YouTube science populariser Sabine Hossenfelder has just put out a new video expressing her new-found pessimism about climate change. Her style is a matter of taste, but she's normally a pretty level-headed commenter on the topic, and she's worried that things are likely to go downhill rather faster then most of us have imagined:
I've encountered quite a few level-headed climate scientists expressing similar views. And no matter how many AI generated "Cat wearing a top hat" images I send them - they persist in their pessimism.
I was slightly pessimistic previously but that changed to genuine panic when I was chatting to a colleague after Christmas.
17 years ago we were in Istanbul over Christmas as the weather was snow with temperatures not really above 5 degrees at any point and mostly around zero
Last couple of years day time temperatures at Christmas have been 15 degrees and daily below 10, that’s a 10 degree change over the past 20 years
ON topic I have just spent two evenings in Bangkok which were elevated immensely, in outdoor terrace bars, by conversations with two north Americans
1. A naturalised Brit writer who now lives in New Orleans (an old friend) - age 50
2. A Canadian rye whiskey distiller, age 43 (a new friend), who spends half his life in the USA
For very different reasons both of them (and both are centre-left) are convinced Trump will win
For the first guy it's partly because he thinks Biden has lost too many left wingers due to his Israel stance (and Biden's too old), for the second it's because he thinks "America has gone mad", and he has also looked at voting in places like Louisville Kentucky in detail, to see what's going on
Make of that what you will, but they are very different people, both highly intelligent, reaching the same conclusion: Trump will win
I tend to disagree, but it is sobering to hear
They are right. Trump will win. He is the favourite, and has been for ages, for a reason. The swing states are going his way, and he has form for being unstoppable. It isn't possible to point to a single future smoking gun that will stop him. If there was he would not be favourite. Even prison simply turns him into a grotesque Mandela.
Does Trump have form for being unstoppable? I mean, he's unstoppable with *Republicans*. And he beat Hillary Clinton, just, in the days when his worst scandal was the Access Hollywood tape. But then Joe Biden stopped him, no? The GOP don't seem to be doing great with him as their defacto leader. He lost the House when he was president by quite a margin. The GOP *barely* took back the House in 2022 at the peak of the post-covid supply crunch with inflation at 7%. They seem to mostly be losing by-elections.
Since when did we want our Prime Ministers to have eating disorders? 🤷♂️
36 hours means I assume 8pm Sunday to 8am Tuesday.
Should mean he lives a long healthy life with refreshed young DNA.
Is it really a good idea not to eat for so long?
That’s not particularly long. One of my close friends has fasted for the same amount of time every Monday for years. I don’t usually go beyond 24 hours but could if needs be. Our bodies start repairing themselves under calorie-suppressed conditions. Intermittent fasting is correlated quite strongly with longevity.
Since when did we want our Prime Ministers to have eating disorders? 🤷♂️
36 hours means I assume 8pm Sunday to 8am Tuesday.
Should mean he lives a long healthy life with refreshed young DNA.
Is it really a good idea not to eat for so long?
Yes, it's extremely good for your physical and mental health. It gives the body a rest from digestion, which is actually exhausting (hence you nap after a big Sunday lunch because your body needs the energy). It also stimulates autophagy, which is a process of cells recycling waste cells to make new ones.
Since when did we want our Prime Ministers to have eating disorders? 🤷♂️
36 hours means I assume 8pm Sunday to 8am Tuesday.
Should mean he lives a long healthy life with refreshed young DNA.
Is it really a good idea not to eat for so long?
That’s not particularly long. One of my close friends has fasted for the same amount of time every Monday for years. I don’t usually go beyond 24 hours but could if needs be. Our bodies start repairing themselves under calorie-suppressed conditions. Intermittent fasting is correlated quite strongly with longevity.
Doesn’t make him a good pm though.
Certainly won’t make him a good partner, if it extends to oral sex 🥀
I’m seeing my son’s forthcoming university stint as an opportunity for his parents to have some interesting weekend breaks somewhere moderately visitable. Surely that’s the key requirement.
Hence no London university nonsense. Thumbs down to most unis in the midlands or bits of the North that remind me of my in-laws. Yes to Exeter, Swansea, Aberystwyth, Durham, Edinburgh, St Andrews or Plymouth.
