strike out capital spending for things that haven't been done yet from the national account. California are doing something similar with their construction of a high-speed line from nowhere to nowhere because to build it into LA and San Francisco is too expensive, thus wrecking its whole business case.
It's just the sort of thing Gordon Brown's Treasury would have been tempted to do too and you can be sure I'll call out poor policy and governance decisions under any administration.
Rishi, on the other hand, would be much happier as a US Republican. Not Trumpite as such, small taxes and a state that mainly existed to boss the little people around if they were insufficiently socially conservative.
Just because you're personally in love with your dog and blind to it doesn't change the fact.
It's that time again when you need to take a step back from here and go and do something nice, including for yourself? You seem to have become blinded by anger, including a blindness to seeing other people's points of view, or that those with whom you disagree might nevertheless sometimes actually make good points.
Time to go and chill out CR.
xx
Don't send possible headers to Mike, send them to @TSE
Seriously, take a break. You'll be better for it. For yourself and for the rest of us. xx
Instead the upgrade of the WCML - which actually proved more expensive, and less effective - was put forward instead.
Although, to be fair, we really need both.
One other thought occurs to me and that is, having driven alongside the WCML north of Blackpool recently those overhead gantries look in a shocking state. Is there any plan to replace them that you know of? If not, factor them falling over into any five year projections.
What you say *may* be true, but that assumes that Ukraine follows the Russian path. There are at least two other examples of countries that perhaps started from a worse position than Ukraine currently faces, and have become significant players: Taiwan and South Korea.
As I've said before, Russia *had* the industry, technology, people, resources and education system to turn their 1990s slump into a golden time. That would have required a lot of hard decisions. Instead, the leaders chose to steal and squander that opportunity.
Ukraine could do the same. Or it could try a different path, one that makes it a far richer country than the fascist country immediately to its east. Ukraine has some resources, a good industrial base, and some high technology.
Yes, other governments and parties will make the same type of mistake, but not nearly every single time.....
Just thinking re UK, in that case why are there different marmalades in the shop labelled eg seville marmalade and lime marmalade?
F1: brief ramble here: https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2023/09/singapore-pre-qualifying-2023.html
They've altered the track layout to try and make overtaking easier/possible. Also, plenty of teams with upgrades.
Just on the HS2 project. First they said it’s not going to Heathrow, then they said it’s not going to link to HS1, and now they’re trying to get everyone off the train several miles from their destination.
As with the California HS rail example, it faces becoming a massive white elephant, because the Treasury doesn’t want to do the job properly.
Someone needs to grab the No.11 mandarins by the neck, and tell them to get on with things like infrastructure projects. Meanwhile, shall we run a sweepstake on which of HS2, Heathrow’s new runway, or the Stonehenge tunnel, opens first? All three of these projects are now at least two decades old.
All the common jams are made with fruit that grows in the UK, except for oranges which come from the southern continent. Presumably why we ended up calling orange jam by the continental name for jam.
2022 v 2023.
https://apnews.com/article/abortion-federal-ban-trump-gop-2024-20586bbb64a511030ef58290e98f99f0?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Too+Old+For+This&utm_campaign=Too+Old+For+This
Of course.
In these more enlightened times, dog psychologists understand that dogs know humans are superior - pretty obvious as we start with almost total control over the key aspects of their lives - and don’t need to be ‘dominated’ to establish the owner as ‘alpha dog’, which is all nonsense. And indeed can be counter-productive, setting up the dog for one day reacting in precisely the violent way that we’re all trying to avoid.
Which isn’t to say that dogs don’t react to people through the prism of their instincts, just as humans often react to dogs as if they are merely little humans. That’s only natural. Yet sharing your life with a creature from another species is both a privilege and a hugely rewarding experience; the closest we will get to interacting with aliens (assuming that as usual Leon is wrong). Finding ways in which a dog can make his or her decisions, as far as possible, is a much better prism through which to see how to build a relationship of give-and-take with a dog. No creature likes to be told what to do all of the time.
Definitely hunt out some good training; there’s tons of stuff you can do - agility is the obvious one but also scent work, man-trailing. My dog has his first man-trailing class next month.
I have consulted my girlfriend on the dog bites she has dealt with and:
- high risk of infection so don't close the wound
- usually go to theatre for plastic surgery
- lots of antibiotics
- some bites are just punctures but others have a kind of shredding effect which is tricky to deal with
(This is a rough approximate. She spouts acronyms at a rate that puts Dura Ace to shame).
