politicalbetting
Home› General

Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

Sign In Register

Categories

In just a month Sunak sees a massive drop in his ratings – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 12,161
edited October 2023 in General
In just a month Sunak sees a massive drop in his ratings – politicalbetting.com

The number of Lib Dems with a favourable view of Rishi Sunak has halved since late AugustLib Dem votersFavourable: 12% (-13)Unfavourable: 85% (+12)Con votersFavourable: 48% (+1)Unfavourable: 47% (-2)Lab votersFav: 6% (-3)Unfav: 90% (+2)https://t.co/bThTCgY4m9 pic.twitter.com/QmMpEirFkD

Read the full story here

«13456

Comments

  • partypoliticalorphanpartypoliticalorphan Posts: 359
    Conservative conference looking increasingly crucial for Rishi as the knives sharpen. Expect Boris and Truss to be prominent.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    According to that chart, Sunak is still considered more favourably than the Tories themselves.

    Perhaps in the same way that Rosemary probably gets marginally more sympathy than Fred West.
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,679
    partypoliticalorphan said:

    Conservative conference looking increasingly crucial for Rishi as the knives sharpen. Expect Boris and Truss to be prominent.

    Yes, the Net Zero stuff was Rishi's last throw of the dice. If the Tories don't see any benefits from that pretty pronto then we could well be in for Truss II, The Legend Returns.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,145
    edited September 2023
    Go Forth ....

    Astonishing. Rishi Sunak has just gone full Neatherthal, including the lack of brain power.

    AIUI he has just scrapped a 10 year programme of regulatory improvement of Energy Efficiency in the PRS brought in by Ed Davey which has achieved impressive results.

    I could understand his perceived need to lick the boots of his own hoped-for voters, but to scrap the other. Just wow.

    The government's energy efficiency taskforce has quietly been disbanded, the BBC can reveal.

    It comes after Rishi Sunak scrapped energy efficiency regulations for landlords in an overhaul of green policies.

    The taskforce was set up in March to speed up home insulation and boiler upgrades.

    Improving energy efficiency is seen as a key way to get household bills down and reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66900999


  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,552
    "American bully XL: Owner sought after man attacked in south London park
    Published 2 hours ago"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66900657
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677
    edited September 2023
    partypoliticalorphan said:

    Conservative conference looking increasingly crucial for Rishi as the knives sharpen. Expect Boris and Truss to be prominent.

    Surely not. If the tories do feticde on Sunak and present the country with THEIR fourth PM in 18 months then it would be an instant GE. At which the tories would get utterly pumped.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,783
    edited September 2023
    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-66900999

    "Rishi Sunak scraps home energy efficiency taskforce

    A taskforce to speed up home insulation and boiler upgrades has been disbanded, the BBC can reveal.

    The group - which included the chair of the National Infrastructure Commission Sir John Armitt and other leading experts - was only launched in March.

    But it appears to be a casualty of Rishi Sunak's decision to scrap energy efficiency regulations for landlords in an overhaul of green policies.

    Members were informed in a letter, seen by the BBC, that it was being wound up.

    Energy efficiency minister Lord Callanan told the group its work would be "streamlined" into ongoing government activity."


    Hrm.

    Edit: I see MattW beat me to it.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496
    FPT

    What’s that quote about Gladstone?

    That he’d spent 20 years studying the Irish Question. But that every time he found an answer, the Irish changed the question?


    "William Gladstone spent his declining years trying to guess the answer to the Irish question; unfortunately, whenever he was getting warm, the Irish secretly changed the question".

    from 1066 and All That
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,821
    algarkirk said:

    FPT

    What’s that quote about Gladstone?

    That he’d spent 20 years studying the Irish Question. But that every time he found an answer, the Irish changed the question?


    "William Gladstone spent his declining years trying to guess the answer to the Irish question; unfortunately, whenever he was getting warm, the Irish secretly changed the question".

    from 1066 and All That

    According to the 2021 Census, only County Down has a Protestant majority. Antrim now only has a plurality.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,368
    Gardenwalker said:

    According to that chart, Sunak is still considered more favourably than the Tories themselves.

    Perhaps in the same way that Rosemary probably gets marginally more sympathy than Fred West.

    Can't see that last long - given the bonfire of schemes that is currently taking place...
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496
    Sunil_Prasannan said:

    algarkirk said:

    FPT

    What’s that quote about Gladstone?

    That he’d spent 20 years studying the Irish Question. But that every time he found an answer, the Irish changed the question?


    "William Gladstone spent his declining years trying to guess the answer to the Irish question; unfortunately, whenever he was getting warm, the Irish secretly changed the question".

    from 1066 and All That

    According to the 2021 Census, only County Down has a Protestant majority. Antrim now only has a plurality.
    Exactly! They are keeping on secretly changing the question. It won't be long before the RoI is mostly non Catholic, NI is mostly non Protestant and they keep wanting to blame the Henry II, William of Orange and Cromwell for why they don't want to be a single independent non theocratic country.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,561
    Gardenwalker said:

    According to that chart, Sunak is still considered more favourably than the Tories themselves.

    Perhaps in the same way that Rosemary probably gets marginally more sympathy than Fred West.

    Rose gets less sympathy than Fred for not doing the decent thing and topping herself. I would have thought.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,355
    Sunil_Prasannan said:

    algarkirk said:

    FPT

    What’s that quote about Gladstone?

    That he’d spent 20 years studying the Irish Question. But that every time he found an answer, the Irish changed the question?


    "William Gladstone spent his declining years trying to guess the answer to the Irish question; unfortunately, whenever he was getting warm, the Irish secretly changed the question".

    from 1066 and All That

    According to the 2021 Census, only County Down has a Protestant majority. Antrim now only has a plurality.
    One thing that I've noticed living in Ireland is that there's a lot more news from the North in the news here then there was back in Britain. Often there are news stories and I find I have to think about the county name to be clear that it's a story from the North, as it otherwise isn't obvious.

    When Northern Ireland is in the British news it always felt like it was news from a foreign country.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    MarqueeMark said:

    Gardenwalker said:

    According to that chart, Sunak is still considered more favourably than the Tories themselves.

    Perhaps in the same way that Rosemary probably gets marginally more sympathy than Fred West.

    Rose gets less sympathy than Fred for not doing the decent thing and topping herself. I would have thought.
    My then-wife once made the chilling observation that “actually, the young Fred West was quite good looking”
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,355
    Leon said:

    MarqueeMark said:

    Gardenwalker said:

    According to that chart, Sunak is still considered more favourably than the Tories themselves.

    Perhaps in the same way that Rosemary probably gets marginally more sympathy than Fred West.

    Rose gets less sympathy than Fred for not doing the decent thing and topping herself. I would have thought.
    My then-wife once made the chilling observation that “actually, the young Fred West was quite good looking”
    What first attracted her to you, do you think?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,145
    Leon said:

    MarqueeMark said:

    Gardenwalker said:

    According to that chart, Sunak is still considered more favourably than the Tories themselves.

    Perhaps in the same way that Rosemary probably gets marginally more sympathy than Fred West.

    Rose gets less sympathy than Fred for not doing the decent thing and topping herself. I would have thought.
    My then-wife once made the chilling observation that “actually, the young Fred West was quite good looking”
    Is she a good judge of looks in men? :smiley:
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,215
    Gardenwalker said:

    According to that chart, Sunak is still considered more favourably than the Tories themselves.

    Perhaps in the same way that Rosemary probably gets marginally more sympathy than Fred West.

    The convergence is pretty rapid, though.

    Purely from a graphwrangling point of view, I want to know what happens next.

    Is the Conservative line a floor that Rishi won't cross?

    Will people prefer generic Conservatives to Rishi? (cf Truss)

    Will he and his party descend together? (cf Johnson)

    Doesn't really matter when the numbers are this bad, but it's a neat bit of experimental design.

    (They can't ditch him, can they? At least not without looking even more like frivolous chancers.)
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    edited September 2023
    LostPassword said:

    Leon said:

    MarqueeMark said:

    Gardenwalker said:

    According to that chart, Sunak is still considered more favourably than the Tories themselves.

    Perhaps in the same way that Rosemary probably gets marginally more sympathy than Fred West.

    Rose gets less sympathy than Fred for not doing the decent thing and topping herself. I would have thought.
    My then-wife once made the chilling observation that “actually, the young Fred West was quite good looking”
    What first attracted her to you, do you think?
    As I say, it was chilling: on multiple levels

    She also admitted she fancied “the young Ted Bundy” and that young Stalin was “fit as fuck”
  • eekeek Posts: 28,368
    Stuartinromford said:

    Gardenwalker said:

    According to that chart, Sunak is still considered more favourably than the Tories themselves.

    Perhaps in the same way that Rosemary probably gets marginally more sympathy than Fred West.

    The convergence is pretty rapid, though.

    Purely from a graphwrangling point of view, I want to know what happens next.

    Is the Conservative line a floor that Rishi won't cross?

    Will people prefer generic Conservatives to Rishi? (cf Truss)

    Will he and his party descend together? (cf Johnson)

    Doesn't really matter when the numbers are this bad, but it's a neat bit of experimental design.

    (They can't ditch him, can they? At least not without looking even more like frivolous chancers.)
    The Tory party are stupid enough that they would if they had / could find someone who they perceive as more electable...
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,783
    Gardenwalker said:

    ohnotnow said:

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-66900999

    "Rishi Sunak scraps home energy efficiency taskforce

    A taskforce to speed up home insulation and boiler upgrades has been disbanded, the BBC can reveal.

