It was cemented into its present usage in World War 2, referencing radar researchers in the Malverns. That’s brilliant. If I had to put a boffin anywhere, geographically, it would be the Malverns - slightly eccentric, slightly quaint, very British
I saw the Jam play at Malvern Winter Gardens. Another time, another time
I have no idea what a “cavity magnetron” is, but it sounds brilliant and ONLY a boffin could invent it, and give it that name
In fact you’d need lots. “In the desperate quest for the Cavity Magnetron, Britain’s Army of Off Duty Boffins has been summoned to Malvern Wells. We spoke to Top Boffin…” etc etc
It's a kind of "whistle" which creates microwaves (radio waves - 1mm to 1m wave length) of a given frequency.
It's importance was that it can create shorter frequencies - 10cm say - vastly more efficiently than previous methods.
So British and American radar worked on much shorter frequencies than German, Italian and Japanese radars. Giving a clearer, more precise picture.
It was cemented into its present usage in World War 2, referencing radar researchers in the Malverns. That’s brilliant. If I had to put a boffin anywhere, geographically, it would be the Malverns - slightly eccentric, slightly quaint, very British
I saw the Jam play at Malvern Winter Gardens. Another time, another time
I have no idea what a “cavity magnetron” is, but it sounds brilliant and ONLY a boffin could invent it, and give it that name
In fact you’d need lots. “In the desperate quest for the Cavity Magnetron, Britain’s Army of Off Duty Boffins has been summoned to Malvern Wells. We spoke to Top Boffin…” etc etc
It's a kind of "whistle" which creates microwaves (radio waves - 1mm to 1m wave length) of a given frequency.
It's importance was that it can create shorter frequencies - 10cm say - vastly more efficiently than previous methods.
So British and American radar worked on much shorter frequencies than German, Italian and Japanese radars. Giving a clearer, more precise picture.
10cm frequencies? You've been expelled from the Boffins of Britain club!
It was cemented into its present usage in World War 2, referencing radar researchers in the Malverns. That’s brilliant. If I had to put a boffin anywhere, geographically, it would be the Malverns - slightly eccentric, slightly quaint, very British
I saw the Jam play at Malvern Winter Gardens. Another time, another time
I have no idea what a “cavity magnetron” is, but it sounds brilliant and ONLY a boffin could invent it, and give it that name
In fact you’d need lots. “In the desperate quest for the Cavity Magnetron, Britain’s Army of Off Duty Boffins has been summoned to Malvern Wells. We spoke to Top Boffin…” etc etc
It's a kind of "whistle" which creates microwaves (radio waves - 1mm to 1m wave length) of a given frequency.
It's importance was that it can create shorter frequencies - 10cm say - vastly more efficiently than previous methods.
So British and American radar worked on much shorter frequencies than German, Italian and Japanese radars. Giving a clearer, more precise picture.
10cm frequencies? You've been expelled from the Boffins of Britain club!
On topic of the general election it well be of benefit for Rishi to go early given there is now a real danger of defeat for the west in the ukraine war something which will play very badly. Iain Martin has an article in the times today "Its time we talked about the fall of kyiv" and Ive just seen this on X.
Events in Ukraine, where retreating Ukrainian troops were only able to slow down the Russian offensive, are forcing Western leaders - in London, Washington, Paris and Brussels - to prepare for the collapse of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, deprived of the weapons and ammunition they need. This is stated in an editorial in The Times newspaper under the headline "It's time to talk about the fall of Kyiv." 📰Contrary to the prevailing view that this is a “frozen conflict in which neither side can gain a decisive advantage, there is fierce fighting on the front lines and there is a real risk that Ukrainian troops will be pushed back,” the publication notes. This is exactly the kind of nightmare scenario that Western politicians are now considering.” 📰Russia's offensive "will obviously have catastrophic consequences for Ukrainians." It would also present the West with all sorts of difficult problems, the piece says. The consequences of partial or complete defeat would be catastrophic, and Western populations have barely begun to realize this. But in the comfortable West - far from the European front line in the east and south of Ukraine - they tend to take wishful thinking and be unprepared for unpleasant surprises. 📰A survey conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations in January in 12 countries showed that only 10% of respondents believe that Ukraine can win. Some 37% believe compromise is the most likely outcome, while 19.5% believe Russia will ultimately win.
Somewhat let down by the subtitle about a red 'plant'
Yes that’s unideal. But the best boffins always do something vaguely strange and apparently pointless - like recreating the surface of Mars in a box - that’s perfect.
At first they should struggle, then you can talk about “baffled boffins”
It was cemented into its present usage in World War 2, referencing radar researchers in the Malverns. That’s brilliant. If I had to put a boffin anywhere, geographically, it would be the Malverns - slightly eccentric, slightly quaint, very British
I saw the Jam play at Malvern Winter Gardens. Another time, another time
I have no idea what a “cavity magnetron” is, but it sounds brilliant and ONLY a boffin could invent it, and give it that name
In fact you’d need lots. “In the desperate quest for the Cavity Magnetron, Britain’s Army of Off Duty Boffins has been summoned to Malvern Wells. We spoke to Top Boffin…” etc etc
You'll have one in your microwave oven. But it was originally used for radar and TRE Malvern was central to that development even if the CM was originated (I think?) in a university.
The production of centimeter wave signals by a plain magnetron was first noted by the Japanese in 1929; the magnetron itself a much earlier US discovery: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_W._Hull
The British boffins' discovery made it useful. (Is that an essential part of boffinry ?)
It was cemented into its present usage in World War 2, referencing radar researchers in the Malverns. That’s brilliant. If I had to put a boffin anywhere, geographically, it would be the Malverns - slightly eccentric, slightly quaint, very British
I saw the Jam play at Malvern Winter Gardens. Another time, another time
I've seen a prototype at the little museum in Rugby (recogniseable from the 6 rather than 8 little nooks IIRC).
And on tweeds, see also Francis Crick. Who was IIRC an Operational Research boffin in WW2. (We'll let off James Watson as not being British: no detriment imputed to him, but he was therefore not qualified to be a boffin.)
The very idea of a not-British boffin is, frankly, laughable
It's like placental and marsupial cats. Sort of do the same function but different in detail. American boffin-analogues had bow ties, and shirt-pocket protectors, and slide rules in the shirt pocket too. Vide Wolfe The Right Stuff.
It was cemented into its present usage in World War 2, referencing radar researchers in the Malverns. That’s brilliant. If I had to put a boffin anywhere, geographically, it would be the Malverns - slightly eccentric, slightly quaint, very British
I saw the Jam play at Malvern Winter Gardens. Another time, another time
I have no idea what a “cavity magnetron” is, but it sounds brilliant and ONLY a boffin could invent it, and give it that name
In fact you’d need lots. “In the desperate quest for the Cavity Magnetron, Britain’s Army of Off Duty Boffins has been summoned to Malvern Wells. We spoke to Top Boffin…” etc etc
It's a kind of "whistle" which creates microwaves (radio waves - 1mm to 1m wave length) of a given frequency.
It's importance was that it can create shorter frequencies - 10cm say - vastly more efficiently than previous methods.
So British and American radar worked on much shorter frequencies than German, Italian and Japanese radars. Giving a clearer, more precise picture.
10cm frequencies? You've been expelled from the Boffins of Britain club!
'Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, said on Thursday that [special administration] was a “long way off” but did not rule out the possibility.
Weston said the company had £2.4bn of funds it could draw on, which would last until next May or June. “There is a chance that somewhere down the stream you might get to a specific special administration outcome but there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge.”'
What this country desperately needs is more boffins. eg we obviously require “Water Boffins” - to fix the whole mess there. “Britain’s Armada of Water Boffins” - just by writing that phrase down we’re halfway to solving the sewage crisis
Fuck all this American “tsar” nonsense. Bring back The Boffin
“Britain’s Top Small Boat Boffin” would sort out the small boat problem over a weekend. In Great Malvern or maybe Malvern Spa. Wearing a white coat
Go to the poll of polls. Starting in 2022, draw a trend line through labour and conservative ratings and get back to me about trends. FYI, one poll is not a trend
Im sort of with BJO on this (the trend, not the rest of his ideological apparatus). There is I think a tightening between the blocs, and a decline in Labour favourability, that’s being hidden by the Reform rise.
I am.just not seeing it the poll of polls. They regularly undulate back and forth. It would take a more decisive shift for me to call it. I guess I would have to do a t-test to prove it. But eyeballing the running average of tory and labour support I would say it is overall still widening.
4th poll of the week this one shows a 3% drop in Lab lead to 15 confirms the trend
Especially when there was a perceptible upblip last week, which I think got attributed to Racistdonorgate.
On that point, it's worth considering four polls BJO gleefully highlights which show a reduction in the Labour lead this week and note what their previous move was:
Pollster / this poll's lead change / previous lead change
YouGov / -6% / +1% Deltapoll / -5% / +6% More in Common / -3% / -1% R&W / -6% / +8%
Average -5% this poll, +3.5% last poll.
As far as YouGov is concerned it’s a decent dip in support, as the poll three weeks ago was a dip of a few points as well. It’s their lowest Labour score since 2022, so not just up one week/down the next and balancing out
Strange thing you said the other day, that I was desperately searching for a reason to vote Tory. I am not a Tory, and only voted for them in 2019 to Get Brexit Done. I’m unlikely to be voting for them next time, and haven’t praised any of their policies, campaign adverts or any individual MP they have.