However @Gardenwalker i think it’s a mistake to classify him as a has-been. He’s one of the figureheads of a certain type of populism that is weirdly both hard left and hard right, and very dangerous for it.
Part of the danger, as ever, is that there is really quite a bit of truth (and a huge amount of charisma) in his diagnosis of the problems we face.
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/putin-attack-dog-kadyrov-reportedly-172212726.html
Map of pro-Bullyism shows some correlation with support for a certain Scottish football team. But that is probably correlated with other factors rather than causation! Other possible correlations are wildly out. London and Leicester are meh in complete contrast to other conurbations.
Also some negative correlation with the anti-Bully map on Merseyside - unsurprising if it is local reaction to an attack.
Spends his time on YouTube now, raging against 'the man'.
Which, in terms of capital spending, and given that a lot of the benefit is going to come from reaching central London, is pretty pathetic.
Mr Sunak really is setting himself up well for when he next takes Budgie the Helicopter north of Watford Gap.
Twice as long, ten times the price, half the delivery - that's the British way.
I understand they want to try and give approximately a week between matches but the group stage is going to drag and doesn’t help build momentum or really attract new followers who might have to wait two weeks between seeing their team play a big risky match.
My own personal bugbear though is matches at 8pm. For me watching rugby matches is an afternoon joy and a bit annoyed that both Englands first two games are late starts.
Put them on at 2pm, 4pm, and 6pm local time.
I agree that to realise anything like those numbers at an actual election would mean an unprecedented number of gains - well in excess of 1997. However, I do think some people, and particularly the likes of Lib Dem activists, place excessive emphasis on groundwork and insufficient on the national campaign, or just the organic movement of opinion independent of campaign efforts. That might explain why the LDs are so good at by-elections and so crap at ones that matter.
Public opinion is perhaps more transactional than ever; fewer people identify with political parties - and those that do tend to be on the left anyway, certainly below the age of 65. That's a huge opportunity for Labour, all the more so because Sunak isn't a great campaigner. True, neither is Starmer but that doesn't matter because it's the relative contest that matters.
In football terms, Labour is 4-0 up and can quite happily play out time without taking too many risks. They do need to keep pressing when the opportunities come (and they will) because more goals is better and to maintain pressure and momentum but as long as they do, they're more likely to score another than concede. Only if they make a huge strategic mistake like May did in 2017, swapping all their players' boots for clown shoes, might they concede four late goals (though even then she won on penalties).
The football analogy only goes so far. Obviously, there are only two teams in a match, whereas there are many parties in an election, even if only two could credibly win on a national scale. That does write out the SNP factor and I could believe they have recovered a bit after not being quite so obviously corrupt and ridiculous as they were at the end of the Sturgeon leadership. But - eyes on the big picture.
Yes, we now do Sat and Sun as the weekend over here, which was a welcome change when it happened at the start of 2022.
The same trick BoZo pulled.
F1’s Las Vegas race in November, is going to be on at 10pm Saturday local time, 6am Sunday UK time, 10am for me. It’s the same slot as they use for a boxing match, and guarantees the largest US TV audience.
Because if so you're right about his life expectancy...
To which he wrote up a scenario where the visiting engineer's brake failed and his car
ploughed through the Data Centre destroying
all before it. (of course, full on destruction of the data centre is something always to be considered, just probably not for that piece of work).
In the analogue days, that was slow and labour intensive. With computers and the sort of data sets that can be bought on people, a handful of boffins can generate the same effect nationwide pretty cheaply.
And whilst the 2010s saw the first movers have a big advantage, I imagine everyone will be doing it now.
You might like it. Needs a bit of work tho
Does as anyone have numbers on this?
Trump seems to corrupt everything he touches...
Putin is President for life, remember.
Walliams ditto. An industry secret. But I’ll say no more coz OGH/lawyers
I quite like Brand. He’s clearly eccentric and he’s got major issues but I don’t think he’s evil and he manages to engage people with political debates they would otherwise ignore. Probably a force for good, in his quirky, broken way
I’d be sad if they destroy him
The maths of it seems interesting, because the probability curve obviously isn't normal, or even symmetrical. E.g. if you think a party is most likely to win x seats, where x is a small number, then the probability of ≤ x-50 will be smaller (in your view) than the probability of ≥ x +50, so (mumble mumble, assumptions) you might invest at x+10. Then if everyone thinks like that...