    The group - which included the chair of the National Infrastructure Commission Sir John Armitt and other leading experts - was only launched in March.

    But it appears to be a casualty of Rishi Sunak's decision to scrap energy efficiency regulations for landlords in an overhaul of green policies.

    Members were informed in a letter, seen by the BBC, that it was being wound up.

    Energy efficiency minister Lord Callanan told the group its work would be "streamlined" into ongoing government activity."


    Hrm.

    In the first leadership campaign, Sunak became increasingly Trussian as he flailed desperately for relevance.

    Seems like the same thing is happening in his premiership.

    It does somewhat tickle me that we have to mark out "In the first leadership campaign". What fun times they were.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    The young Fred and Rosie West

    He is “quite good looking” I guess, in a sort of rough peasanty way. More disturbingly, she is genuinely pretty


  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,419
    Gardenwalker said:

    ohnotnow said:

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-66900999

    "Rishi Sunak scraps home energy efficiency taskforce

    A taskforce to speed up home insulation and boiler upgrades has been disbanded, the BBC can reveal.

    The group - which included the chair of the National Infrastructure Commission Sir John Armitt and other leading experts - was only launched in March.

    But it appears to be a casualty of Rishi Sunak's decision to scrap energy efficiency regulations for landlords in an overhaul of green policies.

    Members were informed in a letter, seen by the BBC, that it was being wound up.

    Energy efficiency minister Lord Callanan told the group its work would be "streamlined" into ongoing government activity."


    Hrm.

    In the first leadership campaign, Sunak became increasingly Trussian as he flailed desperately for relevance.

    Seems like the same thing is happening in his premiership.

    As I mentioned some weeks ago, Rishi can't credibly re-launch his Government with himself at the helm. The best thing he could do to signify his intent would be to sack the Chancellor, but that didn't keep Truss in the job for very long. I couldn't see Hunt going quietly on to the backbenches, but he might accept the NHS job.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,829
    Dura_Ace said:

    partypoliticalorphan said:

    Conservative conference looking increasingly crucial for Rishi as the knives sharpen. Expect Boris and Truss to be prominent.

    Surely not. If the tories do feticde on Sunak and present the country with THEIR fourth PM in 18 months then it would be an instant GE. At which the tories would get utterly pumped.
    Why instant GE? They could linger for a few months.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,829
    Farooq said:

    Casino_Royale said:

    OnlyLivingBoy said:

    Casino_Royale said:

    OnlyLivingBoy said:

    Casino_Royale said:

    OnlyLivingBoy said:

    Casino_Royale said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    "They" - you are British.

    Watch your mouth.
    And I thought it was the left who were policing people's pronouns!

    "Watch your mouth"? Bit early in the day for this kind of fighty talk, no?
    No patriot refers to their country in the third party as if it has nothing to do with them.

    It's a subtle tell. You should use "we".
    All it tells you is that I've lived abroad for much of my working life and even in London most of my colleagues aren't British, so when I talk about Britain there is no assumption of "we" with respect to my audience. If I'm making a purely factual statement about the British state's actions or behaviour I'll refer to Britain. If I'm making a more subjective point about shared responsibility I'll say "we" like I did in the very comment you are referring to. You don't own patriotism - you don't even seem to like much of this country particularly - and you certainly have earned no right to lecture me on patriotism or tell me what I can or cannot say.
    With respect, fuck off, old boy.

    I
    Farooq said:

    Casino_Royale said:

    Farooq said:

    I've never once stopped to wonder how big or small my grandfathers' penises were.

    I sort of think that I'm on the "normal" side of this particular divide, but I really can't be sure.

    I bet you have the tiniest penis on here.

    It comes across with every post that you write.
    it does WHAT now? :lol:
    You see, you don't deny it.

    Microcock.
    Deny it? Of all the penises of men on this site that I've measured, mine is the definitely the smallest.
    And we are left to infer that CR's makes this look like a chipolata.

    https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-largest-ever-giant-mortadella-in-the-big-apple-661-lbs-in-weight-6-4-ft-in-length-the-italian-excellence-to-delight-thousands-of-gourmet-enthusiasts-301649786.html
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,829
    Leon said:

    LostPassword said:

    Leon said:

    MarqueeMark said:

    Gardenwalker said:

    According to that chart, Sunak is still considered more favourably than the Tories themselves.

    Perhaps in the same way that Rosemary probably gets marginally more sympathy than Fred West.

    Rose gets less sympathy than Fred for not doing the decent thing and topping herself. I would have thought.
    My then-wife once made the chilling observation that “actually, the young Fred West was quite good looking”
    What first attracted her to you, do you think?
    As I say, it was chilling: on multiple levels

    She also admitted she fancied “the young Ted Bundy” and that young Stalin was “fit as fuck”
    Of course: a bit close to home for you. Gloucester being not a million miles from Hereford!
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,215
    Carnyx said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    partypoliticalorphan said:

    Conservative conference looking increasingly crucial for Rishi as the knives sharpen. Expect Boris and Truss to be prominent.

    Surely not. If the tories do feticde on Sunak and present the country with THEIR fourth PM in 18 months then it would be an instant GE. At which the tories would get utterly pumped.
    Why instant GE? They could linger for a few months.
    On one hand, changing PM again with no reference to the general public would be horribly undemocratic; on the other, that's never been an issue before and there's no way to actually force a General Election. Prime Minister Doomed-Tailgunner would still command a majority in the Commons.

    Since Rishi is likely to get eaten alive during an actual election campaign, it would be tempting to go for the Aznar option- he stays on as PM for now, but a different Conservative is PM designate for afterwards.

    I don't think that works in this context.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    edited September 2023
    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    LostPassword said:

    Leon said:

    MarqueeMark said:

    Gardenwalker said:

    According to that chart, Sunak is still considered more favourably than the Tories themselves.

    Perhaps in the same way that Rosemary probably gets marginally more sympathy than Fred West.

    Rose gets less sympathy than Fred for not doing the decent thing and topping herself. I would have thought.
    My then-wife once made the chilling observation that “actually, the young Fred West was quite good looking”
    What first attracted her to you, do you think?
    As I say, it was chilling: on multiple levels

    She also admitted she fancied “the young Ted Bundy” and that young Stalin was “fit as fuck”
    Of course: a bit close to home for you. Gloucester being not a million miles from Hereford!
    Gloucester is a weird city. Much weirder than old inbred Hereford

    I guess ALL the posh/educated people move to - or are born in - nearby Cheltenham, leaving the Fred West types behind. It also has a touch of the Forest of Dean about it, where I was recently, and which is as close as England gets to Deliverance Country - deeply rural (and often beautiful) yet with serious pockets of ancient industry, taciturn locals, inscrutable farmers, peculiar villages of bleak houses that go nowhere, no doubt lots of XL Bullies
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,829
    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    LostPassword said:

    Leon said:

    MarqueeMark said:

    Gardenwalker said:

    According to that chart, Sunak is still considered more favourably than the Tories themselves.

    Perhaps in the same way that Rosemary probably gets marginally more sympathy than Fred West.

    Rose gets less sympathy than Fred for not doing the decent thing and topping herself. I would have thought.
    My then-wife once made the chilling observation that “actually, the young Fred West was quite good looking”
    What first attracted her to you, do you think?
    As I say, it was chilling: on multiple levels

    She also admitted she fancied “the young Ted Bundy” and that young Stalin was “fit as fuck”
    Of course: a bit close to home for you. Gloucester being not a million miles from Hereford!
    Gloucester is a weird city. Much weirder than old inbred Hereford

    I guess ALL the posh/educated people move to - or are born in - nearby Cheltenham, leaving the Fred West types behind. It also has a touch of the Forest of Dean about it, where I was recently, and which is as close as England gets to Deliverance Country - deeply rural (and often beautiful) yet with serious pockets of ancient industry, taciturn locals, inscrutable farmers, peculiar villages of bleak houses that go nowhere, no doubt lots of XL Bullies
    I see, on checking, he was born in Much Marcle - over beyond Ledbury, though not (I think?) in the Forest.
  • AlsoLeiAlsoLei Posts: 1,457
    Leon said:

    The young Fred and Rosie West

    He is “quite good looking” I guess, in a sort of rough peasanty way. More disturbingly, she is genuinely pretty


    Is that Paul McCartney sitting on his knee?
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,215
    BartholomewRoberts said:

    I see that amongst the reforms Sunak has dropped, less publicised, has been the requirement for landlords to ensure their properties are C rated for energy efficiency at least.

    This is absurd.

    If you want to be a landlord your property should be of a decent standard and habitable. Expecting tenants to pay through the nose for energy because landlords can't be bothered to make homes habitable is utterly insane.

    Shame on Sunak.

    If you depend on landlords for a fair bit of your support and a fair bit of your income, of course you will make life easier and more profitable for landlords.

    (Remember folks, it's unlikely that landlords would be forced to increase rents to compensate. Rents are already roughly as high as the market can possibly bear, because that what the free market does when supply is constrained.)
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    AlsoLei said:

    Leon said:

    The young Fred and Rosie West

    He is “quite good looking” I guess, in a sort of rough peasanty way. More disturbingly, she is genuinely pretty


    Is that Paul McCartney sitting on his knee?
    Hah, v good

    Macca was a pretty boy
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,647
    BartholomewRoberts said:

    I see that amongst the reforms Sunak has dropped, less publicised, has been the requirement for landlords to ensure their properties are C rated for energy efficiency at least.