You may try to label me as a Boris fan, but even there I only argue that he is the most popular choice of 2019 Tories according to polling, which would be true whether I liked him or not, and that they’d be better off had they kept him in charge. I don’t think you’d find anything from me saying he was a fantastic leader, this or that was a tremendous policy, he has a great vision for the country etc, just that he was charismatic and that goes further than dry politico’s care to admit… usually because they aren’t charismatic themselves, so don’t value its importance
Why should anyone care what someone else votes or indeed say it as "gotcha".? I vote Tory and am content to continue. O couldn't give a rat's behind what anyone here or anywhere else thinks about it. Nor do I care how others vote. The biggest weakness of the site is small the ad hominem crap.
'Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, said on Thursday that [special administration] was a “long way off” but did not rule out the possibility.
Weston said the company had £2.4bn of funds it could draw on, which would last until next May or June. “There is a chance that somewhere down the stream you might get to a specific special administration outcome but there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge.”'
What this country desperately needs is more boffins. eg we obviously require “Water Boffins” - to fix the whole mess there. “Britain’s Armada of Water Boffins” - just by writing that phrase down we’re halfway to solving the sewage crisis
Fuck all this American “tsar” nonsense. Bring back The Boffin
“Britain’s Top Small Boat Boffin” would sort out the small boat problem over a weekend. In Great Malvern or maybe Malvern Spa. Wearing a white coat
All tsars do is propose policies that never do anything useful. How many drugs tsars has America had? Are they working? No
If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled
Go to the poll of polls. Starting in 2022, draw a trend line through labour and conservative ratings and get back to me about trends. FYI, one poll is not a trend
Im sort of with BJO on this (the trend, not the rest of his ideological apparatus). There is I think a tightening between the blocs, and a decline in Labour favourability, that’s being hidden by the Reform rise.
I am.just not seeing it the poll of polls. They regularly undulate back and forth. It would take a more decisive shift for me to call it. I guess I would have to do a t-test to prove it. But eyeballing the running average of tory and labour support I would say it is overall still widening.
4th poll of the week this one shows a 3% drop in Lab lead to 15 confirms the trend
Especially when there was a perceptible upblip last week, which I think got attributed to Racistdonorgate.
On that point, it's worth considering four polls BJO gleefully highlights which show a reduction in the Labour lead this week and note what their previous move was:
Pollster / this poll's lead change / previous lead change
YouGov / -6% / +1% Deltapoll / -5% / +6% More in Common / -3% / -1% R&W / -6% / +8%
Average -5% this poll, +3.5% last poll.
As far as YouGov is concerned it’s a decent dip in support, as the poll three weeks ago was a dip of a few points as well. It’s their lowest Labour score since 2022, so not just up one week/down the next and balancing out
Strange thing you said the other day, that I was desperately searching for a reason to vote Tory. I am not a Tory, and only voted for them in 2019 to Get Brexit Done. I’m unlikely to be voting for them next time, and haven’t praised any of their policies, campaign adverts or any individual MP they have.
You may try to label me as a Boris fan, but even there I only argue that he is the most popular choice of 2019 Tories according to polling, which would be true whether I liked him or not, and that they’d be better off had they kept him in charge. I don’t think you’d find anything from me saying he was a fantastic leader, this or that was a tremendous policy, he has a great vision for the country etc, just that he was charismatic and that goes further than dry politico’s care to admit… usually because they aren’t charismatic themselves, so don’t value its importance
Why should anyone care what someone else votes or indeed say it as "gotcha".? I vote Tory and am content to continue. O couldn't give a rat's behind what anyone here or anywhere else thinks about it. Nor do I care how others vote. The biggest weakness of the site is small the ad hominem crap.
Not to be ad hominem but I do care how others vote. I want them to vote Labour. If enough of them fail to do that I'll have to suffer yet another Conservative government.
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Why would a national party leader have policies for local elections? What policies have the Greens proposed for the locals? Are they for or against wind farms, for example? Do they back the creation of solar farms? Are they pro- or anti- new house builds? And so on.
At the Labour Party's local election launch today, Keir Starmer said he wants to "return to a place where promises matter."
How many promises has he broken since being elected leader?
Only Green MPs in Parliament can hold a future Labour government to account.
Perhaps Sir Keir is blind to his constant broken pledges/promises/missions because no matter how often he breaks them, Labour keep going further ahead in the polls
It is fascinating watching projection in action; the Tories have been cast in the role as bad guys, so their main opposition have to be the good guys, even if they are also insincere snides.
'Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, said on Thursday that [special administration] was a “long way off” but did not rule out the possibility.
Weston said the company had £2.4bn of funds it could draw on, which would last until next May or June. “There is a chance that somewhere down the stream you might get to a specific special administration outcome but there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge.”'
What this country desperately needs is more boffins. eg we obviously require “Water Boffins” - to fix the whole mess there. “Britain’s Armada of Water Boffins” - just by writing that phrase down we’re halfway to solving the sewage crisis
Fuck all this American “tsar” nonsense. Bring back The Boffin
“Britain’s Top Small Boat Boffin” would sort out the small boat problem over a weekend. In Great Malvern or maybe Malvern Spa. Wearing a white coat
All tsars do is propose policies that never do anything useful. How many drugs tsars has America had? Are they working? No
If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
'Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, said on Thursday that [special administration] was a “long way off” but did not rule out the possibility.
Weston said the company had £2.4bn of funds it could draw on, which would last until next May or June. “There is a chance that somewhere down the stream you might get to a specific special administration outcome but there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge.”'
What this country desperately needs is more boffins. eg we obviously require “Water Boffins” - to fix the whole mess there. “Britain’s Armada of Water Boffins” - just by writing that phrase down we’re halfway to solving the sewage crisis
Fuck all this American “tsar” nonsense. Bring back The Boffin
“Britain’s Top Small Boat Boffin” would sort out the small boat problem over a weekend. In Great Malvern or maybe Malvern Spa. Wearing a white coat
All tsars do is propose policies that never do anything useful. How many drugs tsars has America had? Are they working? No
If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled
Whoosh.
Tsars did not come from America.
Amazingly, I am aware that tsars are Russian in origin
Or Roman. “Tsar” comes from Caesar. Likewise Kaiser
I also hope that this is some kind of press (and possibly funder) misunderstanding and the 'boffins' in fact intend to pour some chocolate into a box and probably not even bother with the caramel and nougat filling. Then deep fry it.
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
Talking of crime this is bad in New York City. Elon Musk has brought attention to this.
There has been a recent trend of women in NYC getting randomly approached by men in broad daylight and punched in the face resulting in them getting bumps, bruising, and hematomas.
Criminals know that they'll get away with whatever they do in NYC, so they're not afraid. Yet if you defend yourself you'll end up in jail. (COMPILATION)
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
We need some weather boffins to improve the weather. Never mind, the clocks go forward on Sunday, so we will suffer an hour’s less rain.
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
You are still in bed at 3pm!! Wow
To be fair to me I am metabolically and emotionally still on Colombian time. So 3pm is actually 10am
'Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, said on Thursday that [special administration] was a “long way off” but did not rule out the possibility.
Weston said the company had £2.4bn of funds it could draw on, which would last until next May or June. “There is a chance that somewhere down the stream you might get to a specific special administration outcome but there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge.”'
What this country desperately needs is more boffins. eg we obviously require “Water Boffins” - to fix the whole mess there. “Britain’s Armada of Water Boffins” - just by writing that phrase down we’re halfway to solving the sewage crisis
Fuck all this American “tsar” nonsense. Bring back The Boffin
“Britain’s Top Small Boat Boffin” would sort out the small boat problem over a weekend. In Great Malvern or maybe Malvern Spa. Wearing a white coat
All tsars do is propose policies that never do anything useful. How many drugs tsars has America had? Are they working? No
If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled
Whoosh.
Tsars did not come from America.
He just Caesarn opportunity to slag off Yanks and was Russian to judgement.
It would be interesting if somebody wrote a header on what is going on with the Reform VI. They are almost at Kipper 2014-15 levels, yet…
No one on here is admitting that they plan on voting for them There is no totemic issue that sums up what they’re for They never get a decent result in By Elections They have fewer than ten councillors
Unless I’m missing something quite important, it seems like the softest polling ever. When they were called The Brexit Party in 2019, there was reason to believe they were polling in the 20%s, the Tories looked like they were about to succumb to the ‘Peoples Vote’ nonsense, and all the hard work done by UKIP could be undone. But now, why?
'Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, said on Thursday that [special administration] was a “long way off” but did not rule out the possibility.
Weston said the company had £2.4bn of funds it could draw on, which would last until next May or June. “There is a chance that somewhere down the stream you might get to a specific special administration outcome but there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge.”'
What this country desperately needs is more boffins. eg we obviously require “Water Boffins” - to fix the whole mess there. “Britain’s Armada of Water Boffins” - just by writing that phrase down we’re halfway to solving the sewage crisis
Fuck all this American “tsar” nonsense. Bring back The Boffin
“Britain’s Top Small Boat Boffin” would sort out the small boat problem over a weekend. In Great Malvern or maybe Malvern Spa. Wearing a white coat
All tsars do is propose policies that never do anything useful. How many drugs tsars has America had? Are they working? No
If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled
Whoosh.
Tsars did not come from America.
He just Caesarn opportunity to slag off Yanks and was Russian to judgement.
That's what Roman the globe does to you. It addles the brain.
On topic of the general election it well be of benefit for Rishi to go early given there is now a real danger of defeat for the west in the ukraine war something which will play very badly. Iain Martin has an article in the times today "Its time we talked about the fall of kyiv" and Ive just seen this on X.