All this talk of university is making me nostalgic.
I loved dragging my father all around the country for uni open days in late 1996 and early 1997.
In my day the students just visited on their own.
If anyone had turned up with their parents we'd have thought there was something wrong with them.
A while back my son's school organised a supervised coach trip to the open day of one of the more popular universities; according to my son this was because a group of pupils the previous year had organised their own open day visit and apparently went "on a massive bender" in the city afterwards and failed to turn up to school the next day.
My confidence – or maybe that less benevolent term – was rewarded, and I left school at 16 having done A- and S-levels and with my place at Trinity College, Cambridge secured. My interview at Trinity lasted only about ten minutes, although I was told that I might have cause for optimism based on my exam scores. I was expecting this to go down very well with my parents when I returned home, but the discovery that I’d gone to a big race meeting at Doncaster after the interview and managed to lose my travel bag into the bargain meant that I was far from popular. Patrick Veitch. Enemy Number One: The Secrets of the UK's Most Feared Professional Punter
I'm not sure Peter Veitch is more feared than Mathew Benham or Tony Bloom.
Veitch claimed to have made £10 million betting against UK bookmakers on horseracing. Bloom and Benham may have made more on football but in unregulated Far East markets.
Bloom and Benham will trade anywhere they can. And both of them are on speed dial from the big bookmakers if they want to lay off a position.
That might cause regulatory problems so I'd wonder what they class as big bookmakers. Anyway, I'm not arguing. Clearly they make more money than Veitch.
Since when did we want our Prime Ministers to have eating disorders? 🤷♂️
36 hours means I assume 8pm Sunday to 8am Tuesday.
Should mean he lives a long healthy life with refreshed young DNA.
Is it really a good idea not to eat for so long?
That’s not particularly long. One of my close friends has fasted for the same amount of time every Monday for years. I don’t usually go beyond 24 hours but could if needs be. Our bodies start repairing themselves under calorie-suppressed conditions. Intermittent fasting is correlated quite strongly with longevity.
Trump’s plan to solve shoplifting: You have to treat the first one out the door of the next time it happens extremely tough. That means anything you want to do. And as soon as that word gets out and you let people know from now on, you don't walk out with aspirin https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1751378698450641167
Since when did we want our Prime Ministers to have eating disorders? 🤷♂️
36 hours means I assume 8pm Sunday to 8am Tuesday.
Should mean he lives a long healthy life with refreshed young DNA.
Is it really a good idea not to eat for so long?
That’s not particularly long. One of my close friends has fasted for the same amount of time every Monday for years. I don’t usually go beyond 24 hours but could if needs be. Our bodies start repairing themselves under calorie-suppressed conditions. Intermittent fasting is correlated quite strongly with longevity.
Doesn’t make him a good pm though.
Certainly won’t make him a good partner, if it extends to oral sex 🥀
Trump’s plan to solve shoplifting: You have to treat the first one out the door of the next time it happens extremely tough. That means anything you want to do. And as soon as that word gets out and you let people know from now on, you don't walk out with aspirin https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1751378698450641167
Does he have a plan to deal with serial industrial scale fraudsters?
Since when did we want our Prime Ministers to have eating disorders? 🤷♂️
36 hours means I assume 8pm Sunday to 8am Tuesday.
Should mean he lives a long healthy life with refreshed young DNA.
Is it really a good idea not to eat for so long?
That’s not particularly long. One of my close friends has fasted for the same amount of time every Monday for years. I don’t usually go beyond 24 hours but could if needs be. Our bodies start repairing themselves under calorie-suppressed conditions. Intermittent fasting is correlated quite strongly with longevity.
Doesn’t make him a good pm though.
Certainly won’t make him a good partner, if it extends to oral sex 🥀
On the subject of when the election might take place, a lot will depend on the polls at the time.
IF a governing party is leading the temptation is to run a short campaign (3-4 weeks) to allow for as little to go wrong as possible. IF a governing party is behind they'll go for a long campaign. If the polls are starting to turn 6 weeks give them more time to turn - if the polls aren't turning, 6 weeks gives time for something to happen.
It may well be Hunt will go for TWO tax cutting budgets this year - one in March and one in an early Autumn Statement soon after Parliament convenes after the Party Conference season.
