"Reduce benefits, raise retirement age, start fracking, abolish the windfall tax, diverge properly from the EU, delay net zero commitments, abandon replacing gas and oil boilers. This will not be easy but it will be worth doing."
How on earth she thought this would receive any form of acceptance by the public shows her real delusion
What part of that do you actually feel is bad?
There's a strong anti-Green streak running through most of that - there's no doubt the climate is changing and while there old argument "China's not doing about it so why should we?" gets trotted out, it's not an excuse. The above measures would need to be counterbalanced by a significant R&D investment into further reducing usage of fossil fueld and mitigating the damage the global environment has suffered.
The Critic also trots out the tired old line about a very small number of people paying a lot of the tax. Put it another way - 99% of the population pay 72% of the tax - and it sounds and feels different.
Truss lost me at "Reduce Benefits" - if I'd heard "cut defence spending and raise taxes for the wealthy" I might have swallowed the rest of the guff but her fundamental flaw was it failed the modern test of "fairness". The idea most of us should get a little richer if a very small number get a lot richer is as passe as Corbyn's socialism - we need to move on from seeing economic growth purely in terms of wealthy people getting wealthier and look at different ways of promoting growth.
Human-caused CO2 emissions are about 4% of total CO2 emissions. Of that 4%, what is it, 1% are ours? Committing economic suicide to reduce that meaningfully via reduced consumption is ludicrous. We need creative responses to climate change, not punitive anti-human policies aimed at punishing people for their nasty carbon consuming ways. The people pushing these policies are sociopaths.
It is interesting that the 4% number is gaining currency around and about (social media, where I have seen it several times, and I don't visit sites particularly one way or another wrt climate change). I wonder if it will take off more broadly and if so what political implications it might have.
It's a very old chestnut, one of those shrivelled vinegar-soaked conkers that's been through dozens of fights. There are pretty clear rebuttals on this topic from the "Skeptical Science" site from the early noughties. That's the thing with sceptic talking points - they are like whack-a-mole, no matter how often they are knocked on the head by data (other examples being undersea volcanoes, the AMOC, sunspot cycles, urban heat islands, you name it) they always come back, usually unchanged.
The good news is I spent a lot more time back in the noughties worriedly engaging on social media over these talking points than I need to now. They've gone from a period when especially in America the climate sceptic belief system was pretty powerful, led by the likes of Wattsupwiththat, to one where it's pretty fringe.
Long winded way to say it's true.
Is it?
Or are you only seeing what you want to see?
I assume that Nasa have crunched their numbers accurately - if you have counter information by all means share.
Co2 currently about 420 ppm compared to pre-industrial 280. That increase is caused by humans. Or do you really believe only 4% of that increase is caused by humans? If so please offer some evidence.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Very good. But, tiresomely, I'd have to point out that you don't have to dislike Europe to think membership of the EU is sub-optimal for the UK. cf our Scot Nat friends, who simply dislike the fact that Scotland is part of the UK, and have nothing at all against England ;-)
"Reduce benefits, raise retirement age, start fracking, abolish the windfall tax, diverge properly from the EU, delay net zero commitments, abandon replacing gas and oil boilers. This will not be easy but it will be worth doing."
How on earth she thought this would receive any form of acceptance by the public shows her real delusion
What part of that do you actually feel is bad?
There's a strong anti-Green streak running through most of that - there's no doubt the climate is changing and while there old argument "China's not doing about it so why should we?" gets trotted out, it's not an excuse. The above measures would need to be counterbalanced by a significant R&D investment into further reducing usage of fossil fueld and mitigating the damage the global environment has suffered.
The Critic also trots out the tired old line about a very small number of people paying a lot of the tax. Put it another way - 99% of the population pay 72% of the tax - and it sounds and feels different.
Truss lost me at "Reduce Benefits" - if I'd heard "cut defence spending and raise taxes for the wealthy" I might have swallowed the rest of the guff but her fundamental flaw was it failed the modern test of "fairness". The idea most of us should get a little richer if a very small number get a lot richer is as passe as Corbyn's socialism - we need to move on from seeing economic growth purely in terms of wealthy people getting wealthier and look at different ways of promoting growth.
Human-caused CO2 emissions are about 4% of total CO2 emissions. Of that 4%, what is it, 1% are ours? Committing economic suicide to reduce that meaningfully via reduced consumption is ludicrous. We need creative responses to climate change, not punitive anti-human policies aimed at punishing people for their nasty carbon consuming ways. The people pushing these policies are sociopaths.
It is interesting that the 4% number is gaining currency around and about (social media, where I have seen it several times, and I don't visit sites particularly one way or another wrt climate change). I wonder if it will take off more broadly and if so what political implications it might have.
It's a very old chestnut, one of those shrivelled vinegar-soaked conkers that's been through dozens of fights. There are pretty clear rebuttals on this topic from the "Skeptical Science" site from the early noughties. That's the thing with sceptic talking points - they are like whack-a-mole, no matter how often they are knocked on the head by data (other examples being undersea volcanoes, the AMOC, sunspot cycles, urban heat islands, you name it) they always come back, usually unchanged.
The good news is I spent a lot more time back in the noughties worriedly engaging on social media over these talking points than I need to now. They've gone from a period when especially in America the climate sceptic belief system was pretty powerful, led by the likes of Wattsupwiththat, to one where it's pretty fringe.
Long winded way to say it's true.
Is it?
Or are you only seeing what you want to see?
I assume that Nasa have crunched their numbers accurately - if you have counter information by all means share.
Here is what NASA say
"Human activities have raised the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide content by 50% in less than 200 years."
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
The government has loads of money. Shedloads. Highest tax take since Jeremy Corbyn was a twinkle in his father's eye. The trouble is, it has some pretty big bills to pay.
Rule number two: ensure you have a political mandate for widespread changes.
Rules number three: try not to be incompetent.
