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Will Starmer do better than Blair? – politicalbetting.com

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  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,214
    edited April 26

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    NOOM INCOMING

    Stop trying to make noom happen. It's not going to happen.
    And nor is the "Jay Rayner of Place".
    Always worth keeping in mind that Leon is a hybrid of two Fast Show characters: the Paul Whitehouse teenager who went around saying whatever was in front of him was 'brilliant!', and the Charlie Higson one who was perfectly placid and cultured until triggered into destructive depression by a single word. There is no grey in Leon's world.
    That is a brillliant observation.
    Saying I’m like “two characters in the Fast Show is a”…. *brilliant observation*?

    As long as you’re all talking about me I’m happy. I’m psychotically narcissistic. But you can surely raise the intellectual bar a bit higher than that

    The sun how now properly come out in the Breton countryside. 20C and gorgeous - this is spring. Spring at last!

    Allez!
    If it's Fast Show, I think of you more as the guy who likes to announce all the wonderful things he has done.

    "Which was nice...."

    (Although maybe not the beige polo neck....)
    Beige polo neck just says "Nice!" after each musical item.
    Different "Nice" I think.

    There was Jazz Club Nice and Patrick(?) Nice, who tended to be making cafetiere coffee in his conservatory and would say things like "and then we were nominated First Minister of Scotland... Which was nice."

    ETA: Has there been a decent sketch show recently? Or is it one of the things that telly economics rules out these days?
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,552

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    NOOM INCOMING

    Stop trying to make noom happen. It's not going to happen.
    And nor is the "Jay Rayner of Place".
    Always worth keeping in mind that Leon is a hybrid of two Fast Show characters: the Paul Whitehouse teenager who went around saying whatever was in front of him was 'brilliant!', and the Charlie Higson one who was perfectly placid and cultured until triggered into destructive depression by a single word. There is no grey in Leon's world.
    That is a brillliant observation.
    Saying I’m like “two characters in the Fast Show is a”…. *brilliant observation*?

    As long as you’re all talking about me I’m happy. I’m psychotically narcissistic. But you can surely raise the intellectual bar a bit higher than that

    The sun how now properly come out in the Breton countryside. 20C and gorgeous - this is spring. Spring at last!

    Allez!
    If it's Fast Show, I think of you more as the guy who likes to announce all the wonderful things he has done.

    "Which was nice...."

    (Although maybe not the beige polo neck....)
    Beige polo neck just says "Nice!" after each musical item.
    Different "Nice" I think.

    There was Jazz Club Nice and Patrick(?) Nice, who tended to be making cafetiere coffee in his conservatory and would say things like "and then we were nominated First Minister of Scotland... Which was nice."
    I think beige polo necks may have been a running joke...
  • Small movements this week.


  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,126
    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    In 1997, lots of Tories could see the change was happening - and wanted to be part of what Blair was offering.

    That level of enthusiasm isn't there for Starmer in 2024.

    It isn't. But I'd suggest that the incumbent government is held in lower esteem than in 1997.

    Which difference is the larger and more important? That's a trickier question.
    How much are elections about voting for the thing we like and are enthusiastic about, and how much are they about voting against the thing we dislike, hate or fear?

    I suspect that there's a lot more of the second than we might like to think. From an academic point of view, it's quite kind of the big two parties to put someone bland against someone hopeless so that we can probe what happens in that bit of the graph.
    I will be voting Tory for the first time in three GEs because I fear the idea of a huge Labour majority when such a large part of that party was, until comparatively recently, the party of Corbyn.
    Yet you didn't vote Tory when Labour actually was the party of Corbyn?
    The ‘unaligned’ PB Tories are some of my favourites.

    How dare you call me a Tory, I’ve only voted Conservative on 9 out of 11 possible occasions, and the last 2 times Jezza made me do it.
    They are the country cousins of the Never Trump-Butters
    Somewhat surprisingly, I've not voted Conservative since 2017. In 2019, I voted independent in the locals, Brexit in the Euros, and for Gavin Shuker at the GE. Last year, I again voted independent in the locals.
    The Brexit Party followed by Gavin is quite a journey. I assume he is a personal friend, rather than you having a sudden change of heart.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,235

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    NOOM INCOMING

    Stop trying to make noom happen. It's not going to happen.
    And nor is the "Jay Rayner of Place".
    Always worth keeping in mind that Leon is a hybrid of two Fast Show characters: the Paul Whitehouse teenager who went around saying whatever was in front of him was 'brilliant!', and the Charlie Higson one who was perfectly placid and cultured until triggered into destructive depression by a single word. There is no grey in Leon's world.
    That is a brillliant observation.
    Saying I’m like “two characters in the Fast Show is a”…. *brilliant observation*?

    As long as you’re all talking about me I’m happy. I’m psychotically narcissistic. But you can surely raise the intellectual bar a bit higher than that

    The sun how now properly come out in the Breton countryside. 20C and gorgeous - this is spring. Spring at last!

    Allez!
    If it's Fast Show, I think of you more as the guy who likes to announce all the wonderful things he has done.

    "Which was nice...."