    This is absurd.

    If you want to be a landlord your property should be of a decent standard and habitable. Expecting tenants to pay through the nose for energy because landlords can't be bothered to make homes habitable is utterly insane.

    Shame on Sunak.

    How far is he going to take it?

    The Scottish Government should set a watch on the hydro dams in the Highlands. Tesla owners - you're next. Leaded fuel by 2030?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,829
    Eabhal said:

    BartholomewRoberts said:

    I see that amongst the reforms Sunak has dropped, less publicised, has been the requirement for landlords to ensure their properties are C rated for energy efficiency at least.

    This is absurd.

    If you want to be a landlord your property should be of a decent standard and habitable. Expecting tenants to pay through the nose for energy because landlords can't be bothered to make homes habitable is utterly insane.

    Shame on Sunak.

    How far is he going to take it?

    The Scottish Government should set a watch on the hydro dams in the Highlands. Tesla owners - you're next. Leaded fuel by 2030?
    Already going to have a woke war with the SG over insulation, never mind hydro.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    Is there any precedent for the government changing leader three times without reference to the electorate?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,552
    Leon said:

    The young Fred and Rosie West

    He is “quite good looking” I guess, in a sort of rough peasanty way. More disturbingly, she is genuinely pretty


    Fred West already looks like a serial killer in the photo.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    edited September 2023
    AlsoLei said:

    Leon said:

    The young Fred and Rosie West

    He is “quite good looking” I guess, in a sort of rough peasanty way. More disturbingly, she is genuinely pretty


    Is that Paul McCartney sitting on his knee?
    Relatedly, I rewatched that "Classic Album" episode from 2003, last night, describing the making of Dark Side of the Moon. Superb hour of documentary entertainment, full of revelations (it's on Amazon Prime)

    David Gilmour was a seriously beautiful young man, Roger Waters was definitely not (borderline ugly): I do wonder how much this fuelled the rivalry between them. Waters got better looking with age, Gilmour went the other way

    And the music was so complicated, clever and live. It all had to be performed more-or-less live, even getting the chimes of the clocks in "Time" to coincide exactly with the right chords on piano and guitar. And so much of it was sheer serendipity, eg the incredible vocalist brought in to wail about death in "Great Gig in the Sky" just because she was a friend of the producer and was in the area at the time

    Claire Torry. Apparently she thought she'd fucked it up and went back to the studio to apologise, they looked at her like she was mad, and told her it was brilliant

    They still didn't pay her properly, tho. She had to sue them in 2004 for totally justified royalities, rather than the £30 session fee she got. They settled out of court, for an "undisclosed sum". I wonder how much she got. Half a million? The record has generated hundreds of millions
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,955
    edited September 2023
    MarqueeMark said:

    Gardenwalker said:

    According to that chart, Sunak is still considered more favourably than the Tories themselves.

    Perhaps in the same way that Rosemary probably gets marginally more sympathy than Fred West.

    Rose gets less sympathy than Fred for not doing the decent thing and topping herself. I would have thought.
    Otoh Rose fell in love with a member of Slade* and planned to marry him, she gets at least a brownie point from me for making a horrible story even more grotesque. The Martin Amis connection is similarly weird.

    *One of the later non original ones.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    BartholomewRoberts said:

    I see that amongst the reforms Sunak has dropped, less publicised, has been the requirement for landlords to ensure their properties are C rated for energy efficiency at least.

    This is absurd.

    If you want to be a landlord your property should be of a decent standard and habitable. Expecting tenants to pay through the nose for energy because landlords can't be bothered to make homes habitable is utterly insane.

    Shame on Sunak.

    The 'EPC rating' has nothing to do with the quality of accommodation. It is a rating system for energy efficiency. The incoming requirement to achieve a set 'level' to let out properties out has been a major contributory factor in private landlords exiting the market. This has, in combination with other things, pushed up rents by hundreds of pounds a month across the entirety of UK because of a shortage of supply. The energy savings from the measures come at great cost (ie double glazing) and hassle, and probably save a few quid a month to tenants. Instead they are replacing it with what seems like a better system, incentivising the upgrades through grants.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,829
    darkage said:

    BartholomewRoberts said:

    I see that amongst the reforms Sunak has dropped, less publicised, has been the requirement for landlords to ensure their properties are C rated for energy efficiency at least.

    This is absurd.

    If you want to be a landlord your property should be of a decent standard and habitable. Expecting tenants to pay through the nose for energy because landlords can't be bothered to make homes habitable is utterly insane.

    Shame on Sunak.

    The 'EPC rating' has nothing to do with the quality of accommodation. It is a rating system for energy efficiency. The incoming requirement to achieve a set 'level' to let out properties out has been a major contributory factor in private landlords exiting the market. This has, in combination with other things, pushed up rents by hundreds of pounds a month across the entirety of UK because of a shortage of supply. The energy savings from the measures come at great cost (ie double glazing) and hassle, and probably save a few quid a month to tenants. Instead they are replacing it with what seems like a better system, incentivising the upgrades through grants.
    But isn't that a subsidy for landlords? And plenty of MP landlords, especially (but not only) Tories.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    Why has nobody posted about this frankly narcissistic wank-explosion from Chris Packham.

    https://x.com/chrisgpackham/status/1704828139535303132?s=46&t=L9g_woCIqbo1MTuBFCK0xg

    I probably share many of his instincts, but this video is unholy.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    edited September 2023
    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    The young Fred and Rosie West

    He is “quite good looking” I guess, in a sort of rough peasanty way. More disturbingly, she is genuinely pretty


    Fred West already looks like a serial killer in the photo.
    isn't that just us projecting what we know on to him? It's very hard not to do that

    To me, if I strain to look at it objectively, he looks like quite a rough lad, but not bad looking (as my exwife pointed out), very happy to have this pretty elfin girl as his partner, sitting on his lap, but he also looks quite dominant and definitely possessive - the whole pose says "she is my possession". I don't immediately get a serial killer vibe, more a sexual dom vibe

    Ironically, they went on to have a cuckold fetish where she would mate with other men while Fred peered through a special hole in the wall

  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486
    AlsoLei said:

    Leon said:

    The young Fred and Rosie West

    He is “quite good looking” I guess, in a sort of rough peasanty way. More disturbingly, she is genuinely pretty


    Is that Paul McCartney sitting on his knee?
    Maybe that’s where Paul got the inspiration for “fixing a hole” from.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    The young Fred and Rosie West

    He is “quite good looking” I guess, in a sort of rough peasanty way. More disturbingly, she is genuinely pretty


    Fred West already looks like a serial killer in the photo.
    isn't that just us projecting what we know on to him? It's very hard not to do that

    To me, if I strain to look at it objectively, he looks like quite a rough lad, but not bad looking (as my exwife pointed out), very happy to have this pretty elfin girl as his partner, sitting on his lap, but he also looks quite dominant and definitely possessive - the whole pose says "she is my possession"

    Ironically, they went on to have a cuckold fetish where she would mate with other men while Fred peered through a special hole in the wall

    If I understand the narrative, Fred West was already a serial killer at the time of that photo.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    Gardenwalker said:

    ohnotnow said:

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-66900999

    "Rishi Sunak scraps home energy efficiency taskforce

    A taskforce to speed up home insulation and boiler upgrades has been disbanded, the BBC can reveal.

    The group - which included the chair of the National Infrastructure Commission Sir John Armitt and other leading experts - was only launched in March.

    But it appears to be a casualty of Rishi Sunak's decision to scrap energy efficiency regulations for landlords in an overhaul of green policies.

    Members were informed in a letter, seen by the BBC, that it was being wound up.

    Energy efficiency minister Lord Callanan told the group its work would be "streamlined" into ongoing government activity."


    Hrm.

    In the first leadership campaign, Sunak became increasingly Trussian as he flailed desperately for relevance.

    Seems like the same thing is happening in his premiership.

    He reminds me of Kermit the Frog when he speeds up his talking & starts looking at each side of his benches in the PMQs I’ve watched

    And sounds just like Will from the inbetweeners
  • AlsoLeiAlsoLei Posts: 1,457
    Stuartinromford said:

    BartholomewRoberts said:

    I see that amongst the reforms Sunak has dropped, less publicised, has been the requirement for landlords to ensure their properties are C rated for energy efficiency at least.

    This is absurd.

    If you want to be a landlord your property should be of a decent standard and habitable. Expecting tenants to pay through the nose for energy because landlords can't be bothered to make homes habitable is utterly insane.

    Shame on Sunak.

    If you depend on landlords for a fair bit of your support and a fair bit of your income, of course you will make life easier and more profitable for landlords.

    (Remember folks, it's unlikely that landlords would be forced to increase rents to compensate. Rents are already roughly as high as the market can possibly bear, because that what the free market does when supply is constrained.)
    Lots of rental properties are actually better than their EPC ratings suggest - if you have a dig through Rightmove, you'll see loads of D or E-rated places with 9 or 10 year old (or even expired!) EPCs with stuff like "fit low-energy lightbulbs" in the suggested improvements. Those are things that have almost certainly already been done - which, in many cases, will have added enough to the score to move them into the next category.

    That suggests a degree of market failure that requires govt intervention to correct - landlords clearly don't see enough value in showing a higher value even if all it takes to do is a simple re-certification. So a bit of shove in the right direction is absolutely called for.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    Fred West is incredibly simian looking.
    Is that what people look like in the Marches?
  • glwglw Posts: 9,906
    BartholomewRoberts said:

    I see that amongst the reforms Sunak has dropped, less publicised, has been the requirement for landlords to ensure their properties are C rated for energy efficiency at least.