Truss was given a chance to stamp her brand of politics on the nation. But she failed at all three, disastrously. So she deserves to be paid a similar amount of attention as the leader of a local council that has run out of money.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Very good. But, tiresomely, I'd have to point out that you don't have to dislike Europe to think membership of the EU is sub-optimal for the UK. cf our Scot Nat friends, who simply dislike the fact that Scotland is part of the UK, and have nothing at all against England ;-)
You scuppered your argument with your own evidence there I see.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
But a bad rhyme is sometimes funnier than a good one! Particularly if you were to pronounce it 'Bayoo'.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
The conversation is descending into surrealism:
Me: I hate to point this out but Dublin doesn't rhyme with 'you' at all.
ChatGPT: I apologize for the mistake. You are absolutely correct; Dublin does not rhyme with "you." I misunderstood your question. A European city name that rhymes with "you" is "Marseille," a city in France. Thank you for pointing that out.
Given ChatGTP can run off a rhyming sonnet in seconds, I find this failure bizarre.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
"Reduce benefits, raise retirement age, start fracking, abolish the windfall tax, diverge properly from the EU, delay net zero commitments, abandon replacing gas and oil boilers. This will not be easy but it will be worth doing."
How on earth she thought this would receive any form of acceptance by the public shows her real delusion
What part of that do you actually feel is bad?
There's a strong anti-Green streak running through most of that - there's no doubt the climate is changing and while there old argument "China's not doing about it so why should we?" gets trotted out, it's not an excuse. The above measures would need to be counterbalanced by a significant R&D investment into further reducing usage of fossil fueld and mitigating the damage the global environment has suffered.
The Critic also trots out the tired old line about a very small number of people paying a lot of the tax. Put it another way - 99% of the population pay 72% of the tax - and it sounds and feels different.
Truss lost me at "Reduce Benefits" - if I'd heard "cut defence spending and raise taxes for the wealthy" I might have swallowed the rest of the guff but her fundamental flaw was it failed the modern test of "fairness". The idea most of us should get a little richer if a very small number get a lot richer is as passe as Corbyn's socialism - we need to move on from seeing economic growth purely in terms of wealthy people getting wealthier and look at different ways of promoting growth.
Human-caused CO2 emissions are about 4% of total CO2 emissions. Of that 4%, what is it, 1% are ours? Committing economic suicide to reduce that meaningfully via reduced consumption is ludicrous. We need creative responses to climate change, not punitive anti-human policies aimed at punishing people for their nasty carbon consuming ways. The people pushing these policies are sociopaths.
It is interesting that the 4% number is gaining currency around and about (social media, where I have seen it several times, and I don't visit sites particularly one way or another wrt climate change). I wonder if it will take off more broadly and if so what political implications it might have.
It's a very old chestnut, one of those shrivelled vinegar-soaked conkers that's been through dozens of fights. There are pretty clear rebuttals on this topic from the "Skeptical Science" site from the early noughties. That's the thing with sceptic talking points - they are like whack-a-mole, no matter how often they are knocked on the head by data (other examples being undersea volcanoes, the AMOC, sunspot cycles, urban heat islands, you name it) they always come back, usually unchanged.
The good news is I spent a lot more time back in the noughties worriedly engaging on social media over these talking points than I need to now. They've gone from a period when especially in America the climate sceptic belief system was pretty powerful, led by the likes of Wattsupwiththat, to one where it's pretty fringe.
Long winded way to say it's true.
Is it?
Or are you only seeing what you want to see?
I assume that Nasa have crunched their numbers accurately - if you have counter information by all means share.
Here is what NASA say
"Human activities have raised the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide content by 50% in less than 200 years."
No that can't be right. We only contribute 4% of carbon emissions. And let's say baseline carbon emissions per year are only 10% of the total in the atmosphere, which are in balance with carbon sinks.
100 x 1.004^100 = 149. So around a 50% increase.
So it's clearly completely impossible that such a small annual contribution could have had such a large impact over 200 years.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
The conversation is descending into surrealism:
Me: I hate to point this out but Dublin doesn't rhyme with 'you' at all.
ChatGPT: I apologize for the mistake. You are absolutely correct; Dublin does not rhyme with "you." I misunderstood your question. A European city name that rhymes with "you" is "Marseille," a city in France. Thank you for pointing that out.
Given ChatGTP can run off a rhyming sonnet in seconds, I find this failure bizarre.
ChatGPT (and the other LLMs) will lie like Donald Trump - confidently, without any shyness, about the maddest things.
Buckingham Palace was alerted to concerns about Boris Johnson’s behaviour at the height of the Covid crisis, according to a new documentary.
Senior officials are said to have expressed fears about the former prime minister’s conduct in the hope that Queen Elizabeth II would take up the matter with him.
The claims are featured in the second episode of Laura Kuenssberg: State Of Chaos, which explores the turmoil in Westminster between 2016 and 2022.
Mr Johnson’s team maintains that the Government’s actions were entirely legal and constitutional, and neither the monarch nor any member of the Royal family raised any such issues with him.
As Britain battled the first Covid wave in May 2020, tensions between the Number 10 political team and the Civil Service were spilling over.
Helen MacNamara, a former deputy cabinet secretary, told the BBC there was “extreme” talk in the Johnson camp about the failings of Whitehall after he was treated in hospital for the virus
They were taking a “kind of smash everything up, shut it all down, start again” attitude, she said, adding: “We were systematically in real trouble.”
Sources told the documentary that senior officials voiced concerns about Mr Johnson’s conduct to the palace in the hope the late Queen would speak to him about the concerns. They even discussed suggesting this course of action to the monarch, the BBC said.
Government figures are said to have held a number of phone calls and communications with the palace that went beyond routine contact. One source claimed Mr Johnson “had to be reminded of the constitution”, but this was denied by his team.
That would be the constitution that puts an elected PM in charge and has the Sovereign as an ornamental part? That constitution? What a bunch of pretentious pricks.
That said, the "extreme" talk sounds very like Dominic Cummings.
