The shitness of printers is an odd thing. I don’t know of any other major machine that everyone regards with such justified mistrust, on the grounds of constant failure
Imagine if microwaves or washing machines went wrong all the time. It would get fixed
Is there something in the technology of basic domestic printers that means they can’t be made reliable? Are the manufacturers knowingly selling dud products?
Otherwise there is surely room for a new printer manufacturer to step in and say “here, try this, it almost never goes wrong”. Boom
There's something fundamentally wrong with the whole printer business anyway.
We don't print much at home, so we have one of those fairly basic low-range printer scanners. It does the job we need perfectly adequately. Replacing the cartridges costs more than replacing the whole damn printer.
I can sort of see why; all the clever stuff is in the cartridge and the printer is a plastic box containing not much. But it's also bonkers. There must be a range of usage where the thing to do is just treat the whole thing as a disposable.
Which is insane on so many levels. I'm sure it's rational, but it's also insane.
The "get your arses back into the office" zealots should be promoting access to a good printer for all your printing needs as one of the benefits.
How many offices still have printers?
Of the four that I've worked in post-Covid, two didn't have publicly-available printers, one did but you had to buy some sort of payment card to use it, and the fourth was in a leased WeWork floor so probably had access to printers elswhere in the building but it wasn't clear where they were or how we should go about using them.
Fucking about with printers is one of the big overheads in running an office space. They're rapidly going the way of phones and wired network connections.
Bank I work for has fewer and fewer - a couple on each floor. High end photocopier/scanner/printer, can do a zillion sheets a minute, collate and staple. Rarely used.
I can still remember the fuss when they first told us everyone would lose the printer each person had on their own desk.
I have to admit it was only working from home in Covid that finally stopped me printing out docs and red penning them.
I find the best way round that is multiple monitors, or better yet, a single huge monitor. Think my next one might be 50”.
Direct retinal projection is surely the way to go, before they perfect the neural interface ?
Idle thought: using Electoral Calculus there's a point (around Con 23%, LD 14%, Lab 45%) where the LDs win more seats than the Tories and become the official opposition, at which point presumably the Tory press will be crying foul and demanding PR.
Worth it just for the irony.
FPTP brings more dramatic swings however.
In 1993 for example the Canadian Tories won just 2 seats after losing power in a landslide defeat, ending up 5th on seats behind the Liberals, BQ, Reform and NDP.
Yet by 2006 the Canadian Conservatives won 124 seats and most seats and by 2011 166 seats and a majority
Rebranded reform though, not the traditional party
I’m instinctively hostile to simply banning cigarettes. But I guess that’s just me.
I find it bizarre that in the US, marijuana is now broadly tolerated but cigarette smoking is actively shunned.
Prohibition doesn't work.
Cigarettes should be legal but shunned. Same for others drugs.
The big difference with fags compared to other drugs is that there is no upside, no high, really. Most people probably won’t bother if they are illegal.
The shitness of printers is an odd thing. I don’t know of any other major machine that everyone regards with such justified mistrust, on the grounds of constant failure
Imagine if microwaves or washing machines went wrong all the time. It would get fixed
Is there something in the technology of basic domestic printers that means they can’t be made reliable? Are the manufacturers knowingly selling dud products?
Otherwise there is surely room for a new printer manufacturer to step in and say “here, try this, it almost never goes wrong”. Boom
There's something fundamentally wrong with the whole printer business anyway.
We don't print much at home, so we have one of those fairly basic low-range printer scanners. It does the job we need perfectly adequately. Replacing the cartridges costs more than replacing the whole damn printer.
I can sort of see why; all the clever stuff is in the cartridge and the printer is a plastic box containing not much. But it's also bonkers. There must be a range of usage where the thing to do is just treat the whole thing as a disposable.
Which is insane on so many levels. I'm sure it's rational, but it's also insane.
The "get your arses back into the office" zealots should be promoting access to a good printer for all your printing needs as one of the benefits.
How many offices still have printers?
Of the four that I've worked in post-Covid, two didn't have publicly-available printers, one did but you had to buy some sort of payment card to use it, and the fourth was in a leased WeWork floor so probably had access to printers elswhere in the building but it wasn't clear where they were or how we should go about using them.
Fucking about with printers is one of the big overheads in running an office space. They're rapidly going the way of phones and wired network connections.
Bank I work for has fewer and fewer - a couple on each floor. High end photocopier/scanner/printer, can do a zillion sheets a minute, collate and staple. Rarely used.
I can still remember the fuss when they first told us everyone would lose the printer each person had on their own desk.
I have to admit it was only working from home in Covid that finally stopped me printing out docs and red penning them.
I find the best way round that is multiple monitors, or better yet, a single huge monitor. Think my next one might be 50”.
Direct retinal projection is surely the way to go, before they perfect the neural interface ?
On smoking: it'll be interesting to see what attitudes to vaping will be like in a few decades time.
Do any 18 year olds smoke actual old-school cigarettes these days anyway?
One thing that all the panic about teenage vaping seems to have missed is that easy & cheap availability of vapes means that no-one is taking up smoking, except as some sort of fetish thing.
So the election may be decided by the corporate blue wallers in the South East, and the disillusioned red wallers in the North.
However, Uxbridge (and Leicester, and Slough and elsewhere) points towards a bunch of Astérix-style holdouts where the normal UNS rules don’t apply. There’s a demographic we should get familiar with: Bexley bloke / Uxbridge uomo.
BB and UU inhabit similar milieu and have similar economic positions and world views: 1930s outer suburbs, car owning, mid to late middle age, largely self-employed. Mainly white but also Asian (Hindu, possibly Sikh though with the Canada thing that gets tricky). Not obviously affected by Brexit, nor with any great affinity for Europe. More likely to holiday in Florida than France. Probably voted Brexit, mainly because of Brussels bureaucracy.
Didn’t expect or need any levelling up because they’re not in the right region. Not that wedded to public services, and both would put the kids in private school if they could. See the USA as a reasonable model of self sufficiency.
Mildly poujadiste, but never hard core far right.
I might do a bit of a scour of the seats to identify ones with these characteristics then see if there is constituency level betting available.
Yes this is a good call. There's a bunch of people like this, who just don't do collectivist/statist solutions, see themselves as self-sufficient and self-made, don't want to pay for other people's mistakes/misfortune but aren't especially malignant or malign. Probably similar to a lot of people on here minus the interest in politics. I know plenty of them myself. They'll probably never vote Labour but might sit it out if the Tories have shat the bed completely. In the US it's this group that swung 2016 for Trump. The MAGA true believers can't win it for him on their own. But you add in the folk who just want the government to leave them alone and aren't imaginative or interested enough to appreciate how dangerous Trump is and he gets over the line.
The shitness of printers is an odd thing. I don’t know of any other major machine that everyone regards with such justified mistrust, on the grounds of constant failure
Imagine if microwaves or washing machines went wrong all the time. It would get fixed
Is there something in the technology of basic domestic printers that means they can’t be made reliable? Are the manufacturers knowingly selling dud products?
Otherwise there is surely room for a new printer manufacturer to step in and say “here, try this, it almost never goes wrong”. Boom
I think the problem is that they make their margins on the ink but are in a constant battle with cheap non-branded alternatives.
To combat this, they try to make sure the printer only works with official ink cartridges, but if the protection mechanism gets hacked then they lose their revenue stream, so it's better to make the printers unreliable and cheap.
Ah, Interesting! Yes, that's logical and makes sense
"Some HP printers are designed to prevent customers from using third-party ink by employing something it calls 'dynamic security', which recognises cartridges with a non-HP chip and stops them working. HP maintains that this protects customers and gives them the best printing experience, but Which?'s research regularly shows that some third-party inks offer great-value printing and are highly recommended by the consumer champion's members."
On smoking: it'll be interesting to see what attitudes to vaping will be like in a few decades time.
Current attitudes to vaping are what in less woke times we'd have called schizophrenic. On the one hand, vaping is evil and should be banned. On the other, vaping is very effective at diverting people from smoking cigarettes.
I remember Dominic Lawson going on about that a couple of months ago on R4. He is some high up in UK Chess, apparently, and said that Sunak was a keen supporter and that some public money would be forthcoming. Its a bit of a gesture, it has taken me way longer to type this post than it takes the government to spend £1m, but harmless enough.
Totally harmless, except that it again exposes the bizarre Soviet-style centralisation of UK government.
Councils - when they are not going bankrupt - are literally having to bid to install chess boards in parks.
In my view, British public frustration is to some extent explained by incredibly limited agency to make a local change, pretty much unparalleled in the OECD.
That personal hobbyhorse aside, the issue is what/how Sunak is choosing to focus his time on.
Yes. The idea that local government has to waste time bidding for £10,000 to install a single public chess table, presumably using masses of management time deciding where to locate the thing, putting together the bid document, and all for naught if they're not in a Tory marginal, is absolutely bonkers.
Presumably there are Barnett consequentials to the policy too and, as a result, an extra £84,000 (or some other ridiculous amount) is added to the Scottish block grant?
Wales too. Might pay for a titivation of the public loo at Pwllheli (and none the worse for that).
An extra £96,929.39 for Scotland, £54,920.76 for Wales and less for Northern Ireland (where there's an additional adjustment due to VAT for some reason, and it doesn't matter because they've no government to decide how to spend it anyway).
On smoking: it'll be interesting to see what attitudes to vaping will be like in a few decades time.
Do any 18 year olds smoke actual old-school cigarettes these days anyway?
One thing that all the panic about teenage vaping seems to have missed is that easy & cheap availability of vapes means that no-one is taking up smoking, except as some sort of fetish thing.
Fags are probably too expensive for most teens nowadays anyway.
The shitness of printers is an odd thing. I don’t know of any other major machine that everyone regards with such justified mistrust, on the grounds of constant failure
Imagine if microwaves or washing machines went wrong all the time. It would get fixed
Is there something in the technology of basic domestic printers that means they can’t be made reliable? Are the manufacturers knowingly selling dud products?
Otherwise there is surely room for a new printer manufacturer to step in and say “here, try this, it almost never goes wrong”. Boom
There's something fundamentally wrong with the whole printer business anyway.
We don't print much at home, so we have one of those fairly basic low-range printer scanners. It does the job we need perfectly adequately. Replacing the cartridges costs more than replacing the whole damn printer.
I can sort of see why; all the clever stuff is in the cartridge and the printer is a plastic box containing not much. But it's also bonkers. There must be a range of usage where the thing to do is just treat the whole thing as a disposable.
Which is insane on so many levels. I'm sure it's rational, but it's also insane.
The "get your arses back into the office" zealots should be promoting access to a good printer for all your printing needs as one of the benefits.
How many offices still have printers?
Of the four that I've worked in post-Covid, two didn't have publicly-available printers, one did but you had to buy some sort of payment card to use it, and the fourth was in a leased WeWork floor so probably had access to printers elswhere in the building but it wasn't clear where they were or how we should go about using them.
Fucking about with printers is one of the big overheads in running an office space. They're rapidly going the way of phones and wired network connections.
Bank I work for has fewer and fewer - a couple on each floor. High end photocopier/scanner/printer, can do a zillion sheets a minute, collate and staple. Rarely used.
I can still remember the fuss when they first told us everyone would lose the printer each person had on their own desk.
I have to admit it was only working from home in Covid that finally stopped me printing out docs and red penning them.
I find the best way round that is multiple monitors, or better yet, a single huge monitor. Think my next one might be 50”.
Direct retinal projection is surely the way to go, before they perfect the neural interface ?
A jack up the jacksie. Nice.
Retinal, not rectal.
I was thinking of the neural interface bit ... lots of nerves in the rectum (apparently), and a convenient hole, so what's not to like?
I remember Dominic Lawson going on about that a couple of months ago on R4. He is some high up in UK Chess, apparently, and said that Sunak was a keen supporter and that some public money would be forthcoming. Its a bit of a gesture, it has taken me way longer to type this post than it takes the government to spend £1m, but harmless enough.
Totally harmless, except that it again exposes the bizarre Soviet-style centralisation of UK government.
Councils - when they are not going bankrupt - are literally having to bid to install chess boards in parks.
In my view, British public frustration is to some extent explained by incredibly limited agency to make a local change, pretty much unparalleled in the OECD.
That personal hobbyhorse aside, the issue is what/how Sunak is choosing to focus his time on.
Yes. The idea that local government has to waste time bidding for £10,000 to install a single public chess table, presumably using masses of management time deciding where to locate the thing, putting together the bid document, and all for naught if they're not in a Tory marginal, is absolutely bonkers.
Not only that - someone is going to have to manage this 'fund' in the civil service. 100 individual grants of £10k.
I get frustrated by all this but ultimately I don't know quite what to say. @TimS came up with a brilliant description of this country as a "little kingdom of asset sweaters and accountants" and it can be applied to idiocy like this.
'No way,’ I said, when I heard the news about the Chagos Islands. ‘Why would we be so utterly spineless?’
‘I am afraid so,’ said my informant, wearily. ‘It’s a done deal.’
It seems that this country is on the verge of a colossal mistake. After more than two centuries of uninterrupted British sovereignty we are apparently about to perform a U-turn and abandon the British Indian Ocean Territory.
He's absolutely right. How I despise the fucking lefty lawyers
I will vote for any party that says
1. Fuck off, we aren't paying "reparations", give it a rest - or go talk to the Qataris and Omanis
The shitness of printers is an odd thing. I don’t know of any other major machine that everyone regards with such justified mistrust, on the grounds of constant failure
Imagine if microwaves or washing machines went wrong all the time. It would get fixed
Is there something in the technology of basic domestic printers that means they can’t be made reliable? Are the manufacturers knowingly selling dud products?
Otherwise there is surely room for a new printer manufacturer to step in and say “here, try this, it almost never goes wrong”. Boom
There's something fundamentally wrong with the whole printer business anyway.
We don't print much at home, so we have one of those fairly basic low-range printer scanners. It does the job we need perfectly adequately. Replacing the cartridges costs more than replacing the whole damn printer.