The Conservatives are at the ICC in Birmingham from 29 September - 2 October.
Announcing the election a week later would make 14 November possible but I wonder if we'll get Parliament back, Hunt does an emergency Autumn Statement in the second week of October with some tax cuts and Sunak calls the dissolution immediately after with a 4-5 week campaign.
Again, that puts us mid -Novemberish.
I totally disagree.
It’s not just yourself responsible for getting this so wrong, Stodge, but most of PB seem incapable of understanding how and why the only way this decision is ever made and has ever been made by governments.
The Halycon bird uses the summer months to nest in the cliffs. This is not choice, like doing it whenever they want to, but decided on by when they can. For best results. If it tried it in the wrong weather, its nest wouldn’t work.
For a nest that stands best chance of beating the elements, Ditto the governments election campaign. To me, the only thing they are thinking of is - when can we get the best possible result from our campaign this year - when is the sweet spot?
Why do you think they want to stay in power longer, if it misses the most obvious sweet spot? Is Rishi, his MPs and party really loving life in power right now? If the modelling finds the best sweet spot option - to start new life post government and outside politics 6 months earlier than the timer forcing an election, AND THAT will leave the least bad result behind too, you seriously think they would refuse it?
Why? They are having so much fun? They are improving on their legacy all the time? They genuinely think something might turn up and give them a better result?
They need to give their campaign a chance to get the spotlight off their own failings and onto Labours inexperience, flip flops on policy and tens of billions in tax rises. look forward to that brighter future Rishi has put us on course for - tell us this future is so fragile it will not survive a change of government. The tagline is something like - been difficult 2020s whole world over, but we’ve set Britain back on course now with cutting tax and inflation - Now is not time to bring in novices, with their ruinous £30B tax hikes.
But reading your posts, you make out like Rishi and his team actually have a choice to call it whenever they want. They absolutely do not. They absolutely have to hold it at the best moment for that campaign actually working and getting swingback.
The modelling says May for the best possible result this year, the modelling says once the Covid enquiry reports, the economy contracts and the channel crossings surge up worse than last year, that could lead to a very bad result and the most impossible conditions to campaign under.
For what reason do you think they would ignore this modelling? Becuase the polls aren’t good enough to have an election? Then how are they going to look any better in second half of year, during covid enquiry report, economic downturn and up tick in illegal crossings 🤷♀️
The economy will be okay this year. The government will hope to capitalise on full employment, plus real wage increases.
I’m confident Labours loving that sort of complacent thinking. That full employment plus real wage increases is the big talking point, not the covid enquiry report, technical recession and boats, boats, and yes, more boats 🙂
"Well, Clarice, are the lambs still screaming?"
They have been quite well behaved the last few days, and thanks for asking.
And stop calling me Clarice.
I got the line wrong
You’re a piss poor excuse for a psychopath 😆
"Well, Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming?"
(If they cast me as Hannibal, he'd have to be a vegetarian cannibal, of course!)
Since when did we want our Prime Ministers to have eating disorders? 🤷♂️
36 hours means I assume 8pm Sunday to 8am Tuesday.
Should mean he lives a long healthy life with refreshed young DNA.
Is it really a good idea not to eat for so long?
That’s not particularly long. One of my close friends has fasted for the same amount of time every Monday for years. I don’t usually go beyond 24 hours but could if needs be. Our bodies start repairing themselves under calorie-suppressed conditions. Intermittent fasting is correlated quite strongly with longevity.
Doesn’t make him a good pm though.
Certainly won’t make him a good partner, if it extends to oral sex 🥀
He can spit rather than swallow.
Well, one can't deny he has climbed the greasy pole.
Trump’s plan to solve shoplifting: You have to treat the first one out the door of the next time it happens extremely tough. That means anything you want to do. And as soon as that word gets out and you let people know from now on, you don't walk out with aspirin https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1751378698450641167
Does he have a plan to deal with serial industrial scale fraudsters?
Sammy Gravano perhaps? Given that he was in business when Trump was building all over New York…
Trump’s plan to solve shoplifting: You have to treat the first one out the door of the next time it happens extremely tough. That means anything you want to do. And as soon as that word gets out and you let people know from now on, you don't walk out with aspirin https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1751378698450641167
Does he have a plan to deal with serial industrial scale fraudsters?