    (Although maybe not the beige polo neck....)
    If we must go down this road, I’d say I am a combination of every single character on the Fast Show

    From the posh drunk guy to the You ain’t seen me right rustic and all stations between

    I am, if you will, the Carl Bernstein of Combined and Compared Characters in a British Sketch Show and I wrote the West Side Story of Wanking on About Myself

    Now I’m in a supermarket. I need Dijon mustard
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,859
    edited April 26

    FF43 said:

    Ryanair is proposing to fly asylum seekers to Rwanda. That should certainly put a stop to the desperate Channel crossings.

    https://aviationsourcenews.com/airline/ryanair-ceo-will-happily-offer-rwanda-deportation-flights

    Is he indeed? How?

    London to Kigali: 6,590 km
    B737 Max8/200 range: 6,480 km

    We have to assume that as these flights are illegal under international law than any flight would need to be point to point. And Ryanair wouldn't be able to just load one of these up at Stansted (other airports are available) and fly to Kigali - its too far.
    The scheduled way to go is the evening Ethiopian Airlines departure from LHR for Addis, which drops you there about two in the morning where you hang about for an hour and a half, before getting the flight to Kigali via Entebbe; at Entebbe a crowd of workers get on to try and vacuum the aircraft with most of the passengers still on it, and if it’s torrential rain outside they bring in more dirt and water than they manage to remove. Arrives at Kigali about midday as I recall.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,601
    What is going on in America?

    https://x.com/ntarnopolsky/status/1783501866418024930

    "Go back to Belarus! Go back to Poland!" yells a "pro-Palestinian" protester at Jewish students leaving Columbia University last night.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,126

    The singer Billie Eilish (born 2001) says that she never learned to type because she wasn't from "that generation". It used to be assumed that children would always be more technically literate than their parents, but that is going into reverse.

    https://x.com/rollingstone/status/1783323796306608163

    No, it means that the technological devices that young people today use are small rectangular slabs of glass. Ms Eilish never had a Commodore 64. If she browses, and comments on PB*, it will be an iPhone.

    Today's young people can attain speeds with two thumbs on a phone, that most people of my generation would struggle to achieve on a full size keyboard.

    * While there is no definitive proof that @BlancheLivermore is Billie Eilish, I have my suspicions.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,516
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    NOOM INCOMING

    Stop trying to make noom happen. It's not going to happen.
    And nor is the "Jay Rayner of Place".
    Always worth keeping in mind that Leon is a hybrid of two Fast Show characters: the Paul Whitehouse teenager who went around saying whatever was in front of him was 'brilliant!', and the Charlie Higson one who was perfectly placid and cultured until triggered into destructive depression by a single word. There is no grey in Leon's world.
    That is a brillliant observation.
    Saying I’m like “two characters in the Fast Show is a”…. *brilliant observation*?

    As long as you’re all talking about me I’m happy. I’m psychotically narcissistic. But you can surely raise the intellectual bar a bit higher than that

    The sun how now properly come out in the Breton countryside. 20C and gorgeous - this is spring. Spring at last!

    Allez!
    Its brilliant because he spotted that the two charcters are so much like you. I would add a third. Jesse.

    'This week I are mostly getting pissed in Thailand'
  • BlancheLivermoreBlancheLivermore Posts: 5,911
    rcs1000 said:

    The singer Billie Eilish (born 2001) says that she never learned to type because she wasn't from "that generation". It used to be assumed that children would always be more technically literate than their parents, but that is going into reverse.

    https://x.com/rollingstone/status/1783323796306608163

    No, it means that the technological devices that young people today use are small rectangular slabs of glass. Ms Eilish never had a Commodore 64. If she browses, and comments on PB*, it will be an iPhone.

    Today's young people can attain speeds with two thumbs on a phone, that most people of my generation would struggle to achieve on a full size keyboard.

    * While there is no definitive proof that @BlancheLivermore is Billie Eilish, I have my suspicions.
    I had a rubber key Spectrum 48k
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,814
    rcs1000 said:

    The singer Billie Eilish (born 2001) says that she never learned to type because she wasn't from "that generation". It used to be assumed that children would always be more technically literate than their parents, but that is going into reverse.

    https://x.com/rollingstone/status/1783323796306608163

    No, it means that the technological devices that young people today use are small rectangular slabs of glass. Ms Eilish never had a Commodore 64. If she browses, and comments on PB*, it will be an iPhone.

    Today's young people can attain speeds with two thumbs on a phone, that most people of my generation would struggle to achieve on a full size keyboard.

    * While there is no definitive proof that @BlancheLivermore is Billie Eilish, I have my suspicions.
    I thought Blanche is none other than Paula Venells, the UK's most famous Post Office employee?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,126

    rcs1000 said:

    The singer Billie Eilish (born 2001) says that she never learned to type because she wasn't from "that generation". It used to be assumed that children would always be more technically literate than their parents, but that is going into reverse.

    https://x.com/rollingstone/status/1783323796306608163

    No, it means that the technological devices that young people today use are small rectangular slabs of glass. Ms Eilish never had a Commodore 64. If she browses, and comments on PB*, it will be an iPhone.