    This is absurd.

    If you want to be a landlord your property should be of a decent standard and habitable. Expecting tenants to pay through the nose for energy because landlords can't be bothered to make homes habitable is utterly insane.

    Shame on Sunak.

    Never before has one close by-election result had such an obvious and stupid effect on a government.

    I expect Sunak's government to get increasingly desperate and ridiculous.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    Gardenwalker said:

    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    The young Fred and Rosie West

    He is “quite good looking” I guess, in a sort of rough peasanty way. More disturbingly, she is genuinely pretty


    Fred West already looks like a serial killer in the photo.
    isn't that just us projecting what we know on to him? It's very hard not to do that

    To me, if I strain to look at it objectively, he looks like quite a rough lad, but not bad looking (as my exwife pointed out), very happy to have this pretty elfin girl as his partner, sitting on his lap, but he also looks quite dominant and definitely possessive - the whole pose says "she is my possession"

    Ironically, they went on to have a cuckold fetish where she would mate with other men while Fred peered through a special hole in the wall

    If I understand the narrative, Fred West was already a serial killer at the time of that photo.
    Was he??

    That's a surprise to me. I've read the fine Gordon Burns book about them - Happy Like Murderers - which is superbly detailed. However it is so bleak I may have erased details from my brain - such as this
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    Leon said:

    AlsoLei said:

    Leon said:

    The young Fred and Rosie West

    He is “quite good looking” I guess, in a sort of rough peasanty way. More disturbingly, she is genuinely pretty


    Is that Paul McCartney sitting on his knee?
    Relatedly, I rewatched that "Classic Album" episode from 2003, last night, describing the making of Dark Side of the Moon. Superb hour of documentary entertainment, full of revelations (it's on Amazon Prime)

    David Gilmour was a seriously beautiful young man, Roger Waters was definitely not (borderline ugly): I do wonder how much this fuelled the rivalry between them. Waters got better looking with age, Gilmour went the other way

    And the music was so complicated, clever and live. It all had to be performed more-or-less live, even getting the chimes of the clocks in "Time" to coincide exactly with the right chords on piano and guitar. And so much of it was sheer serendipity, eg the incredible vocalist brought in to wail about death in "Great Gig in the Sky" just because she was a friend of the producer and was in the area at the time

    Claire Torry. Apparently she thought she'd fucked it up and went back to the studio to apologise, they looked at her like she was mad, and told her it was brilliant

    They still didn't pay her properly, tho. She had to sue them in 2004 for totally justified royalities, rather than the £30 session fee she got. They settled out of court, for an "undisclosed sum". I wonder how much she got. Half a million? The record has generated hundreds of millions
    Brilliant programme. Waters rendition of ‘Money’ & the story of how he thought it sounded is great - he rejigged it this year and rehearsed it - absolutely terrible beyond belief

    The Lyrics to some of the songs on The Final Cut (title track, When the Tigers Broke Free & The Gunners Dream) are very moving about the futility of war

    You’re right about the way they’ve aged - Waters was an incredibly ugly young man, and is quite dashing nowadays, whereas Gilmour has outgrown his looks for sure

    I thought you were going to say McCartney was on DSOTM - apparently they interviewed him & Linda did the conversations between songs but never used them because they were too scripted
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496
    Gardenwalker said:

    Is there any precedent for the government changing leader three times without reference to the electorate?

    No idea, but the voters vote for 650 MPs on the basis of the quality of the candidates and party manifestos. The elected 650 by their majority confidence, sustain a government and at the head of government is a PM. At 5 year intervals (maximum) we can review the matter. That review takes into account (all politics being relative) not only how outstandingly brilliant the government has been, but also the quality of the opposition(s), and the quality of the MP you vote for.

    Referring change of leader to the electorate turns the PM into a president, whose mandate comes from the people not the MPs. This has a massive downside.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    Gardenwalker said:

    Fred West is incredibly simian looking.
    Is that what people look like in the Marches?

    In Ludlow, definitely
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,552
    New Canadian poll.

    Con 42.2%
    Lib 21.9%
    NDP 17.2%
    BQ 6.9%
    Green 6.2%
    PPC 3.5%
    Others 2.0%

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_45th_Canadian_federal_election
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,818
    BlancheLivermore said:

    Pretty good equinox harvest from my little yard!

    A few more days of sunshine and I should get another couple of plum tomato vines ripe


    Now how are we supposed to have an argument about that?
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,821
    Andy_JS said:

    New Canadian poll.

    Con 42.2%
    Lib 21.9%
    NDP 17.2%
    BQ 6.9%
    Green 6.2%
    PPC 3.5%
    Others 2.0%

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_45th_Canadian_federal_election

    At least Canada doesn't have a Caste System :lol:
  • AlsoLeiAlsoLei Posts: 1,457
    noneoftheabove said:

    BlancheLivermore said:

    Pretty good equinox harvest from my little yard!

    A few more days of sunshine and I should get another couple of plum tomato vines ripe


    Now how are we supposed to have an argument about that?
    Those cucumbers are shorter than your grandad's!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    edited September 2023
    isam said:

    Leon said:

    AlsoLei said:

    Leon said:

    The young Fred and Rosie West

    He is “quite good looking” I guess, in a sort of rough peasanty way. More disturbingly, she is genuinely pretty


    Is that Paul McCartney sitting on his knee?
    Relatedly, I rewatched that "Classic Album" episode from 2003, last night, describing the making of Dark Side of the Moon. Superb hour of documentary entertainment, full of revelations (it's on Amazon Prime)

    David Gilmour was a seriously beautiful young man, Roger Waters was definitely not (borderline ugly): I do wonder how much this fuelled the rivalry between them. Waters got better looking with age, Gilmour went the other way

    And the music was so complicated, clever and live. It all had to be performed more-or-less live, even getting the chimes of the clocks in "Time" to coincide exactly with the right chords on piano and guitar. And so much of it was sheer serendipity, eg the incredible vocalist brought in to wail about death in "Great Gig in the Sky" just because she was a friend of the producer and was in the area at the time

    Claire Torry. Apparently she thought she'd fucked it up and went back to the studio to apologise, they looked at her like she was mad, and told her it was brilliant

    They still didn't pay her properly, tho. She had to sue them in 2004 for totally justified royalities, rather than the £30 session fee she got. They settled out of court, for an "undisclosed sum". I wonder how much she got. Half a million? The record has generated hundreds of millions
    Brilliant programme. Waters rendition of ‘Money’ & the story of how he thought it sounded is great - he rejigged it this year and rehearsed it - absolutely terrible beyond belief

    The Lyrics to some of the songs on The Final Cut (title track, When the Tigers Broke Free & The Gunners Dream) are very moving about the futility of war

    You’re right about the way they’ve aged - Waters was an incredibly ugly young man, and is quite dashing nowadays, whereas Gilmour has outgrown his looks for sure

    I thought you were going to say McCartney was on DSOTM - apparently they interviewed him & Linda did the conversations between songs but never used them because they were too scripted
    It's a deeply poignant programme because it also illuminates an Absolute Peak Moment of Pop Music, never to be repeated. It's like watching a documentary with an older Michelangelo and an ageing Pope Julius II where they joke and gossip about "how they got the Sistine ceiling painted".

    "Do you remember the problem with the scaffolding, Mike?

    "hah, yeah, and we ran out of paint that day - and you told Raphael to fuck off"

    etc

    You watch it realising, This will not happen again, a form of music peaked here, just as Renaissance painting reached a peak with the Sistine Chapel, and then came a long decline, and a new Michelangelo never emerged



  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,073
    Gardenwalker said:

    Why has nobody posted about this frankly narcissistic wank-explosion from Chris Packham.

    https://x.com/chrisgpackham/status/1704828139535303132?s=46&t=L9g_woCIqbo1MTuBFCK0xg

    I probably share many of his instincts, but this video is unholy.

    I saw the trailer on telly (there's a program attached) and I thought it was very silly. He feels deeply about climate change and believes this feeling might lead him to break the law. I am concerned about this because:
    • i) Given his skillset he is unlikely to be able to take any action that would have any measurable impact on climate change. Even if (worst case scenario) he broke in and disabled a coal-fired station, it would not change the global situation, it would be repaired, and would endanger the firefighters/engineers brought in to fix it.
    • ii) He already has a bully pulpit. He's not good at anything else.
    • iii) Announcing ahead of time that you wish to do an illegal act is decadent, as it assumes that one is beyond the law. You will be aware of my animus towards rich people breaking the law ("the rules don't apply to the rich") and this is a cut-and-dried case of it.
    • iv) His employers or those commissioning the program should bear some kind of responsibility here.
    To put it simply, yet another decadent rich f**k is gabbing on about something in the blithe belief that the consequences will be borne by others.

  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134
    Leon said:

    LostPassword said:

    Leon said:

    MarqueeMark said:

    Gardenwalker said:

    According to that chart, Sunak is still considered more favourably than the Tories themselves.

    Perhaps in the same way that Rosemary probably gets marginally more sympathy than Fred West.