Events in Ukraine, where retreating Ukrainian troops were only able to slow down the Russian offensive, are forcing Western leaders - in London, Washington, Paris and Brussels - to prepare for the collapse of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, deprived of the weapons and ammunition they need. This is stated in an editorial in The Times newspaper under the headline "It's time to talk about the fall of Kyiv." 📰Contrary to the prevailing view that this is a “frozen conflict in which neither side can gain a decisive advantage, there is fierce fighting on the front lines and there is a real risk that Ukrainian troops will be pushed back,” the publication notes. This is exactly the kind of nightmare scenario that Western politicians are now considering.” 📰Russia's offensive "will obviously have catastrophic consequences for Ukrainians." It would also present the West with all sorts of difficult problems, the piece says. The consequences of partial or complete defeat would be catastrophic, and Western populations have barely begun to realize this. But in the comfortable West - far from the European front line in the east and south of Ukraine - they tend to take wishful thinking and be unprepared for unpleasant surprises. 📰A survey conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations in January in 12 countries showed that only 10% of respondents believe that Ukraine can win. Some 37% believe compromise is the most likely outcome, while 19.5% believe Russia will ultimately win.
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
Easter weekend looks pretty nice in London. Showers kinda fizzling out tomorrow then mostly fine and mild Saturday and Sunday.
'Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, said on Thursday that [special administration] was a “long way off” but did not rule out the possibility.
Weston said the company had £2.4bn of funds it could draw on, which would last until next May or June. “There is a chance that somewhere down the stream you might get to a specific special administration outcome but there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge.”'
What this country desperately needs is more boffins. eg we obviously require “Water Boffins” - to fix the whole mess there. “Britain’s Armada of Water Boffins” - just by writing that phrase down we’re halfway to solving the sewage crisis
Fuck all this American “tsar” nonsense. Bring back The Boffin
“Britain’s Top Small Boat Boffin” would sort out the small boat problem over a weekend. In Great Malvern or maybe Malvern Spa. Wearing a white coat
All tsars do is propose policies that never do anything useful. How many drugs tsars has America had? Are they working? No
If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled
Whoosh.
Tsars did not come from America.
He just Caesarn opportunity to slag off Yanks and was Russian to judgement.
That's what Roman the globe does to you. It addles the brain.
It was cemented into its present usage in World War 2, referencing radar researchers in the Malverns. That’s brilliant. If I had to put a boffin anywhere, geographically, it would be the Malverns - slightly eccentric, slightly quaint, very British
I saw the Jam play at Malvern Winter Gardens. Another time, another time
I've seen a prototype at the little museum in Rugby (recogniseable from the 6 rather than 8 little nooks IIRC).
And on tweeds, see also Francis Crick. Who was IIRC an Operational Research boffin in WW2. (We'll let off James Watson as not being British: no detriment imputed to him, but he was therefore not qualified to be a boffin.)
The very idea of a not-British boffin is, frankly, laughable
It's like placental and marsupial cats. Sort of do the same function but different in detail. American boffin-analogues had bow ties, and shirt-pocket protectors, and slide rules in the shirt pocket too. Vide Wolfe The Right Stuff.
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
You are still in bed at 3pm!! Wow
To be fair to me I am metabolically and emotionally still on Colombian time. So 3pm is actually 10am
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
On topic of the general election it well be of benefit for Rishi to go early given there is now a real danger of defeat for the west in the ukraine war something which will play very badly. Iain Martin has an article in the times today "Its time we talked about the fall of kyiv" and Ive just seen this on X.
Events in Ukraine, where retreating Ukrainian troops were only able to slow down the Russian offensive, are forcing Western leaders - in London, Washington, Paris and Brussels - to prepare for the collapse of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, deprived of the weapons and ammunition they need. This is stated in an editorial in The Times newspaper under the headline "It's time to talk about the fall of Kyiv." 📰Contrary to the prevailing view that this is a “frozen conflict in which neither side can gain a decisive advantage, there is fierce fighting on the front lines and there is a real risk that Ukrainian troops will be pushed back,” the publication notes. This is exactly the kind of nightmare scenario that Western politicians are now considering.” 📰Russia's offensive "will obviously have catastrophic consequences for Ukrainians." It would also present the West with all sorts of difficult problems, the piece says. The consequences of partial or complete defeat would be catastrophic, and Western populations have barely begun to realize this. But in the comfortable West - far from the European front line in the east and south of Ukraine - they tend to take wishful thinking and be unprepared for unpleasant surprises. 📰A survey conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations in January in 12 countries showed that only 10% of respondents believe that Ukraine can win. Some 37% believe compromise is the most likely outcome, while 19.5% believe Russia will ultimately win.
On topic of the general election it well be of benefit for Rishi to go early given there is now a real danger of defeat for the west in the ukraine war something which will play very badly. Iain Martin has an article in the times today "Its time we talked about the fall of kyiv" and Ive just seen this on X.
Events in Ukraine, where retreating Ukrainian troops were only able to slow down the Russian offensive, are forcing Western leaders - in London, Washington, Paris and Brussels - to prepare for the collapse of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, deprived of the weapons and ammunition they need. This is stated in an editorial in The Times newspaper under the headline "It's time to talk about the fall of Kyiv." 📰Contrary to the prevailing view that this is a “frozen conflict in which neither side can gain a decisive advantage, there is fierce fighting on the front lines and there is a real risk that Ukrainian troops will be pushed back,” the publication notes. This is exactly the kind of nightmare scenario that Western politicians are now considering.” 📰Russia's offensive "will obviously have catastrophic consequences for Ukrainians." It would also present the West with all sorts of difficult problems, the piece says. The consequences of partial or complete defeat would be catastrophic, and Western populations have barely begun to realize this. But in the comfortable West - far from the European front line in the east and south of Ukraine - they tend to take wishful thinking and be unprepared for unpleasant surprises. 📰A survey conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations in January in 12 countries showed that only 10% of respondents believe that Ukraine can win. Some 37% believe compromise is the most likely outcome, while 19.5% believe Russia will ultimately win.
I also hope that this is some kind of press (and possibly funder) misunderstanding and the 'boffins' in fact intend to pour some chocolate into a box and probably not even bother with the caramel and nougat filling. Then deep fry it.
Boffins always need 'extra funding'. It's their staple diet.
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
Easter weekend looks pretty nice in London. Showers kinda fizzling out tomorrow then mostly fine and mild Saturday and Sunday.
Stop whining.
You get weirdly ANGRY when people moan about the weather. Given that you live in Britain, where "moaning about the weather" is a national pastime, you must be angry most of the day. Not healthy
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
We need some weather boffins to improve the weather. Never mind, the clocks go forward on Sunday, so we will suffer an hour’s less rain.
No rain for me (and us?) till Tuesday, so that is pretty safe!
'Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, said on Thursday that [special administration] was a “long way off” but did not rule out the possibility.
Weston said the company had £2.4bn of funds it could draw on, which would last until next May or June. “There is a chance that somewhere down the stream you might get to a specific special administration outcome but there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge.”'
What this country desperately needs is more boffins. eg we obviously require “Water Boffins” - to fix the whole mess there. “Britain’s Armada of Water Boffins” - just by writing that phrase down we’re halfway to solving the sewage crisis
Fuck all this American “tsar” nonsense. Bring back The Boffin
“Britain’s Top Small Boat Boffin” would sort out the small boat problem over a weekend. In Great Malvern or maybe Malvern Spa. Wearing a white coat
All tsars do is propose policies that never do anything useful. How many drugs tsars has America had? Are they working? No
If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled
Whoosh.
Tsars did not come from America.
Amazingly, I am aware that tsars are Russian in origin
Or Roman. “Tsar” comes from Caesar. Likewise Kaiser
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
Sun shining here in Scotland.
Not all of Scotland. Dodging the hailstones here. At least the snow has melted from the hills behind the village.
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
Easter weekend looks pretty nice in London. Showers kinda fizzling out tomorrow then mostly fine and mild Saturday and Sunday.
Stop whining.
You get weirdly ANGRY when people moan about the weather. Given that you live in Britain, where "moaning about the weather" is a national pastime, you must be angry most of the day. Not healthy
Not angry, just utterly bored with you droning on about it day after day, hour after hour.
At the Labour Party's local election launch today, Keir Starmer said he wants to "return to a place where promises matter."
How many promises has he broken since being elected leader?
Only Green MPs in Parliament can hold a future Labour government to account.
Green Party trying to echo Daily Mail talking points.
From the Guardian website: ...the speech we heard this morning may well have started life as a draft text for a national [general election] campaign launch. It was longer and better crafted than the sort of speech you normally get at a local election campaign launch. It did not contain anything particularly new, but it summarised the party’s key messages crisply. You can read it here. What was much more interesting was the Q&A. During his four years as Labour leader Starmer has become increasingly confident in handling the media and today he was hard to fault....... He was robust on employment rights (see 11.17am), compelling about the Tories (see 10.51am), but the other really telling answer came when he was asked (by the Daily Mail) how people could trust him when he has U-turned so often on policy. Normally he responds to this question with a slightly apologetic line about how it is normal for people to change their mind. But today he managed to flip the question entirely, and used it to deliver an intregrity message that sounded strong. (See 11.11am.)
Q: [From the Daily Mail] You have accused Boris Johnson of letting people down. But haven’t you done the same, by going back on some of your pledges? Starmer says: "What I’ve done is to take difficult decisions before the election about what we can deliver. Sometimes that has required us to adjust our position. So if you take some of the commitments we made on [the £28bn green investment plan], since we made that commitment, the Tories have done enormous damage to the economy and therefore we’ve had to adjust our plan. I would rather level with the British public before the election, tell them straight what we can do, what we can’t do, and deliver on what we say we can do, rather than do what Boris Johnson did in the last election, which is to pretend he could deliver everything and then deliver nothing, because that leads you back to Amy’s question which is why do people not have faith in their politics? I’ve taken a tough decision to not do things which an incoming Labour government might have wanted to do more quickly. But I’ve done it by looking down the barrel of the camera and saying to the British public, I will not make promises that I cannot deliver."