    Today's young people can attain speeds with two thumbs on a phone, that most people of my generation would struggle to achieve on a full size keyboard.

    * While there is no definitive proof that @BlancheLivermore is Billie Eilish, I have my suspicions.
    I had a rubber key Spectrum 48k
    So, you're not denying that you are Billie Eilish.

    Interesting.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,814

    rcs1000 said:

    The singer Billie Eilish (born 2001) says that she never learned to type because she wasn't from "that generation". It used to be assumed that children would always be more technically literate than their parents, but that is going into reverse.

    https://x.com/rollingstone/status/1783323796306608163

    No, it means that the technological devices that young people today use are small rectangular slabs of glass. Ms Eilish never had a Commodore 64. If she browses, and comments on PB*, it will be an iPhone.

    Today's young people can attain speeds with two thumbs on a phone, that most people of my generation would struggle to achieve on a full size keyboard.

    * While there is no definitive proof that @BlancheLivermore is Billie Eilish, I have my suspicions.
    I thought Blanche is none other than Paula Venells, the UK's most famous Post Office employee?
    Eat your hearts out, Rowland Hill and Anthony Trollope.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,798
    rcs1000 said:

    The singer Billie Eilish (born 2001) says that she never learned to type because she wasn't from "that generation". It used to be assumed that children would always be more technically literate than their parents, but that is going into reverse.

    https://x.com/rollingstone/status/1783323796306608163

    No, it means that the technological devices that young people today use are small rectangular slabs of glass. Ms Eilish never had a Commodore 64. If she browses, and comments on PB*, it will be an iPhone.

    Today's young people can attain speeds with two thumbs on a phone, that most people of my generation would struggle to achieve on a full size keyboard.

    * While there is no definitive proof that @BlancheLivermore is Billie Eilish, I have my suspicions.
    How do they do that? My kids send me a message, and then, whilst I am drafting my reply, they send me about 5 more messages whilst I am responding to the first one. Its weird and results in very onesided conversations.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 2,301
    edited April 26

    Twitter community notes are going to be amazing when the election campaigns really get going.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,128

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    MattW said:

    Off-topic and on the Post Office.

    What are disclosure requirements for such a statutory enquiry (assuming I have the correct phrase)? Do witnesses get to see the evidence before the public display, as in a Court Case?

    Is "Angela van den Bogerd shown letter blaming PO for sub-postmaster's death" a potential Perry Mason moment in a forum such as this enquiry, or are they impossible?

    God knows. The evidence so far from those involved seems to be fulsome apology, usually read from script, and then failure to remember anything damning.
    Along with repeated claims that they were "trying to get to the bottom of it", but that "the technical issues" weren't their responsibility.
    They were generalists. Knowing something about the business would have contaminated their minds with "technical issues" rather than maintaining their "10,000 foot view".
    A core competence of the generalist is to know when and which specialists are required, and to employ them,
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,798
    Carnyx said:

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/24280994.green-msp-signals-wont-back-labour-efforts-oust-humza-yousaf/?ref=ebbn&nid=1457&u=f140ec39d500193051a33e140c12bd95&date=260424

    'A SCOTTISH Greens MSP has signalled he will not back Labour’s attempts to topple Humza Yousaf’s government.

    Green MSP Mark Ruskell responded to Anas Sarwar’s announcement that Scottish Labour would table a confidence motion against the Scottish Government.

    It comes after the Tories tabled a motion against the First Minister himself.

    Ruskell said: “Labour clearly don’t want this motion to pass.

    “It was the poor judgement of Humza [Yousaf] in ending the Bute House Agreement that is in question, not the record of the SNP/Green [government].”'

    Does he really think that these are alternatives?

    It does show that Ross was right to frame his motion the way he did. It has much more chance of passing because it is personal to the FM. Labour's motion is entirely performative.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,061
    MattW said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    MattW said:

    Off-topic and on the Post Office.

    What are disclosure requirements for such a statutory enquiry (assuming I have the correct phrase)? Do witnesses get to see the evidence before the public display, as in a Court Case?

    Is "Angela van den Bogerd shown letter blaming PO for sub-postmaster's death" a potential Perry Mason moment in a forum such as this enquiry, or are they impossible?

    God knows. The evidence so far from those involved seems to be fulsome apology, usually read from script, and then failure to remember anything damning.
    Along with repeated claims that they were "trying to get to the bottom of it", but that "the technical issues" weren't their responsibility.
    They were generalists. Knowing something about the business would have contaminated their minds with "technical issues" rather than maintaining their "10,000 foot view".
    A core competence of the generalist is to know when and which specialists are required, and to employ blame them
    FTFY

  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    ...

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    NOOM INCOMING

    Stop trying to make noom happen. It's not going to happen.
    And nor is the "Jay Rayner of Place".
    Always worth keeping in mind that Leon is a hybrid of two Fast Show characters: the Paul Whitehouse teenager who went around saying whatever was in front of him was 'brilliant!', and the Charlie Higson one who was perfectly placid and cultured until triggered into destructive depression by a single word. There is no grey in Leon's world.
    A good analysis. You are right, I just had him down as Harry Enfield's Loadsamoney.