Sammy Gravano perhaps? Given that he was in business when Trump was building all over New York…
I was thinking more on the lines of that fellow who shares his name with that gauche rolled gold turd of a tower on 5th Avenue.
Trump’s plan to solve shoplifting: You have to treat the first one out the door of the next time it happens extremely tough. That means anything you want to do. And as soon as that word gets out and you let people know from now on, you don't walk out with aspirin https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1751378698450641167
Does he have a plan to deal with serial industrial scale fraudsters?
The average person is probably more concerned with petty shoplifting.
Trump’s plan to solve shoplifting: You have to treat the first one out the door of the next time it happens extremely tough. That means anything you want to do. And as soon as that word gets out and you let people know from now on, you don't walk out with aspirin https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1751378698450641167
Does he have a plan to deal with serial industrial scale fraudsters?
The average person is probably more concerned with petty shoplifting.
Since when did we want our Prime Ministers to have eating disorders? 🤷♂️
36 hours means I assume 8pm Sunday to 8am Tuesday.
Should mean he lives a long healthy life with refreshed young DNA.
Is it really a good idea not to eat for so long?
That’s not particularly long. One of my close friends has fasted for the same amount of time every Monday for years. I don’t usually go beyond 24 hours but could if needs be. Our bodies start repairing themselves under calorie-suppressed conditions. Intermittent fasting is correlated quite strongly with longevity.
Doesn’t make him a good pm though.
Certainly won’t make him a good partner, if it extends to oral sex 🥀
He can spit rather than swallow.
Well, one can't deny he has climbed the greasy pole.
LauraK tomorrow is a must watch. A panel looking at Sunak and Starmer behind the polling. Starmer absolutely smashed by the panel.
Why do you persist with this rubbish? Why do you bother?
We know you don't believe it and it's not going to change the dial one degree.
Check out the bulletin. The panel were doubtful about Sunak's ability but were withering in their criticism of Starmer. Laura hinted that a change of leader* could change everything.
* I am assuming Tory leader.
Er no. That's not what the supporting article says:
Watch the BBC News at 10 edit. The Summary; Sunak weak, Starmer disliked, Laura. suggesting a new leader and it's all to play for.
That's the madness of the current situation.
Yes, the Conservatives will be doing well to hold 170 seats. And by elimination, that puts Labour on 380 or so. Which, as a turnaround from last time, is insane. And requires a fair bit of swingback from the current polling.
(One of the spikes on the Conservative Torture Device is that the worse things get, the greater the temptation to hang on, even if it costs more seats. If this really is the Last Conservative Government, they might as well have the final six months. And even if it isn't the LCG, it might as well be for the current crop of MPs and ministers.)
And yet the story is still a plague on both your houses. Starmer may be disliked, but that's as nothing to the contempt the public has for the other lot.
Vote Starmer. He'll have to do, I suppose.
And polls show Starmer is, if not resoundingly popular, certainly not as unpopular as most leaders of the governing or opposition party in recent years.
This may be an important point. It's quite difficult to tell the extent to which Starmer's historically rather mediocre personal ratings are a product of being, well, mediocre. Or if all well-known politicians' ratings end up being so bad these days, that said mediocre ratings are the equivalent of stonking election-winning ones in the past.
As to why that might be, well politicians' reputations as a class are in the gutter. We've become immune to the comms tricks that used to make politicians popular - and their big 'setpieces' barely register outside the political class. Plus, with society being so much more atomised, you simply aren't going to be universally popular.
On the latter point, for example, Starmer early on decided that the single most important thing was to convince its former 'Red Wall' and swing voters that he and Labour are a party that listened to their likes and bugbears over activists. But that's understandably annoyed other sets of people, like ultra-pro Europeans, and the remaining Corbynistas who want any party on the left to reflect their views to the exclusion of others, and thus much more difficult to reach the heights of less divided eras.
If Trump wins, I wouldn't be surprised if he pulls a stunt about 3/4s of the way through the term of office, and resigns in order to allow a younger version of himself to take over, without being elected.