I can sort of see why; all the clever stuff is in the cartridge and the printer is a plastic box containing not much. But it's also bonkers. There must be a range of usage where the thing to do is just treat the whole thing as a disposable.
Which is insane on so many levels. I'm sure it's rational, but it's also insane.
The "get your arses back into the office" zealots should be promoting access to a good printer for all your printing needs as one of the benefits.
How many offices still have printers?
Of the four that I've worked in post-Covid, two didn't have publicly-available printers, one did but you had to buy some sort of payment card to use it, and the fourth was in a leased WeWork floor so probably had access to printers elswhere in the building but it wasn't clear where they were or how we should go about using them.
Fucking about with printers is one of the big overheads in running an office space. They're rapidly going the way of phones and wired network connections.
Bank I work for has fewer and fewer - a couple on each floor. High end photocopier/scanner/printer, can do a zillion sheets a minute, collate and staple. Rarely used.
I can still remember the fuss when they first told us everyone would lose the printer each person had on their own desk.
I have to admit it was only working from home in Covid that finally stopped me printing out docs and red penning them.
I find the best way round that is multiple monitors, or better yet, a single huge monitor. Think my next one might be 50”.
Direct retinal projection is surely the way to go, before they perfect the neural interface ?
A jack up the jacksie. Nice.
Retinal, not rectal.
I was thinking of the neural interface bit ... lots of nerves in the rectum (apparently), and a convenient hole, so what's not to like?
The shitness of printers is an odd thing. I don’t know of any other major machine that everyone regards with such justified mistrust, on the grounds of constant failure
Imagine if microwaves or washing machines went wrong all the time. It would get fixed
Is there something in the technology of basic domestic printers that means they can’t be made reliable? Are the manufacturers knowingly selling dud products?
Otherwise there is surely room for a new printer manufacturer to step in and say “here, try this, it almost never goes wrong”. Boom
I think the problem is that they make their margins on the ink but are in a constant battle with cheap non-branded alternatives.
To combat this, they try to make sure the printer only works with official ink cartridges, but if the protection mechanism gets hacked then they lose their revenue stream, so it's better to make the printers unreliable and cheap.
Ah, Interesting! Yes, that's logical and makes sense
"Some HP printers are designed to prevent customers from using third-party ink by employing something it calls 'dynamic security', which recognises cartridges with a non-HP chip and stops them working. HP maintains that this protects customers and gives them the best printing experience, but Which?'s research regularly shows that some third-party inks offer great-value printing and are highly recommended by the consumer champion's members."
My printer flashes up a message “genuine HP cartridges installed “and doesn’t let me use non-genuine ones. I have tried other ones in other printers in the past years, but they haven’t been as satisfactory as the genuine ones.
I’m instinctively hostile to simply banning cigarettes. But I guess that’s just me.
I find it bizarre that in the US, marijuana is now broadly tolerated but cigarette smoking is actively shunned.
Prohibition doesn't work.
Cigarettes should be legal but shunned. Same for others drugs.
The big difference with fags compared to other drugs is that there is no upside, no high, really. Most people probably won’t bother if they are illegal.
I don't think that's right - or none would be sold. During my very brief foray into smoking I certainly noticed a high. Not a huge one, but you wouldn't expect that for how cheap they were.
I remember Dominic Lawson going on about that a couple of months ago on R4. He is some high up in UK Chess, apparently, and said that Sunak was a keen supporter and that some public money would be forthcoming. Its a bit of a gesture, it has taken me way longer to type this post than it takes the government to spend £1m, but harmless enough.
Totally harmless, except that it again exposes the bizarre Soviet-style centralisation of UK government.
Councils - when they are not going bankrupt - are literally having to bid to install chess boards in parks.
In my view, British public frustration is to some extent explained by incredibly limited agency to make a local change, pretty much unparalleled in the OECD.
That personal hobbyhorse aside, the issue is what/how Sunak is choosing to focus his time on.
Yes. The idea that local government has to waste time bidding for £10,000 to install a single public chess table, presumably using masses of management time deciding where to locate the thing, putting together the bid document, and all for naught if they're not in a Tory marginal, is absolutely bonkers.
Not only that - someone is going to have to manage this 'fund' in the civil service. 100 individual grants of £10k.
I get frustrated by all this but ultimately I don't know quite what to say. @TimS came up with a brilliant description of this country as a "little kingdom of asset strippers and accountants" and it can be applied to idiocy like this.
Asset sweaters. Similar vibe but subtly different.
Now this is good from Rishi, so long as he isn’t all fart and no follow through.
Rishi Sunak is considering introducing some of the world’s toughest anti-smoking measures that would in effect ban the next generation from ever being able to buy cigarettes, the Guardian has learned.
Whitehall sources said the prime minister was looking at measures similar to those brought in by New Zealand last December. They involved steadily increasing the legal smoking age so tobacco would end up never being sold to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009.
It is understood Sunak’s leadership pledge to fine people £10 for missing a GP or hospital appointment may also be back on the table, although this could be politically difficult. The idea was announced by the prime minister during his campaign in summer 2022, but appeared to have been dropped when he took office last autumn.
A New Zealand-style anti-smoking policy would mean cigarettes were phased out completely for the next generation. Under the former prime minister Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand also legislated to reduce the nicotine content of tobacco products and force them to be sold only through specialty tobacco stores, rather than convenience stores and supermarkets.
I am beginning to really, really hate Sunak. Regardless of whether you think it's a good idea, this really is not a priority. Do the job in front of you you stupid badly-dressed ha'porth (not you @TSE), stop doing displacement activity. What other stupid f*****g idea will Sunak come up with tomorrow? Mow the lawn? Sort your books in descending order of height? Do your job, you lazy [redacted].
And the cars thing, whatever you thought of it, at least works as a wedge issue. A Level reform? Smoking policy? Has he given up on the politics?
It’s of a piece with his “maths for 18 year olds”, “crack down on tuk-tuks”, and “chess boards for councils”.
At least Gordon Brown had a global financial crisis to wrestle with at the same time.
Properly funded and done right then Maths for 18 year olds is entirely reasonable. Almost every modern developed country on the planet has maths until 18, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I can't think of any others that don't - and for good reason. I've long felt dropping down to just 3 subjects at 18 is absurd, that's too young for people to be specialising and giving up on a well rounded education.
I finished my Baccalaureate (A-level equivalent) at 17 as I skipped a year, but my Baccalaureate had as compulsory: Main Language, Second (foreign) Language, Maths, a Science, a Social Science and one free subject you could choose eg a second Science or Social Science. I chose to do English, French, Maths, Physics, Economics and Computer Science.
There is a lot to be said for reforming education to better meet the needs of the modern economy and life. But maths to 18 or a baccalaureate would take far longer than this government has left. Think of the knock-on problems for teachers, textbook publishers and universities that will need to be addressed. In any case, many schools already provide some sort of general studies, preparation for life, and/or cultural education for sixth formers alongside A-levels.
I’m instinctively hostile to simply banning cigarettes. But I guess that’s just me.
I find it bizarre that in the US, marijuana is now broadly tolerated but cigarette smoking is actively shunned.
Prohibition doesn't work.
Cigarettes should be legal but shunned. Same for others drugs.
The big difference with fags compared to other drugs is that there is no upside, no high, really. Most people probably won’t bother if they are illegal.
I don't think that's right - or none would be sold. During my very brief foray into smoking I certainly noticed a high. Not a huge one, but you wouldn't expect that for how cheap they were.
Yes, they seem to grant a rush of relaxation that’s the chemical equivalent of a big sigh, yawn and stretch.
Fortunately I never got into cigarettes but I can see the appeal.
'No way,’ I said, when I heard the news about the Chagos Islands. ‘Why would we be so utterly spineless?’
‘I am afraid so,’ said my informant, wearily. ‘It’s a done deal.’
It seems that this country is on the verge of a colossal mistake. After more than two centuries of uninterrupted British sovereignty we are apparently about to perform a U-turn and abandon the British Indian Ocean Territory.
He's absolutely right. How I despise the fucking lefty lawyers
I will vote for any party that says
1. Fuck off, we aren't paying "reparations", give it a rest - or go talk to the Qataris and Omanis
2. Fuck off, we need Diego Garcia
3. Fuck off, you aren't getting the Elgin Marbles
What are they gonna do, invade us? Pff
The Chagossians were treated abysmally.
It does not follow that we should hand over sovereignty to people who plan to treat the Chagossians abysmally.
But, saying fuck off to grifters is usually sensible.
I remember Dominic Lawson going on about that a couple of months ago on R4. He is some high up in UK Chess, apparently, and said that Sunak was a keen supporter and that some public money would be forthcoming. Its a bit of a gesture, it has taken me way longer to type this post than it takes the government to spend £1m, but harmless enough.
Totally harmless, except that it again exposes the bizarre Soviet-style centralisation of UK government.
Councils - when they are not going bankrupt - are literally having to bid to install chess boards in parks.
In my view, British public frustration is to some extent explained by incredibly limited agency to make a local change, pretty much unparalleled in the OECD.
That personal hobbyhorse aside, the issue is what/how Sunak is choosing to focus his time on.
Yes. The idea that local government has to waste time bidding for £10,000 to install a single public chess table, presumably using masses of management time deciding where to locate the thing, putting together the bid document, and all for naught if they're not in a Tory marginal, is absolutely bonkers.
Not only that - someone is going to have to manage this 'fund' in the civil service. 100 individual grants of £10k.
I get frustrated by all this but ultimately I don't know quite what to say. @TimS came up with a brilliant description of this country as a "little kingdom of asset strippers and accountants" and it can be applied to idiocy like this.
Asset sweaters. Similar vibe but subtly different.
I've corrected it.... a very accurate observation.
Now this is good from Rishi, so long as he isn’t all fart and no follow through.
Rishi Sunak is considering introducing some of the world’s toughest anti-smoking measures that would in effect ban the next generation from ever being able to buy cigarettes, the Guardian has learned.
Whitehall sources said the prime minister was looking at measures similar to those brought in by New Zealand last December. They involved steadily increasing the legal smoking age so tobacco would end up never being sold to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009.
It is understood Sunak’s leadership pledge to fine people £10 for missing a GP or hospital appointment may also be back on the table, although this could be politically difficult. The idea was announced by the prime minister during his campaign in summer 2022, but appeared to have been dropped when he took office last autumn.
A New Zealand-style anti-smoking policy would mean cigarettes were phased out completely for the next generation. Under the former prime minister Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand also legislated to reduce the nicotine content of tobacco products and force them to be sold only through specialty tobacco stores, rather than convenience stores and supermarkets.
I am beginning to really, really hate Sunak. Regardless of whether you think it's a good idea, this really is not a priority. Do the job in front of you you stupid badly-dressed ha'porth (not you @TSE), stop doing displacement activity. What other stupid f*****g idea will Sunak come up with tomorrow? Mow the lawn? Sort your books in descending order of height? Do your job, you lazy [redacted].
And the cars thing, whatever you thought of it, at least works as a wedge issue. A Level reform? Smoking policy? Has he given up on the politics?
It’s of a piece with his “maths for 18 year olds”, “crack down on tuk-tuks”, and “chess boards for councils”.
At least Gordon Brown had a global financial crisis to wrestle with at the same time.
Properly funded and done right then Maths for 18 year olds is entirely reasonable. Almost every modern developed country on the planet has maths until 18, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I can't think of any others that don't - and for good reason. I've long felt dropping down to just 3 subjects at 18 is absurd, that's too young for people to be specialising and giving up on a well rounded education.
I finished my Baccalaureate (A-level equivalent) at 17 as I skipped a year, but my Baccalaureate had as compulsory: Main Language, Second (foreign) Language, Maths, a Science, a Social Science and one free subject you could choose eg a second Science or Social Science. I chose to do English, French, Maths, Physics, Economics and Computer Science.
There is a lot to be said for reforming education to better meet the needs of the modern economy and life. But maths to 18 or a baccalaureate would take far longer than this government has left. Think of the knock-on problems for teachers, textbook publishers and universities that will need to be addressed. In any case, many schools already provide some sort of general studies, preparation for life, and/or cultural education for sixth formers alongside A-levels.
It would indeed.
If the Government were serious about governing for the good of the country they could start a consultation on this and then leave it for the next Government (which being realistic won't be them) to implement.
Governments should be doing things that are worthwhile even if they have a longer purview than 'implemented in full by the next election'.
Instead I suspect this is just a media press release and that's it.
Having worked twenty three of the last twenty five days, at average of over ten hours a day, I'm now off for the next sixteen days
This has turned out to be quite timely for leave I booked nine months ago, as my Dad has today had surgery and won't be walking his dog for a few days at least. I'll be earning some of his fine wine while walking her, especially the long morning walks
I'm going to try to fit in walks / pub crawls to Avebury and Amesbury in my second week off
I’m instinctively hostile to simply banning cigarettes. But I guess that’s just me.
I find it bizarre that in the US, marijuana is now broadly tolerated but cigarette smoking is actively shunned.
Prohibition doesn't work.
Cigarettes should be legal but shunned. Same for others drugs.
The big difference with fags compared to other drugs is that there is no upside, no high, really. Most people probably won’t bother if they are illegal.
I don't think that's right - or none would be sold. During my very brief foray into smoking I certainly noticed a high. Not a huge one, but you wouldn't expect that for how cheap they were.
I’m instinctively hostile to simply banning cigarettes. But I guess that’s just me.
I find it bizarre that in the US, marijuana is now broadly tolerated but cigarette smoking is actively shunned.
Prohibition doesn't work.
Cigarettes should be legal but shunned. Same for others drugs.
The big difference with fags compared to other drugs is that there is no upside, no high, really. Most people probably won’t bother if they are illegal.
I don't think that's right - or none would be sold. During my very brief foray into smoking I certainly noticed a high. Not a huge one, but you wouldn't expect that for how cheap they were.
I mean, it’s a very mild high(ish) the first few times you smoke. Thereafter it’s just a pointless habit. The most useless drug there is.