  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,798

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    NOOM INCOMING

    Stop trying to make noom happen. It's not going to happen.
    And nor is the "Jay Rayner of Place".
    Always worth keeping in mind that Leon is a hybrid of two Fast Show characters: the Paul Whitehouse teenager who went around saying whatever was in front of him was 'brilliant!', and the Charlie Higson one who was perfectly placid and cultured until triggered into destructive depression by a single word. There is no grey in Leon's world.
    That is a brillliant observation.
    Saying I’m like “two characters in the Fast Show is a”…. *brilliant observation*?

    As long as you’re all talking about me I’m happy. I’m psychotically narcissistic. But you can surely raise the intellectual bar a bit higher than that

    The sun how now properly come out in the Breton countryside. 20C and gorgeous - this is spring. Spring at last!

    Allez!
    If it's Fast Show, I think of you more as the guy who likes to announce all the wonderful things he has done.

    "Which was nice...."

    (Although maybe not the beige polo neck....)
    Beige polo neck just says "Nice!" after each musical item.
    Different "Nice" I think.

    There was Jazz Club Nice and Patrick(?) Nice, who tended to be making cafetiere coffee in his conservatory and would say things like "and then we were nominated First Minister of Scotland... Which was nice."

    ETA: Has there been a decent sketch show recently? Or is it one of the things that telly economics rules out these days?
    I am far from convinced that being nominated FM of Scotland is anything like nice. Ask Yousaf.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,354
    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/24280994.green-msp-signals-wont-back-labour-efforts-oust-humza-yousaf/?ref=ebbn&nid=1457&u=f140ec39d500193051a33e140c12bd95&date=260424

    'A SCOTTISH Greens MSP has signalled he will not back Labour’s attempts to topple Humza Yousaf’s government.

    Green MSP Mark Ruskell responded to Anas Sarwar’s announcement that Scottish Labour would table a confidence motion against the Scottish Government.

    It comes after the Tories tabled a motion against the First Minister himself.

    Ruskell said: “Labour clearly don’t want this motion to pass.

    “It was the poor judgement of Humza [Yousaf] in ending the Bute House Agreement that is in question, not the record of the SNP/Green [government].”'

    Does he really think that these are alternatives?

    It does show that Ross was right to frame his motion the way he did. It has much more chance of passing because it is personal to the FM. Labour's motion is entirely performative.
    I think the two motions work quite well together.

    Having the Labour motion means that an MSP can vote to have confidence in the government, but not confidence in Yousaf, instead of having the two conflated. It should make it easier to vote against Yousaf.

    And then, once the vote against Yousaf has succeeded, the SNP/Regan/Greens still have to find a new FM that will win a vote. So it might still end up with an election, even if they isn't their intention when they vote against Yousaf.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,235
    Controversial take of the day: gilets are even more satisfying to wear than hoodies

    I know. Shoot me. I DON’T CARE
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,128

    Dura_Ace said:

    Well.


    Is this another of Johnson's bastard gets?
    It might be Boris's sister's fault. Fans of the greatest docudrama in the history of television, When Boris Met Dave, will recall Rachel saying Classics was a dead easy way of getting into Oxford. Lots of places, not much competition if 90 per cent of schools do not teach it, one imagines.
    The baffling thing is wanting to get into Oxford.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,814
    DavidL said:

    rcs1000 said:

    The singer Billie Eilish (born 2001) says that she never learned to type because she wasn't from "that generation". It used to be assumed that children would always be more technically literate than their parents, but that is going into reverse.

    https://x.com/rollingstone/status/1783323796306608163

    No, it means that the technological devices that young people today use are small rectangular slabs of glass. Ms Eilish never had a Commodore 64. If she browses, and comments on PB*, it will be an iPhone.

    Today's young people can attain speeds with two thumbs on a phone, that most people of my generation would struggle to achieve on a full size keyboard.

    * While there is no definitive proof that @BlancheLivermore is Billie Eilish, I have my suspicions.
    How do they do that? My kids send me a message, and then, whilst I am drafting my reply, they send me about 5 more messages whilst I am responding to the first one. Its weird and results in very onesided conversations.
    They've been doing it (presumably) since they were very small. Developed joint flexibility and fine control. You didn't.

    Does make one wonder why hominids bothered evolving opposable thumbs, though.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,859
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    NOOM INCOMING

    Stop trying to make noom happen. It's not going to happen.
    And nor is the "Jay Rayner of Place".
    Always worth keeping in mind that Leon is a hybrid of two Fast Show characters: the Paul Whitehouse teenager who went around saying whatever was in front of him was 'brilliant!', and the Charlie Higson one who was perfectly placid and cultured until triggered into destructive depression by a single word. There is no grey in Leon's world.
    That is a brillliant observation.
    Saying I’m like “two characters in the Fast Show is a”…. *brilliant observation*?

    As long as you’re all talking about me I’m happy. I’m psychotically narcissistic. But you can surely raise the intellectual bar a bit higher than that

    The sun how now properly come out in the Breton countryside. 20C and gorgeous - this is spring. Spring at last!

    Allez!
    If it's Fast Show, I think of you more as the guy who likes to announce all the wonderful things he has done.