On topic of the general election it well be of benefit for Rishi to go early given there is now a real danger of defeat for the west in the ukraine war something which will play very badly. Iain Martin has an article in the times today "Its time we talked about the fall of kyiv" and Ive just seen this on X.
Events in Ukraine, where retreating Ukrainian troops were only able to slow down the Russian offensive, are forcing Western leaders - in London, Washington, Paris and Brussels - to prepare for the collapse of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, deprived of the weapons and ammunition they need. This is stated in an editorial in The Times newspaper under the headline "It's time to talk about the fall of Kyiv." 📰Contrary to the prevailing view that this is a “frozen conflict in which neither side can gain a decisive advantage, there is fierce fighting on the front lines and there is a real risk that Ukrainian troops will be pushed back,” the publication notes. This is exactly the kind of nightmare scenario that Western politicians are now considering.” 📰Russia's offensive "will obviously have catastrophic consequences for Ukrainians." It would also present the West with all sorts of difficult problems, the piece says. The consequences of partial or complete defeat would be catastrophic, and Western populations have barely begun to realize this. But in the comfortable West - far from the European front line in the east and south of Ukraine - they tend to take wishful thinking and be unprepared for unpleasant surprises. 📰A survey conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations in January in 12 countries showed that only 10% of respondents believe that Ukraine can win. Some 37% believe compromise is the most likely outcome, while 19.5% believe Russia will ultimately win.
Bit early, aren't you? We're not due the Twitter threads from random Russian bots spouting dishonest bullshit until Saturday.
Or is it early in honour of the bank holiday?
Why dont you let Iain Martin from the Times know he is spouting dishonest bullshit.
I was looking at the Twitter thread you linked to. Which is an infamous fake news thread sponsored by the Russians.
That said, I'll cheerfully tell any Times journalists they are spouting dishonest bullshit. You should have seen my review of Catherine Nixey's The Darkening Age.
I won't in this case because it's not actually quite what he said. He's said that's what will happen *if we don't send the weapons they need.* And he's right, and nobody disputes that. Largely because Putin's fellow fascist perverts in Washington keep blocking the sending of arms which has nothing to do with the money he's paying them of course, although European countries have awkward questions to answer too.
If they had even a tenth of the weapons they need, the fact the Russian army is starved of manpower and material, coupled with their imploding economy, means this war could be over quite fast. But we aren't sending them.
'Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, said on Thursday that [special administration] was a “long way off” but did not rule out the possibility.
Weston said the company had £2.4bn of funds it could draw on, which would last until next May or June. “There is a chance that somewhere down the stream you might get to a specific special administration outcome but there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge.”'
What this country desperately needs is more boffins. eg we obviously require “Water Boffins” - to fix the whole mess there. “Britain’s Armada of Water Boffins” - just by writing that phrase down we’re halfway to solving the sewage crisis
Fuck all this American “tsar” nonsense. Bring back The Boffin
“Britain’s Top Small Boat Boffin” would sort out the small boat problem over a weekend. In Great Malvern or maybe Malvern Spa. Wearing a white coat
All tsars do is propose policies that never do anything useful. How many drugs tsars has America had? Are they working? No
If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled
Whoosh.
Tsars did not come from America.
Amazingly, I am aware that tsars are Russian in origin
Or Roman. “Tsar” comes from Caesar. Likewise Kaiser
And Shah
Hence Checkmate. Shah Maht (King is dead).
The name Caesar itself possibly comes from the Punic word for “elephant”, or it is actually pejorative - it means “hairy” and it was used to ridicule Julius Caesar’s baldness
So all those tsars and kaisers and shahs are actually calling themselves “the baldy one”
It would be interesting if somebody wrote a header on what is going on with the Reform VI. They are almost at Kipper 2014-15 levels, yet…
No one on here is admitting that they plan on voting for them There is no totemic issue that sums up what they’re for They never get a decent result in By Elections They have fewer than ten councillors
Unless I’m missing something quite important, it seems like the softest polling ever. When they were called The Brexit Party in 2019, there was reason to believe they were polling in the 20%s, the Tories looked like they were about to succumb to the ‘Peoples Vote’ nonsense, and all the hard work done by UKIP could be undone. But now, why?
On the face of it, Blackpool South is tailor made for Reform. If they are not pushing the Tories very close on 2nd May it will be hard to conclude anything other than they are being overstated in a lot of the polling.
It would be interesting if somebody wrote a header on what is going on with the Reform VI. They are almost at Kipper 2014-15 levels, yet…
No one on here is admitting that they plan on voting for them There is no totemic issue that sums up what they’re for They never get a decent result in By Elections They have fewer than ten councillors
Unless I’m missing something quite important, it seems like the softest polling ever. When they were called The Brexit Party in 2019, there was reason to believe they were polling in the 20%s, the Tories looked like they were about to succumb to the ‘Peoples Vote’ nonsense, and all the hard work done by UKIP could be undone. But now, why?
Isn't their totemic issue immigration with their one-in-one-out plan? They're also pushing on completing Brexit "properly", as per their TUV electoral pact agreement.
They have (according to Wikipedia) 9 councillors, but they do also have 1 MP! If we include TUV, that adds 1 MLA and 10 more councillors. I would be surprised if they don't gain a London Assembly member this May.
Their by-election performances haven't been stellar, but they have saved their deposit in the last 4 by-elections, have been increasing their vote shares (or increasing compared to a previous UKIP candidate) and they got into double figures in Kingswood and Wellingborough.
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
Sun shining here in Scotland.
Not all of Scotland. Dodging the hailstones here. At least the snow has melted from the hills behind the village.
Thousands of panels on a solar farm southwest of Houston, Texas, were damaged by a powerful hailstorm on March 15.
Aerial footage showed rows of cracked photovoltaic cells at the Fighting Jays Solar Farm near Needville in Fort Bend County, local news channel KTRK reported on Saturday. Baseball-sized hail stones were observed falling in the area overnight, as per the Houston Chronicle.
It would be interesting if somebody wrote a header on what is going on with the Reform VI. They are almost at Kipper 2014-15 levels, yet…
No one on here is admitting that they plan on voting for them There is no totemic issue that sums up what they’re for They never get a decent result in By Elections They have fewer than ten councillors
Unless I’m missing something quite important, it seems like the softest polling ever. When they were called The Brexit Party in 2019, there was reason to believe they were polling in the 20%s, the Tories looked like they were about to succumb to the ‘Peoples Vote’ nonsense, and all the hard work done by UKIP could be undone. But now, why?
It would be interesting indeed. I'd be tempted to were it not for my upcoming holiday.
I think it's a NOTA protest phenomenon. Every now and then a third party - usually historically the Lib Dems - soars in the polls at the expense of one or other main party, and then subsides again as quickly as it rose. After the event it turns out most of those people were just registering discontent before being forced into a binary choice come election time.
If we look at times in recent history the Lib Dems have done it, they've been when people on the left of centre were dissatisfied with Labour. 1982-3 (with the SDP), 2005-10, 2019. UKIP and BXP had similar surges but as you say, there was a more specific policy position for UKIP which enabled them to retain support in the GE as a way for voters to make their point. Arguably true of 2005 for the Lib Dems, when their support remained robust into the election as people made a specific point about Iraq (though their vote efficiency declined a bit).
I think the lack of progress in councils is simply due to lack of ground game or meaningful focus on local issues. Lib Dems have tended to do very well in local elections during their surges, but their offer is much more local. Same with greens. Lack of progress in parliamentary byelections is more of a head scratcher. They've done OK recently but underperformed polling. This does suggest the vote is extra soft.
All of these are reasons I expect their vote to vanish into a mixture of Conservative, Labour and (particularly) abstain come the general election.
It would be interesting if somebody wrote a header on what is going on with the Reform VI. They are almost at Kipper 2014-15 levels, yet…
No one on here is admitting that they plan on voting for them There is no totemic issue that sums up what they’re for They never get a decent result in By Elections They have fewer than ten councillors
Unless I’m missing something quite important, it seems like the softest polling ever. When they were called The Brexit Party in 2019, there was reason to believe they were polling in the 20%s, the Tories looked like they were about to succumb to the ‘Peoples Vote’ nonsense, and all the hard work done by UKIP could be undone. But now, why?
On the face of it, Blackpool South is tailor made for Reform. If they are not pushing the Tories very close on 2nd May it will be hard to conclude anything other than they are being overstated in a lot of the polling.
Honestly think Tice is too posh and smooth for the people of blackpool.
I have a vivid memory of coming down from an acid trip at 8am in a pub in Smithfields. Us students tripping away, surrounded by meat market workers sipping Guinness over breakfast
Go to the poll of polls. Starting in 2022, draw a trend line through labour and conservative ratings and get back to me about trends. FYI, one poll is not a trend
Im sort of with BJO on this (the trend, not the rest of his ideological apparatus). There is I think a tightening between the blocs, and a decline in Labour favourability, that’s being hidden by the Reform rise.
I am.just not seeing it the poll of polls. They regularly undulate back and forth. It would take a more decisive shift for me to call it. I guess I would have to do a t-test to prove it. But eyeballing the running average of tory and labour support I would say it is overall still widening.
4th poll of the week this one shows a 3% drop in Lab lead to 15 confirms the trend
Especially when there was a perceptible upblip last week, which I think got attributed to Racistdonorgate.
