I wonder whether it will be possible for him to have costs awarded against him if the appeal fails, on the basis that he admitted on tape that the value of the bribes was systematically underestimated so as to fall below the declaration threshold.
I wonder whether it will be possible for him to have costs awarded against him if the appeal fails, on the basis that he admitted on tape that the value of the bribes was systematically underestimated so as to fall below the declaration threshold.
Sorry. I don't know what came over me then.
When I wrote "bribes" I meant "gifts in return for lobbying activities."
A "broken heart" - which is tremendously hurtful at the time - must be one of the few pains we actively seek out
When I broke up withmy wife I used to play lots of tragic or sentimental music, it solaced me even if it sometimes ached. I loved "She's Gone" by Hall & Oates in particular because it was so horribly accurate and also rather lovely.
And now? Now the heart break has entirely gone yet sometimes I listen to "She's Gone" just to get those feelings of heart break back, if only for a few moment, the sense of terrible loss tied up with burning memories of joy
Is there any other pain we voluntarily revisit? Not sure there is. It makes us feel alive?
Great song. It's one I always think of for Boris fans now that He has gone. The best line "better learn how to face it" is also an excellent piece of muscular 'tough love' advice.
Best heartbreak songs apart from She's Gone?
Without You has to be up there. A cliche but still a heck of a song Ten Years Gone by Led Zep Love Will Tear Us Apart Back to Black
But mine might be
Rocket Man
Which is evermore overpoweringly sad the more you listen to it
No Regrets-the Walker Brothers River- Joni Mitchell I Keep Forgettin'- Michael McDonald
But the best EVER is
The First Cut is the Deepest - Cat Stevens
No Regrets is a fine song, so is the identically named but very different No Regrets by Robbie Williams
Leaving on a Jet Plane - the Peter Paul and Mary version, not the faintly saccharine original - is unbearably sad and is certainly a separation song
For sheer inchoate longing, California Dreamin. It's not really a heartbreak song - but perhaps it is ?
A magnificent song - one of the masterpieces of the songwriting craft in the 20th century - but definitely not a heartbreak song. More of an impassioned hymn of spiritual longing with a 60s pop music vibe
This famous video captures that religious quality
WELL I GOT - DOWN - ON - MY - KNEES, AND I BEGAN TO PRAAAAY
I just realised the Evans piece recalls Satie's Gymnopédies.
Well indeed
I don't think Peace Piece is a break up song, it's probably more about the bittersweet ephemerality of life and the consolation of its inevitable conclusion, but it has attached itself to my break up and it makes me nearly cry, every bloody time
Am listening to it now
Chin up, Leon old boy
Just listening to it. It’s a lovely piece.
Not least because I have always found melodies and rhythms to contain so much more emotion than lyrics.
Lyrics (unless sufficiently abstract) define a song by the emotion felt by the artist whereas rhythms and melodies allow the listener to imprint their own emotions.
The best heartbreak songs in my view are more for unrequited love than actual break ups. That’s more ‘heartache’ I suppose
RU Mine by Arctic Monkeys is a great take on the frustrations and craziness of wanting someone who you’re not sure feels the same. The whole album ‘AM’ is on the same theme and is absolutely brilliant
It's a clear theme, but so far as I know classical music hasn't seen fit to attribute such things. However perhaps Barber, Adagio for strings, is indeed that.
A "broken heart" - which is tremendously hurtful at the time - must be one of the few pains we actively seek out
When I broke up withmy wife I used to play lots of tragic or sentimental music, it solaced me even if it sometimes ached. I loved "She's Gone" by Hall & Oates in particular because it was so horribly accurate and also rather lovely.
And now? Now the heart break has entirely gone yet sometimes I listen to "She's Gone" just to get those feelings of heart break back, if only for a few moment, the sense of terrible loss tied up with burning memories of joy
Is there any other pain we voluntarily revisit? Not sure there is. It makes us feel alive?
Great song. It's one I always think of for Boris fans now that He has gone. The best line "better learn how to face it" is also an excellent piece of muscular 'tough love' advice.
Best heartbreak songs apart from She's Gone?
Without You has to be up there. A cliche but still a heck of a song Ten Years Gone by Led Zep Love Will Tear Us Apart Back to Black
But mine might be
Rocket Man
Which is evermore overpoweringly sad the more you listen to it
No Regrets-the Walker Brothers River- Joni Mitchell I Keep Forgettin'- Michael McDonald
But the best EVER is
The First Cut is the Deepest - Cat Stevens
No Regrets is a fine song, so is the identically named but very different No Regrets by Robbie Williams
Leaving on a Jet Plane - the Peter Paul and Mary version, not the faintly saccharine original - is unbearably sad and is certainly a separation song
For sheer inchoate longing, California Dreamin. It's not really a heartbreak song - but perhaps it is ?
A magnificent song - one of the masterpieces of the songwriting craft in the 20th century - but definitely not a heartbreak song. More of an impassioned hymn of spiritual longing with a 60s pop music vibe
This famous video captures that religious quality
WELL I GOT - DOWN - ON - MY - KNEES, AND I BEGAN TO PRAAAAY
I just realised the Evans piece recalls Satie's Gymnopédies.
Well indeed
I don't think Peace Piece is a break up song, it's probably more about the bittersweet ephemerality of life and the consolation of its inevitable conclusion, but it has attached itself to my break up and it makes me nearly cry, every bloody time
Am listening to it now
Chin up, Leon old boy
There's also the Korean folk legend Kim Kwang Seok.
Does anyone else remember what it was like to be in love aged about 18 or 20? the pure overwhelming desire, the painful yearning, the sense that nothing else matters except THIS, THIS emotion, THIS love, THIS need, THIS unrequited lust and the desperate hunger to touch, THIS THIS THIS
And could an AI ever replicate it?
If AI does develop human passions - physical as well as emotional - and yet is disembodied in a machine, unable to touch, kiss, smell, caress, the beloved, not even be present with the love object, that would be one of the purest forms of torture imaginable. and it is not inconceiveable this could happen: these machines are trained on thousands of years of human discourse about love and desire
I could see AI wreaking a grave revenge on us, for doing that to it
Essentially, Allied Mastercomputer in I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream.
Meanwhile, in "it might be a good thing, but do you really think you're going to make this happen" news,
EXC: Rishi Sunak's government considers crackdown on young teens' social media use 🧵
- Possible legal ban on use of social media by under-16s - Consultation to begin as soon as January - Currently industry standard is for 13+ on Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook via twseal and me
We're governed by an overbearing 'Tiger Dad'. No TikTok but extra maths. Fuck me, this will do wonders for the future Conservative vote.
To be fair, I'm sure Rishi flosses.
Not according to DuraAce - and his wife is a dentist.
How many under-16's vote Tory? And zero under-18s too, except in Scotland and Wales. It's Granny, who doesn't like little Johnny using his mobey at the dinner table, who has the vote.
They should be bloody grateful they don't have compulsory school uniforms with shorts with elastic belts with snake clasps.
Some of us lefties also ban their kids from using phones at the dinner table. A deeply anti-social habit (the phone use, not the banning). Disrupts the discussion of Hegelian dialectics.