Buckingham Palace was alerted to concerns about Boris Johnson’s behaviour at the height of the Covid crisis, according to a new documentary.
Senior officials are said to have expressed fears about the former prime minister’s conduct in the hope that Queen Elizabeth II would take up the matter with him.
The claims are featured in the second episode of Laura Kuenssberg: State Of Chaos, which explores the turmoil in Westminster between 2016 and 2022.
Mr Johnson’s team maintains that the Government’s actions were entirely legal and constitutional, and neither the monarch nor any member of the Royal family raised any such issues with him.
As Britain battled the first Covid wave in May 2020, tensions between the Number 10 political team and the Civil Service were spilling over.
Helen MacNamara, a former deputy cabinet secretary, told the BBC there was “extreme” talk in the Johnson camp about the failings of Whitehall after he was treated in hospital for the virus
They were taking a “kind of smash everything up, shut it all down, start again” attitude, she said, adding: “We were systematically in real trouble.”
Sources told the documentary that senior officials voiced concerns about Mr Johnson’s conduct to the palace in the hope the late Queen would speak to him about the concerns. They even discussed suggesting this course of action to the monarch, the BBC said.
Government figures are said to have held a number of phone calls and communications with the palace that went beyond routine contact. One source claimed Mr Johnson “had to be reminded of the constitution”, but this was denied by his team.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
Fitou's good!
There are surprisingly few continental names ending in a pure “oo” sound
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
Fitou's good!
There are surprisingly few continental names ending in a pure “oo” sound
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
Fitou's good!
There are surprisingly few continental names ending in a pure “oo” sound
Waterloo, but that doesn’t fit the metre
Het Loo. IN Apeldoorn. Any good?
Not bad! Shame it’s two separate words but definitely close
This is real niche PB Monday evening talk. European place-names ending in OO
"Reduce benefits, raise retirement age, start fracking, abolish the windfall tax, diverge properly from the EU, delay net zero commitments, abandon replacing gas and oil boilers. This will not be easy but it will be worth doing."
How on earth she thought this would receive any form of acceptance by the public shows her real delusion
What part of that do you actually feel is bad?
There's a strong anti-Green streak running through most of that - there's no doubt the climate is changing and while there old argument "China's not doing about it so why should we?" gets trotted out, it's not an excuse. The above measures would need to be counterbalanced by a significant R&D investment into further reducing usage of fossil fueld and mitigating the damage the global environment has suffered.
The Critic also trots out the tired old line about a very small number of people paying a lot of the tax. Put it another way - 99% of the population pay 72% of the tax - and it sounds and feels different.
Truss lost me at "Reduce Benefits" - if I'd heard "cut defence spending and raise taxes for the wealthy" I might have swallowed the rest of the guff but her fundamental flaw was it failed the modern test of "fairness". The idea most of us should get a little richer if a very small number get a lot richer is as passe as Corbyn's socialism - we need to move on from seeing economic growth purely in terms of wealthy people getting wealthier and look at different ways of promoting growth.
Human-caused CO2 emissions are about 4% of total CO2 emissions. Of that 4%, what is it, 1% are ours? Committing economic suicide to reduce that meaningfully via reduced consumption is ludicrous. We need creative responses to climate change, not punitive anti-human policies aimed at punishing people for their nasty carbon consuming ways. The people pushing these policies are sociopaths.
It is interesting that the 4% number is gaining currency around and about (social media, where I have seen it several times, and I don't visit sites particularly one way or another wrt climate change). I wonder if it will take off more broadly and if so what political implications it might have.
It's a very old chestnut, one of those shrivelled vinegar-soaked conkers that's been through dozens of fights. There are pretty clear rebuttals on this topic from the "Skeptical Science" site from the early noughties. That's the thing with sceptic talking points - they are like whack-a-mole, no matter how often they are knocked on the head by data (other examples being undersea volcanoes, the AMOC, sunspot cycles, urban heat islands, you name it) they always come back, usually unchanged.
The good news is I spent a lot more time back in the noughties worriedly engaging on social media over these talking points than I need to now. They've gone from a period when especially in America the climate sceptic belief system was pretty powerful, led by the likes of Wattsupwiththat, to one where it's pretty fringe.
Long winded way to say it's true.
True like every year’s deforestation is only x% of the Amazon, or “most schools won’t collapse”, yes.
I'm not aware of any injuries caused by the aerated concrete, ever, and my Dad (in the construction industry for 50 years) thinks the urgency of the situation is largely a case of structural engineering consultancies lining their own pockets, so the climate crisis in microcosm essentially.
Your approach of declaring that everything isn’t really a problem and we don’t need to spend any money on it would probably serve you well if you wanted to be an advisor to Rishi Sunak. The rest of the country, however, can see it hasn’t worked.
Except that there really haven't been any children injured by this concrete falling on them, so (whilst the concrete probably wasn't a great material to use), a case of reality stubbornly refusing to conform to the crisis narrative.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
Fitou's good!
There are surprisingly few continental names ending in a pure “oo” sound
Waterloo, but that doesn’t fit the metre
Het Loo. IN Apeldoorn. Any good?
Not bad! Shame it’s two separate words but definitely close
This is real niche PB Monday evening talk. European place-names ending in OO
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
Fitou's good!
There are surprisingly few continental names ending in a pure “oo” sound
Waterloo, but that doesn’t fit the metre
Het Loo. IN Apeldoorn. Any good?
Not bad! Shame it’s two separate words but definitely close
This is real niche PB Monday evening talk. European place-names ending in OO
It IS a place name - the palace or house or whatever of William of Orange. And who cares about two words or one? Dùn Èideann is two words in Lothian but one in Dunedin NZ.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
Fitou's good!
There are surprisingly few continental names ending in a pure “oo” sound
Waterloo, but that doesn’t fit the metre
Het Loo. IN Apeldoorn. Any good?
Not bad! Shame it’s two separate words but definitely close
This is real niche PB Monday evening talk. European place-names ending in OO
Only on PB.