Trump’s plan to solve shoplifting: You have to treat the first one out the door of the next time it happens extremely tough. That means anything you want to do. And as soon as that word gets out and you let people know from now on, you don't walk out with aspirin https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1751378698450641167
Does he have a plan to deal with serial industrial scale fraudsters?
The average person is probably more concerned with petty shoplifting.
Clearly. Otherwise they wouldn't be voting Trump into the Oval Office.
NTSB investigators already publicly raised the possibility that the bolts had not been installed...
..The online whistleblower described two systems Boeing uses to track the thousands of jobs performed to assemble each aircraft. The mistake occurred when a job was discussed in one system but not fully entered in the other.
The first system, the formal record for the FAA of every job completed in the building of the airplane, is called the Common Manufacturing Execution System or CMES — pronounced “sea-mass” by the mechanics.
The other system, called the Situation Action Tracker or SAT, is an informal Boeing factory messaging board used by mechanics, engineers and management to flag issues...
I wonder where Haley would be if she'd been this combative a couple of months ago. Ahead in the polls - or out of the race ?
Haley: Trump was totally unhinged. He was a bit sensitive. He threw a temper tantrum Then the next day. Unhinged again, he says. For anybody that supports Haley, you will be barred from Maga. We started selling T shirts that said, barred permanently. We sold 10,000 T shirts. https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1751388234511220921
NTSB investigators already publicly raised the possibility that the bolts had not been installed...
..The online whistleblower described two systems Boeing uses to track the thousands of jobs performed to assemble each aircraft. The mistake occurred when a job was discussed in one system but not fully entered in the other.
The first system, the formal record for the FAA of every job completed in the building of the airplane, is called the Common Manufacturing Execution System or CMES — pronounced “sea-mass” by the mechanics.
The other system, called the Situation Action Tracker or SAT, is an informal Boeing factory messaging board used by mechanics, engineers and management to flag issues...
That's not quite the way I heard it described. SAT is the Spirit system to record every job on the airplane; CMES is the Boeing thing to do the same job. The systems are not identical.
Spirit people work on the Boeing ship floor, rectifying snags that Boeing find in their work (*) The Spirit people entered any work they did on *both* systems. But as the SAT and CMES are not the same, what is recorded as 'door opened' on the SAT system is not the same as 'door opened' on the Boeing system. So Spirit people 'opened' the door (removed it) to replace a seal and do other work; but the Boeing people further down the line did not realise that that meant that the door had been actually removed. And hence the pins were not replaced.
(*) this makes sense; I would be unsurprised if Airbus' suppliers did the same).
I’m seeing my son’s forthcoming university stint as an opportunity for his parents to have some interesting weekend breaks somewhere moderately visitable. Surely that’s the key requirement.
Hence no London university nonsense. Thumbs down to most unis in the midlands or bits of the North that remind me of my in-laws. Yes to Exeter, Swansea, Aberystwyth, Durham, Edinburgh, St Andrews or Plymouth.
Aberdeen is good
But watch out if modern languages is involved. The management has been trying to downgrade - shut down, some would say - that side of the university. Still a matter of argument.
Oh, I didn't know. Very different from my day.
The issue seems to have gone quiet lately, but basically anyone applyint for a degree in ML might want to take this into account. "proposal to end single honours degrees in modern languages". This obvs focuses on the union issues, but a look on google will get various news reports.
History departments are being culled left, right and centre too.
A more worrying trend is the closure of multiple English departments. Which has - unthinkably - turned English into a shortage subject in secondary education.
The problem is partly the new A-level, partly the cockups over Russell group numbers - but mostly it's the really shite GCSEs which are putting people right off all these subjects.
It's one reason why I wonder how much longer GCSEs have to go.
But then, SATs are even more worthless and nobody's got rid of them.
English is compulsory at GCSE, indeed English language has the 3rd highest number of GCSE entries after combined Science and Maths and English literature is 4th highest. History is part of the EBacc and is the 7th most popular GCSE with foreign languages 5th.
So there are still plenty of pupils who take these subjects at GCSE who could then take further study in them at A level and university
Trump’s plan to solve shoplifting: You have to treat the first one out the door of the next time it happens extremely tough. That means anything you want to do. And as soon as that word gets out and you let people know from now on, you don't walk out with aspirin https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1751378698450641167
Does he have a plan to deal with serial industrial scale fraudsters?