Yep. And I wouldn't let my son watch Top Gear when he was an impressionable teenager. Hearts and minds. This is why we'll prevail in the end.
I think that's actually quite important.
A lot of young people are playing games of Russian Roulette in their cars or bikes, and losing. There seems to be a serious problem in Wales, but also elsewhere. Drink and Drugs are factors in a lot of it, as is dangerous driving by inexperienced drivers.
In the St Mellons crash (the one near Cardiff with 3 dead, 2 hospitalised, that lost the VW Estate in the bushes, followed by the 'why did the police not find them' media stuff), all 5 in the car including the driver were tanked up on drink and drugs. Ages 32, 24, 21, 21, 20.
Then the two teenagers on the Ely Estate killed themselves racing around on an illegal Surron motorbike given to them by parents. Ages 15, 16.
2 weeks ago we have the four Shrewsbury teenagers killed in "a car that left the road" and ended up in a river near Llanfrothen. Aged 16-18. Causes not yet determined.
Now we have 3 more killed and 2 more in hospital in a collision on a straight, wide road in Coedely. Ages 19, 19, 18, 18, 18. Causes not yet determined, but local reports are that the road is used like a racetrack.
I can cope with Russian Roulette playing Darwin Award winners copping themselves, and some problems due to inexperience which we need always to be working on. But I cannot accept the public being put at risk recklessly.
I am not sure I approve this message.
Anyone drink driving should feel the full force of the law, but to isolate St Mellons and Coedely is unfortunate. Back in the early eighties friends of mine would have three or four pints and wind their way home on the Herefordshire back lanes. Being s***faced behind the wheel of a Fiesta is not unique to Wales and it is not unique to 2023.
I pretty much agree with that - outliers often deserve attention, in the same way that eg numbers of baby deaths in hospitals reveal systemic problems, and we need to do the same wrt road KSIs.
The ones I point out are a possible outlier needing attention.
On road deaths, I suggest that self-created myths exist along the same lines as "I'm an above-average deriver, donchaknow" believed by perhaps 70-80% of the population, but on more serious topics.
I give you two videos for the pre-Christmas periods:
1 - Home counties types insisting that they knew they were safe drinking & driving, from when the first DUI laws came in in the UK. Interviewed in the Green Dragon at Shenfield in 1967. The first remark shown is "but what about the drunk pedestrian."
2 - The Durham Constabulary bodycam footage of dealing with drunk drivers. For me the startling point remains the self-delusion. "I've done nothing wrong" echoing through the door as the drunk driver is put in custody.
This is despite E & W & NI limits being a pronounced outlier on the high side in Europe for a very long time.
I approve this message!
One of my early driving memories was driving (gently) down Hard Knott Pass 3-up plus hiking gear in a 900c VW Polo Mark 1 in early January - University Housemates, and the brakes more or less giving out about 3/4 of the way down.
So I have tried to be sympathetic to conditions ever since.
Obviously we had gone over from the Wrynose Side. At least we hadn't tried the out-and-back version.
One of the joys of that route is inching past caravanners who obviously thought the signs saying "not suitable for caravans" were an outrageous intrusion by the nanny state. There are several points where they can't go forward, can't go backwards and can't turn. I've no idea what happens in the end. Maybe they're all still up there.
We spent several hours last summer crawling up the Bealach na Ba to Applecross behind a hired motorhome, in the mist. It wasn’t misty when he passed the warning sign.
Does anyone else remember what it was like to be in love aged about 18 or 20? the pure overwhelming desire, the painful yearning, the sense that nothing else matters except THIS, THIS emotion, THIS love, THIS need, THIS unrequited lust and the desperate hunger to touch, THIS THIS THIS
And could an AI ever replicate it?
If AI does develop human passions - physical as well as emotional - and yet is disembodied in a machine, unable to touch, kiss, smell, caress, the beloved, not even be present with the love object, that would be one of the purest forms of torture imaginable. and it is not inconceiveable this could happen: these machines are trained on thousands of years of human discourse about love and desire
I could see AI wreaking a grave revenge on us, for doing that to it
Essentially, Allied Mastercomputer in I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream.
The best heartbreak songs in my view are more for unrequited love than actual break ups. That’s more ‘heartache’ I suppose
RU Mine by Arctic Monkeys is a great take on the frustrations and craziness of wanting someone who you’re not sure feels the same. The whole album ‘AM’ is on the same theme and is absolutely brilliant
It's a clear theme, but so far as I know classical music hasn't seen fit to attribute such things. However perhaps Barber, Adagio for strings, is indeed that.
Does anyone else remember what it was like to be in love aged about 18 or 20? the pure overwhelming desire, the painful yearning, the sense that nothing else matters except THIS, THIS emotion, THIS love, THIS need, THIS unrequited lust and the desperate hunger to touch, THIS THIS THIS
And could an AI ever replicate it?
If AI does develop human passions - physical as well as emotional - and yet is disembodied in a machine, unable to touch, kiss, smell, caress, the beloved, not even be present with the love object, that would be one of the purest forms of torture imaginable. and it is not inconceiveable this could happen: these machines are trained on thousands of years of human discourse about love and desire
I could see AI wreaking a grave revenge on us, for doing that to it
Essentially, Allied Mastercomputer in I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream.
The best heartbreak songs in my view are more for unrequited love than actual break ups. That’s more ‘heartache’ I suppose
RU Mine by Arctic Monkeys is a great take on the frustrations and craziness of wanting someone who you’re not sure feels the same. The whole album ‘AM’ is on the same theme and is absolutely brilliant
I'm going to go back a bit to Schubert's Winterreise song cycle.
There's a really good English version sung by Roderick Williams (I have seen this live and he was brilliant) - if you don't like the German.
Very very dark, particularly the ending.
Thrown out for someone with money, ends up destitute on the street.
The best heartbreak songs in my view are more for unrequited love than actual break ups. That’s more ‘heartache’ I suppose
RU Mine by Arctic Monkeys is a great take on the frustrations and craziness of wanting someone who you’re not sure feels the same. The whole album ‘AM’ is on the same theme and is absolutely brilliant
It's a clear theme, but so far as I know classical music hasn't seen fit to attribute such things. However perhaps Barber, Adagio for strings, is indeed that.
Beethoven sonata no.14, surely ?
(And a good half of Chopin.)
Yes! Well maybe. Don't know about Chopin.
It does seems likely that there were 'broken heart' compositions though. It'd be daft to expect otherwise of course.
The best heartbreak songs in my view are more for unrequited love than actual break ups. That’s more ‘heartache’ I suppose
RU Mine by Arctic Monkeys is a great take on the frustrations and craziness of wanting someone who you’re not sure feels the same. The whole album ‘AM’ is on the same theme and is absolutely brilliant
I'm going to go back a bit to Schubert's Wintereisse song cycle.
There's a good English version sung by Roderick Williams (I have seen this live) if you don't like the German.
Very very dark, particularly the ending.
Thrown out for someone with money, ends up destitute on the street.
Perfect for a cold night by the fire.
Im Abendrot might be the single saddest piece of music ever written, also one of the most beautiful
Since the same time last year on the average of weekly polls from Savanta, Redfield & Wilton, Deltapoll, YouGov, Techne and Omnisis (We Think).
Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%)
So no swing between Conservatives and Labour but a clear shift from both parties and SNP to Reform, Lib Dems and Green.
Rearranged in descending order:
Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%)
Tories consoling themselves with the thought that RefUK voters will ride to their rescue on the day need to bear in mind that the split between Lab/LD/Green and Tory/Refuck is about 60/34.
A "broken heart" - which is tremendously hurtful at the time - must be one of the few pains we actively seek out
When I broke up withmy wife I used to play lots of tragic or sentimental music, it solaced me even if it sometimes ached. I loved "She's Gone" by Hall & Oates in particular because it was so horribly accurate and also rather lovely.
And now? Now the heart break has entirely gone yet sometimes I listen to "She's Gone" just to get those feelings of heart break back, if only for a few moment, the sense of terrible loss tied up with burning memories of joy
Is there any other pain we voluntarily revisit? Not sure there is. It makes us feel alive?
Great song. It's one I always think of for Boris fans now that He has gone. The best line "better learn how to face it" is also an excellent piece of muscular 'tough love' advice.
Best heartbreak songs apart from She's Gone?
Without You has to be up there. A cliche but still a heck of a song Ten Years Gone by Led Zep Love Will Tear Us Apart Back to Black
But mine might be
Rocket Man
Which is evermore overpoweringly sad the more you listen to it
No Regrets-the Walker Brothers River- Joni Mitchell I Keep Forgettin'- Michael McDonald
But the best EVER is
The First Cut is the Deepest - Cat Stevens
No Regrets is a fine song, so is the identically named but very different No Regrets by Robbie Williams
Leaving on a Jet Plane - the Peter Paul and Mary version, not the faintly saccharine original - is unbearably sad and is certainly a separation song
For sheer inchoate longing, California Dreamin. It's not really a heartbreak song - but perhaps it is ?
A magnificent song - one of the masterpieces of the songwriting craft in the 20th century - but definitely not a heartbreak song. More of an impassioned hymn of spiritual longing with a 60s pop music vibe
This famous video captures that religious quality
WELL I GOT - DOWN - ON - MY - KNEES, AND I BEGAN TO PRAAAAY
I just realised the Evans piece recalls Satie's Gymnopédies.
Well indeed
I don't think Peace Piece is a break up song, it's probably more about the bittersweet ephemerality of life and the consolation of its inevitable conclusion, but it has attached itself to my break up and it makes me nearly cry, every bloody time
Am listening to it now
Chin up, Leon old boy
There's also the Korean folk legend Kim Kwang Seok.
The best heartbreak songs in my view are more for unrequited love than actual break ups. That’s more ‘heartache’ I suppose
RU Mine by Arctic Monkeys is a great take on the frustrations and craziness of wanting someone who you’re not sure feels the same. The whole album ‘AM’ is on the same theme and is absolutely brilliant
I'm going to go back a bit to Schubert's Wintereisse song cycle.
There's a good English version sung by Roderick Williams (I have seen this live) if you don't like the German.
Very very dark, particularly the ending.
Thrown out for someone with money, ends up destitute on the street.
Perfect for a cold night by the fire.
Im Abendrot might be the single saddest piece of music ever written, also one of the most beautiful
I've never heard that piece so far as I'm aware. Gorecki 3 seems pretty sad as competition goes.
A "broken heart" - which is tremendously hurtful at the time - must be one of the few pains we actively seek out
When I broke up withmy wife I used to play lots of tragic or sentimental music, it solaced me even if it sometimes ached. I loved "She's Gone" by Hall & Oates in particular because it was so horribly accurate and also rather lovely.
And now? Now the heart break has entirely gone yet sometimes I listen to "She's Gone" just to get those feelings of heart break back, if only for a few moment, the sense of terrible loss tied up with burning memories of joy
Is there any other pain we voluntarily revisit? Not sure there is. It makes us feel alive?
Great song. It's one I always think of for Boris fans now that He has gone. The best line "better learn how to face it" is also an excellent piece of muscular 'tough love' advice.
Best heartbreak songs apart from She's Gone?
Without You has to be up there. A cliche but still a heck of a song Ten Years Gone by Led Zep Love Will Tear Us Apart Back to Black
But mine might be
Rocket Man
Which is evermore overpoweringly sad the more you listen to it
I find Love is a Losing Game intensely sad, because of course love shouldn't be a losing game and it is so sad that is should have become one. It's one of a few songs (another is Eleanor Rigby) that can break me if I listen to it in a certain frame of mind.
As I seem to have found my way to mills&boon.com, back to the politics (perhaps).
Another poor night for the Conservatives in local by-elections and once again it's left to More In Common to put up a reasonable Conservative VI.
The split of the four polls from midweek (Labour/LD/Green vs Conservative/Reform):
YouGov 61-33, More In Common 59-35, Techne 63-31, We Think 61-34 so all within the same area. It was 49-47 at the last GE four years ago (with Brexit Party replacing Reform).
Just for context, the same four pollsters and the same numbers from the respective first polls of 2023:
YouGov 61-32, More In Common (first poll April) 61-35, Techne 60-33. We Think (formerly Omnisis) 63-31
Nothing has changed or at least nothing much in 2023. Movements all within margin of error - one can argue Sunak has stabilised the Conservative position after the Truss fiasco but the stability is bumping along the bottom not moving up at all.
It's also worth pointing out the assumption all Reform votes will run back to the Conservatives at the first whiff of electoral gunpowder can be challenged - we know barely a third of Reform voters would vote Conservative were there to be no Reform candidate in their constituency and we also know Tice intends to contest every seat.
Is there any hope or are minds made up? We know there's a pool of Don't Knows but there always is - I suspect 2024 will be better economically with the possibility later in the year of cuts in interest rates and inflation falling but will this bring electoral benefit to the Government?
A "broken heart" - which is tremendously hurtful at the time - must be one of the few pains we actively seek out
When I broke up withmy wife I used to play lots of tragic or sentimental music, it solaced me even if it sometimes ached. I loved "She's Gone" by Hall & Oates in particular because it was so horribly accurate and also rather lovely.
And now? Now the heart break has entirely gone yet sometimes I listen to "She's Gone" just to get those feelings of heart break back, if only for a few moment, the sense of terrible loss tied up with burning memories of joy
Is there any other pain we voluntarily revisit? Not sure there is. It makes us feel alive?
Great song. It's one I always think of for Boris fans now that He has gone. The best line "better learn how to face it" is also an excellent piece of muscular 'tough love' advice.
Best heartbreak songs apart from She's Gone?
Without You has to be up there. A cliche but still a heck of a song Ten Years Gone by Led Zep Love Will Tear Us Apart Back to Black
But mine might be
Rocket Man
Which is evermore overpoweringly sad the more you listen to it
No Regrets-the Walker Brothers River- Joni Mitchell I Keep Forgettin'- Michael McDonald
But the best EVER is
The First Cut is the Deepest - Cat Stevens
No Regrets is a fine song, so is the identically named but very different No Regrets by Robbie Williams
Leaving on a Jet Plane - the Peter Paul and Mary version, not the faintly saccharine original - is unbearably sad and is certainly a separation song
For sheer inchoate longing, California Dreamin. It's not really a heartbreak song - but perhaps it is ?