Maybe time we had a whip around to support Mike's costs? Because there is nowhere else like this on the 'Net.
"Reduce benefits, raise retirement age, start fracking, abolish the windfall tax, diverge properly from the EU, delay net zero commitments, abandon replacing gas and oil boilers. This will not be easy but it will be worth doing."
How on earth she thought this would receive any form of acceptance by the public shows her real delusion
What part of that do you actually feel is bad?
There's a strong anti-Green streak running through most of that - there's no doubt the climate is changing and while there old argument "China's not doing about it so why should we?" gets trotted out, it's not an excuse. The above measures would need to be counterbalanced by a significant R&D investment into further reducing usage of fossil fueld and mitigating the damage the global environment has suffered.
The Critic also trots out the tired old line about a very small number of people paying a lot of the tax. Put it another way - 99% of the population pay 72% of the tax - and it sounds and feels different.
Truss lost me at "Reduce Benefits" - if I'd heard "cut defence spending and raise taxes for the wealthy" I might have swallowed the rest of the guff but her fundamental flaw was it failed the modern test of "fairness". The idea most of us should get a little richer if a very small number get a lot richer is as passe as Corbyn's socialism - we need to move on from seeing economic growth purely in terms of wealthy people getting wealthier and look at different ways of promoting growth.
Human-caused CO2 emissions are about 4% of total CO2 emissions. Of that 4%, what is it, 1% are ours? Committing economic suicide to reduce that meaningfully via reduced consumption is ludicrous. We need creative responses to climate change, not punitive anti-human policies aimed at punishing people for their nasty carbon consuming ways. The people pushing these policies are sociopaths.
It is interesting that the 4% number is gaining currency around and about (social media, where I have seen it several times, and I don't visit sites particularly one way or another wrt climate change). I wonder if it will take off more broadly and if so what political implications it might have.
It's a very old chestnut, one of those shrivelled vinegar-soaked conkers that's been through dozens of fights. There are pretty clear rebuttals on this topic from the "Skeptical Science" site from the early noughties. That's the thing with sceptic talking points - they are like whack-a-mole, no matter how often they are knocked on the head by data (other examples being undersea volcanoes, the AMOC, sunspot cycles, urban heat islands, you name it) they always come back, usually unchanged.
The good news is I spent a lot more time back in the noughties worriedly engaging on social media over these talking points than I need to now. They've gone from a period when especially in America the climate sceptic belief system was pretty powerful, led by the likes of Wattsupwiththat, to one where it's pretty fringe.
Long winded way to say it's true.
True like every year’s deforestation is only x% of the Amazon, or “most schools won’t collapse”, yes.
I'm not aware of any injuries caused by the aerated concrete, ever, and my Dad (in the construction industry for 50 years) thinks the urgency of the situation is largely a case of structural engineering consultancies lining their own pockets, so the climate crisis in microcosm essentially.
Your approach of declaring that everything isn’t really a problem and we don’t need to spend any money on it would probably serve you well if you wanted to be an advisor to Rishi Sunak. The rest of the country, however, can see it hasn’t worked.
Except that there really haven't been any children injured by this concrete falling on them, so (whilst the concrete probably wasn't a great material to use), a case of reality stubbornly refusing to conform to the crisis narrative.
A roof collapsed unexpectedly at a primary school in Kent in 2018. It did so on a Saturday evening and so no children were hurt. Should we do nothing and wait for a collapse to happen during school hours?
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
Fitou's good!
There are surprisingly few continental names ending in a pure “oo” sound
Waterloo, but that doesn’t fit the metre
Het Loo. IN Apeldoorn. Any good?
Not bad! Shame it’s two separate words but definitely close
This is real niche PB Monday evening talk. European place-names ending in OO
It IS a place name - the palace or house or whatever of William of Orange. And who cares about two words or one? Dùn Èideann is two words in Lothian but one in Dunedin NZ.
Given that @Farooq came up with the original limerick, I suggest he chooses the correct improvement
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
"Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?"
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
"Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?"
Turku - Finland.
Very good, A possible winner, i suggest. Also the fact it’s Finnish makes it more interestingly provocative
Reviewing the entrails of R&W this evening, the 2019 Conservative vote splits 55% Conservative, 15% Labour, 13% Don't Know, 7% Reform, 7% LD and 3% Green.
That DK figure sits pretty much with the main DK figures for male and female voters so the 2019 Conservative vote not seeming to have this big pool of Don't Knows (at least on this poll).
Including the DKs, England splits Labour 39.5%, Conservative 24.5%, Lib Dem 12.5%, Don't Know 12%, Green 5%, Reform 5%.
Removing the DKs and it's Labour 45%, Conservatives 28%, LD 14%, Green 6%, Reform 6%
That's a 15% swing from December 2019 from Conservative to Labour in England and a 10.5% swing from Conservative to Liberal Democrat (weighted sample).
The R&W poll on 2nd -3rd January had headline numbers of Labour 47%, Conservative 27% and LD 12% so the changes are Labour down three, Conservatives down one and the Liberal Democrats up two but in essence very little change despite the events of the year to date.
Perhaps the more significant trait is in the January poll Sunak led Starmer 38-36 on better Prime Minister but now Starmer leads 42-33 - itself a 5.5% swing.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
Timbuktu Will do To rhyme with Looe. Though, of course, not in the EU.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
Timbuktu Will do To rhyme with Looe. Though, of course, not in the EU.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
Timbuktu Will do To rhyme with Looe. Though, of course, not in the EU.
So too Xanadu: Also not in the EU, But in a haiku.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
"Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?"
Turku - Finland.
Very good, A possible winner, i suggest. Also the fact it’s Finnish makes it more interestingly provocative
Baku, Capital of Azerbaijan, Is also not in the EU. Darn.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
"Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?"
Turku - Finland.
Very good, A possible winner, i suggest. Also the fact it’s Finnish makes it more interestingly provocative
Baku, Capital of Azerbaijan, Is also not in the EU. Darn.
The bigger question is what European town rhymes with orange.