    Rose gets less sympathy than Fred for not doing the decent thing and topping herself. I would have thought.
    My then-wife once made the chilling observation that “actually, the young Fred West was quite good looking”
    What first attracted her to you, do you think?
    As I say, it was chilling: on multiple levels

    She also admitted she fancied “the young Ted Bundy” and that young Stalin was “fit as fuck”
    Everyone fancied Ted Bundy. If things had gone another way it's easy to see him as an actor starring in something like Starsky & Hutch.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,552
    Leon said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    AlsoLei said:

    Leon said:

    The young Fred and Rosie West

    He is “quite good looking” I guess, in a sort of rough peasanty way. More disturbingly, she is genuinely pretty


    Is that Paul McCartney sitting on his knee?
    Relatedly, I rewatched that "Classic Album" episode from 2003, last night, describing the making of Dark Side of the Moon. Superb hour of documentary entertainment, full of revelations (it's on Amazon Prime)

    David Gilmour was a seriously beautiful young man, Roger Waters was definitely not (borderline ugly): I do wonder how much this fuelled the rivalry between them. Waters got better looking with age, Gilmour went the other way

    And the music was so complicated, clever and live. It all had to be performed more-or-less live, even getting the chimes of the clocks in "Time" to coincide exactly with the right chords on piano and guitar. And so much of it was sheer serendipity, eg the incredible vocalist brought in to wail about death in "Great Gig in the Sky" just because she was a friend of the producer and was in the area at the time

    Claire Torry. Apparently she thought she'd fucked it up and went back to the studio to apologise, they looked at her like she was mad, and told her it was brilliant

    They still didn't pay her properly, tho. She had to sue them in 2004 for totally justified royalities, rather than the £30 session fee she got. They settled out of court, for an "undisclosed sum". I wonder how much she got. Half a million? The record has generated hundreds of millions
    Brilliant programme. Waters rendition of ‘Money’ & the story of how he thought it sounded is great - he rejigged it this year and rehearsed it - absolutely terrible beyond belief

    The Lyrics to some of the songs on The Final Cut (title track, When the Tigers Broke Free & The Gunners Dream) are very moving about the futility of war

    You’re right about the way they’ve aged - Waters was an incredibly ugly young man, and is quite dashing nowadays, whereas Gilmour has outgrown his looks for sure

    I thought you were going to say McCartney was on DSOTM - apparently they interviewed him & Linda did the conversations between songs but never used them because they were too scripted
    It's a deeply poignant programme because it also illuminates an Absolute Peak Moment of Pop Music, never to be repeated. It's like watching a documentary with an older Michelangelo and an ageing Pope Julius II where they joke and gossip about "how they got the Sistine ceiling painted".

    "Do you remember the problem with the scaffolding, Mike?

    "hah, yeah, and we ran out of paint that day - and you told Raphael to fuck off"

    etc

    You watch it realising, This will not happen again, a form of music peaked here, just as Renaissance painting reached a peak with the Sistine Chapel, and then came a long decline, and a new Michelangelo never emerged



    Did you listen to the album when it was first released in 1973?
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 21,968
    edited September 2023
    darkage said:

    BartholomewRoberts said:

    I see that amongst the reforms Sunak has dropped, less publicised, has been the requirement for landlords to ensure their properties are C rated for energy efficiency at least.

    This is absurd.

    If you want to be a landlord your property should be of a decent standard and habitable. Expecting tenants to pay through the nose for energy because landlords can't be bothered to make homes habitable is utterly insane.

    Shame on Sunak.

    The 'EPC rating' has nothing to do with the quality of accommodation. It is a rating system for energy efficiency. The incoming requirement to achieve a set 'level' to let out properties out has been a major contributory factor in private landlords exiting the market. This has, in combination with other things, pushed up rents by hundreds of pounds a month across the entirety of UK because of a shortage of supply. The energy savings from the measures come at great cost (ie double glazing) and hassle, and probably save a few quid a month to tenants. Instead they are replacing it with what seems like a better system, incentivising the upgrades through grants.
    Having to pay hundreds extra for gas and electricity each year because of poor quality draughty homes that don't have basic insulation is absolutely to do with the quality of accommodation.

    As for any slumlords who leave the market because they don't want their homes to meet a minimum quality for their tenants - good riddance!
  • GarethoftheVale2GarethoftheVale2 Posts: 2,242
    The other interesting thing is that since Sunak became PM, Starmer and Labour's ratings have also dropped sharply. This might be a reversion to the mean after they spiked during the Truss interlude, but doesn't align very well with the VI
  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,639
    Andy_JS said:

    New Canadian poll.

    Con 42.2%
    Lib 21.9%
    NDP 17.2%
    BQ 6.9%
    Green 6.2%
    PPC 3.5%
    Others 2.0%

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_45th_Canadian_federal_election

    Very good for Con. But expect Lib to come back as the election nears. Also Con (probably) need quite a lead in the popular vote to win as they win so many of the seats they won on the West by large majorities.

    But maybe the swing is greater in Ontario, Quebec and the East

    DYOR
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    AlsoLei said:

    Leon said:

    The young Fred and Rosie West

    He is “quite good looking” I guess, in a sort of rough peasanty way. More disturbingly, she is genuinely pretty


    Is that Paul McCartney sitting on his knee?
    Relatedly, I rewatched that "Classic Album" episode from 2003, last night, describing the making of Dark Side of the Moon. Superb hour of documentary entertainment, full of revelations (it's on Amazon Prime)

    David Gilmour was a seriously beautiful young man, Roger Waters was definitely not (borderline ugly): I do wonder how much this fuelled the rivalry between them. Waters got better looking with age, Gilmour went the other way

    And the music was so complicated, clever and live. It all had to be performed more-or-less live, even getting the chimes of the clocks in "Time" to coincide exactly with the right chords on piano and guitar. And so much of it was sheer serendipity, eg the incredible vocalist brought in to wail about death in "Great Gig in the Sky" just because she was a friend of the producer and was in the area at the time

    Claire Torry. Apparently she thought she'd fucked it up and went back to the studio to apologise, they looked at her like she was mad, and told her it was brilliant

    They still didn't pay her properly, tho. She had to sue them in 2004 for totally justified royalities, rather than the £30 session fee she got. They settled out of court, for an "undisclosed sum". I wonder how much she got. Half a million? The record has generated hundreds of millions
    Brilliant programme. Waters rendition of ‘Money’ & the story of how he thought it sounded is great - he rejigged it this year and rehearsed it - absolutely terrible beyond belief

    The Lyrics to some of the songs on The Final Cut (title track, When the Tigers Broke Free & The Gunners Dream) are very moving about the futility of war

    You’re right about the way they’ve aged - Waters was an incredibly ugly young man, and is quite dashing nowadays, whereas Gilmour has outgrown his looks for sure

    I thought you were going to say McCartney was on DSOTM - apparently they interviewed him & Linda did the conversations between songs but never used them because they were too scripted
    It's a deeply poignant programme because it also illuminates an Absolute Peak Moment of Pop Music, never to be repeated. It's like watching a documentary with an older Michelangelo and an ageing Pope Julius II where they joke and gossip about "how they got the Sistine ceiling painted".

    "Do you remember the problem with the scaffolding, Mike?

    "hah, yeah, and we ran out of paint that day - and you told Raphael to fuck off"

    etc

    You watch it realising, This will not happen again, a form of music peaked here, just as Renaissance painting reached a peak with the Sistine Chapel, and then came a long decline, and a new Michelangelo never emerged



    Did you listen to the album when it was first released in 1973?
    No, I was a bit too young

    I got into it in the late 70s when all my mates were into punk and post-punk (I was actually in a post-punk band) in Hereford. Pink Floyd was my secret pleasure (and Led Zep)

    I later learned the piano version of Great Gig in the Sky, the only decent song I've ever mastered, it was my party trick: sitting down and banging it out. Even without the vocals its a haunting, lovely chord sequence, but with those vocals it is one of the greatest songs ever recorded, no wonder she asked for royalties
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,821
    BlancheLivermore said:

    Pretty good equinox harvest from my little yard!

    A few more days of sunshine and I should get another couple of plum tomato vines ripe


    Splendid show!
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    Leon said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    AlsoLei said:

    Leon said:

    The young Fred and Rosie West

    He is “quite good looking” I guess, in a sort of rough peasanty way. More disturbingly, she is genuinely pretty


    Is that Paul McCartney sitting on his knee?
    Relatedly, I rewatched that "Classic Album" episode from 2003, last night, describing the making of Dark Side of the Moon. Superb hour of documentary entertainment, full of revelations (it's on Amazon Prime)

    David Gilmour was a seriously beautiful young man, Roger Waters was definitely not (borderline ugly): I do wonder how much this fuelled the rivalry between them. Waters got better looking with age, Gilmour went the other way

    And the music was so complicated, clever and live. It all had to be performed more-or-less live, even getting the chimes of the clocks in "Time" to coincide exactly with the right chords on piano and guitar. And so much of it was sheer serendipity, eg the incredible vocalist brought in to wail about death in "Great Gig in the Sky" just because she was a friend of the producer and was in the area at the time

    Claire Torry. Apparently she thought she'd fucked it up and went back to the studio to apologise, they looked at her like she was mad, and told her it was brilliant

    They still didn't pay her properly, tho. She had to sue them in 2004 for totally justified royalities, rather than the £30 session fee she got. They settled out of court, for an "undisclosed sum". I wonder how much she got. Half a million? The record has generated hundreds of millions
    Brilliant programme. Waters rendition of ‘Money’ & the story of how he thought it sounded is great - he rejigged it this year and rehearsed it - absolutely terrible beyond belief

    The Lyrics to some of the songs on The Final Cut (title track, When the Tigers Broke Free & The Gunners Dream) are very moving about the futility of war

    You’re right about the way they’ve aged - Waters was an incredibly ugly young man, and is quite dashing nowadays, whereas Gilmour has outgrown his looks for sure

    I thought you were going to say McCartney was on DSOTM - apparently they interviewed him & Linda did the conversations between songs but never used them because they were too scripted
    It's a deeply poignant programme because it also illuminates an Absolute Peak Moment of Pop Music, never to be repeated. It's like watching a documentary with an older Michelangelo and an ageing Pope Julius II where they joke and gossip about "how they got the Sistine ceiling painted".