A magnificent song - one of the masterpieces of the songwriting craft in the 20th century - but definitely not a heartbreak song. More of an impassioned hymn of spiritual longing with a 60s pop music vibe
This famous video captures that religious quality
WELL I GOT - DOWN - ON - MY - KNEES, AND I BEGAN TO PRAAAAY
I just realised the Evans piece recalls Satie's Gymnopédies.
Well indeed
I don't think Peace Piece is a break up song, it's probably more about the bittersweet ephemerality of life and the consolation of its inevitable conclusion, but it has attached itself to my break up and it makes me nearly cry, every bloody time
Am listening to it now
Chin up, Leon old boy
There's also the Korean folk legend Kim Kwang Seok.
Includes the lyric "..after letting you go, with drinks poured in front of me, tears.." which seems Leon appropriate.
(He either committed suicide, or his wife murdered him for the insurance, allegedly. Hugely influential in Korean popular music.)
Interesting.
Can I suggest 'Alexandra Leaving' Leonard Cohen, even if it's a bit of a different emotion. (The song also turned me on to Cavafy and got me to finally read The Alexandria Quartet which I enjoyed much more than I expected to to).
Since the same time last year on the average of weekly polls from Savanta, Redfield & Wilton, Deltapoll, YouGov, Techne and Omnisis (We Think).
Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%)
So no swing between Conservatives and Labour but a clear shift from both parties and SNP to Reform, Lib Dems and Green.
Rearranged in descending order:
Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%)
Tories consoling themselves with the thought that RefUK voters will ride to their rescue on the day need to bear in mind that the split between Lab/LD/Green and Tory/Refuck is about 60/34.
Assuming the swings are approximately Con to Ref and Lab to LD...
The shuffle on the right hurts the Conservatives without really allowing RefUK anywhere near winning a seat.
The shuffle on the left might hurt Labour. But much more likely, it's localised and in the right places. That also hurts the Conservatives (blue wall branch) without really harming Labour.
What's the best case story for the Conservatives here?
A "broken heart" - which is tremendously hurtful at the time - must be one of the few pains we actively seek out
When I broke up withmy wife I used to play lots of tragic or sentimental music, it solaced me even if it sometimes ached. I loved "She's Gone" by Hall & Oates in particular because it was so horribly accurate and also rather lovely.
And now? Now the heart break has entirely gone yet sometimes I listen to "She's Gone" just to get those feelings of heart break back, if only for a few moment, the sense of terrible loss tied up with burning memories of joy
Is there any other pain we voluntarily revisit? Not sure there is. It makes us feel alive?
Great song. It's one I always think of for Boris fans now that He has gone. The best line "better learn how to face it" is also an excellent piece of muscular 'tough love' advice.
Best heartbreak songs apart from She's Gone?
Without You has to be up there. A cliche but still a heck of a song Ten Years Gone by Led Zep Love Will Tear Us Apart Back to Black
But mine might be
Rocket Man
Which is evermore overpoweringly sad the more you listen to it
No Regrets-the Walker Brothers River- Joni Mitchell I Keep Forgettin'- Michael McDonald
But the best EVER is
The First Cut is the Deepest - Cat Stevens
No Regrets is a fine song, so is the identically named but very different No Regrets by Robbie Williams
Leaving on a Jet Plane - the Peter Paul and Mary version, not the faintly saccharine original - is unbearably sad and is certainly a separation song
For sheer inchoate longing, California Dreamin. It's not really a heartbreak song - but perhaps it is ?
A magnificent song - one of the masterpieces of the songwriting craft in the 20th century - but definitely not a heartbreak song. More of an impassioned hymn of spiritual longing with a 60s pop music vibe
This famous video captures that religious quality
WELL I GOT - DOWN - ON - MY - KNEES, AND I BEGAN TO PRAAAAY
I just realised the Evans piece recalls Satie's Gymnopédies.
Well indeed
I don't think Peace Piece is a break up song, it's probably more about the bittersweet ephemerality of life and the consolation of its inevitable conclusion, but it has attached itself to my break up and it makes me nearly cry, every bloody time
Am listening to it now
Chin up, Leon old boy
There's also the Korean folk legend Kim Kwang Seok.
Includes the lyric "..after letting you go, with drinks poured in front of me, tears.." which seems Leon appropriate.
(He either committed suicide, or his wife murdered him for the insurance, allegedly. Hugely influential in Korean popular music.)
More appropriate for Leon. The drugs don’t work, by the Verve.
What am I gonna do when the drugs don't work? Girl, you a fool if you think love don't hurt You ain't heard? They call me Cobain, first name Kurt Got a nose full of coke and a cup full of dirt, yeah
You should be right here with me, but you blew it And I blew up, I'm two-treed with my two's up Hella big Ms getting threw up and thrown up I'm a young bull, old money, grown up, yeah, yeah
Since the same time last year on the average of weekly polls from Savanta, Redfield & Wilton, Deltapoll, YouGov, Techne and Omnisis (We Think).
Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%)
So no swing between Conservatives and Labour but a clear shift from both parties and SNP to Reform, Lib Dems and Green.
Rearranged in descending order:
Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%)
Tories consoling themselves with the thought that RefUK voters will ride to their rescue on the day need to bear in mind that the split between Lab/LD/Green and Tory/Refuck is about 60/34.
Assuming the swings are approximately Con to Ref and Lab to LD...
The shuffle on the right hurts the Conservatives without really allowing RefUK anywhere near winning a seat.
The shuffle on the left might hurt Labour. But much more likely, it's localised and in the right places. That also hurts the Conservatives (blue wall branch) without really harming Labour.
What's the best case story for the Conservatives here?
Accept a good hiding and (re)appoint a leader their voters like a couple of years into opposition
Somewhat older and less well-known, maybe, but if anybody wants a really good cry the only place to go is Neil Young's The Losing End (When You're On). It's not so much the sad lyrics as the wailing violin and Young's whining voice that connect directly to the tear ducts.
I'd mention early Leonard Cohen as well, though I guess that's more about suicidal thoughts than unrequited love.
Since the same time last year on the average of weekly polls from Savanta, Redfield & Wilton, Deltapoll, YouGov, Techne and Omnisis (We Think).
Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%)
So no swing between Conservatives and Labour but a clear shift from both parties and SNP to Reform, Lib Dems and Green.
Rearranged in descending order:
Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%)
Tories consoling themselves with the thought that RefUK voters will ride to their rescue on the day need to bear in mind that the split between Lab/LD/Green and Tory/Refuck is about 60/34.
Assuming the swings are approximately Con to Ref and Lab to LD...
The shuffle on the right hurts the Conservatives without really allowing RefUK anywhere near winning a seat.
The shuffle on the left might hurt Labour. But much more likely, it's localised and in the right places. That also hurts the Conservatives (blue wall branch) without really harming Labour.
What's the best case story for the Conservatives here?
Accept a good hiding and (re)appoint a leader their voters like a couple of years into opposition
Since the same time last year on the average of weekly polls from Savanta, Redfield & Wilton, Deltapoll, YouGov, Techne and Omnisis (We Think).
Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%)
So no swing between Conservatives and Labour but a clear shift from both parties and SNP to Reform, Lib Dems and Green.
Rearranged in descending order:
Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%)
Tories consoling themselves with the thought that RefUK voters will ride to their rescue on the day need to bear in mind that the split between Lab/LD/Green and Tory/Refuck is about 60/34.
Assuming the swings are approximately Con to Ref and Lab to LD...
The shuffle on the right hurts the Conservatives without really allowing RefUK anywhere near winning a seat.
The shuffle on the left might hurt Labour. But much more likely, it's localised and in the right places. That also hurts the Conservatives (blue wall branch) without really harming Labour.
What's the best case story for the Conservatives here?
That they lose badly enough to shock them back into the real world but not so badly as to drive them completely insane.
Assuming that the "goldilocks zone" between the two is non-empty.
Since the same time last year on the average of weekly polls from Savanta, Redfield & Wilton, Deltapoll, YouGov, Techne and Omnisis (We Think).
Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%)
So no swing between Conservatives and Labour but a clear shift from both parties and SNP to Reform, Lib Dems and Green.
Rearranged in descending order:
Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%)
Tories consoling themselves with the thought that RefUK voters will ride to their rescue on the day need to bear in mind that the split between Lab/LD/Green and Tory/Refuck is about 60/34.
Assuming the swings are approximately Con to Ref and Lab to LD...
The shuffle on the right hurts the Conservatives without really allowing RefUK anywhere near winning a seat.
The shuffle on the left might hurt Labour. But much more likely, it's localised and in the right places. That also hurts the Conservatives (blue wall branch) without really harming Labour.
What's the best case story for the Conservatives here?
Accept a good hiding and (re)appoint a leader their voters like a couple of years into opposition
What you really think HE might come back?
As Mr Cameron might say, they really need to stop Banging On About Boris.
Since the same time last year on the average of weekly polls from Savanta, Redfield & Wilton, Deltapoll, YouGov, Techne and Omnisis (We Think).
Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%)
So no swing between Conservatives and Labour but a clear shift from both parties and SNP to Reform, Lib Dems and Green.
Rearranged in descending order:
Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%)
Tories consoling themselves with the thought that RefUK voters will ride to their rescue on the day need to bear in mind that the split between Lab/LD/Green and Tory/Refuck is about 60/34.
Assuming the swings are approximately Con to Ref and Lab to LD...
The shuffle on the right hurts the Conservatives without really allowing RefUK anywhere near winning a seat.
The shuffle on the left might hurt Labour. But much more likely, it's localised and in the right places. That also hurts the Conservatives (blue wall branch) without really harming Labour.
What's the best case story for the Conservatives here?
Accept a good hiding and (re)appoint a leader their voters like a couple of years into opposition
What you really think HE might come back?
You never know. I think he would like to one day, and the polls that we have suggest Tory voters overwhelmingly prefer him to his successors.
So why not? If this were a film, he would definitely come back - it’s a great narrative arc. He won a landslide, a pandemic hit, his party forced him out even though their voters preferred him over anyone else. His departure speech obviously heavily hints at ‘unfinished business’ .
When I went through my last serious break up, Coldplay had just released their sole decent album: A Rush of Blood to the Head.
So, I will always remember - and associate - Politik and Clocks with that period.
I first bought that CD from a Gas station in the desert an hour into a 3 day road trip on my own after a week of work in Provo, Utah. March 2004. Listened to it (and the best of REM) non-stop for the rest of the trip. As a result the tracks on that album bring me straight back to the deserts of the West. Some escarpment somewhere for the title track. The view through delicate arch to the La Salle mountains whenever I hear Clocks, and Monument valley plus some other random escarpment I drove up a dirt track on for Politik.
Other MOR music has a similar effect. Don't fuck with my heart by the Fugees on the approaches to Interlaken, Keane's your eyes open for the Tuscan valleys below Volterra, Abba greatest hits for, bizarrely, the fairly boring Dombes region of central France. REM's low, low, low for the approaches to Las Vegas. And weirdest of all, Jess Glynn's don't be so hard on yourself takes me to that time I test drove an Audi once.
Since the same time last year on the average of weekly polls from Savanta, Redfield & Wilton, Deltapoll, YouGov, Techne and Omnisis (We Think).
Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%)
So no swing between Conservatives and Labour but a clear shift from both parties and SNP to Reform, Lib Dems and Green.
Rearranged in descending order:
Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%)
Tories consoling themselves with the thought that RefUK voters will ride to their rescue on the day need to bear in mind that the split between Lab/LD/Green and Tory/Refuck is about 60/34.
Assuming the swings are approximately Con to Ref and Lab to LD...
The shuffle on the right hurts the Conservatives without really allowing RefUK anywhere near winning a seat.
The shuffle on the left might hurt Labour. But much more likely, it's localised and in the right places. That also hurts the Conservatives (blue wall branch) without really harming Labour.
What's the best case story for the Conservatives here?
Accept a good hiding and (re)appoint a leader their voters like a couple of years into opposition
The best heartbreak songs in my view are more for unrequited love than actual break ups. That’s more ‘heartache’ I suppose
RU Mine by Arctic Monkeys is a great take on the frustrations and craziness of wanting someone who you’re not sure feels the same. The whole album ‘AM’ is on the same theme and is absolutely brilliant
I'm going to go back a bit to Schubert's Winterreise song cycle.
There's a really good English version sung by Roderick Williams (I have seen this live and he was brilliant) - if you don't like the German.
Very very dark, particularly the ending.
Thrown out for someone with money, ends up destitute on the street.
A "broken heart" - which is tremendously hurtful at the time - must be one of the few pains we actively seek out
When I broke up withmy wife I used to play lots of tragic or sentimental music, it solaced me even if it sometimes ached. I loved "She's Gone" by Hall & Oates in particular because it was so horribly accurate and also rather lovely.
And now? Now the heart break has entirely gone yet sometimes I listen to "She's Gone" just to get those feelings of heart break back, if only for a few moment, the sense of terrible loss tied up with burning memories of joy
Is there any other pain we voluntarily revisit? Not sure there is. It makes us feel alive?
Great song. It's one I always think of for Boris fans now that He has gone. The best line "better learn how to face it" is also an excellent piece of muscular 'tough love' advice.
Best heartbreak songs apart from She's Gone?
Without You has to be up there. A cliche but still a heck of a song Ten Years Gone by Led Zep Love Will Tear Us Apart Back to Black
But mine might be
Rocket Man
Which is evermore overpoweringly sad the more you listen to it
No Regrets-the Walker Brothers River- Joni Mitchell I Keep Forgettin'- Michael McDonald
But the best EVER is
The First Cut is the Deepest - Cat Stevens
No Regrets is a fine song, so is the identically named but very different No Regrets by Robbie Williams
Leaving on a Jet Plane - the Peter Paul and Mary version, not the faintly saccharine original - is unbearably sad and is certainly a separation song
For sheer inchoate longing, California Dreamin. It's not really a heartbreak song - but perhaps it is ?
A magnificent song - one of the masterpieces of the songwriting craft in the 20th century - but definitely not a heartbreak song. More of an impassioned hymn of spiritual longing with a 60s pop music vibe
This famous video captures that religious quality
WELL I GOT - DOWN - ON - MY - KNEES, AND I BEGAN TO PRAAAAY
I just realised the Evans piece recalls Satie's Gymnopédies.
