I had forgotten my favourite OJ Simpson fact (probably my favourite fact), OJ Simpson was a sprinter before becoming an American footballer, he took part in a race in 1967 won by a British athlete who ran under 10.2s for the second time that year That athlete, Ming Campbell
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Dave Chappelle telling the stories of the four different times he met OJ Simpson is absolutely worth your time today.
https://x.com/mattdizwhitlock/status/1778535760343506969?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
So either they are conducting an expensive and public lie or…
This is a function of the laws and precedent in the area. Consider, at the enquiry into something going wrong -
“You had, under the legal regulations and best practise, to provide 24/7 staff. But you planned not to”
“Errrrrr….”
Something that needs to be understood - this works a bit like American health care. If you provide all the facilities, someone else pays and you are legally bulletproof.
Another thing. On a cost plus contract, profit is typically a percentage of spend. So if you legitimately spend £200k looking after a child, this is better than spending £100k.
The Prime Minister reminded me: "don't forget to scan your Clubcard!"
It was bound to come to pass eventually.
Under FPTP Labour are going to get 80% of the representation with 47% of the vote. So why are the Tories not bringing in PR?
I mean if your choice is huge Labour majority or about 47% Labour, why choose to lose everything?
I don’t agree with the Tories about much (anything) but their supporters deserve a proportional voice.
In any case, both parties in the duopoly will fight to hang on to FPTP for the times that it gives them a majority of seats on a minority of the votes, and because it completely crushes the prospects of any other party that would seek to challenge the duopoly - minor regional parties aside.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
(Serious answer- maybe right man, but wrong time; he's 67 now.)
Coe was certainly a better athlete than politician
But still, it would be a high bar to have been as good a politician as he was an athlete.
Coe’s a Sheffield lad with a dash of Indian subcontinent heritage.
You cannot get more working class than that.
It's not an absolute rule (John Major was loved by pretty much everyone in Huntingdon), but it is an issue.
Coughrishisunakcough.
Iran, Iran - the home of the stupidest politicians on the planet. Perhaps too the home of the nicest people. Iran Stupid will win, and we'll all lose somewhat.
Re the Coe/Ovett impression in the public's mind I think it was how they presented themselves. Coe cultivated a public image, Ovett didn't really care. However in reality I think the roles were reversed as to who was the more gracious person. I think that could be seen in the 800/1500m races. Ovett was definitely the more sportsman like of the two at the end of each race.
https://www.pimlicojournal.co.uk/p/the-curse-of-being-first/comments
"Worse still, similar discriminatory policies were also enacted against the Midlands, especially the industrial centres of Birmingham, Coventry, and Leicester, as detailed in John Myers’s excellent ‘The Plot Against Mercia’:
The national government saw the success of the Midlands as damaging other regions. The Distribution of Industry Act 1945 sought to stop industrial growth in the ‘Congested Areas’ — the Midlands, East Anglia and the South East — and to push industry to declining ‘Development Areas’ in the North and West. Entrepreneurs had to get an ‘Industrial Development Certificate’ (IDC) before building a new factory…
The 1956 West Midlands Plan… set Birmingham a 1960 target population far lower than its actual 1951 population — so people would have to leave, and industry shrink…
Those requirements blocked most post-war growth in Midlands factories. But for 20 years, there was no limit on service businesses, and so Midlands entrepreneurs turned to those; despite the planning madness, the Midlands flourished… but in 1964, the Government declared Birmingham’s growth ‘threatening’, and banned further office development for almost two decades."
In comparison Ovett was gangly, hollow-cheeked, balding and had no tooth that lined up with another.
I think you mean Camborne...
(pedants r us)
Exclusive: contaminated blood campaigners say internal 1976 Immuno AG document proves British government negligence
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/apr/14/contaminated-blood-inquiry-uk-cheaper-minutes
The British government was willing to risk infecting NHS patients to get “lower-priced” blood products, according to a document that campaigners claim proves state and corporate guilt in one of the country’s worst ever scandals.
A public inquiry into the deaths of an estimated 2,900 people infected with conditions such as HIV and hepatitis will publish its final report in May, four decades after the NHS started prescribing blood and blood products – including from drug users, prisoners and sex workers – sourced from the US...
...In November 1976, Immuno AG, an Austrian company that was a major supplier to the Department of Health, was seeking a licence change to allow it to supply a blood product from those paid to donate in the US rather than donors without a financial incentive in Europe.
According to the minutes of a meeting of medics in the company, it had been “proven” that there was a “significantly higher hepatitis risk” from a concentrate known as Kryobulin 2 made from US plasma compared with that from Austria and Germany...
...Evidence has been heard at the inquiry of government documents going missing. There was a policy in the 1970s and 80s of not informing the victims who had been infected.
In France, senior officials went to jail in the 1990s over a similar scandal, but there has never been a prosecution in the UK...
If you walk in Regent's Park today you see lots of (in order of numbers) Muslim women, tourists, and that's it.
There's very little sign of English people (ex the Muslim Women who are).
We've all done the sexual equality road, but WTF are Muslim women doing!
SUNUNU: Yeah. Me and 51 percent of America.
S: Governor, thanks for your time this morning.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1779529741579542854
It had to do with "optimising" mortgages, and was help not be unacceptable, as the rules in force did not ban it. But imo this was unquestionably manipulation of the expenses system for personal gain.
Married couple and Labour Cabinet ministers Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper were accused in September 2007 of exploiting the Commons' allowances system in order to pay for a £655,000 house in London. The complaint, centering on the gain made by allocation of their 'second house', was dismissed since it was held the couple had acted in accordance with parliamentary rules.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_parliamentary_expenses_scandal#:~:text=The committee recommended that Spelman,£655,000 house in London.
And water privatisation.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
The mind boggling ideas of actually trying to prevent people creating jobs (above) was part of a whole raft of ideas that were binned.
It's really sad as a lot of these places have been around for hundreds of years.
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
Wages in service industries will simply have to go up. Chefs, in particular, are just about the lowest paid trade, and have been quitting in droves since the pandemic.
Throwing immigration at the problem, which leads to further pressure on housing and transport (although many of them are nice enough to bunk up so don’t take a whole room each), isn’t the solution to the problem.
Either that, or they're having a nice time in the park.
People who go to restaurants because prices are lower
People who run restaurants because overheads are lower
People who don't benefit....waiters who end up on min wage and probably can't afford to eat often if at all at those restaurants
ie It benefits the middle classes and screw the lower paid.
As a not I am not far from sidmouth just up the coast a little at don't see all these closing restaurants, cafes and pubs in either budleigh salterton or exmouth due to staff shortages. What I do see is closures of places because they no longer get enough throughput of customers because a lot of people that could afford to goto bars 3 to 4 times a week now can't.
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/spanish-police-boat-crashes-while-in-gibraltar-waters/
Chap in the pub next door to his (literally) plans his shifts months in advance (shock horror!). Does a laundry bag for the staff and provides polo shirts and aprons, so they can go home not smelling like a failed student pub crawl… plus pays a bit more.
Strangely he has staff.
We had - we have - a brilliant selling point. The English language. It's one that enabled eating out, going out generally, to become cheaper and more available to many more people. It created businesses, it helped local economies, it generated business rates. There were no real losers. We were mad to so casually throw it away. As I say, this is not about Brexit per se, it's about the Brexit that was chosen.
Today’s students do want to work in the summer, rather than party and take out more loans that will affect them for decades - don’t they?
Why opt for the shitiest job when there is much nicer work available?
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y31UR6wLi5Y
Isn’t this how you get a statue put up in your honour?