On that point, it's worth considering four polls BJO gleefully highlights which show a reduction in the Labour lead this week and note what their previous move was:
Pollster / this poll's lead change / previous lead change
YouGov / -6% / +1% Deltapoll / -5% / +6% More in Common / -3% / -1% R&W / -6% / +8%
Average -5% this poll, +3.5% last poll.
As far as YouGov is concerned it’s a decent dip in support, as the poll three weeks ago was a dip of a few points as well. It’s their lowest Labour score since 2022, so not just up one week/down the next and balancing out
Strange thing you said the other day, that I was desperately searching for a reason to vote Tory. I am not a Tory, and only voted for them in 2019 to Get Brexit Done. I’m unlikely to be voting for them next time, and haven’t praised any of their policies, campaign adverts or any individual MP they have.
You may try to label me as a Boris fan, but even there I only argue that he is the most popular choice of 2019 Tories according to polling, which would be true whether I liked him or not, and that they’d be better off had they kept him in charge. I don’t think you’d find anything from me saying he was a fantastic leader, this or that was a tremendous policy, he has a great vision for the country etc, just that he was charismatic and that goes further than dry politico’s care to admit… usually because they aren’t charismatic themselves, so don’t value its importance
Why should anyone care what someone else votes or indeed say it as "gotcha".? I vote Tory and am content to continue. O couldn't give a rat's behind what anyone here or anywhere else thinks about it. Nor do I care how others vote. The biggest weakness of the site is small the ad hominem crap.
Not to be ad hominem but I do care how others vote. I want them to vote Labour. If enough of them fail to do that I'll have to suffer yet another Conservative government.
Go to the poll of polls. Starting in 2022, draw a trend line through labour and conservative ratings and get back to me about trends. FYI, one poll is not a trend
Im sort of with BJO on this (the trend, not the rest of his ideological apparatus). There is I think a tightening between the blocs, and a decline in Labour favourability, that’s being hidden by the Reform rise.
I am.just not seeing it the poll of polls. They regularly undulate back and forth. It would take a more decisive shift for me to call it. I guess I would have to do a t-test to prove it. But eyeballing the running average of tory and labour support I would say it is overall still widening.
4th poll of the week this one shows a 3% drop in Lab lead to 15 confirms the trend
Especially when there was a perceptible upblip last week, which I think got attributed to Racistdonorgate.
On that point, it's worth considering four polls BJO gleefully highlights which show a reduction in the Labour lead this week and note what their previous move was:
Pollster / this poll's lead change / previous lead change
YouGov / -6% / +1% Deltapoll / -5% / +6% More in Common / -3% / -1% R&W / -6% / +8%
Average -5% this poll, +3.5% last poll.
As far as YouGov is concerned it’s a decent dip in support, as the poll three weeks ago was a dip of a few points as well. It’s their lowest Labour score since 2022, so not just up one week/down the next and balancing out
Strange thing you said the other day, that I was desperately searching for a reason to vote Tory. I am not a Tory, and only voted for them in 2019 to Get Brexit Done. I’m unlikely to be voting for them next time, and haven’t praised any of their policies, campaign adverts or any individual MP they have.
You may try to label me as a Boris fan, but even there I only argue that he is the most popular choice of 2019 Tories according to polling, which would be true whether I liked him or not, and that they’d be better off had they kept him in charge. I don’t think you’d find anything from me saying he was a fantastic leader, this or that was a tremendous policy, he has a great vision for the country etc, just that he was charismatic and that goes further than dry politico’s care to admit… usually because they aren’t charismatic themselves, so don’t value its importance
YouGov shows a definite a downward move for Labour. The rest of the polling this week is largely a return to the longer-term mean after a jump last week. If YouGov has picked up on something others have so far missed, things will start to get interesting given the Reform number they also have. Some of that 16% is bound to be 2019 Tories who could be lured back. Add in a few returning DKs and there is a clear Tory path to 30%+ in sight. *If* being the key word, of course.
I agree with you on Johnson. The Tories would be closer to 30% now if he were still in charge.
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
Easter weekend looks pretty nice in London. Showers kinda fizzling out tomorrow then mostly fine and mild Saturday and Sunday.
Stop whining.
You get weirdly ANGRY when people moan about the weather. Given that you live in Britain, where "moaning about the weather" is a national pastime, you must be angry most of the day. Not healthy
Not angry, just utterly bored with you droning on about it day after day, hour after hour.
I’ve mentioned it once today. Its 3.30pm
I have a theory. I think you get upset by shit British weather but you try and live in denial of it, and say it’s all good. So if someone points out that actually it’s pretty shit, that kicks away the denial leaving you exposed. And angry
FPT: In the US, in the past, northern and southern California were defined more politically than geographically.
For example, at the extremes, northern California had Communists; southern California had Birchers*.
In the Republican party, Ronald Reagan defeated moderate Republican George Christopher in the 1966 primary. (Christopher, an immigrant from Greece, had been mayor of San Francisco: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Christopher_(mayor) )
In the Democratic Party, I can't think of any important northern California Democrat equivalent to Sam Yorty, mayor of Los Angeles, who began on the left, but moved rightward during his political career. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Yorty
(*One of whom, Congressman John Rousselot, when asked why he had joined the Birch Society, replied that he had done so in order to appeal to the middle-of-the-road vote in Orange County.)
We think also seem to show last week's or twos blip reversing with their day early offering 🔴 Lab 44% (-3) 🔵 Con 25% (+1) ⚪ Ref 10% (-1) 🟠 LD 10% (+1) 🟢 Green 5% (-1) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
It would be interesting if somebody wrote a header on what is going on with the Reform VI. They are almost at Kipper 2014-15 levels, yet…
No one on here is admitting that they plan on voting for them There is no totemic issue that sums up what they’re for They never get a decent result in By Elections They have fewer than ten councillors
Unless I’m missing something quite important, it seems like the softest polling ever. When they were called The Brexit Party in 2019, there was reason to believe they were polling in the 20%s, the Tories looked like they were about to succumb to the ‘Peoples Vote’ nonsense, and all the hard work done by UKIP could be undone. But now, why?
Isn't their totemic issue immigration with their one-in-one-out plan? They're also pushing on completing Brexit "properly", as per their TUV electoral pact agreement.
They have (according to Wikipedia) 9 councillors, but they do also have 1 MP! If we include TUV, that adds 1 MLA and 10 more councillors. I would be surprised if they don't gain a London Assembly member this May.
Their by-election performances haven't been stellar, but they have saved their deposit in the last 4 by-elections, have been increasing their vote shares (or increasing compared to a previous UKIP candidate) and they got into double figures in Kingswood and Wellingborough.
Immigration has been an issue for sixty years, it isn’t totemic in the way leaving the EU was for UKIP in 2015 & BXP in 2019.
As for By Elections, UKIP won two (admittedly because they had the incumbent as candidate) and came an often quite close second in five of the last seven in the 2010-15 parliament (one of my unluckiest bets ever was backing them in Heywood and Middleton at something like 20/1 only to see them lose by 617 votes. The election was the sand day Carswell won Clacton by a mile, and UKIP. had quite stupidly stuffed every campaigner they could into that seat, ignoring the other). Reform haven’t even come close to a second place gave they?
Anyway I’m off for a looooong weekend in London which I haven’t done for many years. All sorts of events lined up, from footy matches to art galleries, gardens to historic houses, and culminating* in the wonderful Asmik Grigorian singing the title role in Madama Butterfly at ROH.
* Hoping to goodness she isn’t indisposed which happened to me for Darcey Bussell’s swansong ROH appearance.
Anyway I’m off for a looooong weekend in London which I haven’t done for many years. All sorts of events lined up, from footy matches to art galleries, gardens to historic houses, and culminating* in the wonderful Asmik Grigorian singing the title role in Madama Butterfly at ROH.
* Hoping to goodness she isn’t indisposed which happened to me for Darcey Bussell’s swansong ROH appearance.
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
We think also seem to show last week's or twos blip reversing with their day early offering 🔴 Lab 44% (-3) 🔵 Con 25% (+1) ⚪ Ref 10% (-1) 🟠 LD 10% (+1) 🟢 Green 5% (-1) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
WeThink 27-28 March
Likely an easter effect. Rich young labour voters out of the country on skiing holidays. Elderly tory vote stuck at home.
'Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, said on Thursday that [special administration] was a “long way off” but did not rule out the possibility.
Weston said the company had £2.4bn of funds it could draw on, which would last until next May or June. “There is a chance that somewhere down the stream you might get to a specific special administration outcome but there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge.”'
What this country desperately needs is more boffins. eg we obviously require “Water Boffins” - to fix the whole mess there. “Britain’s Armada of Water Boffins” - just by writing that phrase down we’re halfway to solving the sewage crisis
Fuck all this American “tsar” nonsense. Bring back The Boffin
“Britain’s Top Small Boat Boffin” would sort out the small boat problem over a weekend. In Great Malvern or maybe Malvern Spa. Wearing a white coat
All tsars do is propose policies that never do anything useful. How many drugs tsars has America had? Are they working? No
If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled
Whoosh.
Tsars did not come from America.
Amazingly, I am aware that tsars are Russian in origin
Or Roman. “Tsar” comes from Caesar. Likewise Kaiser
And Shah
Hence Checkmate. Shah Maht (King is dead).
The name Caesar itself possibly comes from the Punic word for “elephant”, or it is actually pejorative - it means “hairy” and it was used to ridicule Julius Caesar’s baldness
So all those tsars and kaisers and shahs are actually calling themselves “the baldy one”
I love etymology
Was contemplating the etymology of 'etymology' versus 'entomology' (after all there's barely a gnat's whisker between them) when I was reminded of a customer when I had a Saturday job in a decorating store ('Fads' - might have been a local/southern chain). She was in her 40s-50s, I guess, came in with a shopping list for decorating her living room and, contemplating the wallpaper and paint stocks was very insistent that she wanted both in combination with a dildo rail between them. She commented several times that she really liked dildos as they added a bit of interest to a room. I nodded along very seriously and advised on suitable paints etc. I'm still not sure whether it might have been a deliberate wind up.