    "Which was nice...."

    (Although maybe not the beige polo neck....)
    If we must go down this road, I’d say I am a combination of every single character on the Fast Show

    It’s not until you watch the fast show that you realise just how many different types of obnoxious twat that there are.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,128
    DavidL said:

    Well.


    In pictura est puella. Puella Cornelia est. Cornelia in Italia habitat.

    Ecce Romani 1 from about 1972.

    And people say I have gone dottled! Hahahahaha!!
    Does that "expelliarmus" not have an extra R ?

    Or did JKR learn her Latin at the Royal Horticultural Society?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,814
    edited April 26

    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/24280994.green-msp-signals-wont-back-labour-efforts-oust-humza-yousaf/?ref=ebbn&nid=1457&u=f140ec39d500193051a33e140c12bd95&date=260424

    'A SCOTTISH Greens MSP has signalled he will not back Labour’s attempts to topple Humza Yousaf’s government.

    Green MSP Mark Ruskell responded to Anas Sarwar’s announcement that Scottish Labour would table a confidence motion against the Scottish Government.

    It comes after the Tories tabled a motion against the First Minister himself.

    Ruskell said: “Labour clearly don’t want this motion to pass.

    “It was the poor judgement of Humza [Yousaf] in ending the Bute House Agreement that is in question, not the record of the SNP/Green [government].”'

    Does he really think that these are alternatives?

    It does show that Ross was right to frame his motion the way he did. It has much more chance of passing because it is personal to the FM. Labour's motion is entirely performative.
    I think the two motions work quite well together.

    Having the Labour motion means that an MSP can vote to have confidence in the government, but not confidence in Yousaf, instead of having the two conflated. It should make it easier to vote against Yousaf.

    And then, once the vote against Yousaf has succeeded, the SNP/Regan/Greens still have to find a new FM that will win a vote. So it might still end up with an election, even if they isn't their intention when they vote against Yousaf.
    But that's the risk. The Tories might not want to end up with an election, ditto everyone bar Slab.

    Edit: as (I think) DavidL has pointed out.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,098
    Carnyx said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    NOOM INCOMING

    Stop trying to make noom happen. It's not going to happen.
    And nor is the "Jay Rayner of Place".
    Noom is definitely happening because in one easy and malleable syllable it capture a complex but important concept: the experience of the sacred in place

    Even if no one else ever uses it in the history of time I shall use it here and in my head. Because it fits. And also because I am the Carolus Rex of Lexical Coinery

    Jay Rayner of Place is a jest. Tho you have just used it twice
    No I sense you were being deadly serious. You think you are the Jay Rayner of Place. I have a nose for when people are kidding around and when they're not.
    Leon of Sole, presumably?
    The god of cod.
  • jamesdoylejamesdoyle Posts: 790
    Leon said:

    Controversial take of the day: gilets are even more satisfying to wear than hoodies

    I know. Shoot me. I DON’T CARE

    They are brilliant.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,798
    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    rcs1000 said:

    The singer Billie Eilish (born 2001) says that she never learned to type because she wasn't from "that generation". It used to be assumed that children would always be more technically literate than their parents, but that is going into reverse.

    https://x.com/rollingstone/status/1783323796306608163

    No, it means that the technological devices that young people today use are small rectangular slabs of glass. Ms Eilish never had a Commodore 64. If she browses, and comments on PB*, it will be an iPhone.

    Today's young people can attain speeds with two thumbs on a phone, that most people of my generation would struggle to achieve on a full size keyboard.

    * While there is no definitive proof that @BlancheLivermore is Billie Eilish, I have my suspicions.
    How do they do that? My kids send me a message, and then, whilst I am drafting my reply, they send me about 5 more messages whilst I am responding to the first one. Its weird and results in very onesided conversations.
    They've been doing it (presumably) since they were very small. Developed joint flexibility and fine control. You didn't.

    Does make one wonder why hominids bothered evolving opposable thumbs, though.
    They also use gifs and emojis and various other things to turn their comments into a running sketch at the same ridiculous speed. I think that the answer as to why hominids developed opposable thumbs was so that they could use iPhones effectively.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    MattW said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Well.


    Is this another of Johnson's bastard gets?
    It might be Boris's sister's fault. Fans of the greatest docudrama in the history of television, When Boris Met Dave, will recall Rachel saying Classics was a dead easy way of getting into Oxford. Lots of places, not much competition if 90 per cent of schools do not teach it, one imagines.
    The baffling thing is wanting to get into Oxford.
    It's a class/ social climbing issue for some I guess. If one doesn't understand the attraction, one won't be disappointed when they are blackballed from the club.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,814
    edited April 26
    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    rcs1000 said:

    The singer Billie Eilish (born 2001) says that she never learned to type because she wasn't from "that generation". It used to be assumed that children would always be more technically literate than their parents, but that is going into reverse.

    https://x.com/rollingstone/status/1783323796306608163

    No, it means that the technological devices that young people today use are small rectangular slabs of glass. Ms Eilish never had a Commodore 64. If she browses, and comments on PB*, it will be an iPhone.