Sammy Gravano perhaps? Given that he was in business when Trump was building all over New York…
I was thinking more on the lines of that fellow who shares his name with that gauche rolled gold turd of a tower on 5th Avenue.
I meant that since Trump was almost certainly making deals with Gravano, Gravano could offer some advice on collecting money from scumbags who owe. Gravano being a domain expert, after all.
Comments
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=Y&tvcontrol=Y&CON=27&LAB=42&LIB=10&Reform=10&Green=6&UKIP=&TVCON=0&TVLAB=50&TVLIB=50&TVReform=25&TVGreen=25&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=16&SCOTLAB=33.1&SCOTLIB=6&SCOTReform=1.5&SCOTGreen=2.5&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=36.9&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2019nbbase
17 years ago we were in Istanbul over Christmas as the weather was snow with temperatures not really above 5 degrees at any point and mostly around zero
Last couple of years day time temperatures at Christmas have been 15 degrees and daily below 10, that’s a 10 degree change over the past 20 years
Truss of course was heading for near wipeout when he took over as Tory leader and PM and less than 50 Tory seats
Doesn’t make him a good pm though.
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1751378698450641167
(If they cast me as Hannibal, he'd have to be a vegetarian cannibal, of course!)
As to why that might be, well politicians' reputations as a class are in the gutter. We've become immune to the comms tricks that used to make politicians popular - and their big 'setpieces' barely register outside the political class. Plus, with society being so much more atomised, you simply aren't going to be universally popular.
On the latter point, for example, Starmer early on decided that the single most important thing was to convince its former 'Red Wall' and swing voters that he and Labour are a party that listened to their likes and bugbears over activists. But that's understandably annoyed other sets of people, like ultra-pro Europeans, and the remaining Corbynistas who want any party on the left to reflect their views to the exclusion of others, and thus much more difficult to reach the heights of less divided eras.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-dollar50-million-mystery-debt-looks-like-tax-evasion/
That would be rather more significant than the tax Hunter Biden evaded (and has subsequently paid).
And only one of the two is running for president.
Boeing, not supplier, mis-installed piece that blew off Alaska Airlines MAX 9 jet, industry source says
https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2024/01/24/boeing-not-supplier-mis-installed-piece-that-blew-off-alaska-airlines-max-9-jet-industry-source-says/
...The self-described Boeing insider said company records show four bolts that prevent the door plug from sliding up off the door frame stop pads that take the pressurization loads in flight, “were not installed when Boeing delivered the airplane.” the whistleblower stated. “Our own records reflect this.”
NTSB investigators already publicly raised the possibility that the bolts had not been installed...
..The online whistleblower described two systems Boeing uses to track the thousands of jobs performed to assemble each aircraft. The mistake occurred when a job was discussed in one system but not fully entered in the other.
The first system, the formal record for the FAA of every job completed in the building of the airplane, is called the Common Manufacturing Execution System or CMES — pronounced “sea-mass” by the mechanics.
The other system, called the Situation Action Tracker or SAT, is an informal Boeing factory messaging board used by mechanics, engineers and management to flag issues...
Ahead in the polls - or out of the race ?
Haley: Trump was totally unhinged. He was a bit sensitive. He threw a temper tantrum Then the next day. Unhinged again, he says. For anybody that supports Haley, you will be barred from Maga. We started selling T shirts that said, barred permanently. We sold 10,000 T shirts.
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1751388234511220921
Trump Suggests 98% of His Supporters Would Fail Cognitive Decline Test
https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1751428654419370027
Spirit people work on the Boeing ship floor, rectifying snags that Boeing find in their work (*) The Spirit people entered any work they did on *both* systems. But as the SAT and CMES are not the same, what is recorded as 'door opened' on the SAT system is not the same as 'door opened' on the Boeing system. So Spirit people 'opened' the door (removed it) to replace a seal and do other work; but the Boeing people further down the line did not realise that that meant that the door had been actually removed. And hence the pins were not replaced.
(*) this makes sense; I would be unsurprised if Airbus' suppliers did the same).
The point is *the GCSE IS so bloody bad it’s putting people off the subject altogether meaning they don’t do it at A-level.*
As I made clear in my post.