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
Sun shining here in Scotland.
Not all of Scotland. Dodging the hailstones here. At least the snow has melted from the hills behind the village.
Thousands of panels on a solar farm southwest of Houston, Texas, were damaged by a powerful hailstorm on March 15.
Aerial footage showed rows of cracked photovoltaic cells at the Fighting Jays Solar Farm near Needville in Fort Bend County, local news channel KTRK reported on Saturday. Baseball-sized hail stones were observed falling in the area overnight, as per the Houston Chronicle.
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
Sun shining here in Scotland.
Not all of Scotland. Dodging the hailstones here. At least the snow has melted from the hills behind the village.
Thousands of panels on a solar farm southwest of Houston, Texas, were damaged by a powerful hailstorm on March 15.
Aerial footage showed rows of cracked photovoltaic cells at the Fighting Jays Solar Farm near Needville in Fort Bend County, local news channel KTRK reported on Saturday. Baseball-sized hail stones were observed falling in the area overnight, as per the Houston Chronicle.
"...Texas, were damaged by a powerful hailstorm on March 15..."
A hailstorm. In Texas. In March. Okkkayyyyy....
(checks to see if Musk has any spare seats)
Big hailstorm in Texas art the end of March is surely not that unusual?
Hail season in Texas typically lasts from March until May.
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
Sun shining here in Scotland.
Not all of Scotland. Dodging the hailstones here. At least the snow has melted from the hills behind the village.
Thousands of panels on a solar farm southwest of Houston, Texas, were damaged by a powerful hailstorm on March 15.
Aerial footage showed rows of cracked photovoltaic cells at the Fighting Jays Solar Farm near Needville in Fort Bend County, local news channel KTRK reported on Saturday. Baseball-sized hail stones were observed falling in the area overnight, as per the Houston Chronicle.
A hailstorm. In Texas. In March. Okkkayyyyy....
(checks to see if Musk has any spare seats)
I hate to sound like @Leon but this incessant rain is really pissing me off now. Just a few hours of sunshine a day. Is that too much to ask?
'Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, said on Thursday that [special administration] was a “long way off” but did not rule out the possibility.
Weston said the company had £2.4bn of funds it could draw on, which would last until next May or June. “There is a chance that somewhere down the stream you might get to a specific special administration outcome but there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge.”'
What this country desperately needs is more boffins. eg we obviously require “Water Boffins” - to fix the whole mess there. “Britain’s Armada of Water Boffins” - just by writing that phrase down we’re halfway to solving the sewage crisis
Fuck all this American “tsar” nonsense. Bring back The Boffin
“Britain’s Top Small Boat Boffin” would sort out the small boat problem over a weekend. In Great Malvern or maybe Malvern Spa. Wearing a white coat
All tsars do is propose policies that never do anything useful. How many drugs tsars has America had? Are they working? No
If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled
Whoosh.
Tsars did not come from America.
Amazingly, I am aware that tsars are Russian in origin
Or Roman. “Tsar” comes from Caesar. Likewise Kaiser
And Shah
Hence Checkmate. Shah Maht (King is dead).
The name Caesar itself possibly comes from the Punic word for “elephant”, or it is actually pejorative - it means “hairy” and it was used to ridicule Julius Caesar’s baldness
So all those tsars and kaisers and shahs are actually calling themselves “the baldy one”
I love etymology
Was contemplating the etymology of 'etymology' versus 'entomology' (after all there's barely a gnat's whisker between them) when I was reminded of a customer when I had a Saturday job in a decorating store ('Fads' - might have been a local/southern chain). She was in her 40s-50s, I guess, came in with a shopping list for decorating her living room and, contemplating the wallpaper and paint stocks was very insistent that she wanted both in combination with a dildo rail between them. She commented several times that she really liked dildos as they added a bit of interest to a room. I nodded along very seriously and advised on suitable paints etc. I'm still not sure whether it might have been a deliberate wind up.
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
Sun shining here in Scotland.
Blustery but sunny on the Island. Lovely now.
It’s force 7 gusting force 8 here. Quite a wild walk just before.
Unless Labour detail plans in their manifesto (They might I suppose) one of the attack lines for the Tories can use will be "Labour is going to take away your childcare".
'Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, said on Thursday that [special administration] was a “long way off” but did not rule out the possibility.
Weston said the company had £2.4bn of funds it could draw on, which would last until next May or June. “There is a chance that somewhere down the stream you might get to a specific special administration outcome but there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge.”'
What this country desperately needs is more boffins. eg we obviously require “Water Boffins” - to fix the whole mess there. “Britain’s Armada of Water Boffins” - just by writing that phrase down we’re halfway to solving the sewage crisis
Fuck all this American “tsar” nonsense. Bring back The Boffin
“Britain’s Top Small Boat Boffin” would sort out the small boat problem over a weekend. In Great Malvern or maybe Malvern Spa. Wearing a white coat
All tsars do is propose policies that never do anything useful. How many drugs tsars has America had? Are they working? No
If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled
Whoosh.
Tsars did not come from America.
Amazingly, I am aware that tsars are Russian in origin
Or Roman. “Tsar” comes from Caesar. Likewise Kaiser
And Shah
Hence Checkmate. Shah Maht (King is dead).
The name Caesar itself possibly comes from the Punic word for “elephant”, or it is actually pejorative - it means “hairy” and it was used to ridicule Julius Caesar’s baldness
So all those tsars and kaisers and shahs are actually calling themselves “the baldy one”
I love etymology
Was contemplating the etymology of 'etymology' versus 'entomology' (after all there's barely a gnat's whisker between them) when I was reminded of a customer when I had a Saturday job in a decorating store ('Fads' - might have been a local/southern chain). She was in her 40s-50s, I guess, came in with a shopping list for decorating her living room and, contemplating the wallpaper and paint stocks was very insistent that she wanted both in combination with a dildo rail between them. She commented several times that she really liked dildos as they added a bit of interest to a room. I nodded along very seriously and advised on suitable paints etc. I'm still not sure whether it might have been a deliberate wind up.
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
'Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, said on Thursday that [special administration] was a “long way off” but did not rule out the possibility.
Weston said the company had £2.4bn of funds it could draw on, which would last until next May or June. “There is a chance that somewhere down the stream you might get to a specific special administration outcome but there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge.”'
What this country desperately needs is more boffins. eg we obviously require “Water Boffins” - to fix the whole mess there. “Britain’s Armada of Water Boffins” - just by writing that phrase down we’re halfway to solving the sewage crisis
Fuck all this American “tsar” nonsense. Bring back The Boffin
“Britain’s Top Small Boat Boffin” would sort out the small boat problem over a weekend. In Great Malvern or maybe Malvern Spa. Wearing a white coat
All tsars do is propose policies that never do anything useful. How many drugs tsars has America had? Are they working? No
If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled
Whoosh.
Tsars did not come from America.
Amazingly, I am aware that tsars are Russian in origin
Or Roman. “Tsar” comes from Caesar. Likewise Kaiser
And Shah
Hence Checkmate. Shah Maht (King is dead).
I think it means 'the king is captured', or more literally, helpless. You can't actually take the king in chess, which is one of the features that makes it special. If you could take the king the same way as any other piece the game would not be nearly so interesting. It is the fact that you have to trap it to the point it has nowhere to go that makes the game unique andd facinating. I've always assumed that the origin of the idea goes back to a time when the king was so important that he would never be killed, but only trapped and then presumably ransomed.
The game changed dramatically when it was imported to Europe, notably through the introduction of the two square move for pawns, and castling, which brought the 'castles' (or rooks, originally ruhks/chariots) into play more quickly. I think the anomoly of the most powerful piece on the board being the queen arose from the misunderstanding that simply because it started next to the king it must be the queen.
I never understood why 'bishops' were so powerful. In German, they are laufers (runners), which makes a bit more sense. The origins of the game are shrouded in mystery though. I've always liked the legend about the guy who invented it and was offered any reward he wished by the king. He asked for one grain of rice to be placed on the first square, two on the next, four on the next and so on, doubling up on each of the 64 squares. The king can't have been good at maths because he agreed, and even thought it would be a pittance.
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
Sun shining here in Scotland.
Not all of Scotland. Dodging the hailstones here. At least the snow has melted from the hills behind the village.
Thousands of panels on a solar farm southwest of Houston, Texas, were damaged by a powerful hailstorm on March 15.
Aerial footage showed rows of cracked photovoltaic cells at the Fighting Jays Solar Farm near Needville in Fort Bend County, local news channel KTRK reported on Saturday. Baseball-sized hail stones were observed falling in the area overnight, as per the Houston Chronicle.
A hailstorm. In Texas. In March. Okkkayyyyy....
(checks to see if Musk has any spare seats)
I hate to sound like @Leon but this incessant rain is really pissing me off now. Just a few hours of sunshine a day. Is that too much to ask?
Maybe a hostile foreign power has perfected weather modification so it is constantly cloudy and pissing down in the uk. You never know
'Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, said on Thursday that [special administration] was a “long way off” but did not rule out the possibility.
Weston said the company had £2.4bn of funds it could draw on, which would last until next May or June. “There is a chance that somewhere down the stream you might get to a specific special administration outcome but there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge.”'