    Today's young people can attain speeds with two thumbs on a phone, that most people of my generation would struggle to achieve on a full size keyboard.

    * While there is no definitive proof that @BlancheLivermore is Billie Eilish, I have my suspicions.
    How do they do that? My kids send me a message, and then, whilst I am drafting my reply, they send me about 5 more messages whilst I am responding to the first one. Its weird and results in very onesided conversations.
    They've been doing it (presumably) since they were very small. Developed joint flexibility and fine control. You didn't.

    Does make one wonder why hominids bothered evolving opposable thumbs, though.
    They also use gifs and emojis and various other things to turn their comments into a running sketch at the same ridiculous speed. I think that the answer as to why hominids developed opposable thumbs was so that they could use iPhones effectively.
    Not if they aren't using the other four digits!

    All they need is one finger-thumb on each hand and a flap of flesh, like a mitten.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,212

    rcs1000 said:

    The singer Billie Eilish (born 2001) says that she never learned to type because she wasn't from "that generation". It used to be assumed that children would always be more technically literate than their parents, but that is going into reverse.

    https://x.com/rollingstone/status/1783323796306608163

    No, it means that the technological devices that young people today use are small rectangular slabs of glass. Ms Eilish never had a Commodore 64. If she browses, and comments on PB*, it will be an iPhone.

    Today's young people can attain speeds with two thumbs on a phone, that most people of my generation would struggle to achieve on a full size keyboard.

    * While there is no definitive proof that @BlancheLivermore is Billie Eilish, I have my suspicions.
    I had a rubber key Spectrum 48k
    It says something about the British approach to technology that it took Amstrad and The Pound Shop Donald Trump to get a Sinclair computer to market that had a keyboard you could actually type on.

    In the days of the ZX-81, someone (forget who) came up with the following - a metal case, which you put your ZX-81 inside. Looked a bit like a BBC micro. Proper keyboard. The RAM pack went inside on a cable provided - no Death By Joggle. The power supply sat in a ventilated compartment - no Death by Loose Power Supply Connection.

    Sinclair responded by trying to sue them for {reasons}.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,098
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    NOOM INCOMING

    Stop trying to make noom happen. It's not going to happen.
    And nor is the "Jay Rayner of Place".
    Always worth keeping in mind that Leon is a hybrid of two Fast Show characters: the Paul Whitehouse teenager who went around saying whatever was in front of him was 'brilliant!', and the Charlie Higson one who was perfectly placid and cultured until triggered into destructive depression by a single word. There is no grey in Leon's world.
    That is a brillliant observation.
    Saying I’m like “two characters in the Fast Show is a”…. *brilliant observation*?

    As long as you’re all talking about me I’m happy. I’m psychotically narcissistic. But you can surely raise the intellectual bar a bit higher than that

    The sun how now properly come out in the Breton countryside. 20C and gorgeous - this is spring. Spring at last!

    Allez!
    If it's Fast Show, I think of you more as the guy who likes to announce all the wonderful things he has done.

    "Which was nice...."

    (Although maybe not the beige polo neck....)
    If we must go down this road, I’d say I am a combination of every single character on the Fast Show

    From the posh drunk guy to the You ain’t seen me right rustic and all stations between

    I am, if you will, the Carl Bernstein of Combined and Compared Characters in a British Sketch Show and I wrote the West Side Story of Wanking on About Myself

    Now I’m in a supermarket. I need Dijon mustard
    See now you're NOT being serious. My 'this person is joking around radar' has gone off.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,128
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Fffs said:

    Leon said:

    I had a genius conversation with the creperie waiter just now

    Me: “Do you have cider?”

    Waiter, shrugging: “Only one”

    Pause

    Waiter (still shrugging): “It is the best”

    And he’s right. As is @Cookie. Breton cider is fantastic. That’s possibly the best cider I’ve ever had. If we had cider that good in Britain I might actually drink it

    Drinking Breton cider from one of those slightly porous-feeling cups is one of my most treasured childhood memories.
    I didn’t understand the cups until I used one five minutes ago. They work, weirdly. Why?

    Also: how come the cider is so much better? What do they do? Or is it one of those “in the place” things: the gastronomic equivalent of noom?
    Perhaps as you develop your piece on Noom for the gazette you could entertain possible diffent areas of endeavour that contain numinosity in different countries.

    UK: stones and churches

    France: (some) comestibles

    Germany: places of great human cruelty and suffering within living memory
    Yes, I’ve actually wondered about this. Peak Noom in Germany is nearly always somewhere fraught with horror
    I'd be looking at the medieval cities towards Central Europe.

    Or if we are still on religion in history try the Wartburg or Herrnhut & its consequences.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,798
    MattW said:

    DavidL said:

    Well.


    In pictura est puella. Puella Cornelia est. Cornelia in Italia habitat.

    Ecce Romani 1 from about 1972.

    And people say I have gone dottled! Hahahahaha!!
    Does that "expelliarmus" not have an extra R ?