Well indeed
I don't think Peace Piece is a break up song, it's probably more about the bittersweet ephemerality of life and the consolation of its inevitable conclusion, but it has attached itself to my break up and it makes me nearly cry, every bloody time
Am listening to it now
Chin up, Leon old boy
There's also the Korean folk legend Kim Kwang Seok.
Includes the lyric "..after letting you go, with drinks poured in front of me, tears.." which seems Leon appropriate.
(He either committed suicide, or his wife murdered him for the insurance, allegedly. Hugely influential in Korean popular music.)
Interesting.
Can I suggest 'Alexandra Leaving' Leonard Cohen, even if it's a bit of a different emotion. (The song also turned me on to Cavafy and got me to finally read The Alexandria Quartet which I enjoyed much more than I expected to to).
Since the same time last year on the average of weekly polls from Savanta, Redfield & Wilton, Deltapoll, YouGov, Techne and Omnisis (We Think).
Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%)
So no swing between Conservatives and Labour but a clear shift from both parties and SNP to Reform, Lib Dems and Green.
Rearranged in descending order:
Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%)
Tories consoling themselves with the thought that RefUK voters will ride to their rescue on the day need to bear in mind that the split between Lab/LD/Green and Tory/Refuck is about 60/34.
Assuming the swings are approximately Con to Ref and Lab to LD...
The shuffle on the right hurts the Conservatives without really allowing RefUK anywhere near winning a seat.
The shuffle on the left might hurt Labour. But much more likely, it's localised and in the right places. That also hurts the Conservatives (blue wall branch) without really harming Labour.
What's the best case story for the Conservatives here?
Accept a good hiding and (re)appoint a leader their voters like a couple of years into opposition
What you really think HE might come back?
You never know. I think he would like to one day, and the polls that we have suggest Tory voters overwhelmingly prefer him to his successors.
So why not? If this were a film, he would definitely come back - it’s a great narrative arc. He won a landslide, a pandemic hit, his party forced him out even though their voters preferred him over anyone else. His departure speech obviously heavily hints at ‘unfinished business’ .
If it were a slasher movie, definitely.
BORIS IV: UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Sunak: "I know what we should do, let's split up and search the cellar one by one ..."
Since the same time last year on the average of weekly polls from Savanta, Redfield & Wilton, Deltapoll, YouGov, Techne and Omnisis (We Think).
Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%)
So no swing between Conservatives and Labour but a clear shift from both parties and SNP to Reform, Lib Dems and Green.
Rearranged in descending order:
Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%)
Tories consoling themselves with the thought that RefUK voters will ride to their rescue on the day need to bear in mind that the split between Lab/LD/Green and Tory/Refuck is about 60/34.
Assuming the swings are approximately Con to Ref and Lab to LD...
The shuffle on the right hurts the Conservatives without really allowing RefUK anywhere near winning a seat.
The shuffle on the left might hurt Labour. But much more likely, it's localised and in the right places. That also hurts the Conservatives (blue wall branch) without really harming Labour.
What's the best case story for the Conservatives here?
Accept a good hiding and (re)appoint a leader their voters like a couple of years into opposition
What you really think HE might come back?
You never know. I think he would like to one day, and the polls that we have suggest Tory voters overwhelmingly prefer him to his successors.
So why not? If this were a film, he would definitely come back - it’s a great narrative arc. He won a landslide, a pandemic hit, his party forced him out even though their voters preferred him over anyone else. His departure speech obviously heavily hints at ‘unfinished business’ .
Boris’s best hope is a seat in the Lords, eventually followed by a call from a beleaguered future Tory PM and a cabinet post. He could have a long wait.
Does anyone else remember what it was like to be in love aged about 18 or 20? the pure overwhelming desire, the painful yearning, the sense that nothing else matters except THIS, THIS emotion, THIS love, THIS need, THIS unrequited lust and the desperate hunger to touch, THIS THIS THIS
Luckily in my case it wasn't unrequited.
Mine was requited then she went and broke my heart into a billion pieces anyway. Then the second did the same! - but I did the same to her, and this time it was a trillion pieces
After those first two loves it was never quite as intense, the first was puppyish and romantic the second was voluptuous and sexual, but after that the heart hardens a little. I have been giddily in love since but it never feels that superbly dangerous and wildly coloured ever again
But the later love is better don’t you think? Less superbly coloured and wildly dangerous (great turn of phrase) but each heartbreak teaches you about yourself and it is only by knowing and loving yourself that you can really love another.
I would say I look back with deep pleasure on (most!) previous loves, but none gave as much pleasure as the current/most recent, precisely because I know myself better and am more confident to be myself in the relationship.
Yes. The love I had for my one and only wife - thirty years younger - was glorious. We never argued. It was the best relationship of my life
Nevertheless there is something about those loving emotions when they are newly minted, as you leave puberty, they never have that blinding shine yet again, you feel like you are suddenly breathing some purer, but cruelly limited oxygen
And the scorching desire, my God
Agreed. Do you know of/listen to Christopher Ryan’s podcast Tangentially Speaking? He attributes, inter alia, Jihadism and mass shootings in USA to that scorching desire, especially when it is frustrated.
No idea how true that view is, but it is plausible.
I don't agree with Leon. The emotions I felt at 18 were strong, sure, but unrefined - and if I'm honest based more on "here is an opportunity for sex aplenty" than "this is the most amazing person in the world." The emotions I felt at 32 when I met the woman I would later marry were more enjoyable in every way. Like comparing your first pint with your best pint.
It's a nice post, Cookie, and it rings true, but should we be comparing romantic partners to pints of bitter?
Since the same time last year on the average of weekly polls from Savanta, Redfield & Wilton, Deltapoll, YouGov, Techne and Omnisis (We Think).
Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%)
So no swing between Conservatives and Labour but a clear shift from both parties and SNP to Reform, Lib Dems and Green.
Rearranged in descending order:
Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%)
Tories consoling themselves with the thought that RefUK voters will ride to their rescue on the day need to bear in mind that the split between Lab/LD/Green and Tory/Refuck is about 60/34.
Assuming the swings are approximately Con to Ref and Lab to LD...
The shuffle on the right hurts the Conservatives without really allowing RefUK anywhere near winning a seat.
The shuffle on the left might hurt Labour. But much more likely, it's localised and in the right places. That also hurts the Conservatives (blue wall branch) without really harming Labour.
What's the best case story for the Conservatives here?
Accept a good hiding and (re)appoint a leader their voters like a couple of years into opposition
What you really think HE might come back?
You never know. I think he would like to one day, and the polls that we have suggest Tory voters overwhelmingly prefer him to his successors.
So why not? If this were a film, he would definitely come back - it’s a great narrative arc. He won a landslide, a pandemic hit, his party forced him out even though their voters preferred him over anyone else. His departure speech obviously heavily hints at ‘unfinished business’ .
Boris imagines his life as emulating Winston, who had to resign in disgrace a few times.
Since the same time last year on the average of weekly polls from Savanta, Redfield & Wilton, Deltapoll, YouGov, Techne and Omnisis (We Think).
Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%)
So no swing between Conservatives and Labour but a clear shift from both parties and SNP to Reform, Lib Dems and Green.
Rearranged in descending order:
Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%)
Tories consoling themselves with the thought that RefUK voters will ride to their rescue on the day need to bear in mind that the split between Lab/LD/Green and Tory/Refuck is about 60/34.
Assuming the swings are approximately Con to Ref and Lab to LD...
The shuffle on the right hurts the Conservatives without really allowing RefUK anywhere near winning a seat.
The shuffle on the left might hurt Labour. But much more likely, it's localised and in the right places. That also hurts the Conservatives (blue wall branch) without really harming Labour.
What's the best case story for the Conservatives here?
Accept a good hiding and (re)appoint a leader their voters like a couple of years into opposition
What you really think HE might come back?
You never know. I think he would like to one day, and the polls that we have suggest Tory voters overwhelmingly prefer him to his successors.
So why not? If this were a film, he would definitely come back - it’s a great narrative arc. He won a landslide, a pandemic hit, his party forced him out even though their voters preferred him over anyone else. His departure speech obviously heavily hints at ‘unfinished business’ .
Gosh can you imagine. He does look a bit like Rocky. It's a tough ask though. Your 'forced out' is most people's 'resigned in complete and utter disgrace'. It could happen in America but I can't quite see it here.
Since the same time last year on the average of weekly polls from Savanta, Redfield & Wilton, Deltapoll, YouGov, Techne and Omnisis (We Think).
Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%)
So no swing between Conservatives and Labour but a clear shift from both parties and SNP to Reform, Lib Dems and Green.
Rearranged in descending order:
Labour 43.3% (-2.9%) Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%) Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%) Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%) Green 5.8% (+1.0%) SNP 2.8% (-1.2%)
Tories consoling themselves with the thought that RefUK voters will ride to their rescue on the day need to bear in mind that the split between Lab/LD/Green and Tory/Refuck is about 60/34.
Assuming the swings are approximately Con to Ref and Lab to LD...
The shuffle on the right hurts the Conservatives without really allowing RefUK anywhere near winning a seat.
The shuffle on the left might hurt Labour. But much more likely, it's localised and in the right places. That also hurts the Conservatives (blue wall branch) without really harming Labour.
What's the best case story for the Conservatives here?
Accept a good hiding and (re)appoint a leader their voters like a couple of years into opposition
What you really think HE might come back?
You never know. I think he would like to one day, and the polls that we have suggest Tory voters overwhelmingly prefer him to his successors.
So why not? If this were a film, he would definitely come back - it’s a great narrative arc. He won a landslide, a pandemic hit, his party forced him out even though their voters preferred him over anyone else. His departure speech obviously heavily hints at ‘unfinished business’ .
Gosh can you imagine. He does look a bit like Rocky. It's a tough ask though. Your 'forced out' is most people's 'resigned in complete and utter disgrace'. It could happen in America but I can't quite see it here.
He was odds on to be Tory leader last time they had a vacancy, so the markets think he would win
Off topic, but personal: Nigelb said: "I think @Jim_Miller was, at one point, a fan [of the Loser]?
No, no, and no.
In 2016, faced with unpleasant choices, I gave my conservative friends and family the following advice:
If economic issues are the most important to you, vote for the Libertarian. If national security issues are the most important to you, vote for Clinton. If social issues are the most important to you, vote for Trump.
(Living in a state, Washington, where Clinton was sure to win, I cast a write-in vote for Mitt Romney.)
The third may need some explanation: The Supreme Court had been, for years, making decisions in areas that properly belong to elected legislatures. The most consequential may have been its approval of "affirmative action", which legalized racial discrimination in clear violation of our civil rights laws.
Mitch McConnell worked for years to reverse that power grab, but he needed a Republican president elected in 2016 to finish the job. I am not entirely happy with how he did it, but agree with the result.
Does anyone else remember what it was like to be in love aged about 18 or 20? the pure overwhelming desire, the painful yearning, the sense that nothing else matters except THIS, THIS emotion, THIS love, THIS need, THIS unrequited lust and the desperate hunger to touch, THIS THIS THIS
Luckily in my case it wasn't unrequited.
Mine was requited then she went and broke my heart into a billion pieces anyway. Then the second did the same! - but I did the same to her, and this time it was a trillion pieces
After those first two loves it was never quite as intense, the first was puppyish and romantic the second was voluptuous and sexual, but after that the heart hardens a little. I have been giddily in love since but it never feels that superbly dangerous and wildly coloured ever again
But the later love is better don’t you think? Less superbly coloured and wildly dangerous (great turn of phrase) but each heartbreak teaches you about yourself and it is only by knowing and loving yourself that you can really love another.
I would say I look back with deep pleasure on (most!) previous loves, but none gave as much pleasure as the current/most recent, precisely because I know myself better and am more confident to be myself in the relationship.
Yes. The love I had for my one and only wife - thirty years younger - was glorious. We never argued. It was the best relationship of my life
Nevertheless there is something about those loving emotions when they are newly minted, as you leave puberty, they never have that blinding shine yet again, you feel like you are suddenly breathing some purer, but cruelly limited oxygen
And the scorching desire, my God
Agreed. Do you know of/listen to Christopher Ryan’s podcast Tangentially Speaking? He attributes, inter alia, Jihadism and mass shootings in USA to that scorching desire, especially when it is frustrated.
No idea how true that view is, but it is plausible.
I don't agree with Leon. The emotions I felt at 18 were strong, sure, but unrefined - and if I'm honest based more on "here is an opportunity for sex aplenty" than "this is the most amazing person in the world." The emotions I felt at 32 when I met the woman I would later marry were more enjoyable in every way. Like comparing your first pint with your best pint.
It's a nice post, Cookie, and it rings true, but should we be comparing romantic partners to pints of bitter?
It takes courage to do so, even if your partner is mild, and best avoided if she is stout.
Am now watching via YT today's blue plate special served up by latest Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry grilling.
Barrister for the Inquiry is quite good. As with other Inquiry lawyers, his manner is polite, restrained, focused, relentless.
In contrast, the solicitor for firm of law-mongers hired by the buffon's then (and now?) the PO is about as hopeless as the local yokel lawyer in "My Cousin Vinnie".
That is, crap. Wouldn't hire him to notarize a pet license, let alone furnish legal advice above AI standard.
Am now watching via YT today's blue plate special served up by latest Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry grilling.
Barrister for the Inquiry is quite good. As with other Inquiry lawyers, his manner is polite, restrained, focused, relentless.
In contrast, the solicitor for firm of law-mongers hired by the buffon's then (and now?) the PO is about as hopeless as the local yokel lawyer in "My Cousin Vinnie".
That is, crap. Wouldn't hire him to notarize a pet license, let alone furnish legal advice above AI standard.
The Post Office chose lawyers that would make their management look competent by comparison.
Off topic, but personal: Nigelb said: "I think @Jim_Miller was, at one point, a fan [of the Loser]?
No, no, and no.
In 2016, faced with unpleasant choices, I gave my conservative friends and family the following advice:
If economic issues are the most important to you, vote for the Libertarian. If national security issues are the most important to you, vote for Clinton. If social issues are the most important to you, vote for Trump.