I know Moscow is further away than Sevastopol, and will be better protected, but if Ukraine can hit the Black Sea Fleet Headquarters and kill the commander of the Black Sea Fleet after 19 months of war, how many months until they have the means of hitting army headquarters for the invasion in Rostov-on-Don and killing the Chief of the General Staff, or the Kremlin in Moscow and killing Putin himself?
Might this be the first time that Putin would stay to feel the first stirrings of fear that Ukraine are able to threaten his life directly?
Indeed
I’m also surprised, however, that the Russians haven’t really tried to take out Zelensky
I suspect there might be a tacit agreement between them. Don’t kill the leader
The failed Russian war plan from the beginning was to kill Zelensky and install a puppet in his place. I thought the story as told was that the Russians made it within a few dozen soldiers of doing so in the first 36 hours or so.
The Russians would kill Zelensky without a moment's hesitation.
I don't believe it. Not any more
Of course that was their intent at the start, but they failed, and since then they've made no attempt to take him out. And it's not like he's hiding out a la Osama Bin Laden (who eventually got slotted anyway). Zelensky does major speeches, pre-announced, in many places. He is the national leader. He does walkabouts in Ukrainian towns
I am pretty sure that Russia, with its missiles, spies, surveillance, assistance from China, and proximity to Ukraine, could take him out withoutTOO much trouble if they REALLY wanted. They are prepared to poison people in Salisbury FFS, they could surely zap him in, say, Ottawa or Brussels
And yet it doesn't happen. I reckon there is a tacit deal
I’m instinctively hostile to simply banning cigarettes. But I guess that’s just me.
I find it bizarre that in the US, marijuana is now broadly tolerated but cigarette smoking is actively shunned.
Prohibition doesn't work.
Cigarettes should be legal but shunned. Same for others drugs.
The big difference with fags compared to other drugs is that there is no upside, no high, really. Most people probably won’t bother if they are illegal.
I don't think that's right - or none would be sold. During my very brief foray into smoking I certainly noticed a high. Not a huge one, but you wouldn't expect that for how cheap they were.
Yes, they seem to grant a rush of relaxation that’s the chemical equivalent of a big sigh, yawn and stretch.
Fortunately I never got into cigarettes but I can see the appeal.
Er, do they? I still smoke occasionally now (though rarely these days) and I can assure you I have never had such a feeling from them. Nicotine is a rubbish drug.
I know Moscow is further away than Sevastopol, and will be better protected, but if Ukraine can hit the Black Sea Fleet Headquarters and kill the commander of the Black Sea Fleet after 19 months of war, how many months until they have the means of hitting army headquarters for the invasion in Rostov-on-Don and killing the Chief of the General Staff, or the Kremlin in Moscow and killing Putin himself?
Might this be the first time that Putin would stay to feel the first stirrings of fear that Ukraine are able to threaten his life directly?
Indeed
I’m also surprised, however, that the Russians haven’t really tried to take out Zelensky
I suspect there might be a tacit agreement between them. Don’t kill the leader
The failed Russian war plan from the beginning was to kill Zelensky and install a puppet in his place. I thought the story as told was that the Russians made it within a few dozen soldiers of doing so in the first 36 hours or so.
The Russians would kill Zelensky without a moment's hesitation.
I don't believe it. Not any more
Of course that was their intent at the start, but they failed, and since then they've made no attempt to take him out. And it's not like he's hiding out a la Osama Bin Laden (who eventually got slotted anyway). Zelensky does major speeches, pre-announced, in many places. He is the national leader. He does walkabouts in Ukrainian towns
I am pretty sure that Russia, with its missiles, spies, surveillance, assistance from China, and proximity to Ukraine, could take him out withoutTOO much trouble if they REALLY wanted. They are prepared to poison people in Salisbury FFS, they could surely zap him in, say, Ottawa or Brussels
And yet it doesn't happen. I reckon there is a tacit deal
I don’t think there’s a deal, but an acceptance by Russia that if they do this, Putin is in play.
'No way,’ I said, when I heard the news about the Chagos Islands. ‘Why would we be so utterly spineless?’
‘I am afraid so,’ said my informant, wearily. ‘It’s a done deal.’
It seems that this country is on the verge of a colossal mistake. After more than two centuries of uninterrupted British sovereignty we are apparently about to perform a U-turn and abandon the British Indian Ocean Territory.
He's absolutely right. How I despise the fucking lefty lawyers
I will vote for any party that says
1. Fuck off, we aren't paying "reparations", give it a rest - or go talk to the Qataris and Omanis
2. Fuck off, we need Diego Garcia
3. Fuck off, you aren't getting the Elgin Marbles
What are they gonna do, invade us? Pff
The Chagossians were treated abysmally.
It does not follow that we should hand over sovereignty to people who plan to treat the Chagossians abysmally.
But, saying fuck off to grifters is usually sensible.
Certainly the Chagossians have been treated abysmally.
It would be great to see justice done and a historical wrong from the dying days of Empire corrected.
I’m instinctively hostile to simply banning cigarettes. But I guess that’s just me.
I find it bizarre that in the US, marijuana is now broadly tolerated but cigarette smoking is actively shunned.
Prohibition doesn't work.
Cigarettes should be legal but shunned. Same for others drugs.
The big difference with fags compared to other drugs is that there is no upside, no high, really. Most people probably won’t bother if they are illegal.
I don't think that's right - or none would be sold. During my very brief foray into smoking I certainly noticed a high. Not a huge one, but you wouldn't expect that for how cheap they were.
Yes, they seem to grant a rush of relaxation that’s the chemical equivalent of a big sigh, yawn and stretch.
Fortunately I never got into cigarettes but I can see the appeal.
Er, do they? I still smoke occasionally now (though rarely these days) and I can assure you I have never had such a feeling from them. Nicotine is a rubbish drug.
I’ve only smoked a handful of times so I’ll be getting that initial effect. I’ve not smoked enough to get the disappointment.
Alcohol is similarly a drug of diminishing returns, but it has the benefit of social disinhibition even when you’re a regular drinker. The only time I have a “rush” from alcohol is a rapidly downed gin martini (or a G&T does it too) on an empty stomach.
I’m instinctively hostile to simply banning cigarettes. But I guess that’s just me.
I find it bizarre that in the US, marijuana is now broadly tolerated but cigarette smoking is actively shunned.
Prohibition doesn't work.
Cigarettes should be legal but shunned. Same for others drugs.
The big difference with fags compared to other drugs is that there is no upside, no high, really. Most people probably won’t bother if they are illegal.
I don't think that's right - or none would be sold. During my very brief foray into smoking I certainly noticed a high. Not a huge one, but you wouldn't expect that for how cheap they were.
I've never really smoked cigarettes, but have had a few cigars - and particularly with larger ones (52ga or thereabouts), I'd be quite light-headed, dizzy, and feeling mild palpitations. Not a particularly pleasant high, but it definitely does something.
Pricey, though. For the same money you could buy enough of pretty much any other drug to get at least a dozen people high.
I know Moscow is further away than Sevastopol, and will be better protected, but if Ukraine can hit the Black Sea Fleet Headquarters and kill the commander of the Black Sea Fleet after 19 months of war, how many months until they have the means of hitting army headquarters for the invasion in Rostov-on-Don and killing the Chief of the General Staff, or the Kremlin in Moscow and killing Putin himself?
Might this be the first time that Putin would stay to feel the first stirrings of fear that Ukraine are able to threaten his life directly?
Indeed
I’m also surprised, however, that the Russians haven’t really tried to take out Zelensky
I suspect there might be a tacit agreement between them. Don’t kill the leader
The failed Russian war plan from the beginning was to kill Zelensky and install a puppet in his place. I thought the story as told was that the Russians made it within a few dozen soldiers of doing so in the first 36 hours or so.
The Russians would kill Zelensky without a moment's hesitation.
I don't believe it. Not any more
Of course that was their intent at the start, but they failed, and since then they've made no attempt to take him out. And it's not like he's hiding out a la Osama Bin Laden (who eventually got slotted anyway). Zelensky does major speeches, pre-announced, in many places. He is the national leader. He does walkabouts in Ukrainian towns
I am pretty sure that Russia, with its missiles, spies, surveillance, assistance from China, and proximity to Ukraine, could take him out withoutTOO much trouble if they REALLY wanted. They are prepared to poison people in Salisbury FFS, they could surely zap him in, say, Ottawa or Brussels
And yet it doesn't happen. I reckon there is a tacit deal
I don’t think there’s a deal, but an acceptance by Russia that if they do this, Putin is in play.
Well, yeah: "tacit"
tacit /ˈtasɪt/ adjective understood or implied without being stated. "your silence may be taken to mean tacit agreement"
I’m instinctively hostile to simply banning cigarettes. But I guess that’s just me.
I find it bizarre that in the US, marijuana is now broadly tolerated but cigarette smoking is actively shunned.
Prohibition doesn't work.
Cigarettes should be legal but shunned. Same for others drugs.
The big difference with fags compared to other drugs is that there is no upside, no high, really. Most people probably won’t bother if they are illegal.
I don't think that's right - or none would be sold. During my very brief foray into smoking I certainly noticed a high. Not a huge one, but you wouldn't expect that for how cheap they were.
Yes, they seem to grant a rush of relaxation that’s the chemical equivalent of a big sigh, yawn and stretch.
Fortunately I never got into cigarettes but I can see the appeal.
Er, do they? I still smoke occasionally now (though rarely these days) and I can assure you I have never had such a feeling from them. Nicotine is a rubbish drug.
I’ve only smoked a handful of times so I’ll be getting that initial effect. I’ve not smoked enough to get the disappointment.
Alcohol is similarly a drug of diminishing returns, but it has the benefit of social disinhibition even when you’re a regular drinker. The only time I have a “rush” from alcohol is a rapidly downed gin martini (or a G&T does it too) on an empty stomach.
Yes a martini is a drug-like high (and of course they should always be ‘downed’ - they are not designed to sip warmed up!)
For complicated reasons, I am watching rugby league on the telly. I've not watched it for a while. It's a peculiar game - as uf someone really, really, really liked the bit in rugby union where a large inside centre - Manu Tuliagi, say - crashes into his opposite numbet and set out to design a game which stripped out everything which wasn't that bit, and ensured that bit happened over and over again. It's not unentertaining. But peculiar. Also compelling is Leigh's choice of imagery. Leigh Leopards, they call themselves. Their shirts are utterly horrible. Basically a massive picture of a leopard. And leopardskin seems very prominent in the clothing of the team's bigwigs and hangers-on. Any glamour this may have is offset by the prominent sponsorship on the kit of Leigh market. Leigh's manager is an unusual looking fella. Adrian Lam - on looking him up, he is of Anglo-Sino-Papuan ancestry. That's a family history which needs some digging in to. His son, Lachlan, is also playing. It's not as good as rugby union. But it is strangely compelling.
I’m instinctively hostile to simply banning cigarettes. But I guess that’s just me.
I find it bizarre that in the US, marijuana is now broadly tolerated but cigarette smoking is actively shunned.
Prohibition doesn't work.
Cigarettes should be legal but shunned. Same for others drugs.
The big difference with fags compared to other drugs is that there is no upside, no high, really. Most people probably won’t bother if they are illegal.
I don't think that's right - or none would be sold. During my very brief foray into smoking I certainly noticed a high. Not a huge one, but you wouldn't expect that for how cheap they were.
I've never really smoked cigarettes, but have had a few cigars - and particularly with larger ones (52ga or thereabouts), I'd be quite light-headed, dizzy, and feeling mild palpitations. Not a particularly pleasant high, but it definitely does something.
Pricey, though. For the same money you could buy enough of pretty much any other drug to get at least a dozen people high.
Cigarettes gave people something to do with their hands, and to fill awkward gaps in conversation. They are obsolete now the teens all have phones.
Now this is good from Rishi, so long as he isn’t all fart and no follow through.
Rishi Sunak is considering introducing some of the world’s toughest anti-smoking measures that would in effect ban the next generation from ever being able to buy cigarettes, the Guardian has learned.
Whitehall sources said the prime minister was looking at measures similar to those brought in by New Zealand last December. They involved steadily increasing the legal smoking age so tobacco would end up never being sold to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009.
It is understood Sunak’s leadership pledge to fine people £10 for missing a GP or hospital appointment may also be back on the table, although this could be politically difficult. The idea was announced by the prime minister during his campaign in summer 2022, but appeared to have been dropped when he took office last autumn.
A New Zealand-style anti-smoking policy would mean cigarettes were phased out completely for the next generation. Under the former prime minister Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand also legislated to reduce the nicotine content of tobacco products and force them to be sold only through specialty tobacco stores, rather than convenience stores and supermarkets.
I am beginning to really, really hate Sunak. Regardless of whether you think it's a good idea, this really is not a priority. Do the job in front of you you stupid badly-dressed ha'porth (not you @TSE), stop doing displacement activity. What other stupid f*****g idea will Sunak come up with tomorrow? Mow the lawn? Sort your books in descending order of height? Do your job, you lazy [redacted].
And the cars thing, whatever you thought of it, at least works as a wedge issue. A Level reform? Smoking policy? Has he given up on the politics?
It’s of a piece with his “maths for 18 year olds”, “crack down on tuk-tuks”, and “chess boards for councils”.
At least Gordon Brown had a global financial crisis to wrestle with at the same time.
Properly funded and done right then Maths for 18 year olds is entirely reasonable. Almost every modern developed country on the planet has maths until 18, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I can't think of any others that don't - and for good reason. I've long felt dropping down to just 3 subjects at 18 is absurd, that's too young for people to be specialising and giving up on a well rounded education.
I finished my Baccalaureate (A-level equivalent) at 17 as I skipped a year, but my Baccalaureate had as compulsory: Main Language, Second (foreign) Language, Maths, a Science, a Social Science and one free subject you could choose eg a second Science or Social Science. I chose to do English, French, Maths, Physics, Economics and Computer Science.
Individually, each of these things might be a good idea. My point is that they are incoherent and in many cases verge on trivial. In some cases they seem very undercooked from a delivery perspective.