Buckingham Palace was alerted to concerns about Boris Johnson’s behaviour at the height of the Covid crisis, according to a new documentary.
Senior officials are said to have expressed fears about the former prime minister’s conduct in the hope that Queen Elizabeth II would take up the matter with him.
The claims are featured in the second episode of Laura Kuenssberg: State Of Chaos, which explores the turmoil in Westminster between 2016 and 2022.
Mr Johnson’s team maintains that the Government’s actions were entirely legal and constitutional, and neither the monarch nor any member of the Royal family raised any such issues with him.
As Britain battled the first Covid wave in May 2020, tensions between the Number 10 political team and the Civil Service were spilling over.
Helen MacNamara, a former deputy cabinet secretary, told the BBC there was “extreme” talk in the Johnson camp about the failings of Whitehall after he was treated in hospital for the virus
They were taking a “kind of smash everything up, shut it all down, start again” attitude, she said, adding: “We were systematically in real trouble.”
Do you mean Johnson and Cumstain actually grasped the essential core of a problem?
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
"Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?"
Turku - Finland.
Very good, A possible winner, i suggest. Also the fact it’s Finnish makes it more interestingly provocative
Baku, Capital of Azerbaijan, Is also not in the EU. Darn.
The bigger question is what European town rhymes with orange.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
"Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?"
Turku - Finland.
Very good, A possible winner, i suggest. Also the fact it’s Finnish makes it more interestingly provocative
Baku, Capital of Azerbaijan, Is also not in the EU. Darn.
The bigger question is what European town rhymes with orange.
Rrrrright, tomorrow i must start my slooooow travels home. A demain, mes amis
Be advised. 'Home' is wet and windy and distinctly autumnal.
Until next week, then a very strong signal for sustained high pressure and reasonably warm temperatures.
Should enable this month to beat 2006 for earnest September on record, and possibly beat June to warmest month of 2023.
We had 14 days in southern England and the weather was not much short of spectacular. Over 30 degrees some days. We then came back north and its rained ever since.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
"Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?"
Turku - Finland.
Very good, A possible winner, i suggest. Also the fact it’s Finnish makes it more interestingly provocative
Baku, Capital of Azerbaijan, Is also not in the EU. Darn.
The bigger question is what European town rhymes with orange.
Unfortunately Orange doesn’t.
Bohinj perhaps.
I think it is reckoned that nothing rhymes with Orange. In The Inimitable Jeeves (100 years old this year) Bingo Little laments that so little rhymes with Cynthia.
At a tangent from this, no word of any size in English can be constructed from the letters of Chihuahua.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
"Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?"
Turku - Finland.
Very good, A possible winner, i suggest. Also the fact it’s Finnish makes it more interestingly provocative
Baku, Capital of Azerbaijan, Is also not in the EU. Darn.
The bigger question is what European town rhymes with orange.
Unfortunately Orange doesn’t.
Bohinj perhaps.
I think it is reckoned that nothing rhymes with Orange. In The Inimitable Jeeves (100 years old this year) Bingo Little laments that so little rhymes with Cynthia.
At a tangent from this, no word of any size in English can be constructed from the letters of Chihuahua.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
Fitou's good!
There are surprisingly few continental names ending in a pure “oo” sound
Waterloo, but that doesn’t fit the metre
Het Loo. IN Apeldoorn. Any good?
Not bad! Shame it’s two separate words but definitely close
This is real niche PB Monday evening talk. European place-names ending in OO
There was an old man from West Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Turku
Well done, everyone. And people say the internet is just a place to waste time!
Espoo, quite a big Finnish town/city. Some comedic potential also.
Porvoo, also Finland, home of the Porvoo Statement/Agreement - a trivial ecumenical agreement forgotten by everyone between some Scandinavian churches and the CoE.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
"Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?"
Turku - Finland.
Very good, A possible winner, i suggest. Also the fact it’s Finnish makes it more interestingly provocative
Baku, Capital of Azerbaijan, Is also not in the EU. Darn.
The bigger question is what European town rhymes with orange.
Unfortunately Orange doesn’t.
Bohinj perhaps.
I think it is reckoned that nothing rhymes with Orange. In The Inimitable Jeeves (100 years old this year) Bingo Little laments that so little rhymes with Cynthia.
At a tangent from this, no word of any size in English can be constructed from the letters of Chihuahua.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
"Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?"
Turku - Finland.
Very good, A possible winner, i suggest. Also the fact it’s Finnish makes it more interestingly provocative
Baku, Capital of Azerbaijan, Is also not in the EU. Darn.
The bigger question is what European town rhymes with orange.
Unfortunately Orange doesn’t.
Bohinj perhaps.
I think it is reckoned that nothing rhymes with Orange. In The Inimitable Jeeves (100 years old this year) Bingo Little laments that so little rhymes with Cynthia.
At a tangent from this, no word of any size in English can be constructed from the letters of Chihuahua.
"The fall of Russell Brand is no victory for women Our attitudes towards sex have changed profoundly over the past two decades – and not always for the better.
Joanna Williams
You have to hand it to Channel 4. Two decades ago, the broadcaster helped fuel Russell Brand’s rise to fame. Now, it has removed all of the old programmes that feature him from its website. Back in the 2000s, Channel 4 gained viewers and revenue from Brand’s lewd antics. Today, it is winning plaudits for its Dispatches documentary, which features women accusing Brand of rape and sexual assault. No matter what else can be said about the quality of its output, Channel 4 clearly still excels at riding the cultural zeitgeist."
Of course, news outlets go with what is popular. One thing that could happen though is the zeitgeist goes rapidly the other way. On the basis of the poll we saw yesterday the US could well elect Donald Trump next year. None of the claims against him have made any difference to public opinion. Many of the posters on this website are so deep in their educated, progressive echo chamber they cannot contemplate the possibility of this, but of course it is possible.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
"Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?"
Turku - Finland.
Very good, A possible winner, i suggest. Also the fact it’s Finnish makes it more interestingly provocative
Baku, Capital of Azerbaijan, Is also not in the EU. Darn.