    "Do you remember the problem with the scaffolding, Mike?

    "hah, yeah, and we ran out of paint that day - and you told Raphael to fuck off"

    etc

    You watch it realising, This will not happen again, a form of music peaked here, just as Renaissance painting reached a peak with the Sistine Chapel, and then came a long decline, and a new Michelangelo never emerged



    It was when the four of them gelled as a band like never before or after that’s for sure. It was pretty much the end of any kind of friendship between Waters and the others too

    May sound glib to compare, but Arctic Monkeys AM is the best album of the 21st C in my opinion. Took me a decade to bother listening to it but I can’t believe how brilliant it is. The ups and downs of a relationship/unrequited love/being on the pull/being heartbroken/in love put simply but beautifully throughout
  • Penddu2Penddu2 Posts: 689
    edited September 2023
    So for those of you interested in my RWC predictions - you will have noted that while my Samoa win did not come off - but my prediction of an upset (and betting opportunity) in Portugal game did - being fought to a 18-18 draw.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,748
    BartholomewRoberts said:

    darkage said:

    BartholomewRoberts said:

    I see that amongst the reforms Sunak has dropped, less publicised, has been the requirement for landlords to ensure their properties are C rated for energy efficiency at least.

    This is absurd.

    If you want to be a landlord your property should be of a decent standard and habitable. Expecting tenants to pay through the nose for energy because landlords can't be bothered to make homes habitable is utterly insane.

    Shame on Sunak.

    The 'EPC rating' has nothing to do with the quality of accommodation. It is a rating system for energy efficiency. The incoming requirement to achieve a set 'level' to let out properties out has been a major contributory factor in private landlords exiting the market. This has, in combination with other things, pushed up rents by hundreds of pounds a month across the entirety of UK because of a shortage of supply. The energy savings from the measures come at great cost (ie double glazing) and hassle, and probably save a few quid a month to tenants. Instead they are replacing it with what seems like a better system, incentivising the upgrades through grants.
    Having to pay hundreds extra for gas and electricity each year because of poor quality draughty homes that don't have basic insulation is absolutely to do with the quality of accommodation.

    As for any slumlords who leave the market because they don't want their homes to meet a minimum quality for their tenants - good riddance!
    Is it clear to what extent Sunak may have a real personal financial interest in the consequences of this policy, through his investments or the investments of his close family?
  • Penddu2Penddu2 Posts: 689
    For the record.....

    Three games up on Saturday:

    ENG v CHI. Chile will run anything they get back at England, but England will be too strong and should win by 20-30

    GEO v POR. This will be well matched – with Georgia’s physicality against Portugal’s fluid game. Georgia to eventually win by 10, but it will be close for much of the game. Portugal could even win (potential betting opportunity)

    RSA v IRE. This game will be immense. Ireland are very controlled but will meet their match in South Africa, especially when they meet the ‘Bomb Squad’ in the pack. I think RSA will just be too strong for Ireland – South Africa by 6
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,410
    Andy_JS said:

    New Canadian poll.

    Con 42.2%
    Lib 21.9%
    NDP 17.2%
    BQ 6.9%
    Green 6.2%
    PPC 3.5%
    Others 2.0%

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_45th_Canadian_federal_election

    Almost the exact opposite of here, politically.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 61,785
    Good afternoon, everyone.

    F1: just about to peruse the markets. Hoping the groups are up.
  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,639
    Penddu2 said:

    For the record.....

    Three games up on Saturday:

    ENG v CHI. Chile will run anything they get back at England, but England will be too strong and should win by 20-30

    GEO v POR. This will be well matched – with Georgia’s physicality against Portugal’s fluid game. Georgia to eventually win by 10, but it will be close for much of the game. Portugal could even win (potential betting opportunity)

    RSA v IRE. This game will be immense. Ireland are very controlled but will meet their match in South Africa, especially when they meet the ‘Bomb Squad’ in the pack. I think RSA will just be too strong for Ireland – South Africa by 6

    I think England will be pleased with a solid performance and to win the game. If we win we are virtually through to the QF. A bonus point for 4 tries is unlikely.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,410
    Did anyone else know the LD party conference had started?

    I certainly didn't.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    Is a bloke called George Scrimshaw bowling for England a Brexit benefit?
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    Casino_Royale said:

    Andy_JS said:

    New Canadian poll.

    Con 42.2%
    Lib 21.9%
    NDP 17.2%
    BQ 6.9%
    Green 6.2%
    PPC 3.5%
    Others 2.0%

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_45th_Canadian_federal_election

    Almost the exact opposite of here, politically.
    The newish Con leader seems v impressive and not - like our Cons - mentally defective.

    Have I mentioned my Anglo-Canadian alliance idea?
  • Penddu2Penddu2 Posts: 689
    edited September 2023
    londonpubman said:

    Penddu2 said:

    For the record.....

    Three games up on Saturday:

    ENG v CHI. Chile will run anything they get back at England, but England will be too strong and should win by 20-30

    GEO v POR. This will be well matched – with Georgia’s physicality against Portugal’s fluid game. Georgia to eventually win by 10, but it will be close for much of the game. Portugal could even win (potential betting opportunity)

    RSA v IRE. This game will be immense. Ireland are very controlled but will meet their match in South Africa, especially when they meet the ‘Bomb Squad’ in the pack. I think RSA will just be too strong for Ireland – South Africa by 6

    I think England will be pleased with a solid performance and to win the game. If we win we are virtually through to the QF. A bonus point for 4 tries is unlikely.
    You are not - if Samoa beat you then 3 teams will have same win-lose ratio and it will come down to bonus points and then points difference. Same scenario Wales are facing. We will know our fate on Sunday. You have two weeks to sweat....
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,624
    Gardenwalker said:

    Casino_Royale said:

    Andy_JS said:

    New Canadian poll.

    Con 42.2%
    Lib 21.9%
    NDP 17.2%
    BQ 6.9%
    Green 6.2%
    PPC 3.5%
    Others 2.0%

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_45th_Canadian_federal_election

    Almost the exact opposite of here, politically.
    The newish Con leader seems v impressive and not - like our Cons - mentally defective.

    Have I mentioned my Anglo-Canadian alliance idea?
    We could make it a full federation with the capital in London, Ontario, which we could transform into a mega city in between Toronto and Detroit.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,986
    Casino_Royale said:

    Did anyone else know the LD party conference had started?

    I certainly didn't.

    Worth looking out for eye catching policy announcements (there are some already on childcare and education) as the ones that go down well tend to find their way into the Labour manifesto, and thence - assuming Labour win - into law.
  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,639
    Penddu2 said:

    londonpubman said:

    Penddu2 said:

    For the record.....

    Three games up on Saturday:

    ENG v CHI. Chile will run anything they get back at England, but England will be too strong and should win by 20-30

    GEO v POR. This will be well matched – with Georgia’s physicality against Portugal’s fluid game. Georgia to eventually win by 10, but it will be close for much of the game. Portugal could even win (potential betting opportunity)

    RSA v IRE. This game will be immense. Ireland are very controlled but will meet their match in South Africa, especially when they meet the ‘Bomb Squad’ in the pack. I think RSA will just be too strong for Ireland – South Africa by 6

    I think England will be pleased with a solid performance and to win the game. If we win we are virtually through to the QF. A bonus point for 4 tries is unlikely.
    You are not - if Samoa beat you then 3 teams will have same win-lose ratio and it will come down to bonus points and then points difference. Same scenario Wales are facing. We will know our fate on Sunday. You have two weeks to sweat....
    Samoa certainly won't be easy for us!

    Not sure who will win tomorrow, Australia or Wales. Too close to call?
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,375
    isam said:

    Is a bloke called George Scrimshaw bowling for England a Brexit benefit?

    Possibly; he's certainly been very expensive so far (3 overs for 36).
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 3,860
    Boris and Truss both been rearing their heads lately, the former critiquing the HS2 dithering (in stopped-clock fashion, he does make the reasonable point that implying HS2 won’t reach Manchester now, when your party conference is in… Manchester, is not a great look).

    Truss can’t hurt Sunak now, but I think Boris has got a few bitter knife-twists in him.
  • AlsoLeiAlsoLei Posts: 1,457
    darkage said:

    BartholomewRoberts said:

    I see that amongst the reforms Sunak has dropped, less publicised, has been the requirement for landlords to ensure their properties are C rated for energy efficiency at least.

    This is absurd.

    If you want to be a landlord your property should be of a decent standard and habitable. Expecting tenants to pay through the nose for energy because landlords can't be bothered to make homes habitable is utterly insane.

    Shame on Sunak.