Sunak’s essential philosophy is best expressed in his 2022 Maes Lecture, which essentially a classic laissez-faire belief that government need only step away for growth to flourish. This underpins his early Brexitry and his enthusiasm for “freeports”.
But beyond this instinct, there’s not much evidence he’s thought or read widely, he’s obviously not especially cultured, and although by accounts a competent manager, whatever sense of vision he might have hoped to bring to the job has kind of crumbled against political reality. He now cuts a pretty desperate figure.
For complicated reasons, I am watching rugby league on the telly. I've not watched it for a while. It's a peculiar game - as uf someone really, really, really liked the bit in rugby union where a large inside centre - Manu Tuliagi, say - crashes into his opposite numbet and set out to design a game which stripped out everything which wasn't that bit, and ensured that bit happened over and over again. It's not unentertaining. But peculiar. Also compelling is Leigh's choice of imagery. Leigh Leopards, they call themselves. Their shirts are utterly horrible. Basically a massive picture of a leopard. And leopardskin seems very prominent in the clothing of the team's bigwigs and hangers-on. Any glamour this may have is offset by the prominent sponsorship on the kit of Leigh market. Leigh's manager is an unusual looking fella. Adrian Lam - on looking him up, he is of Anglo-Sino-Papuan ancestry. That's a family history which needs some digging in to. His son, Lachlan, is also playing. It's not as good as rugby union. But it is strangely compelling.
Australian club rugby league - the ARL - is of a far higher standard than our SuperLeague and can be utterly compelling. The State of Origin matches (NSW v Queensland) are brilliant.
For complicated reasons, I am watching rugby league on the telly. I've not watched it for a while. It's a peculiar game - as uf someone really, really, really liked the bit in rugby union where a large inside centre - Manu Tuliagi, say - crashes into his opposite numbet and set out to design a game which stripped out everything which wasn't that bit, and ensured that bit happened over and over again. It's not unentertaining. But peculiar. Also compelling is Leigh's choice of imagery. Leigh Leopards, they call themselves. Their shirts are utterly horrible. Basically a massive picture of a leopard. And leopardskin seems very prominent in the clothing of the team's bigwigs and hangers-on. Any glamour this may have is offset by the prominent sponsorship on the kit of Leigh market. Leigh's manager is an unusual looking fella. Adrian Lam - on looking him up, he is of Anglo-Sino-Papuan ancestry. That's a family history which needs some digging in to. His son, Lachlan, is also playing. It's not as good as rugby union. But it is strangely compelling.
League can be great. Although I agree this game wasn’t a classic, you do often get really exciting matches. And there’s much less farting and faffing around with scums like there is in Union.
Now this is good from Rishi, so long as he isn’t all fart and no follow through.
Rishi Sunak is considering introducing some of the world’s toughest anti-smoking measures that would in effect ban the next generation from ever being able to buy cigarettes, the Guardian has learned.
Whitehall sources said the prime minister was looking at measures similar to those brought in by New Zealand last December. They involved steadily increasing the legal smoking age so tobacco would end up never being sold to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009.
It is understood Sunak’s leadership pledge to fine people £10 for missing a GP or hospital appointment may also be back on the table, although this could be politically difficult. The idea was announced by the prime minister during his campaign in summer 2022, but appeared to have been dropped when he took office last autumn.
A New Zealand-style anti-smoking policy would mean cigarettes were phased out completely for the next generation. Under the former prime minister Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand also legislated to reduce the nicotine content of tobacco products and force them to be sold only through specialty tobacco stores, rather than convenience stores and supermarkets.
I am beginning to really, really hate Sunak. Regardless of whether you think it's a good idea, this really is not a priority. Do the job in front of you you stupid badly-dressed ha'porth (not you @TSE), stop doing displacement activity. What other stupid f*****g idea will Sunak come up with tomorrow? Mow the lawn? Sort your books in descending order of height? Do your job, you lazy [redacted].
And the cars thing, whatever you thought of it, at least works as a wedge issue. A Level reform? Smoking policy? Has he given up on the politics?
It’s of a piece with his “maths for 18 year olds”, “crack down on tuk-tuks”, and “chess boards for councils”.
At least Gordon Brown had a global financial crisis to wrestle with at the same time.
Properly funded and done right then Maths for 18 year olds is entirely reasonable. Almost every modern developed country on the planet has maths until 18, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I can't think of any others that don't - and for good reason. I've long felt dropping down to just 3 subjects at 18 is absurd, that's too young for people to be specialising and giving up on a well rounded education.
I finished my Baccalaureate (A-level equivalent) at 17 as I skipped a year, but my Baccalaureate had as compulsory: Main Language, Second (foreign) Language, Maths, a Science, a Social Science and one free subject you could choose eg a second Science or Social Science. I chose to do English, French, Maths, Physics, Economics and Computer Science.
Individually, each of these things might be a good idea. My point is that they are incoherent and in many cases verge on trivial. In some cases they seem very undercooked from a delivery perspective.
Sunak’s essential philosophy is best expressed in his 2022 Maes Lecture, which essentially a classic laissez-faire belief that government need only step away for growth to flourish. This underpins his early Brexitry and his enthusiasm for “freeports”.
But beyond this instinct, there’s not much evidence he’s thought or read widely, he’s obviously not especially cultured, and although by accounts a competent manager, whatever sense of vision he might have hoped to bring to the job has kind of crumbled against political reality. He now cuts a pretty desperate figure.
Contrast with Macron. On the surface similar backgrounds, both elite schools, both investment bankers. But Sunak would never describe himself as Jupiterian.
Johnson you could see thinking. Often thinking the wrong thing, but thinking all the time. May you could see the mental torture. Kwarteng despite the weirdness, some sense of intellectual journey going on. Truss and Sunak: nothing. Unreadable, like PMs made by chatGPT.
Now this is good from Rishi, so long as he isn’t all fart and no follow through.
Rishi Sunak is considering introducing some of the world’s toughest anti-smoking measures that would in effect ban the next generation from ever being able to buy cigarettes, the Guardian has learned.
Whitehall sources said the prime minister was looking at measures similar to those brought in by New Zealand last December. They involved steadily increasing the legal smoking age so tobacco would end up never being sold to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009.
It is understood Sunak’s leadership pledge to fine people £10 for missing a GP or hospital appointment may also be back on the table, although this could be politically difficult. The idea was announced by the prime minister during his campaign in summer 2022, but appeared to have been dropped when he took office last autumn.
A New Zealand-style anti-smoking policy would mean cigarettes were phased out completely for the next generation. Under the former prime minister Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand also legislated to reduce the nicotine content of tobacco products and force them to be sold only through specialty tobacco stores, rather than convenience stores and supermarkets.
I am beginning to really, really hate Sunak. Regardless of whether you think it's a good idea, this really is not a priority. Do the job in front of you you stupid badly-dressed ha'porth (not you @TSE), stop doing displacement activity. What other stupid f*****g idea will Sunak come up with tomorrow? Mow the lawn? Sort your books in descending order of height? Do your job, you lazy [redacted].
And the cars thing, whatever you thought of it, at least works as a wedge issue. A Level reform? Smoking policy? Has he given up on the politics?
It’s of a piece with his “maths for 18 year olds”, “crack down on tuk-tuks”, and “chess boards for councils”.
At least Gordon Brown had a global financial crisis to wrestle with at the same time.
Properly funded and done right then Maths for 18 year olds is entirely reasonable. Almost every modern developed country on the planet has maths until 18, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I can't think of any others that don't - and for good reason. I've long felt dropping down to just 3 subjects at 18 is absurd, that's too young for people to be specialising and giving up on a well rounded education.
I finished my Baccalaureate (A-level equivalent) at 17 as I skipped a year, but my Baccalaureate had as compulsory: Main Language, Second (foreign) Language, Maths, a Science, a Social Science and one free subject you could choose eg a second Science or Social Science. I chose to do English, French, Maths, Physics, Economics and Computer Science.
Individually, each of these things might be a good idea. My point is that they are incoherent and in many cases verge on trivial. In some cases they seem very undercooked from a delivery perspective.
Sunak’s essential philosophy is best expressed in his 2022 Maes Lecture, which essentially a classic laissez-faire belief that government need only step away for growth to flourish. This underpins his early Brexitry and his enthusiasm for “freeports”.
But beyond this instinct, there’s not much evidence he’s thought or read widely, he’s obviously not especially cultured, and although by accounts a competent manager, whatever sense of vision he might have hoped to bring to the job has kind of crumbled against political reality. He now cuts a pretty desperate figure.
Contrast with Macron. On the surface similar backgrounds, both elite schools, both investment bankers. But Sunak would never describe himself as Jupiterian.
Johnson you could see thinking. Often thinking the wrong thing, but thinking all the time. May you could see the mental torture. Kwarteng despite the weirdness, some sense of intellectual journey going on. Truss and Sunak: nothing. Unreadable, like PMs made by chatGPT.
I don’t agree on Truss. She is a wonk - and she think A LOT. It’s just that she also a mentalist.
I’m instinctively hostile to simply banning cigarettes. But I guess that’s just me.
I find it bizarre that in the US, marijuana is now broadly tolerated but cigarette smoking is actively shunned.
Prohibition doesn't work.
Cigarettes should be legal but shunned. Same for others drugs.
The big difference with fags compared to other drugs is that there is no upside, no high, really. Most people probably won’t bother if they are illegal.
I don't think that's right - or none would be sold. During my very brief foray into smoking I certainly noticed a high. Not a huge one, but you wouldn't expect that for how cheap they were.
Yes, they seem to grant a rush of relaxation that’s the chemical equivalent of a big sigh, yawn and stretch.
Fortunately I never got into cigarettes but I can see the appeal.
Er, do they? I still smoke occasionally now (though rarely these days) and I can assure you I have never had such a feeling from them. Nicotine is a rubbish drug.
I’ve only smoked a handful of times so I’ll be getting that initial effect. I’ve not smoked enough to get the disappointment.
Alcohol is similarly a drug of diminishing returns, but it has the benefit of social disinhibition even when you’re a regular drinker. The only time I have a “rush” from alcohol is a rapidly downed gin martini (or a G&T does it too) on an empty stomach.
Alcohol also has the bonus that it is in drinks which taste nice.
Cannabis is worse than alcohol and cigarettes because it causes serious mental illness in many people. (Apologies if mental illness isn't the latest phrase to describe it).
Now this is good from Rishi, so long as he isn’t all fart and no follow through.
Rishi Sunak is considering introducing some of the world’s toughest anti-smoking measures that would in effect ban the next generation from ever being able to buy cigarettes, the Guardian has learned.
Whitehall sources said the prime minister was looking at measures similar to those brought in by New Zealand last December. They involved steadily increasing the legal smoking age so tobacco would end up never being sold to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009.
It is understood Sunak’s leadership pledge to fine people £10 for missing a GP or hospital appointment may also be back on the table, although this could be politically difficult. The idea was announced by the prime minister during his campaign in summer 2022, but appeared to have been dropped when he took office last autumn.
A New Zealand-style anti-smoking policy would mean cigarettes were phased out completely for the next generation. Under the former prime minister Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand also legislated to reduce the nicotine content of tobacco products and force them to be sold only through specialty tobacco stores, rather than convenience stores and supermarkets.
I am beginning to really, really hate Sunak. Regardless of whether you think it's a good idea, this really is not a priority. Do the job in front of you you stupid badly-dressed ha'porth (not you @TSE), stop doing displacement activity. What other stupid f*****g idea will Sunak come up with tomorrow? Mow the lawn? Sort your books in descending order of height? Do your job, you lazy [redacted].
And the cars thing, whatever you thought of it, at least works as a wedge issue. A Level reform? Smoking policy? Has he given up on the politics?
It’s of a piece with his “maths for 18 year olds”, “crack down on tuk-tuks”, and “chess boards for councils”.
At least Gordon Brown had a global financial crisis to wrestle with at the same time.
Properly funded and done right then Maths for 18 year olds is entirely reasonable. Almost every modern developed country on the planet has maths until 18, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I can't think of any others that don't - and for good reason. I've long felt dropping down to just 3 subjects at 18 is absurd, that's too young for people to be specialising and giving up on a well rounded education.
I finished my Baccalaureate (A-level equivalent) at 17 as I skipped a year, but my Baccalaureate had as compulsory: Main Language, Second (foreign) Language, Maths, a Science, a Social Science and one free subject you could choose eg a second Science or Social Science. I chose to do English, French, Maths, Physics, Economics and Computer Science.
Individually, each of these things might be a good idea. My point is that they are incoherent and in many cases verge on trivial. In some cases they seem very undercooked from a delivery perspective.
Sunak’s essential philosophy is best expressed in his 2022 Maes Lecture, which essentially a classic laissez-faire belief that government need only step away for growth to flourish. This underpins his early Brexitry and his enthusiasm for “freeports”.
But beyond this instinct, there’s not much evidence he’s thought or read widely, he’s obviously not especially cultured, and although by accounts a competent manager, whatever sense of vision he might have hoped to bring to the job has kind of crumbled against political reality. He now cuts a pretty desperate figure.
Contrast with Macron. On the surface similar backgrounds, both elite schools, both investment bankers. But Sunak would never describe himself as Jupiterian.
Johnson you could see thinking. Often thinking the wrong thing, but thinking all the time. May you could see the mental torture. Kwarteng despite the weirdness, some sense of intellectual journey going on. Truss and Sunak: nothing. Unreadable, like PMs made by chatGPT.
I don’t agree on Truss. She is a wonk - and she think A LOT. It’s just that she also a mentalist.
I find her unreadable. I’m sure there are large language algorithms going on in there but that sense of human agonising, the internal Shakespearean soliloquy we all have going on when we’re trying to make decisions, that just seems absent.
I’m instinctively hostile to simply banning cigarettes. But I guess that’s just me.
I find it bizarre that in the US, marijuana is now broadly tolerated but cigarette smoking is actively shunned.
Prohibition doesn't work.
Cigarettes should be legal but shunned. Same for others drugs.
The big difference with fags compared to other drugs is that there is no upside, no high, really. Most people probably won’t bother if they are illegal.