    Or did JKR learn her Latin at the Royal Horticultural Society?
    Witch Latin is extremely dodgy. I am sure it is deliberate and a joke by JKR. Pratchett sometimes did the same.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,601
    https://x.com/montie/status/1783876232829972956

    Rumours of an exln announcement on Monday are hitting 1000mph. If they are false and Downing Street doesn’t reject them soon the No10 operators risk looking like bottlers. Messy.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,798

    https://x.com/montie/status/1783876232829972956

    Rumours of an exln announcement on Monday are hitting 1000mph. If they are false and Downing Street doesn’t reject them soon the No10 operators risk looking like bottlers. Messy.

    I suppose if you forecast an election every week you will eventually be able to say, see, I told you. AEP has made a career out of this.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,354
    edited April 26
    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/24280994.green-msp-signals-wont-back-labour-efforts-oust-humza-yousaf/?ref=ebbn&nid=1457&u=f140ec39d500193051a33e140c12bd95&date=260424

    'A SCOTTISH Greens MSP has signalled he will not back Labour’s attempts to topple Humza Yousaf’s government.

    Green MSP Mark Ruskell responded to Anas Sarwar’s announcement that Scottish Labour would table a confidence motion against the Scottish Government.

    It comes after the Tories tabled a motion against the First Minister himself.

    Ruskell said: “Labour clearly don’t want this motion to pass.

    “It was the poor judgement of Humza [Yousaf] in ending the Bute House Agreement that is in question, not the record of the SNP/Green [government].”'

    Does he really think that these are alternatives?

    It does show that Ross was right to frame his motion the way he did. It has much more chance of passing because it is personal to the FM. Labour's motion is entirely performative.
    I think the two motions work quite well together.

    Having the Labour motion means that an MSP can vote to have confidence in the government, but not confidence in Yousaf, instead of having the two conflated. It should make it easier to vote against Yousaf.

    And then, once the vote against Yousaf has succeeded, the SNP/Regan/Greens still have to find a new FM that will win a vote. So it might still end up with an election, even if they isn't their intention when they vote against Yousaf.
    But that's the risk. The Tories might not want to end up with an election, ditto everyone bar Slab.
    A quite possible result of the next Holyrood election is that the SNP lose enough seats that the Tories hold the balance of power between Labour and the SNP, even if the Tories lose a few seats themselves.

    Say, something like 48 SNP, 48 Labour, 20 Tories.

    Sure, that would be 11 lost MSPs for the Tories, but, absent a grand SNP/Labour coalition, either party would be reliant on Tory support for confidence and supply.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,721

    https://x.com/montie/status/1783876232829972956

    Rumours of an exln announcement on Monday are hitting 1000mph. If they are false and Downing Street doesn’t reject them soon the No10 operators risk looking like bottlers. Messy.

    'exln' :scream:

    'GE' is fine. 'election' is fine. 'elctn' is passable. 'e6n' at an absolute push... maybe. But 'exln'?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,814
    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    DavidL said:

    Well.


    In pictura est puella. Puella Cornelia est. Cornelia in Italia habitat.

    Ecce Romani 1 from about 1972.

    And people say I have gone dottled! Hahahahaha!!
    Does that "expelliarmus" not have an extra R ?

    Or did JKR learn her Latin at the Royal Horticultural Society?
    Witch Latin is extremely dodgy. I am sure it is deliberate and a joke by JKR. Pratchett sometimes did the same.
    Apparently coined from expello + armus, rather than a bad subjunctive or whatever. But as any fule kno it's arma, conventionally plural for weapons, armamament. Armus is back coinage, dodgy - armus is forequarter/shoulder of meat.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,399
    Leon said:

    Controversial take of the day: gilets are even more satisfying to wear than hoodies

    I know. Shoot me. I DON’T CARE

    And I get to wear both at work daily.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,212

    What is going on in America?

    https://x.com/ntarnopolsky/status/1783501866418024930

    "Go back to Belarus! Go back to Poland!" yells a "pro-Palestinian" protester at Jewish students leaving Columbia University last night.

    Not sure if I agree with Pelosi about Russian agitprop involved in the demos, but there is definitely a weird feel to so my ever the propaganda and imagery being pushed by some.

    My daughter (teenagers, into all the popular causes) have commented on the weirdness of some of it. Not just racism - stuff that comes from a very different cultural filter.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,984
    Just done some basic maths on Reform polling numbers which possibly tells us where their votes are likely to go when they decline (if they decline):

    Correlation and Rsquared between Ref and other parties, based on 521 data points for the year since 26 April 2023, so pretty high confidence level:

    Correl R2
    LD:REF -0.37 0.14
    Con:Ref -0.70 0.49
    Lab:Ref -0.27 0.07
    Grn:Ref +0.34 0.12
    SNP:Ref -0.17 0.03

    That's quite a strong negative R2 for Con-Ref swing and certainly statistically significant relationship for LD-Ref swing. Usually when people swing in one direction they come back the same route when things swing back but of course that can't be guaranteed.

    Still, it does suggest to me that the Tories will see a decent rise in vote share if Reform comes off its current highs, and the Lib Dems as I've suspected might see a little bounce of a couple of percent too. Labour might even benefit a tiny bit.

    The Green:Ref positive relationship perhaps suggests they both do well when the voters are in an anti-establishment mood.