    The 'EPC rating' has nothing to do with the quality of accommodation. It is a rating system for energy efficiency. The incoming requirement to achieve a set 'level' to let out properties out has been a major contributory factor in private landlords exiting the market. This has, in combination with other things, pushed up rents by hundreds of pounds a month across the entirety of UK because of a shortage of supply. The energy savings from the measures come at great cost (ie double glazing) and hassle, and probably save a few quid a month to tenants. Instead they are replacing it with what seems like a better system, incentivising the upgrades through grants.
    The savings are more than a few quid. My current place has an EPC score of 87 (a high 'B'), and my gas + electric bill is about £65/month. The unrefurbished but otherwise-identical flat next door has a score of 67 (so a 'D' rating), and has a projected primary energy use that's just over 2.1x mine. The only comparable E-rated place on my street uses 4.6x more energy per sq metre. That's a lot.

    The regulations as they currently stand are about setting a reasonable floor, not enforcing best practice. They're intended to ratchet up at a steady pace (one grade every 8 years, is it?) that roughly fits with normal landlord refurbishment schedules.

    When the grade E floor came in, it had a cost cap of £3,500 - if the necessary improvements cost more than that, then an exemption would be granted. And there were local authority grants and government-supported finance options available to fund it. Presumably something similar would have applied to the future steps of the ratchet.

    I realise that EPCs are fairly crude with a number of potential edge cases like yours. But a more accurate system would likely cost much more to run, with much more intrusive inspections needed.

    If the government is now proposing to incentivise improvements purely by providing grants, how are they going to be measuring the effect of the money they'll be spending? Presumably they'll still be using EPCs? Or are they proposing to just blindly piss money up the wall in the hope that some of it will flow somewhere useful?

    Really, it's almost like they haven't thought this through at all.
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 3,860
    isam said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    AlsoLei said:

    Leon said:

    The young Fred and Rosie West

    He is “quite good looking” I guess, in a sort of rough peasanty way. More disturbingly, she is genuinely pretty


    Is that Paul McCartney sitting on his knee?
    Relatedly, I rewatched that "Classic Album" episode from 2003, last night, describing the making of Dark Side of the Moon. Superb hour of documentary entertainment, full of revelations (it's on Amazon Prime)

    David Gilmour was a seriously beautiful young man, Roger Waters was definitely not (borderline ugly): I do wonder how much this fuelled the rivalry between them. Waters got better looking with age, Gilmour went the other way

    And the music was so complicated, clever and live. It all had to be performed more-or-less live, even getting the chimes of the clocks in "Time" to coincide exactly with the right chords on piano and guitar. And so much of it was sheer serendipity, eg the incredible vocalist brought in to wail about death in "Great Gig in the Sky" just because she was a friend of the producer and was in the area at the time

    Claire Torry. Apparently she thought she'd fucked it up and went back to the studio to apologise, they looked at her like she was mad, and told her it was brilliant

    They still didn't pay her properly, tho. She had to sue them in 2004 for totally justified royalities, rather than the £30 session fee she got. They settled out of court, for an "undisclosed sum". I wonder how much she got. Half a million? The record has generated hundreds of millions
    Brilliant programme. Waters rendition of ‘Money’ & the story of how he thought it sounded is great - he rejigged it this year and rehearsed it - absolutely terrible beyond belief

    The Lyrics to some of the songs on The Final Cut (title track, When the Tigers Broke Free & The Gunners Dream) are very moving about the futility of war

    You’re right about the way they’ve aged - Waters was an incredibly ugly young man, and is quite dashing nowadays, whereas Gilmour has outgrown his looks for sure

    I thought you were going to say McCartney was on DSOTM - apparently they interviewed him & Linda did the conversations between songs but never used them because they were too scripted
    It's a deeply poignant programme because it also illuminates an Absolute Peak Moment of Pop Music, never to be repeated. It's like watching a documentary with an older Michelangelo and an ageing Pope Julius II where they joke and gossip about "how they got the Sistine ceiling painted".

    "Do you remember the problem with the scaffolding, Mike?

    "hah, yeah, and we ran out of paint that day - and you told Raphael to fuck off"

    etc

    You watch it realising, This will not happen again, a form of music peaked here, just as Renaissance painting reached a peak with the Sistine Chapel, and then came a long decline, and a new Michelangelo never emerged



    It was when the four of them gelled as a band like never before or after that’s for sure. It was pretty much the end of any kind of friendship between Waters and the others too

    May sound glib to compare, but Arctic Monkeys AM is the best album of the 21st C in my opinion. Took me a decade to bother listening to it but I can’t believe how brilliant it is. The ups and downs of a relationship/unrequited love/being on the pull/being heartbroken/in love put simply but beautifully throughout
    I’m not huge Arctic Monkeys guy but AM is a very good album. Shurely not the best of the 21st century (not sure it would scrape my top 100 if I could really be arsed to think of one), but of a high enough standard to see why someone might place it there.

    Also fwiw I don’t think Gilmour is that bad looking a guy, and is by all accounts a thoroughly nice fella.
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,679
    Ghedebrav said:

    Boris and Truss both been rearing their heads lately, the former critiquing the HS2 dithering (in stopped-clock fashion, he does make the reasonable point that implying HS2 won’t reach Manchester now, when your party conference is in… Manchester, is not a great look).

    Truss can’t hurt Sunak now, but I think Boris has got a few bitter knife-twists in him.

    Not so sure about Truss. The notion that she was ousted by shadowy forces and the public have had growth stolen from them seems to be gaining traction amongst elements of the Right. There's certainly an opportunity there for her to play the role British Trump.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,826
    Who on God's green earth would the Tories replace him with? Replacing another leader would surely see calls for an immediate election, they were probably lucky to avoid it after the Truss farrago. I've not seen any real analysis of what voters think about Sunak.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 61,785
    Betting

    F1: not the most exciting but backed Perez to win each way at 14 (boosted from 13).

    https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2023/09/japan-pre-race-2023.html


    Discounting the weird weekend in Singapore, his recent finishes have been 2nd, 4th, 2nd, and 3rd. These were from starts of 5th, 7th, 2nd, and 9th respectively.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,355
    BartholomewRoberts said:

    I see that amongst the reforms Sunak has dropped, less publicised, has been the requirement for landlords to ensure their properties are C rated for energy efficiency at least.

    This is absurd.

    If you want to be a landlord your property should be of a decent standard and habitable. Expecting tenants to pay through the nose for energy because landlords can't be bothered to make homes habitable is utterly insane.

    Shame on Sunak.

    I wonder if this is more about heading off a leadership challenge from right-wing backbenchers than about appealing to the electorate?

    If he can convince them that he will rip up as much regulation as possible in the remaining months of the government then they will be happier to leave him in place.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    edited September 2023
    Ghedebrav said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    AlsoLei said:

    Leon said:

    The young Fred and Rosie West

    He is “quite good looking” I guess, in a sort of rough peasanty way. More disturbingly, she is genuinely pretty


    Is that Paul McCartney sitting on his knee?
    Relatedly, I rewatched that "Classic Album" episode from 2003, last night, describing the making of Dark Side of the Moon. Superb hour of documentary entertainment, full of revelations (it's on Amazon Prime)

    David Gilmour was a seriously beautiful young man, Roger Waters was definitely not (borderline ugly): I do wonder how much this fuelled the rivalry between them. Waters got better looking with age, Gilmour went the other way

    And the music was so complicated, clever and live. It all had to be performed more-or-less live, even getting the chimes of the clocks in "Time" to coincide exactly with the right chords on piano and guitar. And so much of it was sheer serendipity, eg the incredible vocalist brought in to wail about death in "Great Gig in the Sky" just because she was a friend of the producer and was in the area at the time

    Claire Torry. Apparently she thought she'd fucked it up and went back to the studio to apologise, they looked at her like she was mad, and told her it was brilliant

    They still didn't pay her properly, tho. She had to sue them in 2004 for totally justified royalities, rather than the £30 session fee she got. They settled out of court, for an "undisclosed sum". I wonder how much she got. Half a million? The record has generated hundreds of millions
    Brilliant programme. Waters rendition of ‘Money’ & the story of how he thought it sounded is great - he rejigged it this year and rehearsed it - absolutely terrible beyond belief

    The Lyrics to some of the songs on The Final Cut (title track, When the Tigers Broke Free & The Gunners Dream) are very moving about the futility of war

    You’re right about the way they’ve aged - Waters was an incredibly ugly young man, and is quite dashing nowadays, whereas Gilmour has outgrown his looks for sure

    I thought you were going to say McCartney was on DSOTM - apparently they interviewed him & Linda did the conversations between songs but never used them because they were too scripted
    It's a deeply poignant programme because it also illuminates an Absolute Peak Moment of Pop Music, never to be repeated. It's like watching a documentary with an older Michelangelo and an ageing Pope Julius II where they joke and gossip about "how they got the Sistine ceiling painted".

    "Do you remember the problem with the scaffolding, Mike?

    "hah, yeah, and we ran out of paint that day - and you told Raphael to fuck off"

    etc

    You watch it realising, This will not happen again, a form of music peaked here, just as Renaissance painting reached a peak with the Sistine Chapel, and then came a long decline, and a new Michelangelo never emerged



    It was when the four of them gelled as a band like never before or after that’s for sure. It was pretty much the end of any kind of friendship between Waters and the others too

    May sound glib to compare, but Arctic Monkeys AM is the best album of the 21st C in my opinion. Took me a decade to bother listening to it but I can’t believe how brilliant it is. The ups and downs of a relationship/unrequited love/being on the pull/being heartbroken/in love put simply but beautifully throughout
    I’m not huge Arctic Monkeys guy but AM is a very good album. Shurely not the best of the 21st century (not sure it would scrape my top 100 if I could really be arsed to think of one), but of a high enough standard to see why someone might place it there.