I don't think that's right - or none would be sold. During my very brief foray into smoking I certainly noticed a high. Not a huge one, but you wouldn't expect that for how cheap they were.
Yes, they seem to grant a rush of relaxation that’s the chemical equivalent of a big sigh, yawn and stretch.
Fortunately I never got into cigarettes but I can see the appeal.
Er, do they? I still smoke occasionally now (though rarely these days) and I can assure you I have never had such a feeling from them. Nicotine is a rubbish drug.
I’ve only smoked a handful of times so I’ll be getting that initial effect. I’ve not smoked enough to get the disappointment.
Alcohol is similarly a drug of diminishing returns, but it has the benefit of social disinhibition even when you’re a regular drinker. The only time I have a “rush” from alcohol is a rapidly downed gin martini (or a G&T does it too) on an empty stomach.
Alcohol also has the bonus that it is in drinks which taste nice.
For complicated reasons, I am watching rugby league on the telly. I've not watched it for a while. It's a peculiar game - as uf someone really, really, really liked the bit in rugby union where a large inside centre - Manu Tuliagi, say - crashes into his opposite numbet and set out to design a game which stripped out everything which wasn't that bit, and ensured that bit happened over and over again. It's not unentertaining. But peculiar. Also compelling is Leigh's choice of imagery. Leigh Leopards, they call themselves. Their shirts are utterly horrible. Basically a massive picture of a leopard. And leopardskin seems very prominent in the clothing of the team's bigwigs and hangers-on. Any glamour this may have is offset by the prominent sponsorship on the kit of Leigh market. Leigh's manager is an unusual looking fella. Adrian Lam - on looking him up, he is of Anglo-Sino-Papuan ancestry. That's a family history which needs some digging in to. His son, Lachlan, is also playing. It's not as good as rugby union. But it is strangely compelling.
Australian club rugby league - the ARL - is of a far higher standard than our SuperLeague and can be utterly compelling. The State of Origin matches (NSW v Queensland) are brilliant.
Point of order. It's the NRL. And it's by far the highest standard of club rugby of either code in the world.
It is extraordinarily difficult to be a successful PM, and it’s likely that the job is harder in this age of social media.
Rishi doesn’t really have the political skills, and his managerial competence - such as it is - doesn’t get you very far on its own.
Like many, including maybe even Truss, he needs another twenty years or something to go away, get some experience, and live life or something. There is already an extremely limited talent pool we are choosing from, and we are sending some of the best talent to the top undercooked.
Alongside Sunak and Truss, I’d add Kwarteng and Ed Miliband. Hague is of course the OG of this phenom.
I know Moscow is further away than Sevastopol, and will be better protected, but if Ukraine can hit the Black Sea Fleet Headquarters and kill the commander of the Black Sea Fleet after 19 months of war, how many months until they have the means of hitting army headquarters for the invasion in Rostov-on-Don and killing the Chief of the General Staff, or the Kremlin in Moscow and killing Putin himself?
Might this be the first time that Putin would stay to feel the first stirrings of fear that Ukraine are able to threaten his life directly?
Indeed
I’m also surprised, however, that the Russians haven’t really tried to take out Zelensky
I suspect there might be a tacit agreement between them. Don’t kill the leader
The failed Russian war plan from the beginning was to kill Zelensky and install a puppet in his place. I thought the story as told was that the Russians made it within a few dozen soldiers of doing so in the first 36 hours or so.
The Russians would kill Zelensky without a moment's hesitation.
I don't believe it. Not any more
Of course that was their intent at the start, but they failed, and since then they've made no attempt to take him out. And it's not like he's hiding out a la Osama Bin Laden (who eventually got slotted anyway). Zelensky does major speeches, pre-announced, in many places. He is the national leader. He does walkabouts in Ukrainian towns
I am pretty sure that Russia, with its missiles, spies, surveillance, assistance from China, and proximity to Ukraine, could take him out withoutTOO much trouble if they REALLY wanted. They are prepared to poison people in Salisbury FFS, they could surely zap him in, say, Ottawa or Brussels
And yet it doesn't happen. I reckon there is a tacit deal
The reason the Ukrainian air force is still flying is that the Russians are really bad, particularly slow, at completing the cycle of gathering intelligence, identifying a target, tasking an asset to hit the target and then executing the mission to actually land explosive on that target.
This is why you see so many Russian attacks against very fixed targets, like energy infrastructure, and attacks against Ukrainian command posts, ammunition dumps, the air force (and Zelensky) are much rarer. They've not managed to hit a HIMARS yet.
It's harder than you might think it is and they simply can't do it.
"Family of ill teen say they were 'brutally silenced' by courts
A teenager who died while challenging an NHS decision over her life-preserving treatment can be named for the first time. Sudiksha Thirumalesh, 19, had mitochondrial disease and died earlier this month during a legal battle. She wanted to raise money for an experimental treatment she thought might help her rare genetic disorder. As reporting restrictions were lifted, her family spoke of their anger at being prevented from speaking out. Ms Thirumalesh's brother Varshan Thirumalesh said: "We were gagged, silenced and prevented from accessing specialist treatment abroad.""
Cannabis is worse than alcohol and cigarettes because it causes serious mental illness in many people. (Apologies if mental illness isn't the latest phrase to describe it).
Alcohol does too, in much greater numbers. Alcoholism causes both mental and physical illness. It’s actually one of the more dangerous drugs.
For complicated reasons, I am watching rugby league on the telly. I've not watched it for a while. It's a peculiar game - as uf someone really, really, really liked the bit in rugby union where a large inside centre - Manu Tuliagi, say - crashes into his opposite numbet and set out to design a game which stripped out everything which wasn't that bit, and ensured that bit happened over and over again. It's not unentertaining. But peculiar. Also compelling is Leigh's choice of imagery. Leigh Leopards, they call themselves. Their shirts are utterly horrible. Basically a massive picture of a leopard. And leopardskin seems very prominent in the clothing of the team's bigwigs and hangers-on. Any glamour this may have is offset by the prominent sponsorship on the kit of Leigh market. Leigh's manager is an unusual looking fella. Adrian Lam - on looking him up, he is of Anglo-Sino-Papuan ancestry. That's a family history which needs some digging in to. His son, Lachlan, is also playing. It's not as good as rugby union. But it is strangely compelling.
Australian club rugby league - the ARL - is of a far higher standard than our SuperLeague and can be utterly compelling. The State of Origin matches (NSW v Queensland) are brilliant.
Point of order. It's the NRL. And it's by far the highest standard of club rugby of either code in the world.
The Grand Final in a couple of weeks and the three State of Origin games will be in the Top Ten most watched TV of the year in Australia. That's why they aren't very good at Union. They don't really care. League isn't a northern sport at all. It's a northern and eastern Australian one.
Cannabis is worse than alcohol and cigarettes because it causes serious mental illness in many people. (Apologies if mental illness isn't the latest phrase to describe it).
Are you sure? I know it's linked, but I wasn't aware that a causative effect was established. That is, there maybe psychological conditions that make people more likely to smoke it, reversing the proposed causality.
Cannabis is worse than alcohol and cigarettes because it causes serious mental illness in many people. (Apologies if mental illness isn't the latest phrase to describe it).
Are you sure? I know it's linked, but I wasn't aware that a causative effect was established. That is, there maybe psychological conditions that make people more likely to smoke it, reversing the proposed causality.
The literature is mixed, some studies seeming pretty clear and others questioning a causal link, but I’ve seen enough examples among friends and acquaintances that I’d tend to think it does indeed tip some susceptible people over the edge.
Yes. Ban cigarette sales to the next generation. Unqualified for support for this idea. Well done Sunak.
Is there really any point? The most recent ONS stats suggest that the 18-24 year olds were the group joint most likely to smoke in 2011, falling to second least likely to smoke in 2022.
And with the explosion in cheap, readily-available vapes in the past couple of years, I'd expect the number of young people who take up old-school smoking to fall away to almost nothing without any legislation being needed.
Very soon, we're going to be left with a handful of people who buy an occasional pack almost as a form of cosplay or as a kink thing. No-one's ever going to be taking up a habit of 20 Lambert and Butler every single day ever again.
So why spend the time and effort banning something that very few will ever do?
"Migration could be ‘dissolving force for EU’, says bloc’s top diplomat Exclusive: Josep Borrell calls for European unity in face of Ukraine war, US-China competition and rise of global south"
Cannabis is worse than alcohol and cigarettes because it causes serious mental illness in many people. (Apologies if mental illness isn't the latest phrase to describe it).
"Some research has shown that young people who use cannabis have an increased risk of psychosis. How strong the cannabis is you use, and how often you use it, can increase the risk of developing psychosis.
Using cannabis can also increase the risk of other mental health problems like depression and suicidal feelings."
Cannabis is worse than alcohol and cigarettes because it causes serious mental illness in many people. (Apologies if mental illness isn't the latest phrase to describe it).
Are you sure? I know it's linked, but I wasn't aware that a causative effect was established. That is, there maybe psychological conditions that make people more likely to smoke it, reversing the proposed causality.
The literature is mixed, some studies seeming pretty clear and others questioning a causal link, but I’ve seen enough examples among friends and acquaintances that I’d tend to think it does indeed tip some susceptible people over the edge.
I agree. I know of at least two people tipped into psychosis and schizophrenia by cannabis, and I really wonder if that would have happened without the weed. One of them ended his life in his late 20s - awful. It is a DANGEROUS drug
"US senator Bob Menendez charged with bribery after wads of cash and gold bars found at home
Prosecutors say the New Jersey senator was given a car after attempting to encourage the nomination of a US attorney in the state that he could influence to drop charges against a business associate of his."
For complicated reasons, I am watching rugby league on the telly. I've not watched it for a while. It's a peculiar game - as uf someone really, really, really liked the bit in rugby union where a large inside centre - Manu Tuliagi, say - crashes into his opposite numbet and set out to design a game which stripped out everything which wasn't that bit, and ensured that bit happened over and over again. It's not unentertaining. But peculiar. Also compelling is Leigh's choice of imagery. Leigh Leopards, they call themselves. Their shirts are utterly horrible. Basically a massive picture of a leopard. And leopardskin seems very prominent in the clothing of the team's bigwigs and hangers-on. Any glamour this may have is offset by the prominent sponsorship on the kit of Leigh market. Leigh's manager is an unusual looking fella. Adrian Lam - on looking him up, he is of Anglo-Sino-Papuan ancestry. That's a family history which needs some digging in to. His son, Lachlan, is also playing. It's not as good as rugby union. But it is strangely compelling.
Australian club rugby league - the ARL - is of a far higher standard than our SuperLeague and can be utterly compelling. The State of Origin matches (NSW v Queensland) are brilliant.
Point of order. It's the NRL. And it's by far the highest standard of club rugby of either code in the world.
The Grand Final in a couple of weeks and the three State of Origin games will be in the Top Ten most watched TV of the year in Australia. That's why they aren't very good at Union. They don't really care. League isn't a northern sport at all. It's a northern and eastern Australian one.
It is ultimately doomed, however
Because of the much greater global popularity of rugby union, and the creeping but inevitable invasion of the planetary sport: football. It is noticeablle how allergic NRL is to football in particular. They see the threat. They are right, but there is nothing they can do
Young men will stop turning to League, because there is more money in union and/or football. I reckon Aussie Rules (and also Gaelic football) are doomed for the same reason
Cannabis is worse than alcohol and cigarettes because it causes serious mental illness in many people. (Apologies if mental illness isn't the latest phrase to describe it).
Are you sure? I know it's linked, but I wasn't aware that a causative effect was established. That is, there maybe psychological conditions that make people more likely to smoke it, reversing the proposed causality.
The literature is mixed, some studies seeming pretty clear and others questioning a causal link, but I’ve seen enough examples among friends and acquaintances that I’d tend to think it does indeed tip some susceptible people over the edge.
I agree. I know of at least two people tipped into psychosis and schizophrenia by cannabis, and I really wonder if that would have happened without the weed. One of them ended his life in his late 20s - awful. It is a DANGEROUS drug
Did anyone suggest otherwise? The OP was the claim that it was worse than alcohol. An extremely dubious claim given how many people booze kills a year.
It is extraordinarily difficult to be a successful PM, and it’s likely that the job is harder in this age of social media.
Rishi doesn’t really have the political skills, and his managerial competence - such as it is - doesn’t get you very far on its own.
Like many, including maybe even Truss, he needs another twenty years or something to go away, get some experience, and live life or something. There is already an extremely limited talent pool we are choosing from, and we are sending some of the best talent to the top undercooked.
Alongside Sunak and Truss, I’d add Kwarteng and Ed Miliband. Hague is of course the OG of this phenom.
It's easy to forget that Thatcher had Airey Neave behind her rise to power - a tough senior Tory MP of very high standing who detested Edward Heath. He made things happen for her. Recent Tory leaders haven't had that solid backing. Truss had Kwarteng. That was clearly her own poor judgement, but still.
Cannabis is worse than alcohol and cigarettes because it causes serious mental illness in many people. (Apologies if mental illness isn't the latest phrase to describe it).
Are you sure? I know it's linked, but I wasn't aware that a causative effect was established. That is, there maybe psychological conditions that make people more likely to smoke it, reversing the proposed causality.
The literature is mixed, some studies seeming pretty clear and others questioning a causal link, but I’ve seen enough examples among friends and acquaintances that I’d tend to think it does indeed tip some susceptible people over the edge.
I agree. I know of at least two people tipped into psychosis and schizophrenia by cannabis, and I really wonder if that would have happened without the weed. One of them ended his life in his late 20s - awful. It is a DANGEROUS drug
Yes, me too. I lost two friends that way. One to psychosis, another to probable suicide.
Cannabis is worse than alcohol and cigarettes because it causes serious mental illness in many people. (Apologies if mental illness isn't the latest phrase to describe it).
People said the same when I was a teenager - "oh, it's not like it was when we were kids in the 70s, these days it's all high-potency skunk which leads to psychosis, so you had better not try it".
And, of course, my parents' generation were told almost exactly the same thing. And their parents' generation, too. And Reefer Madness, making the same arguments, was released in 1936!