The bigger question is what European town rhymes with orange.
Unfortunately Orange doesn’t.
Bohinj perhaps.
I think it is reckoned that nothing rhymes with Orange. In The Inimitable Jeeves (100 years old this year) Bingo Little laments that so little rhymes with Cynthia.
At a tangent from this, no word of any size in English can be constructed from the letters of Chihuahua.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
"Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?"
Turku - Finland.
Very good, A possible winner, i suggest. Also the fact it’s Finnish makes it more interestingly provocative
Baku, Capital of Azerbaijan, Is also not in the EU. Darn.
The bigger question is what European town rhymes with orange.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
"Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?"
Turku - Finland.
Very good, A possible winner, i suggest. Also the fact it’s Finnish makes it more interestingly provocative
Baku, Capital of Azerbaijan, Is also not in the EU. Darn.
The bigger question is what European town rhymes with orange.
Unfortunately Orange doesn’t.
Bohinj perhaps.
I think it is reckoned that nothing rhymes with Orange. In The Inimitable Jeeves (100 years old this year) Bingo Little laments that so little rhymes with Cynthia.
At a tangent from this, no word of any size in English can be constructed from the letters of Chihuahua.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
"Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?"
Turku - Finland.
Very good, A possible winner, i suggest. Also the fact it’s Finnish makes it more interestingly provocative
Baku, Capital of Azerbaijan, Is also not in the EU. Darn.
The bigger question is what European town rhymes with orange.
Unfortunately Orange doesn’t.
Bohinj perhaps.
I think it is reckoned that nothing rhymes with Orange. In The Inimitable Jeeves (100 years old this year) Bingo Little laments that so little rhymes with Cynthia.
At a tangent from this, no word of any size in English can be constructed from the letters of Chihuahua.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
"Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?"
Turku - Finland.
Very good, A possible winner, i suggest. Also the fact it’s Finnish makes it more interestingly provocative
Baku, Capital of Azerbaijan, Is also not in the EU. Darn.
The bigger question is what European town rhymes with orange.
Unfortunately Orange doesn’t.
Bohinj perhaps.
I think it is reckoned that nothing rhymes with Orange. In The Inimitable Jeeves (100 years old this year) Bingo Little laments that so little rhymes with Cynthia.
At a tangent from this, no word of any size in English can be constructed from the letters of Chihuahua.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
It is quite good at ancient languages and tying etymologies together. I had quite an interesting 'discussion' with it the other week trying to link LLM 'tokens' with baseline Indo-European linguistics.
"Reduce benefits, raise retirement age, start fracking, abolish the windfall tax, diverge properly from the EU, delay net zero commitments, abandon replacing gas and oil boilers. This will not be easy but it will be worth doing."
How on earth she thought this would receive any form of acceptance by the public shows her real delusion
What part of that do you actually feel is bad?
There's a strong anti-Green streak running through most of that - there's no doubt the climate is changing and while there old argument "China's not doing about it so why should we?" gets trotted out, it's not an excuse. The above measures would need to be counterbalanced by a significant R&D investment into further reducing usage of fossil fueld and mitigating the damage the global environment has suffered.
The Critic also trots out the tired old line about a very small number of people paying a lot of the tax. Put it another way - 99% of the population pay 72% of the tax - and it sounds and feels different.
Truss lost me at "Reduce Benefits" - if I'd heard "cut defence spending and raise taxes for the wealthy" I might have swallowed the rest of the guff but her fundamental flaw was it failed the modern test of "fairness". The idea most of us should get a little richer if a very small number get a lot richer is as passe as Corbyn's socialism - we need to move on from seeing economic growth purely in terms of wealthy people getting wealthier and look at different ways of promoting growth.
Human-caused CO2 emissions are about 4% of total CO2 emissions. Of that 4%, what is it, 1% are ours? Committing economic suicide to reduce that meaningfully via reduced consumption is ludicrous. We need creative responses to climate change, not punitive anti-human policies aimed at punishing people for their nasty carbon consuming ways. The people pushing these policies are sociopaths.
It is interesting that the 4% number is gaining currency around and about (social media, where I have seen it several times, and I don't visit sites particularly one way or another wrt climate change). I wonder if it will take off more broadly and if so what political implications it might have.
It's a very old chestnut, one of those shrivelled vinegar-soaked conkers that's been through dozens of fights. There are pretty clear rebuttals on this topic from the "Skeptical Science" site from the early noughties. That's the thing with sceptic talking points - they are like whack-a-mole, no matter how often they are knocked on the head by data (other examples being undersea volcanoes, the AMOC, sunspot cycles, urban heat islands, you name it) they always come back, usually unchanged.
The good news is I spent a lot more time back in the noughties worriedly engaging on social media over these talking points than I need to now. They've gone from a period when especially in America the climate sceptic belief system was pretty powerful, led by the likes of Wattsupwiththat, to one where it's pretty fringe.
Long winded way to say it's true.
True like every year’s deforestation is only x% of the Amazon, or “most schools won’t collapse”, yes.
I'm not aware of any injuries caused by the aerated concrete, ever, and my Dad (in the construction industry for 50 years) thinks the urgency of the situation is largely a case of structural engineering consultancies lining their own pockets, so the climate crisis in microcosm essentially.
Your approach of declaring that everything isn’t really a problem and we don’t need to spend any money on it would probably serve you well if you wanted to be an advisor to Rishi Sunak. The rest of the country, however, can see it hasn’t worked.
Except that there really haven't been any children injured by this concrete falling on them, so (whilst the concrete probably wasn't a great material to use), a case of reality stubbornly refusing to conform to the crisis narrative.
A roof collapsed unexpectedly at a primary school in Kent in 2018. It did so on a Saturday evening and so no children were hurt. Should we do nothing and wait for a collapse to happen during school hours?
Would the collapse have injured children by dropping on their heads without warning? I have my doubts.