What this country desperately needs is more boffins. eg we obviously require “Water Boffins” - to fix the whole mess there. “Britain’s Armada of Water Boffins” - just by writing that phrase down we’re halfway to solving the sewage crisis
Fuck all this American “tsar” nonsense. Bring back The Boffin
“Britain’s Top Small Boat Boffin” would sort out the small boat problem over a weekend. In Great Malvern or maybe Malvern Spa. Wearing a white coat
All tsars do is propose policies that never do anything useful. How many drugs tsars has America had? Are they working? No
If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled
Whoosh.
Tsars did not come from America.
Amazingly, I am aware that tsars are Russian in origin
Or Roman. “Tsar” comes from Caesar. Likewise Kaiser
And Shah
Hence Checkmate. Shah Maht (King is dead).
The name Caesar itself possibly comes from the Punic word for “elephant”, or it is actually pejorative - it means “hairy” and it was used to ridicule Julius Caesar’s baldness
So all those tsars and kaisers and shahs are actually calling themselves “the baldy one”
I love etymology
Was contemplating the etymology of 'etymology' versus 'entomology' (after all there's barely a gnat's whisker between them) when I was reminded of a customer when I had a Saturday job in a decorating store ('Fads' - might have been a local/southern chain). She was in her 40s-50s, I guess, came in with a shopping list for decorating her living room and, contemplating the wallpaper and paint stocks was very insistent that she wanted both in combination with a dildo rail between them. She commented several times that she really liked dildos as they added a bit of interest to a room. I nodded along very seriously and advised on suitable paints etc. I'm still not sure whether it might have been a deliberate wind up.
More likely a cockup.
Or a come on.
(Though I note that Anne Bancroft was only six years older than Dustin Hoffman - and nine years older than Katherine Ross...)
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
Sun shining here in Scotland.
Blustery but sunny on the Island. Lovely now.
It’s force 7 gusting force 8 here. Quite a wild walk just before.
Beautiful
Where is that? Hebrides? Connemara? West Wales?
I always think the best way to handle shite weather like this is to lean into it (literally): go to the cliffs for a savage walk. Then it becomes entertaining
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
'Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, said on Thursday that [special administration] was a “long way off” but did not rule out the possibility.
Weston said the company had £2.4bn of funds it could draw on, which would last until next May or June. “There is a chance that somewhere down the stream you might get to a specific special administration outcome but there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge.”'
What this country desperately needs is more boffins. eg we obviously require “Water Boffins” - to fix the whole mess there. “Britain’s Armada of Water Boffins” - just by writing that phrase down we’re halfway to solving the sewage crisis
Fuck all this American “tsar” nonsense. Bring back The Boffin
“Britain’s Top Small Boat Boffin” would sort out the small boat problem over a weekend. In Great Malvern or maybe Malvern Spa. Wearing a white coat
All tsars do is propose policies that never do anything useful. How many drugs tsars has America had? Are they working? No
If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled
Whoosh.
Tsars did not come from America.
Amazingly, I am aware that tsars are Russian in origin
Or Roman. “Tsar” comes from Caesar. Likewise Kaiser
And Shah
Hence Checkmate. Shah Maht (King is dead).
I think it means 'the king is captured', or more literally, helpless. You can't actually take the king in chess, which is one of the features that makes it special. If you could take the king the same way as any other piece the game would not be nearly so interesting. It is the fact that you have to trap it to the point it has nowhere to go that makes the game unique andd facinating. I've always assumed that the origin of the idea goes back to a time when the king was so important that he would never be killed, but only trapped and then presumably ransomed.
The game changed dramatically when it was imported to Europe, notably through the introduction of the two square move for pawns, and castling, which brought the 'castles' (or rooks, originally ruhks/chariots) into play more quickly. I think the anomoly of the most powerful piece on the board being the queen arose from the misunderstanding that simply because it started next to the king it must be the queen.
I never understood why 'bishops' were so powerful. In German, they are laufers (runners), which makes a bit more sense. The origins of the game are shrouded in mystery though. I've always liked the legend about the guy who invented it and was offered any reward he wished by the king. He asked for one grain of rice to be placed on the first square, two on the next, four on the next and so on, doubling up on each of the 64 squares. The king can't have been good at maths because he agreed, and even thought it would be a pittance.
Big mistake...
..by the inventor - who was, it is said, summarily executed for his impudence.
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
Easter weekend looks pretty nice in London. Showers kinda fizzling out tomorrow then mostly fine and mild Saturday and Sunday.
Stop whining.
You get weirdly ANGRY when people moan about the weather. Given that you live in Britain, where "moaning about the weather" is a national pastime, you must be angry most of the day. Not healthy
Not angry, just utterly bored with you droning on about it day after day, hour after hour.
I’ve mentioned it once today. Its 3.30pm
I have a theory. I think you get upset by shit British weather but you try and live in denial of it, and say it’s all good. So if someone points out that actually it’s pretty shit, that kicks away the denial leaving you exposed. And angry
Just a theory
I can see what the weather is doing now, by looking out of the window. I can see what it’s doing in the next few days, by looking at my weather app.
Your tedious posts on the subject add nothing to the gaiety of the nation.
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
Easter weekend looks pretty nice in London. Showers kinda fizzling out tomorrow then mostly fine and mild Saturday and Sunday.
Stop whining.
You get weirdly ANGRY when people moan about the weather. Given that you live in Britain, where "moaning about the weather" is a national pastime, you must be angry most of the day. Not healthy
Not angry, just utterly bored with you droning on about it day after day, hour after hour.
I’ve mentioned it once today. Its 3.30pm
I have a theory. I think you get upset by shit British weather but you try and live in denial of it, and say it’s all good. So if someone points out that actually it’s pretty shit, that kicks away the denial leaving you exposed. And angry
Just a theory
I can see what the weather is doing now, by looking out of the window. I can see what it’s doing in the next few days, by looking at my weather app.
Your tedious posts on the subject add nothing to the gaiety of the nation.
There you go again, weirdly overwrought - I believe my theory is correct
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
Sun shining here in Scotland.
Blustery but sunny on the Island. Lovely now.
It’s force 7 gusting force 8 here. Quite a wild walk just before.
Beautiful
Where is that? Hebrides? Connemara? West Wales?
I always think the best way to handle shite weather like this is to lean into it (literally): go to the cliffs for a savage walk. Then it becomes entertaining
Jersey. South west tip. Although the weather more like the Faroes at the moment.
I think this is my favourite sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written on PB
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
Yes a truly dire day across the country today. Some slight improvement saturday i think but friday and monday look awful. Oh well roll on May Day.
It’s hideous. I’m still in bed. I’ve had three solid months of pure blue skies and sun. It is so easy to get out of bed when it is warm and sunny - you WANT to sit on the balcony with your coffee. Bliss
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
Easter weekend looks pretty nice in London. Showers kinda fizzling out tomorrow then mostly fine and mild Saturday and Sunday.
Stop whining.
You get weirdly ANGRY when people moan about the weather. Given that you live in Britain, where "moaning about the weather" is a national pastime, you must be angry most of the day. Not healthy
Not angry, just utterly bored with you droning on about it day after day, hour after hour.
I’ve mentioned it once today. Its 3.30pm
I have a theory. I think you get upset by shit British weather but you try and live in denial of it, and say it’s all good. So if someone points out that actually it’s pretty shit, that kicks away the denial leaving you exposed. And angry
Just a theory
I can see what the weather is doing now, by looking out of the window. I can see what it’s doing in the next few days, by looking at my weather app.
Your tedious posts on the subject add nothing to the gaiety of the nation.
There you go again, weirdly overwrought - I believe my theory is correct
Indeed, the NatWest Three tried the argument that the US barbarically sends white collar criminals to jail, rather than not bothering to prosecute them. As a “civilised” country would.
Comments
It's importance was that it can create shorter frequencies - 10cm say - vastly more efficiently than previous methods.
So British and American radar worked on much shorter frequencies than German, Italian and Japanese radars. Giving a clearer, more precise picture.
Events in Ukraine, where retreating Ukrainian troops were only able to slow down the Russian offensive, are forcing Western leaders - in London, Washington, Paris and Brussels - to prepare for the collapse of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, deprived of the weapons and ammunition they need. This is stated in an editorial in The Times newspaper under the headline "It's time to talk about the fall of Kyiv."
📰Contrary to the prevailing view that this is a “frozen conflict in which neither side can gain a decisive advantage, there is fierce fighting on the front lines and there is a real risk that Ukrainian troops will be pushed back,” the publication notes. This is exactly the kind of nightmare scenario that Western politicians are now considering.”
📰Russia's offensive "will obviously have catastrophic consequences for Ukrainians." It would also present the West with all sorts of difficult problems, the piece says. The consequences of partial or complete defeat would be catastrophic, and Western populations have barely begun to realize this. But in the comfortable West - far from the European front line in the east and south of Ukraine - they tend to take wishful thinking and be unprepared for unpleasant surprises.
📰A survey conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations in January in 12 countries showed that only 10% of respondents believe that Ukraine can win. Some 37% believe compromise is the most likely outcome, while 19.5% believe Russia will ultimately win.
http://Avdeevka.Ru🇷🇺
12:37 PM · Mar 28, 2024
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14.1K
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https://x.com/GeromanAT/status/1773328457209967075?s=20
At first they should struggle, then you can talk about “baffled boffins”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_W._Hull
The British boffins' discovery made it useful.
(Is that an essential part of boffinry ?)
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/nov/14/what-views-will-esther-mcvey-bring-to-cabinet-as-the-common-sense-tsar
All tsars do is propose policies that never do anything useful. How many drugs tsars has America had? Are they working? No
If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled
At the Labour Party's local election launch today, Keir Starmer said he wants to "return to a place where promises matter."
How many promises has he broken since being elected leader?