The specifics may change - 20 years ago, I was warned about "high-potency skunk", and your article shows that kids now are being warned about "90% THC strains" (which sounds like bollocks to me - the highest I've ever seen advertised is 27%).
But go to any high-rated darknet market vendor, or to a legitimate seller in jurisdictions where it's legal, and they'll tell you what strains they're selling with what potency, backed up with lab test results.
The answer here is to have a well-regulated market with strong consumer protection in place. Repeating the same old moral panic every generation gets us nowhere.
Cannabis is worse than alcohol and cigarettes because it causes serious mental illness in many people. (Apologies if mental illness isn't the latest phrase to describe it).
I don’t think that link has been proven yet . And current government policy ensures that users are more likely to come into contact with those selling higher potency strains.
Legalize , tax it and promote lots of lower potency strains with a range of highs . I certainly don’t think cannabis users should be lectured to by any government who are happy to oversee the destructive societal impacts of alcohol misuse .
"Family of ill teen say they were 'brutally silenced' by courts
A teenager who died while challenging an NHS decision over her life-preserving treatment can be named for the first time. Sudiksha Thirumalesh, 19, had mitochondrial disease and died earlier this month during a legal battle. She wanted to raise money for an experimental treatment she thought might help her rare genetic disorder. As reporting restrictions were lifted, her family spoke of their anger at being prevented from speaking out. Ms Thirumalesh's brother Varshan Thirumalesh said: "We were gagged, silenced and prevented from accessing specialist treatment abroad.""
1) the experimental trial is currently halted in Canada 2) the patient was not capable of consent (hence the court case) 3) that the patient was on a ventilator, so not fit to travel.
Cannabis is worse than alcohol and cigarettes because it causes serious mental illness in many people. (Apologies if mental illness isn't the latest phrase to describe it).
Are you sure? I know it's linked, but I wasn't aware that a causative effect was established. That is, there maybe psychological conditions that make people more likely to smoke it, reversing the proposed causality.
The literature is mixed, some studies seeming pretty clear and others questioning a causal link, but I’ve seen enough examples among friends and acquaintances that I’d tend to think it does indeed tip some susceptible people over the edge.
I agree. I know of at least two people tipped into psychosis and schizophrenia by cannabis, and I really wonder if that would have happened without the weed. One of them ended his life in his late 20s - awful. It is a DANGEROUS drug
Did anyone suggest otherwise? The OP was the claim that it was worse than alcohol. An extremely dubious claim given how many people booze kills a year.
Alcohol is clearly more dangerous in quantitative terms. Although far fewer people smoke cannabis so it’s hard to compare directly.
The big three all do their damage on different ways.
Alcohol can cause acute poisoning, which neither nicotine nor cannabis seem to do. It can also cause loss of coordination leading to car crashes, and provoke violence. Long term it can cause liver disease and increase the risk of cancer. But taken in small doses throughout life it can be harmless and possibly beneficial.
Tobacco has few major acute effects but its favoured means of inhalation through combustion leads directly to lung cancer and other respiratory diseases, even with light use.
Cannabis causes similar lung cancer risks when smoked and is connected with psychosis, depression and loss of mental acuity after long term chronic use.
Cannabis is worse than alcohol and cigarettes because it causes serious mental illness in many people. (Apologies if mental illness isn't the latest phrase to describe it).
Are you sure? I know it's linked, but I wasn't aware that a causative effect was established. That is, there maybe psychological conditions that make people more likely to smoke it, reversing the proposed causality.
The literature is mixed, some studies seeming pretty clear and others questioning a causal link, but I’ve seen enough examples among friends and acquaintances that I’d tend to think it does indeed tip some susceptible people over the edge.
I agree. I know of at least two people tipped into psychosis and schizophrenia by cannabis, and I really wonder if that would have happened without the weed. One of them ended his life in his late 20s - awful. It is a DANGEROUS drug
Yes, me too. I lost two friends that way. One to psychosis, another to probable suicide.
And there are very few things as devastating as the suicide of someone in their teens or twenties. Suicide is always hideous. but when it is a young person with a future (and living parents, siblings and partners) it is like an atom bomb going off inside a family, the radiation sickness unrolls for decades. Friends also suffer
A lot of older people don't realise how dangerously strong new forms of weed can be. It ain't like that joint you had in 1985, it is now probably closer to LSD, but weirder and more sinister
For complicated reasons, I am watching rugby league on the telly. I've not watched it for a while. It's a peculiar game - as uf someone really, really, really liked the bit in rugby union where a large inside centre - Manu Tuliagi, say - crashes into his opposite numbet and set out to design a game which stripped out everything which wasn't that bit, and ensured that bit happened over and over again. It's not unentertaining. But peculiar. Also compelling is Leigh's choice of imagery. Leigh Leopards, they call themselves. Their shirts are utterly horrible. Basically a massive picture of a leopard. And leopardskin seems very prominent in the clothing of the team's bigwigs and hangers-on. Any glamour this may have is offset by the prominent sponsorship on the kit of Leigh market. Leigh's manager is an unusual looking fella. Adrian Lam - on looking him up, he is of Anglo-Sino-Papuan ancestry. That's a family history which needs some digging in to. His son, Lachlan, is also playing. It's not as good as rugby union. But it is strangely compelling.
Australian club rugby league - the ARL - is of a far higher standard than our SuperLeague and can be utterly compelling. The State of Origin matches (NSW v Queensland) are brilliant.
Point of order. It's the NRL. And it's by far the highest standard of club rugby of either code in the world.
The Grand Final in a couple of weeks and the three State of Origin games will be in the Top Ten most watched TV of the year in Australia. That's why they aren't very good at Union. They don't really care. League isn't a northern sport at all. It's a northern and eastern Australian one.
It is ultimately doomed, however
Because of the much greater global popularity of rugby union, and the creeping but inevitable invasion of the planetary sport: football. It is noticeablle how allergic NRL is to football in particular. They see the threat. They are right, but there is nothing they can do
Young men will stop turning to League, because there is more money in union and/or football. I reckon Aussie Rules (and also Gaelic football) are doomed for the same reason
Gaelic football and hurling are played on an amateur basis as it is (though most players who are drawn away by the promise of money end up playing Aussie Rules).
Absent the GAA imploding under the weight of a sell-inflicted crisis, in the way that the Irish Catholic church has to an extent, and it will continue to hold a central place in Irish cultural life, even if the best athletes are drawn to all manner of other sports where they can make a living.
It has a strong hold on the Irish psyche because of its role in defining Ireland as different to Britain, and it's a big part of local communities, and it's probably important in supporting a lot of unregulated gambling too (which seems to be the main reason road bowling exists).
It is extraordinarily difficult to be a successful PM, and it’s likely that the job is harder in this age of social media.
Rishi doesn’t really have the political skills, and his managerial competence - such as it is - doesn’t get you very far on its own.
Like many, including maybe even Truss, he needs another twenty years or something to go away, get some experience, and live life or something. There is already an extremely limited talent pool we are choosing from, and we are sending some of the best talent to the top undercooked.
Alongside Sunak and Truss, I’d add Kwarteng and Ed Miliband. Hague is of course the OG of this phenom.
Starmer is the interesting one there. (Not something said very often.)
Very little experience of frontline politics (though he is visibly learning) but a lot of experience of other forms.
What is there to be gained by attempting to can hs2 leg to Manchester now? He wont be PM when the money needs to be spent so it is the next PM's problem, or even the PM after that.
Bonkers.
He is out of control and showing how far too much power is in the centre in this country.
Cannabis is worse than alcohol and cigarettes because it causes serious mental illness in many people. (Apologies if mental illness isn't the latest phrase to describe it).
People said the same when I was a teenager - "oh, it's not like it was when we were kids in the 70s, these days it's all high-potency skunk which leads to psychosis, so you had better not try it".
And, of course, my parents' generation were told almost exactly the same thing. And their parents' generation, too. And Reefer Madness, making the same arguments, was released in 1936!
The specifics may change - 20 years ago, I was warned about "high-potency skunk", and your article shows that kids now are being warned about "90% THC strains" (which sounds like bollocks to me - the highest I've ever seen advertised is 27%).
But go to any high-rated darknet market vendor, or to a legitimate seller in jurisdictions where it's legal, and they'll tell you what strains they're selling with what potency, backed up with lab test results.
The answer here is to have a well-regulated market with strong consumer protection in place. Repeating the same old moral panic every generation gets us nowhere.
No
Modern recreational drugs - from Fentanyl and Tranq down to high-potency Skunk - are simply too dangerous to legalise. I suggest you take a walk around downtown Denver one day, the capital of the pioneer state of cannabis legalisation. You will see endless shuddering crazy people, you will see the psychosis that modern cannabis induces
I used to be in favour of legalisation. I have had a lot of fun from drugs, so anything else seemed hypocritical. I have changed my mind, looking at what these new drugs can do (and strong weed is part of that)
Ironically, psychedelics like mushrooms or DMT are now some of the safest drugs you can take, compared to evil shit like Tranq
Cannabis is worse than alcohol and cigarettes because it causes serious mental illness in many people. (Apologies if mental illness isn't the latest phrase to describe it).
Are you sure? I know it's linked, but I wasn't aware that a causative effect was established. That is, there maybe psychological conditions that make people more likely to smoke it, reversing the proposed causality.
The literature is mixed, some studies seeming pretty clear and others questioning a causal link, but I’ve seen enough examples among friends and acquaintances that I’d tend to think it does indeed tip some susceptible people over the edge.
I agree. I know of at least two people tipped into psychosis and schizophrenia by cannabis, and I really wonder if that would have happened without the weed. One of them ended his life in his late 20s - awful. It is a DANGEROUS drug
Did anyone suggest otherwise? The OP was the claim that it was worse than alcohol. An extremely dubious claim given how many people booze kills a year.
Alcohol is clearly more dangerous in quantitative terms. Although far fewer people smoke cannabis so it’s hard to compare directly.
The big three all do their damage on different ways.
Alcohol can cause acute poisoning, which neither nicotine nor cannabis seem to do. It can also cause loss of coordination leading to car crashes, and provoke violence. Long term it can cause liver disease and increase the risk of cancer. But taken in small doses throughout life it can be harmless and possibly beneficial.
Tobacco has few major acute effects but its favoured means of inhalation through combustion leads directly to lung cancer and other respiratory diseases, even with light use.
Cannabis causes similar lung cancer risks when smoked and is connected with psychosis, depression and loss of mental acuity after long term chronic use.
Addiction to alcohol is much more immediately damaging than addiction to nicotine, because it's harder to function in general while under the influence of alcohol.
Arguably sugar should also be considered as a harmful substance in a similar way. If it's responsible in large part for the increase in obesity, then that is a major detriment to public health.
What is there to be gained by attempting to can hs2 leg to Manchester now? He wont be PM when the money needs to be spent so it is the next PM's problem, or even the PM after that.
Bonkers.
He is out of control and showing how far too much power is in the centre in this country.
Announcing cancellation of the line into Manchester, just before conference, in (checks notes) Manchester...
The answer is yes. The potency of marijuana, indeed, has increased over time. A study that analyzed over 38,000 illicit marijuana samples provided by the DEA from 1995 to 2014 determined that its potency had approximately tripled in that period.
In 1995, the average concentration of THC was about 4%, but in 2014 it was around 12%."
Cannabis is worse than alcohol and cigarettes because it causes serious mental illness in many people. (Apologies if mental illness isn't the latest phrase to describe it).
Are you sure? I know it's linked, but I wasn't aware that a causative effect was established. That is, there maybe psychological conditions that make people more likely to smoke it, reversing the proposed causality.
The literature is mixed, some studies seeming pretty clear and others questioning a causal link, but I’ve seen enough examples among friends and acquaintances that I’d tend to think it does indeed tip some susceptible people over the edge.
I agree. I know of at least two people tipped into psychosis and schizophrenia by cannabis, and I really wonder if that would have happened without the weed. One of them ended his life in his late 20s - awful. It is a DANGEROUS drug
Did anyone suggest otherwise? The OP was the claim that it was worse than alcohol. An extremely dubious claim given how many people booze kills a year.
Alcohol is clearly more dangerous in quantitative terms. Although far fewer people smoke cannabis so it’s hard to compare directly.
The big three all do their damage on different ways.
Alcohol can cause acute poisoning, which neither nicotine nor cannabis seem to do. It can also cause loss of coordination leading to car crashes, and provoke violence. Long term it can cause liver disease and increase the risk of cancer. But taken in small doses throughout life it can be harmless and possibly beneficial.
Tobacco has few major acute effects but its favoured means of inhalation through combustion leads directly to lung cancer and other respiratory diseases, even with light use.
Cannabis causes similar lung cancer risks when smoked and is connected with psychosis, depression and loss of mental acuity after long term chronic use.
Cannabis can also have beneficial effects. Indeed, unlike alcohol, it is used by many health services as a medicine.
That is not to say there aren’t risks with high strength cannabis. There are. But @AndyJS ‘s claim that it was more dangerous is palpable garbage.
Cannabis is worse than alcohol and cigarettes because it causes serious mental illness in many people. (Apologies if mental illness isn't the latest phrase to describe it).
People said the same when I was a teenager - "oh, it's not like it was when we were kids in the 70s, these days it's all high-potency skunk which leads to psychosis, so you had better not try it".
And, of course, my parents' generation were told almost exactly the same thing. And their parents' generation, too. And Reefer Madness, making the same arguments, was released in 1936!
The specifics may change - 20 years ago, I was warned about "high-potency skunk", and your article shows that kids now are being warned about "90% THC strains" (which sounds like bollocks to me - the highest I've ever seen advertised is 27%).
But go to any high-rated darknet market vendor, or to a legitimate seller in jurisdictions where it's legal, and they'll tell you what strains they're selling with what potency, backed up with lab test results.
The answer here is to have a well-regulated market with strong consumer protection in place. Repeating the same old moral panic every generation gets us nowhere.