(Living in a state, Washington, where Clinton was sure to win, I cast a write-in vote for Mitt Romney.)
The third may need some explanation: The Supreme Court had been, for years, making decisions in areas that properly belong to elected legislatures. The most consequential may have been its approval of "affirmative action", which legalized racial discrimination in clear violation of our civil rights laws.
Mitch McConnell worked for years to reverse that power grab, but he needed a Republican president elected in 2016 to finish the job. I am not entirely happy with how he did it, but agree with the result.
Comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_bq5mStroM (French, B&W)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZBcI4edDWM (colourised and enhanced)
Lisa Lan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgIocBGCgjY (Welsh)
Joan Baez (Rejoice in the Sun)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ0JGjKYVdU (English. It's not the song but the scene. If you know, you know
When I wrote "bribes" I meant "gifts in return for lobbying activities."
Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%)
Labour 43.3% (-2.9%)
Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%)
SNP 2.8% (-1.2%)
Green 5.8% (+1.0%)
Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%)
So no swing between Conservatives and Labour but a clear shift from both parties and SNP to Reform, Lib Dems and Green.
Not least because I have always found melodies and rhythms to contain so much more emotion than lyrics.
Lyrics (unless sufficiently abstract) define a song by the emotion felt by the artist whereas rhythms and melodies allow the listener to imprint their own emotions.
Labour 43.3% (-2.9%)
Conservatives 24.8% (-3.0%)
Lib Dems 11.0% (+2.3%)
Reform UK 9.3% (+3.0%)
Green 5.8% (+1.0%)
SNP 2.8% (-1.2%)
Here's 'It's not love if it hurts too much'.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jLayXmvKruQ
So, I will always remember - and associate - Politik and Clocks with that period.
(And a good half of Chopin.)
There's a really good English version sung by Roderick Williams (I have seen this live and he was brilliant) - if you don't like the German.
Very very dark, particularly the ending.
Thrown out for someone with money, ends up destitute on the street.
Perfect for a cold night by the fire.
It does seems likely that there were 'broken heart' compositions though. It'd be daft to expect otherwise of course.
(He either committed suicide, or his wife murdered him for the insurance, allegedly.
Hugely influential in Korean popular music.)
I Know it’s Over - I listened to it on the train before going to a party and could barely speak for the next three hours
Well I Wonder
There Is A Light That Never Goes out
Last Night I Dreamt that Somebody Loved Me
Back To the Old House
What Difference does It make
Sonny
And many, many more
(Going to listen to the former)
As I seem to have found my way to mills&boon.com, back to the politics (perhaps).
Another poor night for the Conservatives in local by-elections and once again it's left to More In Common to put up a reasonable Conservative VI.
The split of the four polls from midweek (Labour/LD/Green vs Conservative/Reform):
YouGov 61-33, More In Common 59-35, Techne 63-31, We Think 61-34 so all within the same area. It was 49-47 at the last GE four years ago (with Brexit Party replacing Reform).
Just for context, the same four pollsters and the same numbers from the respective first polls of 2023:
YouGov 61-32, More In Common (first poll April) 61-35, Techne 60-33. We Think (formerly Omnisis) 63-31
Nothing has changed or at least nothing much in 2023. Movements all within margin of error - one can argue Sunak has stabilised the Conservative position after the Truss fiasco but the stability is bumping along the bottom not moving up at all.
It's also worth pointing out the assumption all Reform votes will run back to the Conservatives at the first whiff of electoral gunpowder can be challenged - we know barely a third of Reform voters would vote Conservative were there to be no Reform candidate in their constituency and we also know Tice intends to contest every seat.
Is there any hope or are minds made up? We know there's a pool of Don't Knows but there always is - I suspect 2024 will be better economically with the possibility later in the year of cuts in interest rates and inflation falling but will this bring electoral benefit to the Government?
Can I suggest 'Alexandra Leaving' Leonard Cohen, even if it's a bit of a different emotion. (The song also turned me on to Cavafy and got me to finally read The Alexandria Quartet which I enjoyed much more than I expected to to).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxM_eVYnDg4
A lot of really sad/breakup songs seem to find their best expression in cover versions
The shuffle on the right hurts the Conservatives without really allowing RefUK anywhere near winning a seat.
The shuffle on the left might hurt Labour. But much more likely, it's localised and in the right places. That also hurts the Conservatives (blue wall branch) without really harming Labour.
What's the best case story for the Conservatives here?
What am I gonna do when the drugs don't work?
Girl, you a fool if you think love don't hurt
You ain't heard? They call me Cobain, first name Kurt
Got a nose full of coke and a cup full of dirt, yeah
You should be right here with me, but you blew it
And I blew up, I'm two-treed with my two's up
Hella big Ms getting threw up and thrown up
I'm a young bull, old money, grown up, yeah, yeah
I'd mention early Leonard Cohen as well, though I guess that's more about suicidal thoughts than unrequited love.
Assuming that the "goldilocks zone" between the two is non-empty.
So why not? If this were a film, he would definitely come back - it’s a great narrative arc. He won a landslide, a pandemic hit, his party forced him out even though their voters preferred him over anyone else. His departure speech obviously heavily hints at ‘unfinished business’ .
Johnny & June Carter Cash - Jackson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3NJC18Oi04
Though of course, they never did break up . . .
Other MOR music has a similar effect. Don't fuck with my heart by the Fugees on the approaches to Interlaken, Keane's your eyes open for the Tuscan valleys below Volterra, Abba greatest hits for, bizarrely, the fairly boring Dombes region of central France. REM's low, low, low for the approaches to Las Vegas. And weirdest of all, Jess Glynn's don't be so hard on yourself takes me to that time I test drove an Audi once.
Played it a lot when I got my heart broken at 20.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOGSYjpbgwQ&list=PLykQadVrHfgoeNiHJNnlgIuIzCCpanpQc
BORIS IV: UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Sunak: "I know what we should do, let's split up and search the cellar one by one ..."
Totally delusional of course.
No, no, and no.
In 2016, faced with unpleasant choices, I gave my conservative friends and family the following advice:
If economic issues are the most important to you, vote for the Libertarian.
If national security issues are the most important to you, vote for Clinton.
If social issues are the most important to you, vote for Trump.
(Living in a state, Washington, where Clinton was sure to win, I cast a write-in vote for Mitt Romney.)
The third may need some explanation: The Supreme Court had been, for years, making decisions in areas that properly belong to elected legislatures. The most consequential may have been its approval of "affirmative action", which legalized racial discrimination in clear violation of our civil rights laws.
Mitch McConnell worked for years to reverse that power grab, but he needed a Republican president elected in 2016 to finish the job. I am not entirely happy with how he did it, but agree with the result.
Barrister for the Inquiry is quite good. As with other Inquiry lawyers, his manner is polite, restrained, focused, relentless.
In contrast, the solicitor for firm of law-mongers hired by the buffon's then (and now?) the PO is about as hopeless as the local yokel lawyer in "My Cousin Vinnie".
That is, crap. Wouldn't hire him to notarize a pet license, let alone furnish legal advice above AI standard.
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4631209#Comment_4631209