Only Green MPs in Parliament can hold a future Labour government to account.
“If America could borrow some of Britain’s Malvern Army of Top Off Duty Drugs Boffins they’d fix the Fentanyl thing within a fortnight, after several days of being baffled”
That’s poetry. Also it’s more fun to write that than stare out of the window at the incomprehensibly awful weather
It is fascinating watching projection in action; the Tories have been cast in the role as bad guys, so their main opposition have to be the good guys, even if they are also insincere snides.
Tsars did not come from America.
Or Roman. “Tsar” comes from Caesar. Likewise Kaiser
This shit? You want to hide away. Duvet day is every day
There has been a recent trend of women in NYC getting randomly approached by men in broad daylight and punched in the face resulting in them getting bumps, bruising, and hematomas.
Criminals know that they'll get away with whatever they do in NYC, so they're not afraid.
Yet if you defend yourself you'll end up in jail.
(COMPILATION)
https://x.com/LeftismForU/status/1773244917336166429?s=20
No one on here is admitting that they plan on voting for them
There is no totemic issue that sums up what they’re for
They never get a decent result in By Elections
They have fewer than ten councillors
Unless I’m missing something quite important, it seems like the softest polling ever. When they were called The Brexit Party in 2019, there was reason to believe they were polling in the 20%s, the Tories looked like they were about to succumb to the ‘Peoples Vote’ nonsense, and all the hard work done by UKIP could be undone. But now, why?
Or is it early in honour of the bank holiday?
Stop whining.
Hence Checkmate. Shah Maht (King is dead).
That’s another classic piece of tabloidese
When was the last time a boy pushed a barrow around Covent Garden or Billingsgate? 1864?
Yet still they live on
https://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/05/10/the-last-fish-porters-of-billingsgate-market/
From the Guardian website:
...the speech we heard this morning may well have started life as a draft text for a national [general election] campaign launch. It was longer and better crafted than the sort of speech you normally get at a local election campaign launch. It did not contain anything particularly new, but it summarised the party’s key messages crisply. You can read it here. What was much more interesting was the Q&A. During his four years as Labour leader Starmer has become increasingly confident in handling the media and today he was hard to fault.......
He was robust on employment rights (see 11.17am), compelling about the Tories (see 10.51am), but the other really telling answer came when he was asked (by the Daily Mail) how people could trust him when he has U-turned so often on policy. Normally he responds to this question with a slightly apologetic line about how it is normal for people to change their mind. But today he managed to flip the question entirely, and used it to deliver an intregrity message that sounded strong. (See 11.11am.)
Q: [From the Daily Mail] You have accused Boris Johnson of letting people down. But haven’t you done the same, by going back on some of your pledges?
Starmer says:
"What I’ve done is to take difficult decisions before the election about what we can deliver. Sometimes that has required us to adjust our position. So if you take some of the commitments we made on [the £28bn green investment plan], since we made that commitment, the Tories have done enormous damage to the economy and therefore we’ve had to adjust our plan. I would rather level with the British public before the election, tell them straight what we can do, what we can’t do, and deliver on what we say we can do, rather than do what Boris Johnson did in the last election, which is to pretend he could deliver everything and then deliver nothing, because that leads you back to Amy’s question which is why do people not have faith in their politics? I’ve taken a tough decision to not do things which an incoming Labour government might have wanted to do more quickly. But I’ve done it by looking down the barrel of the camera and saying to the British public, I will not make promises that I cannot deliver."
That said, I'll cheerfully tell any Times journalists they are spouting dishonest bullshit. You should have seen my review of Catherine Nixey's The Darkening Age.
I won't in this case because it's not actually quite what he said. He's said that's what will happen *if we don't send the weapons they need.* And he's right, and nobody disputes that. Largely because Putin's fellow fascist perverts in Washington keep blocking the sending of arms which has nothing to do with the money he's paying them of course, although European countries have awkward questions to answer too.
If they had even a tenth of the weapons they need, the fact the Russian army is starved of manpower and material, coupled with their imploding economy, means this war could be over quite fast. But we aren't sending them.
That's what he's asking for.
So all those tsars and kaisers and shahs are actually calling themselves “the baldy one”
I love etymology
They have (according to Wikipedia) 9 councillors, but they do also have 1 MP! If we include TUV, that adds 1 MLA and 10 more councillors. I would be surprised if they don't gain a London Assembly member this May.
Their by-election performances haven't been stellar, but they have saved their deposit in the last 4 by-elections, have been increasing their vote shares (or increasing compared to a previous UKIP candidate) and they got into double figures in Kingswood and Wellingborough.
https://www.newsweek.com/thousands-solar-panels-texas-destroyed-hailstorm-1883546
Thousands of panels on a solar farm southwest of Houston, Texas, were damaged by a powerful hailstorm on March 15.
Aerial footage showed rows of cracked photovoltaic cells at the Fighting Jays Solar Farm near Needville in Fort Bend County, local news channel KTRK reported on Saturday. Baseball-sized hail stones were observed falling in the area overnight, as per the Houston Chronicle.
I think it's a NOTA protest phenomenon. Every now and then a third party - usually historically the Lib Dems - soars in the polls at the expense of one or other main party, and then subsides again as quickly as it rose. After the event it turns out most of those people were just registering discontent before being forced into a binary choice come election time.
If we look at times in recent history the Lib Dems have done it, they've been when people on the left of centre were dissatisfied with Labour. 1982-3 (with the SDP), 2005-10, 2019. UKIP and BXP had similar surges but as you say, there was a more specific policy position for UKIP which enabled them to retain support in the GE as a way for voters to make their point. Arguably true of 2005 for the Lib Dems, when their support remained robust into the election as people made a specific point about Iraq (though their vote efficiency declined a bit).
I think the lack of progress in councils is simply due to lack of ground game or meaningful focus on local issues. Lib Dems have tended to do very well in local elections during their surges, but their offer is much more local. Same with greens. Lack of progress in parliamentary byelections is more of a head scratcher. They've done OK recently but underperformed polling. This does suggest the vote is extra soft.
All of these are reasons I expect their vote to vanish into a mixture of Conservative, Labour and (particularly) abstain come the general election.
I miss that old london. Its all gone now
I have a vivid memory of coming down from an acid trip at 8am in a pub in Smithfields. Us students tripping away, surrounded by meat market workers sipping Guinness over breakfast
I agree with you on Johnson. The Tories would be closer to 30% now if he were still in charge.
I have a theory. I think you get upset by shit British weather but you try and live in denial of it, and say it’s all good. So if someone points out that actually it’s pretty shit, that kicks away the denial leaving you exposed. And angry
Just a theory
For example, at the extremes, northern California had Communists; southern California had Birchers*.
In the Republican party, Ronald Reagan defeated moderate Republican George Christopher in the 1966 primary. (Christopher, an immigrant from Greece, had been mayor of San Francisco: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Christopher_(mayor) )
In the Democratic Party, I can't think of any important northern California Democrat equivalent to Sam Yorty, mayor of Los Angeles, who began on the left, but moved rightward during his political career. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Yorty
(*One of whom, Congressman John Rousselot, when asked why he had joined the Birch Society, replied that he had done so in order to appeal to the middle-of-the-road vote in Orange County.)
🔴 Lab 44% (-3)
🔵 Con 25% (+1)
⚪ Ref 10% (-1)
🟠 LD 10% (+1)
🟢 Green 5% (-1)
🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
WeThink 27-28 March
As for By Elections, UKIP won two (admittedly because they had the incumbent as candidate) and came an often quite close second in five of the last seven in the 2010-15 parliament (one of my unluckiest bets ever was backing them in Heywood and Middleton at something like 20/1 only to see them lose by 617 votes. The election was the sand day Carswell won Clacton by a mile, and UKIP. had quite stupidly stuffed every campaigner they could into that seat, ignoring the other). Reform haven’t even come close to a second place gave they?
(checks to see if Musk has any spare seats)
Hail season in Texas typically lasts from March until May.
https://www.classicchevrolet.com/storm-season-texas-protect-car#
Donald Trump has just shat himself.
https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/1772755237196980320
Unless Labour detail plans in their manifesto (They might I suppose) one of the attack lines for the Tories can use will be "Labour is going to take away your childcare".
The game changed dramatically when it was imported to Europe, notably through the introduction of the two square move for pawns, and castling, which brought the 'castles' (or rooks, originally ruhks/chariots) into play more quickly. I think the anomoly of the most powerful piece on the board being the queen arose from the misunderstanding that simply because it started next to the king it must be the queen.
I never understood why 'bishops' were so powerful. In German, they are laufers (runners), which makes a bit more sense. The origins of the game are shrouded in mystery though. I've always liked the legend about the guy who invented it and was offered any reward he wished by the king. He asked for one grain of rice to be placed on the first square, two on the next, four on the next and so on, doubling up on each of the 64 squares. The king can't have been good at maths because he agreed, and even thought it would be a pittance.
Big mistake.
(Though I note that Anne Bancroft was only six years older than Dustin Hoffman - and nine years older than Katherine Ross...)
Where is that? Hebrides? Connemara? West Wales?
I always think the best way to handle shite weather like this is to lean into it (literally): go to the cliffs for a savage walk. Then it becomes entertaining
PB = Putin-Bot training academy.
Your tedious posts on the subject add nothing to the gaiety of the nation.
Top Anabobazina Boffins No Longer Baffled
Go back to bed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Holmes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Madoff
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NatWest_Three
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Lay
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghislaine_Maxwell
Ken Lay *did* avoid jail - by committing suicide.
Indeed, the NatWest Three tried the argument that the US barbarically sends white collar criminals to jail, rather than not bothering to prosecute them. As a “civilised” country would.