No
Modern recreational drugs - from Fentanyl and Tranq down to high-potency Skunk - are simply too dangerous to legalise. I suggest you take a walk around downtown Denver one day, the capital of the pioneer state of cannabis legalisation. You will see endless shuddering crazy people, you will see the psychosis that modern cannabis induces
I used to be in favour of legalisation. I have had a lot of fun from drugs, so anything else seemed hypocritical. I have changed my mind, looking at what these new drugs can do (and strong weed is part of that)
Ironically, psychedelics like mushrooms or DMT are now some of the safest drugs you can take, compared to evil shit like Tranq
psychedelics now being v seriously researched as medical solution to depression.
I remember Dominic Lawson going on about that a couple of months ago on R4. He is some high up in UK Chess, apparently, and said that Sunak was a keen supporter and that some public money would be forthcoming. Its a bit of a gesture, it has taken me way longer to type this post than it takes the government to spend £1m, but harmless enough.
Totally harmless, except that it again exposes the bizarre Soviet-style centralisation of UK government.
Councils - when they are not going bankrupt - are literally having to bid to install chess boards in parks.
In my view, British public frustration is to some extent explained by incredibly limited agency to make a local change, pretty much unparalleled in the OECD.
That personal hobbyhorse aside, the issue is what/how Sunak is choosing to focus his time on.
Yes. The idea that local government has to waste time bidding for £10,000 to install a single public chess table, presumably using masses of management time deciding where to locate the thing, putting together the bid document, and all for naught if they're not in a Tory marginal, is absolutely bonkers.
The local council will need to employ a Tory party donating consultancy firm to fill in the forms if they want a successful bid.
On smoking: it'll be interesting to see what attitudes to vaping will be like in a few decades time.
Do any 18 year olds smoke actual old-school cigarettes these days anyway?
One thing that all the panic about teenage vaping seems to have missed is that easy & cheap availability of vapes means that no-one is taking up smoking, except as some sort of fetish thing.
How many people still smoke a pipe? Does anyone know anyone that does?
The shitness of printers is an odd thing. I don’t know of any other major machine that everyone regards with such justified mistrust, on the grounds of constant failure
Imagine if microwaves or washing machines went wrong all the time. It would get fixed
Is there something in the technology of basic domestic printers that means they can’t be made reliable? Are the manufacturers knowingly selling dud products?
Otherwise there is surely room for a new printer manufacturer to step in and say “here, try this, it almost never goes wrong”. Boom
There's something fundamentally wrong with the whole printer business anyway.
We don't print much at home, so we have one of those fairly basic low-range printer scanners. It does the job we need perfectly adequately. Replacing the cartridges costs more than replacing the whole damn printer.
I can sort of see why; all the clever stuff is in the cartridge and the printer is a plastic box containing not much. But it's also bonkers. There must be a range of usage where the thing to do is just treat the whole thing as a disposable.
Which is insane on so many levels. I'm sure it's rational, but it's also insane.
The "get your arses back into the office" zealots should be promoting access to a good printer for all your printing needs as one of the benefits.
How many offices still have printers?
Of the four that I've worked in post-Covid, two didn't have publicly-available printers, one did but you had to buy some sort of payment card to use it, and the fourth was in a leased WeWork floor so probably had access to printers elswhere in the building but it wasn't clear where they were or how we should go about using them.
Fucking about with printers is one of the big overheads in running an office space. They're rapidly going the way of phones and wired network connections.
Bank I work for has fewer and fewer - a couple on each floor. High end photocopier/scanner/printer, can do a zillion sheets a minute, collate and staple. Rarely used.
I can still remember the fuss when they first told us everyone would lose the printer each person had on their own desk.
I have to admit it was only working from home in Covid that finally stopped me printing out docs and red penning them.
I find the best way round that is multiple monitors, or better yet, a single huge monitor. Think my next one might be 50”.
Direct retinal projection is surely the way to go, before they perfect the neural interface ?
A jack up the jacksie. Nice.
Retinal, not rectal.
I was thinking of the neural interface bit ... lots of nerves in the rectum (apparently), and a convenient hole, so what's not to like?
What is there to be gained by attempting to can hs2 leg to Manchester now? He wont be PM when the money needs to be spent so it is the next PM's problem, or even the PM after that.
Bonkers.
He is out of control and showing how far too much power is in the centre in this country.
Announcing cancellation of the line into Manchester, just before conference, in (checks notes) Manchester...
three tory seats in the area with sub 1000 majority.
On smoking: it'll be interesting to see what attitudes to vaping will be like in a few decades time.
Do any 18 year olds smoke actual old-school cigarettes these days anyway?
One thing that all the panic about teenage vaping seems to have missed is that easy & cheap availability of vapes means that no-one is taking up smoking, except as some sort of fetish thing.
How many people still smoke a pipe? Does anyone know anyone that does?
I do. And I find the ritualistic part of it quite enthralling.
On smoking: it'll be interesting to see what attitudes to vaping will be like in a few decades time.
Do any 18 year olds smoke actual old-school cigarettes these days anyway?
One thing that all the panic about teenage vaping seems to have missed is that easy & cheap availability of vapes means that no-one is taking up smoking, except as some sort of fetish thing.
I work in a sixth form college. Loads of them smoke, particularly the sports students. Over 50%, Id' say
On smoking: it'll be interesting to see what attitudes to vaping will be like in a few decades time.
Do any 18 year olds smoke actual old-school cigarettes these days anyway?
One thing that all the panic about teenage vaping seems to have missed is that easy & cheap availability of vapes means that no-one is taking up smoking, except as some sort of fetish thing.
How many people still smoke a pipe? Does anyone know anyone that does?
Cannabis is worse than alcohol and cigarettes because it causes serious mental illness in many people. (Apologies if mental illness isn't the latest phrase to describe it).
Are you sure? I know it's linked, but I wasn't aware that a causative effect was established. That is, there maybe psychological conditions that make people more likely to smoke it, reversing the proposed causality.
The literature is mixed, some studies seeming pretty clear and others questioning a causal link, but I’ve seen enough examples among friends and acquaintances that I’d tend to think it does indeed tip some susceptible people over the edge.
I agree. I know of at least two people tipped into psychosis and schizophrenia by cannabis, and I really wonder if that would have happened without the weed. One of them ended his life in his late 20s - awful. It is a DANGEROUS drug
Yes, me too. I lost two friends that way. One to psychosis, another to probable suicide.
And there are very few things as devastating as the suicide of someone in their teens or twenties. Suicide is always hideous. but when it is a young person with a future (and living parents, siblings and partners) it is like an atom bomb going off inside a family, the radiation sickness unrolls for decades. Friends also suffer
A lot of older people don't realise how dangerously strong new forms of weed can be. It ain't like that joint you had in 1985, it is now probably closer to LSD, but weirder and more sinister
I have also lost one of the same friends from 6th form to lung cancer, and another to alcoholism , so wouldn't argue they are benign. All in their 40s or 50s rather than teens, but tragic.
For complicated reasons, I am watching rugby league on the telly. I've not watched it for a while. It's a peculiar game - as uf someone really, really, really liked the bit in rugby union where a large inside centre - Manu Tuliagi, say - crashes into his opposite numbet and set out to design a game which stripped out everything which wasn't that bit, and ensured that bit happened over and over again. It's not unentertaining. But peculiar. Also compelling is Leigh's choice of imagery. Leigh Leopards, they call themselves. Their shirts are utterly horrible. Basically a massive picture of a leopard. And leopardskin seems very prominent in the clothing of the team's bigwigs and hangers-on. Any glamour this may have is offset by the prominent sponsorship on the kit of Leigh market. Leigh's manager is an unusual looking fella. Adrian Lam - on looking him up, he is of Anglo-Sino-Papuan ancestry. That's a family history which needs some digging in to. His son, Lachlan, is also playing. It's not as good as rugby union. But it is strangely compelling.
League can be great. Although I agree this game wasn’t a classic, you do often get really exciting matches. And there’s much less farting and faffing around with scums like there is in Union.
Scums! I’m going to use that instead of scrums when speaking to my rugger bugger friends!
For complicated reasons, I am watching rugby league on the telly. I've not watched it for a while. It's a peculiar game - as uf someone really, really, really liked the bit in rugby union where a large inside centre - Manu Tuliagi, say - crashes into his opposite numbet and set out to design a game which stripped out everything which wasn't that bit, and ensured that bit happened over and over again. It's not unentertaining. But peculiar. Also compelling is Leigh's choice of imagery. Leigh Leopards, they call themselves. Their shirts are utterly horrible. Basically a massive picture of a leopard. And leopardskin seems very prominent in the clothing of the team's bigwigs and hangers-on. Any glamour this may have is offset by the prominent sponsorship on the kit of Leigh market. Leigh's manager is an unusual looking fella. Adrian Lam - on looking him up, he is of Anglo-Sino-Papuan ancestry. That's a family history which needs some digging in to. His son, Lachlan, is also playing. It's not as good as rugby union. But it is strangely compelling.
Australian club rugby league - the ARL - is of a far higher standard than our SuperLeague and can be utterly compelling. The State of Origin matches (NSW v Queensland) are brilliant.
Point of order. It's the NRL. And it's by far the highest standard of club rugby of either code in the world.
The Grand Final in a couple of weeks and the three State of Origin games will be in the Top Ten most watched TV of the year in Australia. That's why they aren't very good at Union. They don't really care. League isn't a northern sport at all. It's a northern and eastern Australian one.
It is ultimately doomed, however
Because of the much greater global popularity of rugby union, and the creeping but inevitable invasion of the planetary sport: football. It is noticeablle how allergic NRL is to football in particular. They see the threat. They are right, but there is nothing they can do
Young men will stop turning to League, because there is more money in union and/or football. I reckon Aussie Rules (and also Gaelic football) are doomed for the same reason
But the NRL is booming. In terms of both audience and TV money. There is more money in Union if you play for one of the big International Nations (not Oz). If you don't, but play at the level below of top club, there isn't at all. Pacific Islanders are increasingly choosing it. There were virtually none even 20 years ago. Now every NRL side is chock full of Samoans and Fijians.
Cannabis is worse than alcohol and cigarettes because it causes serious mental illness in many people. (Apologies if mental illness isn't the latest phrase to describe it).
I don’t think that link has been proven yet . And current government policy ensures that users are more likely to come into contact with those selling higher potency strains.
Legalize , tax it and promote lots of lower potency strains with a range of highs . I certainly don’t think cannabis users should be lectured to by any government who are happy to oversee the destructive societal impacts of alcohol misuse .
What is there to be gained by attempting to can hs2 leg to Manchester now? He wont be PM when the money needs to be spent so it is the next PM's problem, or even the PM after that.
Bonkers.
He is out of control and showing how far too much power is in the centre in this country.
This HS2 (AKA the Aston to Acton Bullet) stuff is perplexing stupidity on a grand scale never seen even on these utterly mad corner-cutting shores. Just build the damned thing, direct, with through trains to the continent as originally planned. George Osborne made the point on his and Ed Balls’ podcast that its annual building budget is less than that of housing benefit.
For complicated reasons, I am watching rugby league on the telly. I've not watched it for a while. It's a peculiar game - as uf someone really, really, really liked the bit in rugby union where a large inside centre - Manu Tuliagi, say - crashes into his opposite numbet and set out to design a game which stripped out everything which wasn't that bit, and ensured that bit happened over and over again. It's not unentertaining. But peculiar. Also compelling is Leigh's choice of imagery. Leigh Leopards, they call themselves. Their shirts are utterly horrible. Basically a massive picture of a leopard. And leopardskin seems very prominent in the clothing of the team's bigwigs and hangers-on. Any glamour this may have is offset by the prominent sponsorship on the kit of Leigh market. Leigh's manager is an unusual looking fella. Adrian Lam - on looking him up, he is of Anglo-Sino-Papuan ancestry. That's a family history which needs some digging in to. His son, Lachlan, is also playing. It's not as good as rugby union. But it is strangely compelling.
Australian club rugby league - the ARL - is of a far higher standard than our SuperLeague and can be utterly compelling. The State of Origin matches (NSW v Queensland) are brilliant.
Point of order. It's the NRL. And it's by far the highest standard of club rugby of either code in the world.
The Grand Final in a couple of weeks and the three State of Origin games will be in the Top Ten most watched TV of the year in Australia. That's why they aren't very good at Union. They don't really care. League isn't a northern sport at all. It's a northern and eastern Australian one.
It is ultimately doomed, however
Because of the much greater global popularity of rugby union, and the creeping but inevitable invasion of the planetary sport: football. It is noticeablle how allergic NRL is to football in particular. They see the threat. They are right, but there is nothing they can do
Young men will stop turning to League, because there is more money in union and/or football. I reckon Aussie Rules (and also Gaelic football) are doomed for the same reason
But the NRL is booming. In terms of both audience and TV money. There is more money in Union if you play for one of the big International Nations (not Oz). If you don't, but play at the level below of top club, there isn't at all.
Sure, but Australia is, ultimately, a pretty small country (by population) with a modest economy. The international pressures will eventually overwhelm the sport, this is a last hurrah
But alcohol is one of those things we’ve decided for better or worse is a fixture of society despite the harm it causes. Like cars (and skiing - what other pastime would you willingly enter into knowing you have about a 20% chance of breaking a limb or tearing a ligament in a week of activity?).
Alcohol was humanity’s first drug. It’s just about the easiest to make: just get some fruit or sugary water and let it go sour. It’s given us its own literature, art, music, architecture, landscapes (vineyards, orchards), industrial heritage, archaeology. So it’s here to stay.
Cannabis is worse than alcohol and cigarettes because it causes serious mental illness in many people. (Apologies if mental illness isn't the latest phrase to describe it).
People said the same when I was a teenager - "oh, it's not like it was when we were kids in the 70s, these days it's all high-potency skunk which leads to psychosis, so you had better not try it".
And, of course, my parents' generation were told almost exactly the same thing. And their parents' generation, too. And Reefer Madness, making the same arguments, was released in 1936!
The specifics may change - 20 years ago, I was warned about "high-potency skunk", and your article shows that kids now are being warned about "90% THC strains" (which sounds like bollocks to me - the highest I've ever seen advertised is 27%).