    Also fwiw I don’t think Gilmour is that bad looking a guy, and is by all accounts a thoroughly nice fella.
    I’m not a huge fan of them either. Or wasn’t I suppose. But I think it’s great. I haven’t really listened to many 21stC albums really so it’s not a competitive heat… Beck’s ‘Sea Change’ & blur ‘Think Tank’ are the only two I’ve really liked I think.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,826
    LostPassword said:

    BartholomewRoberts said:

    I see that amongst the reforms Sunak has dropped, less publicised, has been the requirement for landlords to ensure their properties are C rated for energy efficiency at least.

    This is absurd.

    If you want to be a landlord your property should be of a decent standard and habitable. Expecting tenants to pay through the nose for energy because landlords can't be bothered to make homes habitable is utterly insane.

    Shame on Sunak.

    I wonder if this is more about heading off a leadership challenge from right-wing backbenchers than about appealing to the electorate?

    If he can convince them that he will rip up as much regulation as possible in the remaining months of the government then they will be happier to leave him in place.
    If they want to, I'd say bring it on. I can't believe they would win.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486
    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    AlsoLei said:

    Leon said:

    The young Fred and Rosie West

    He is “quite good looking” I guess, in a sort of rough peasanty way. More disturbingly, she is genuinely pretty


    Is that Paul McCartney sitting on his knee?
    Relatedly, I rewatched that "Classic Album" episode from 2003, last night, describing the making of Dark Side of the Moon. Superb hour of documentary entertainment, full of revelations (it's on Amazon Prime)

    David Gilmour was a seriously beautiful young man, Roger Waters was definitely not (borderline ugly): I do wonder how much this fuelled the rivalry between them. Waters got better looking with age, Gilmour went the other way

    And the music was so complicated, clever and live. It all had to be performed more-or-less live, even getting the chimes of the clocks in "Time" to coincide exactly with the right chords on piano and guitar. And so much of it was sheer serendipity, eg the incredible vocalist brought in to wail about death in "Great Gig in the Sky" just because she was a friend of the producer and was in the area at the time

    Claire Torry. Apparently she thought she'd fucked it up and went back to the studio to apologise, they looked at her like she was mad, and told her it was brilliant

    They still didn't pay her properly, tho. She had to sue them in 2004 for totally justified royalities, rather than the £30 session fee she got. They settled out of court, for an "undisclosed sum". I wonder how much she got. Half a million? The record has generated hundreds of millions
    Brilliant programme. Waters rendition of ‘Money’ & the story of how he thought it sounded is great - he rejigged it this year and rehearsed it - absolutely terrible beyond belief

    The Lyrics to some of the songs on The Final Cut (title track, When the Tigers Broke Free & The Gunners Dream) are very moving about the futility of war

    You’re right about the way they’ve aged - Waters was an incredibly ugly young man, and is quite dashing nowadays, whereas Gilmour has outgrown his looks for sure

    I thought you were going to say McCartney was on DSOTM - apparently they interviewed him & Linda did the conversations between songs but never used them because they were too scripted
    It's a deeply poignant programme because it also illuminates an Absolute Peak Moment of Pop Music, never to be repeated. It's like watching a documentary with an older Michelangelo and an ageing Pope Julius II where they joke and gossip about "how they got the Sistine ceiling painted".

    "Do you remember the problem with the scaffolding, Mike?

    "hah, yeah, and we ran out of paint that day - and you told Raphael to fuck off"

    etc

    You watch it realising, This will not happen again, a form of music peaked here, just as Renaissance painting reached a peak with the Sistine Chapel, and then came a long decline, and a new Michelangelo never emerged



    Did you listen to the album when it was first released in 1973?
    No, I was a bit too young

    I got into it in the late 70s when all my mates were into punk and post-punk (I was actually in a post-punk band) in Hereford. Pink Floyd was my secret pleasure (and Led Zep)

    I later learned the piano version of Great Gig in the Sky, the only decent song I've ever mastered, it was my party trick: sitting down and banging it out. Even without the vocals its a haunting, lovely chord sequence, but with those vocals it is one of the greatest songs ever recorded, no wonder she asked for royalties
    I went off Pink Floyd for years as my older brother played them to death when I was young. Then one of my best mates, whose dad was in the army and was killed when he was young was told by his mum that “Shine on you crazy diamond” was his favourite song so at the end of a pub session he would always put on “SOYCD” followed by Dire Straits “Brothers in arms” and put a real downer on the night.

    Got into them again weirdly after the Scissor Sisters did a great cover of comfortably numb that made me revisit.
  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,639
    Rishi isn't going anywhere. There is no alternative now. He will see it through and probably go for a GE May 2024.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    Arcade Fire’s Funeral and Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange are both good.

  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,552
    londonpubman said:

    Rishi isn't going anywhere. There is no alternative now. He will see it through and probably go for a GE May 2024.

    Why not wait longer?
  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,639
    Andy_JS said:

    londonpubman said:

    Rishi isn't going anywhere. There is no alternative now. He will see it through and probably go for a GE May 2024.

    Why not wait longer?
    Going full term - and Q4 will be substantively full term - just looks desperate.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,419
    londonpubman said:

    Rishi isn't going anywhere. There is no alternative now. He will see it through and probably go for a GE May 2024.

    Given that you've always supported him, Mandy Rice-Davies applies.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,706
    edited September 2023
    isam said:

    Ghedebrav said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    AlsoLei said:

    Leon said:

    The young Fred and Rosie West

    He is “quite good looking” I guess, in a sort of rough peasanty way. More disturbingly, she is genuinely pretty


    Is that Paul McCartney sitting on his knee?
    Relatedly, I rewatched that "Classic Album" episode from 2003, last night, describing the making of Dark Side of the Moon. Superb hour of documentary entertainment, full of revelations (it's on Amazon Prime)

    David Gilmour was a seriously beautiful young man, Roger Waters was definitely not (borderline ugly): I do wonder how much this fuelled the rivalry between them. Waters got better looking with age, Gilmour went the other way

    And the music was so complicated, clever and live. It all had to be performed more-or-less live, even getting the chimes of the clocks in "Time" to coincide exactly with the right chords on piano and guitar. And so much of it was sheer serendipity, eg the incredible vocalist brought in to wail about death in "Great Gig in the Sky" just because she was a friend of the producer and was in the area at the time

    Claire Torry. Apparently she thought she'd fucked it up and went back to the studio to apologise, they looked at her like she was mad, and told her it was brilliant

    They still didn't pay her properly, tho. She had to sue them in 2004 for totally justified royalities, rather than the £30 session fee she got. They settled out of court, for an "undisclosed sum". I wonder how much she got. Half a million? The record has generated hundreds of millions
    Brilliant programme. Waters rendition of ‘Money’ & the story of how he thought it sounded is great - he rejigged it this year and rehearsed it - absolutely terrible beyond belief

    The Lyrics to some of the songs on The Final Cut (title track, When the Tigers Broke Free & The Gunners Dream) are very moving about the futility of war

    You’re right about the way they’ve aged - Waters was an incredibly ugly young man, and is quite dashing nowadays, whereas Gilmour has outgrown his looks for sure

    I thought you were going to say McCartney was on DSOTM - apparently they interviewed him & Linda did the conversations between songs but never used them because they were too scripted
    It's a deeply poignant programme because it also illuminates an Absolute Peak Moment of Pop Music, never to be repeated. It's like watching a documentary with an older Michelangelo and an ageing Pope Julius II where they joke and gossip about "how they got the Sistine ceiling painted".

    "Do you remember the problem with the scaffolding, Mike?

    "hah, yeah, and we ran out of paint that day - and you told Raphael to fuck off"

    etc

    You watch it realising, This will not happen again, a form of music peaked here, just as Renaissance painting reached a peak with the Sistine Chapel, and then came a long decline, and a new Michelangelo never emerged



    It was when the four of them gelled as a band like never before or after that’s for sure. It was pretty much the end of any kind of friendship between Waters and the others too

    May sound glib to compare, but Arctic Monkeys AM is the best album of the 21st C in my opinion. Took me a decade to bother listening to it but I can’t believe how brilliant it is. The ups and downs of a relationship/unrequited love/being on the pull/being heartbroken/in love put simply but beautifully throughout
    I’m not huge Arctic Monkeys guy but AM is a very good album. Shurely not the best of the 21st century (not sure it would scrape my top 100 if I could really be arsed to think of one), but of a high enough standard to see why someone might place it there.

    Also fwiw I don’t think Gilmour is that bad looking a guy, and is by all accounts a thoroughly nice fella.
    I’m not a huge fan of them either. Or wasn’t I suppose. But I think it’s great. I haven’t really listened to many 21stC albums really so it’s not a competitive heat… Beck’s ‘Sea Change’ & blur ‘Think Tank’ are the only two I’ve really liked I think.
    I think it was more the recording of The Wall rather than Dark Side when the Waters-Gilmour friendship started to break badly.

    Obviously it was downhill rapidly after that LP.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,011
    Andy_JS said:

    New Canadian poll.

    Con 42.2%
    Lib 21.9%
    NDP 17.2%
    BQ 6.9%
    Green 6.2%
    PPC 3.5%
    Others 2.0%

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_45th_Canadian_federal_election

    Tories benefiting from the left of centre vote being split. That has a familiar ring to it.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    For a king who was meant to be a disaster, and stoke the fires of republicanism, King Charles seems to be awful popular in France

    Vive le Roi! Vive le Roi!

    https://x.com/MacronardsFM/status/1704511252284756111?s=20
This discussion has been closed.