I was watching a Microsoft presentation a while back. Guy on the subtitles screen getting ever more nervous as the CEO demonstrated more and more real time translation, subtitling, lip-syncing. It's really become very good.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
"Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?"
Turku - Finland.
Very good, A possible winner, i suggest. Also the fact it’s Finnish makes it more interestingly provocative
Baku, Capital of Azerbaijan, Is also not in the EU. Darn.
The bigger question is what European town rhymes with orange.
Unfortunately Orange doesn’t.
Bohinj perhaps.
I think it is reckoned that nothing rhymes with Orange. In The Inimitable Jeeves (100 years old this year) Bingo Little laments that so little rhymes with Cynthia.
At a tangent from this, no word of any size in English can be constructed from the letters of Chihuahua.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
"Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?"
Turku - Finland.
Very good, A possible winner, i suggest. Also the fact it’s Finnish makes it more interestingly provocative
Baku, Capital of Azerbaijan, Is also not in the EU. Darn.
The bigger question is what European town rhymes with orange.
Unfortunately Orange doesn’t.
Bohinj perhaps.
Milngavie.
Close but not really. Milngavie is pronounced so as to rhyme with Blennerhasset.
"Reduce benefits, raise retirement age, start fracking, abolish the windfall tax, diverge properly from the EU, delay net zero commitments, abandon replacing gas and oil boilers. This will not be easy but it will be worth doing."
How on earth she thought this would receive any form of acceptance by the public shows her real delusion
What part of that do you actually feel is bad?
There's a strong anti-Green streak running through most of that - there's no doubt the climate is changing and while there old argument "China's not doing about it so why should we?" gets trotted out, it's not an excuse. The above measures would need to be counterbalanced by a significant R&D investment into further reducing usage of fossil fueld and mitigating the damage the global environment has suffered.
The Critic also trots out the tired old line about a very small number of people paying a lot of the tax. Put it another way - 99% of the population pay 72% of the tax - and it sounds and feels different.
Truss lost me at "Reduce Benefits" - if I'd heard "cut defence spending and raise taxes for the wealthy" I might have swallowed the rest of the guff but her fundamental flaw was it failed the modern test of "fairness". The idea most of us should get a little richer if a very small number get a lot richer is as passe as Corbyn's socialism - we need to move on from seeing economic growth purely in terms of wealthy people getting wealthier and look at different ways of promoting growth.
Human-caused CO2 emissions are about 4% of total CO2 emissions. Of that 4%, what is it, 1% are ours? Committing economic suicide to reduce that meaningfully via reduced consumption is ludicrous. We need creative responses to climate change, not punitive anti-human policies aimed at punishing people for their nasty carbon consuming ways. The people pushing these policies are sociopaths.
It is interesting that the 4% number is gaining currency around and about (social media, where I have seen it several times, and I don't visit sites particularly one way or another wrt climate change). I wonder if it will take off more broadly and if so what political implications it might have.
It's a very old chestnut, one of those shrivelled vinegar-soaked conkers that's been through dozens of fights. There are pretty clear rebuttals on this topic from the "Skeptical Science" site from the early noughties. That's the thing with sceptic talking points - they are like whack-a-mole, no matter how often they are knocked on the head by data (other examples being undersea volcanoes, the AMOC, sunspot cycles, urban heat islands, you name it) they always come back, usually unchanged.
The good news is I spent a lot more time back in the noughties worriedly engaging on social media over these talking points than I need to now. They've gone from a period when especially in America the climate sceptic belief system was pretty powerful, led by the likes of Wattsupwiththat, to one where it's pretty fringe.
Long winded way to say it's true.
True like every year’s deforestation is only x% of the Amazon, or “most schools won’t collapse”, yes.
I'm not aware of any injuries caused by the aerated concrete, ever, and my Dad (in the construction industry for 50 years) thinks the urgency of the situation is largely a case of structural engineering consultancies lining their own pockets, so the climate crisis in microcosm essentially.
Your approach of declaring that everything isn’t really a problem and we don’t need to spend any money on it would probably serve you well if you wanted to be an advisor to Rishi Sunak. The rest of the country, however, can see it hasn’t worked.
Except that there really haven't been any children injured by this concrete falling on them, so (whilst the concrete probably wasn't a great material to use), a case of reality stubbornly refusing to conform to the crisis narrative.
A roof collapsed unexpectedly at a primary school in Kent in 2018. It did so on a Saturday evening and so no children were hurt. Should we do nothing and wait for a collapse to happen during school hours?
Would the collapse have injured children by dropping on their heads without warning? I have my doubts.
Those children are the human equivalent of XL Bullies? I have my own doubts about your doubts.
If @Dougseal is right then surely no resignation honours as she returns in triumph to the top of the party.
For the record, it will surprise nobody to know that I agree with every word of her speech. I don't really see how any Tory could disagree. Clearly some of our PB Tories are still dealing with their internalised guilt for foisting the dismal decline manager on us.
As I predicted, sheer naivety from Labour and the Liberals not doing a deal - they deserve to lose.
Why should one give way to the other? The pollng shows that each party has a very good chance of pulling off a victory.
"Siri, show me an example of the prisoner's dilemma..."
Indeed. From the betting/prediction angle the question to ask in looking for probabilities is: Will (current intention) Reform voters be more likely to switch to the Tories than (current intention) LD voters to switch to Labour.
My answer: No. Reform voters will vote Reform or stay at home. Some LDs will switch after reading the bar graphs about 'Labour Winning Here'.
As I predicted, sheer naivety from Labour and the Liberals not doing a deal - they deserve to lose.
Why should one give way to the other? The pollng shows that each party has a very good chance of pulling off a victory.
"Siri, show me an example of the prisoner's dilemma..."
Nah, it doesn't matter a jot. BothLD and Labour should go for it. If the Cons scrape back in with their vote share halved it's not the end of the world.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
"Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?"
Food input costs must be falling, Nandos have brought back the 20% student discount after almost 5 years. It was hugely popular when I was a student and has been for all students since then so if this wasn't feasible for them from a cost perspective they wouldn't be doing it.