But go to any high-rated darknet market vendor, or to a legitimate seller in jurisdictions where it's legal, and they'll tell you what strains they're selling with what potency, backed up with lab test results.
The answer here is to have a well-regulated market with strong consumer protection in place. Repeating the same old moral panic every generation gets us nowhere.
No
Modern recreational drugs - from Fentanyl and Tranq down to high-potency Skunk - are simply too dangerous to legalise. I suggest you take a walk around downtown Denver one day, the capital of the pioneer state of cannabis legalisation. You will see endless shuddering crazy people, you will see the psychosis that modern cannabis induces
I used to be in favour of legalisation. I have had a lot of fun from drugs, so anything else seemed hypocritical. I have changed my mind, looking at what these new drugs can do (and strong weed is part of that)
Ironically, psychedelics like mushrooms or DMT are now some of the safest drugs you can take, compared to evil shit like Tranq
psychedelics now being v seriously researched as medical solution to depression.
Trials show ecstasy is effective at relieving PTSD.
Comments
One thing that all the panic about teenage vaping seems to have missed is that easy & cheap availability of vapes means that no-one is taking up smoking, except as some sort of fetish thing.
https://www.which.co.uk/policy-and-insight/article/which-calls-for-action-over-printer-inks-costing-up-to-seven-times-more-than-dom-perignon-champagne-aeHrW6g7B3vb
"Some HP printers are designed to prevent customers from using third-party ink by employing something it calls 'dynamic security', which recognises cartridges with a non-HP chip and stops them working. HP maintains that this protects customers and gives them the best printing experience, but Which?'s research regularly shows that some third-party inks offer great-value printing and are highly recommended by the consumer champion's members."
Vaping is awful and not a welcome alternative.
I get frustrated by all this but ultimately I don't know quite what to say. @TimS came up with a brilliant description of this country as a "little kingdom of asset sweaters and accountants" and it can be applied to idiocy like this.
I will vote for any party that says
1. Fuck off, we aren't paying "reparations", give it a rest - or go talk to the Qataris and Omanis
2. Fuck off, we need Diego Garcia
3. Fuck off, you aren't getting the Elgin Marbles
What are they gonna do, invade us? Pff
Fortunately I never got into cigarettes but I can see the appeal.
It does not follow that we should hand over sovereignty to people who plan to treat the Chagossians abysmally.
But, saying fuck off to grifters is usually sensible.
If the Government were serious about governing for the good of the country they could start a consultation on this and then leave it for the next Government (which being realistic won't be them) to implement.
Governments should be doing things that are worthwhile even if they have a longer purview than 'implemented in full by the next election'.
Instead I suspect this is just a media press release and that's it.
This has turned out to be quite timely for leave I booked nine months ago, as my Dad has today had surgery and won't be walking his dog for a few days at least. I'll be earning some of his fine wine while walking her, especially the long morning walks
I'm going to try to fit in walks / pub crawls to Avebury and Amesbury in my second week off
Of course that was their intent at the start, but they failed, and since then they've made no attempt to take him out. And it's not like he's hiding out a la Osama Bin Laden (who eventually got slotted anyway). Zelensky does major speeches, pre-announced, in many places. He is the national leader. He does walkabouts in Ukrainian towns
I am pretty sure that Russia, with its missiles, spies, surveillance, assistance from China, and proximity to Ukraine, could take him out withoutTOO much trouble if they REALLY wanted. They are prepared to poison people in Salisbury FFS, they could surely zap him in, say, Ottawa or Brussels
And yet it doesn't happen. I reckon there is a tacit deal
It would be great to see justice done and a historical wrong from the dying days of Empire corrected.
Alcohol is similarly a drug of diminishing returns, but it has the benefit of social disinhibition even when you’re a regular drinker. The only time I have a “rush” from alcohol is a rapidly downed gin martini (or a G&T does it too) on an empty stomach.
Pricey, though. For the same money you could buy enough of pretty much any other drug to get at least a dozen people high.
tacit
/ˈtasɪt/
adjective
understood or implied without being stated.
"your silence may be taken to mean tacit agreement"
It's not unentertaining. But peculiar.
Also compelling is Leigh's choice of imagery. Leigh Leopards, they call themselves. Their shirts are utterly horrible. Basically a massive picture of a leopard. And leopardskin seems very prominent in the clothing of the team's bigwigs and hangers-on. Any glamour this may have is offset by the prominent sponsorship on the kit of Leigh market.
Leigh's manager is an unusual looking fella. Adrian Lam - on looking him up, he is of Anglo-Sino-Papuan ancestry. That's a family history which needs some digging in to. His son, Lachlan, is also playing.
It's not as good as rugby union. But it is strangely compelling.
My point is that they are incoherent and in many cases verge on trivial. In some cases they seem very undercooked from a delivery perspective.
Sunak’s essential philosophy is best expressed in his 2022 Maes Lecture, which essentially a classic laissez-faire belief that government need only step away for growth to flourish. This underpins his early Brexitry and his enthusiasm for “freeports”.
But beyond this instinct, there’s not much evidence he’s thought or read widely, he’s obviously not especially cultured, and although by accounts a competent manager, whatever sense of vision he might have hoped to bring to the job has kind of crumbled against political reality. He now cuts a pretty desperate figure.
Johnson you could see thinking. Often thinking the wrong thing, but thinking all the time. May you could see the mental torture. Kwarteng despite the weirdness, some sense of intellectual journey going on. Truss and Sunak: nothing. Unreadable, like PMs made by chatGPT.
I saw the lady who I posted it to yesterday, today. I told her about the stamp and she offered me the envelope
I'm now the owner of a 1978 11p Natural Gas stamp, and a 1999 64p Millennium Clock stamp
Someone stuck them on an ebay order
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/mental-health/marijuana-use-mental-health-young-adults-weed-rcna84984
It's the NRL.
And it's by far the highest standard of club rugby of either code in the world.
Rishi doesn’t really have the political skills, and his managerial competence - such as it is - doesn’t get you very far on its own.
Like many, including maybe even Truss, he needs another twenty years or something to go away, get some experience, and live life or something. There is already an extremely limited talent pool we are choosing from, and we are sending some of the best talent to the top undercooked.
Alongside Sunak and Truss, I’d add Kwarteng and Ed Miliband. Hague is of course the OG of this phenom.
This is why you see so many Russian attacks against very fixed targets, like energy infrastructure, and attacks against Ukrainian command posts, ammunition dumps, the air force (and Zelensky) are much rarer. They've not managed to hit a HIMARS yet.
It's harder than you might think it is and they simply can't do it.
A teenager who died while challenging an NHS decision over her life-preserving treatment can be named for the first time. Sudiksha Thirumalesh, 19, had mitochondrial disease and died earlier this month during a legal battle. She wanted to raise money for an experimental treatment she thought might help her rare genetic disorder. As reporting restrictions were lifted, her family spoke of their anger at being prevented from speaking out. Ms Thirumalesh's brother Varshan Thirumalesh said: "We were gagged, silenced and prevented from accessing specialist treatment abroad.""
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-66893040
That's why they aren't very good at Union. They don't really care.
League isn't a northern sport at all. It's a northern and eastern Australian one.
And with the explosion in cheap, readily-available vapes in the past couple of years, I'd expect the number of young people who take up old-school smoking to fall away to almost nothing without any legislation being needed.
Very soon, we're going to be left with a handful of people who buy an occasional pack almost as a form of cosplay or as a kink thing. No-one's ever going to be taking up a habit of 20 Lambert and Butler every single day ever again.
So why spend the time and effort banning something that very few will ever do?
Exclusive: Josep Borrell calls for European unity in face of Ukraine war, US-China competition and rise of global south"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/22/migration-eu-diplomat-josep-borrell-ukraine-china
"Some research has shown that young people who use cannabis have an increased risk of psychosis. How strong the cannabis is you use, and how often you use it, can increase the risk of developing psychosis.
Using cannabis can also increase the risk of other mental health problems like depression and suicidal feelings."
https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mental-health/parents-and-young-people/cannabis-and-mental-health-information-for-young-people
Prosecutors say the New Jersey senator was given a car after attempting to encourage the nomination of a US attorney in the state that he could influence to drop charges against a business associate of his."
https://news.sky.com/story/us-senator-bob-menendez-charged-with-bribery-after-wads-of-cash-and-gold-bars-found-at-home-12967423
Because of the much greater global popularity of rugby union, and the creeping but inevitable invasion of the planetary sport: football. It is noticeablle how allergic NRL is to football in particular. They see the threat. They are right, but there is nothing they can do
Young men will stop turning to League, because there is more money in union and/or football. I reckon Aussie Rules (and also Gaelic football) are doomed for the same reason
And, of course, my parents' generation were told almost exactly the same thing. And their parents' generation, too. And Reefer Madness, making the same arguments, was released in 1936!
The specifics may change - 20 years ago, I was warned about "high-potency skunk", and your article shows that kids now are being warned about "90% THC strains" (which sounds like bollocks to me - the highest I've ever seen advertised is 27%).
But go to any high-rated darknet market vendor, or to a legitimate seller in jurisdictions where it's legal, and they'll tell you what strains they're selling with what potency, backed up with lab test results.
The answer here is to have a well-regulated market with strong consumer protection in place. Repeating the same old moral panic every generation gets us nowhere.
Legalize , tax it and promote lots of lower potency strains with a range of highs . I certainly don’t think cannabis users should be lectured to by any government who are happy to oversee the destructive societal impacts of alcohol misuse .
1) the experimental trial is currently halted in Canada
2) the patient was not capable of consent (hence the court case)
3) that the patient was on a ventilator, so not fit to travel.
So not quite what you Quote.
The big three all do their damage on different ways.
Alcohol can cause acute poisoning, which neither nicotine nor cannabis seem to do. It can also cause loss of coordination leading to car crashes, and provoke violence. Long term it can cause liver disease and increase the risk of cancer. But taken in small doses throughout life it can be harmless and possibly beneficial.
Tobacco has few major acute effects but its favoured means of inhalation through combustion leads directly to lung cancer and other respiratory diseases, even with light use.
Cannabis causes similar lung cancer risks when smoked and is connected with psychosis, depression and loss of mental acuity after long term chronic use.
A lot of older people don't realise how dangerously strong new forms of weed can be. It ain't like that joint you had in 1985, it is now probably closer to LSD, but weirder and more sinister
Absent the GAA imploding under the weight of a sell-inflicted crisis, in the way that the Irish Catholic church has to an extent, and it will continue to hold a central place in Irish cultural life, even if the best athletes are drawn to all manner of other sports where they can make a living.
It has a strong hold on the Irish psyche because of its role in defining Ireland as different to Britain, and it's a big part of local communities, and it's probably important in supporting a lot of unregulated gambling too (which seems to be the main reason road bowling exists).
Very little experience of frontline politics (though he is visibly learning) but a lot of experience of other forms.
Let's see how that works out.
https://twitter.com/AllieHBNews/status/1705327605392506965
What is there to be gained by attempting to can hs2 leg to Manchester now? He wont be PM when the money needs to be spent so it is the next PM's problem, or even the PM after that.
Bonkers.
He is out of control and showing how far too much power is in the centre in this country.
Modern recreational drugs - from Fentanyl and Tranq down to high-potency Skunk - are simply too dangerous to legalise. I suggest you take a walk around downtown Denver one day, the capital of the pioneer state of cannabis legalisation. You will see endless shuddering crazy people, you will see the psychosis that modern cannabis induces
I used to be in favour of legalisation. I have had a lot of fun from drugs, so anything else seemed hypocritical. I have changed my mind, looking at what these new drugs can do (and strong weed is part of that)
Ironically, psychedelics like mushrooms or DMT are now some of the safest drugs you can take, compared to evil shit like Tranq
Alcohol-specific deaths 2021
9,641
Cannabis-related deaths 2021
26
https://www.statista.com/statistics/470833/drug-poisoning-deaths-cannabis-in-england-and-wales/
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/alcoholspecificdeathsintheuk/2021registrations
Arguably sugar should also be considered as a harmful substance in a similar way. If it's responsible in large part for the increase in obesity, then that is a major detriment to public health.
"Is Marijuana Really Stronger Than Ever?
The answer is yes. The potency of marijuana, indeed, has increased over time. A study that analyzed over 38,000 illicit marijuana samples provided by the DEA from 1995 to 2014 determined that its potency had approximately tripled in that period.
In 1995, the average concentration of THC was about 4%, but in 2014 it was around 12%."
And that has continued since
https://www.thefreedomcenter.com/is-marijuana-stronger-now-than-ever-before/#:~:text=The potency of marijuana, indeed,2014 it was around 12%.
"Cannabis strength soars over past half century – new study
Largest study on how cannabis has changed over time finds increased strength putting consumers at greater risk of harm"
https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/cannabis-strength-soars-over-past-half-century-new-study/
That is not to say there aren’t risks with high strength cannabis. There are. But @AndyJS ‘s claim that it was more dangerous is palpable garbage.
Gone. Gone. Gone.
@DPJHodges
·
3h
Net-Zero Game Changer latest...
YouGov
@YouGov
Rishi Sunak's net favourability score has fallen to a new low of -45
Half my friends from that group are now dead.
There is more money in Union if you play for one of the big International Nations (not Oz).
If you don't, but play at the level below of top club, there isn't at all.
Pacific Islanders are increasingly choosing it. There were virtually none even 20 years ago. Now every NRL side is chock full of Samoans and Fijians.
Just do it. FFS.
F
F
S
But alcohol is one of those things we’ve decided for better or worse is a fixture of society despite the harm it causes. Like cars (and skiing - what other pastime would you willingly enter into knowing you have about a 20% chance of breaking a limb or tearing a ligament in a week of activity?).
Alcohol was humanity’s first drug. It’s just about the easiest to make: just get some fruit or sugary water and let it go sour. It’s given us its own literature, art, music, architecture, landscapes (vineyards, orchards), industrial heritage, archaeology. So it’s here to stay.