I do think we're at or near the peak of food costs.
Cobalt clouds over Cathar Country: rainstorms say Return, return
What, to the EU?
I heard their young hearts crying Loveward above the glancing oar And heard the prairie grasses sighing: No more, return no more!
O hearts, O sighing grasses, Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn! No more will the wild wind that passes Return, no more return.
There once was a man from Looe Who pretended to hate the EU All knew he was lying - That man's always flying To Berlin, Milan, and Bayeux
Not bad. But the first line is all wrong, not enough syllables, and doesn’t flow. Looe is divided into East and West, so you can use that; and you should also include an insult, therefore
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Your argument rings very true.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
That’s an interesting error
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
"Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?"
Comments
But, tiresomely, I'd have to point out that you don't have to dislike Europe to think membership of the EU is sub-optimal for the UK.
cf our Scot Nat friends, who simply dislike the fact that Scotland is part of the UK, and have nothing at all against England ;-)
"Human activities have raised the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide content by 50% in less than 200 years."
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/
Hope that helps.
There was an old man from West Looe
Is a much better opening line
Rule number two: ensure you have a political mandate for widespread changes.
Rules number three: try not to be incompetent.
Truss was given a chance to stamp her brand of politics on the nation. But she failed at all three, disastrously. So she deserves to be paid a similar amount of attention as the leader of a local council that has run out of money.
PS I was trying to think of a better city than Bayeux to rhyme with Looe/EU. Couldn't immediately think of one (Chateauroux has too many syllables) so I asked ChatGPT, which came up with this gem:
Me: Can you think of a European city name that rhymes with 'you'?
ChatGPT: Certainly! The city name that rhymes with "you" is "Dublin," which is the capital of Ireland.
So bad it's rather splendid.
Me: I hate to point this out but Dublin doesn't rhyme with 'you' at all.
ChatGPT: I apologize for the mistake. You are absolutely correct; Dublin does not rhyme with "you." I misunderstood your question. A European city name that rhymes with "you" is "Marseille," a city in France. Thank you for pointing that out.
Given ChatGTP can run off a rhyming sonnet in seconds, I find this failure bizarre.
Because Dublin comes from Dubh-linn = Irish for “black river” - and many Celtic languages pronounce Dubh (black) as Doo - cf Baldhu in Cornish, pronounced, “Bal-doo” = black mine
Maybe ChatGPT has some weird deep language memory of Celtic pronunciation?! I sometimes find its hallucinations more interesting than its coherent answers
Bayeux isn’t perfect, the rhyme isn’t exact, maybe Fitou?
100 x 1.004^100 = 149. So around a 50% increase.
So it's clearly completely impossible that such a small annual contribution could have had such a large impact over 200 years.
That said, the "extreme" talk sounds very like Dominic Cummings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqss6pCWuOM
New Statesman podcast.
I’m viewer number 135
Waterloo, but that doesn’t fit the metre
This is real niche PB Monday evening talk. European place-names ending in OO
Maybe time we had a whip around to support Mike's costs? Because there is nowhere else like this on the 'Net.
Turku - Finland.
Very good, A possible winner, i suggest. Also the fact it’s Finnish makes it more interestingly provocative
Reviewing the entrails of R&W this evening, the 2019 Conservative vote splits 55% Conservative, 15% Labour, 13% Don't Know, 7% Reform, 7% LD and 3% Green.
That DK figure sits pretty much with the main DK figures for male and female voters so the 2019 Conservative vote not seeming to have this big pool of Don't Knows (at least on this poll).
Including the DKs, England splits Labour 39.5%, Conservative 24.5%, Lib Dem 12.5%, Don't Know 12%, Green 5%, Reform 5%.
Removing the DKs and it's Labour 45%, Conservatives 28%, LD 14%, Green 6%, Reform 6%
That's a 15% swing from December 2019 from Conservative to Labour in England and a 10.5% swing from Conservative to Liberal Democrat (weighted sample).
The R&W poll on 2nd -3rd January had headline numbers of Labour 47%, Conservative 27% and LD 12% so the changes are Labour down three, Conservatives down one and the Liberal Democrats up two but in essence very little change despite the events of the year to date.
Perhaps the more significant trait is in the January poll Sunak led Starmer 38-36 on better Prime Minister but now Starmer leads 42-33 - itself a 5.5% swing.
There was an old man from West Looe
Who pretended to hate the EU
All knew he was lying -
That man's always flying
To Berlin, Milan, and Turku
Well done, everyone. And people say the internet is just a place to waste time!
Will do
To rhyme with Looe.
Though, of course, not in the EU.
Also not in the EU,
But in a haiku.
Some comedic potential also.
Capital of Azerbaijan,
Is also not in the EU.
Darn.
Unfortunately Orange doesn’t.
Bohinj perhaps.
Should enable this month to beat 2006 for earnest September on record, and possibly beat June to warmest month of 2023.
Good gracious.
Well, stopped clocks etc.
Trump says ‘cognitively impaired’ Biden risks leading us into ‘world war two’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/18/trump-biden-age-election-2024
https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1703750504013021643
At a tangent from this, no word of any size in English can be constructed from the letters of Chihuahua.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/sep/18/post-office-horizon-scandal-victims-compensation
Blorenge rhymes with orange, but that’s a hill.
Or indeed haha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62-aWHGKeMo
We need tax cuts, supply side reform, smaller government and a delay to Net Zero.👇
elizabethtruss.com/news/speech-in…
https://twitter.com/trussliz/status/1703783632672903341?t=x85veDGmn6abhTvPaOJ2tg&s=19
If @Dougseal is right then surely no resignation honours as she returns in triumph to the top of the party.
My answer: No. Reform voters will vote Reform or stay at home. Some LDs will switch after reading the bar graphs about 'Labour Winning Here'.
Labour are marginally value.
Finnish place names tend to end in vowels.
I do think we're at or near the peak of food costs.