    SNP is in there as a control because I expect there is no meaningful interrelationship there.

    For comparison the Correlation and R2 of Con-Lab are teetering on the edge of statistically insignificant over the last year. Whereas if you'd done the same calculations in the 2019-22 period I think you'd have seen Con-Lab extremely closely negatively correlated:

    Con:Lab -0.19 0.04

    So in the last 12 months the biggest driver of inter-party swing has been driven by Reform. The Con-Lab swing had already happened during the Boris and Liz eras.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,721
    kinabalu said:

    Carnyx said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    NOOM INCOMING

    Stop trying to make noom happen. It's not going to happen.
    And nor is the "Jay Rayner of Place".
    Noom is definitely happening because in one easy and malleable syllable it capture a complex but important concept: the experience of the sacred in place

    Even if no one else ever uses it in the history of time I shall use it here and in my head. Because it fits. And also because I am the Carolus Rex of Lexical Coinery

    Jay Rayner of Place is a jest. Tho you have just used it twice
    No I sense you were being deadly serious. You think you are the Jay Rayner of Place. I have a nose for when people are kidding around and when they're not.
    Leon of Sole, presumably?
    The god of cod.
    The rake of hake?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,212
    DavidL said:

    https://x.com/montie/status/1783876232829972956

    Rumours of an exln announcement on Monday are hitting 1000mph. If they are false and Downing Street doesn’t reject them soon the No10 operators risk looking like bottlers. Messy.

    I suppose if you forecast an election every week you will eventually be able to say, see, I told you. AEP has made a career out of this.
    AEP foretold 27,786 out of the last 1 world wide financial crashes. And Greece, to be fair.

    Has he moved into election prediction?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,128
    edited April 26
    ..
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,544
    "The Labyrinth Of Stupidity
    Rev. Stuart Campbell"

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-labyrinth-of-stupidity/
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,814

    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/24280994.green-msp-signals-wont-back-labour-efforts-oust-humza-yousaf/?ref=ebbn&nid=1457&u=f140ec39d500193051a33e140c12bd95&date=260424

    'A SCOTTISH Greens MSP has signalled he will not back Labour’s attempts to topple Humza Yousaf’s government.

    Green MSP Mark Ruskell responded to Anas Sarwar’s announcement that Scottish Labour would table a confidence motion against the Scottish Government.

    It comes after the Tories tabled a motion against the First Minister himself.

    Ruskell said: “Labour clearly don’t want this motion to pass.

    “It was the poor judgement of Humza [Yousaf] in ending the Bute House Agreement that is in question, not the record of the SNP/Green [government].”'

    Does he really think that these are alternatives?

    It does show that Ross was right to frame his motion the way he did. It has much more chance of passing because it is personal to the FM. Labour's motion is entirely performative.
    I think the two motions work quite well together.

    Having the Labour motion means that an MSP can vote to have confidence in the government, but not confidence in Yousaf, instead of having the two conflated. It should make it easier to vote against Yousaf.

    And then, once the vote against Yousaf has succeeded, the SNP/Regan/Greens still have to find a new FM that will win a vote. So it might still end up with an election, even if they isn't their intention when they vote against Yousaf.
    But that's the risk. The Tories might not want to end up with an election, ditto everyone bar Slab.
    A quite possible result of the next Holyrood election is that the SNP lose enough seats that the Tories hold the balance of power between Labour and the SNP, even if the Tories lose a few seats themselves.

    Say, something like 48 SNP, 48 Labour, 20 Tories.

    Sure, that would be 11 lost MSPs for the Tories, but, absent a grand SNP/Labour coalition, either party would be reliant on Tory support for confidence and supply.
    Annabel Goldie did manage to do enough horsetrading with Alex Salmond to end up with 1K (ors whatever it was) extra polis officers. Trouble was, London GHQ promptly did the opposite with the police in E (and W then I think too).

    A critical issue will be whether the Bain Doctrine is still Slab policy - never, ever, to vote for a SNP motion *even if it is what Slab wanted and if it is the only way to get what they want*. That very nearly brought Holyrood down over a budget decision which *incorporated Slab's demands*.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,721
    Leon said:

    Controversial take of the day: gilets are even more satisfying to wear than hoodies

    I know. Shoot me. I DON’T CARE

    Dunno, hoodies give that Cameron-era feeling of danger. Compared to hoodies, gilets are armless. :smiley:
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,601

    What is going on in America?

    https://x.com/ntarnopolsky/status/1783501866418024930

    "Go back to Belarus! Go back to Poland!" yells a "pro-Palestinian" protester at Jewish students leaving Columbia University last night.

    Not sure if I agree with Pelosi about Russian agitprop involved in the demos, but there is definitely a weird feel to so my ever the propaganda and imagery being pushed by some.

    My daughter (teenagers, into all the popular causes) have commented on the weirdness of some of it. Not just racism - stuff that comes from a very different cultural filter.
    Is that not an inevitable function of multiculturalism?
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,601
    More from the student protests:

    https://x.com/kassydillon/status/1783640761117835745

    “Zionists don’t deserve to live.”

    Meet Khymani James, a leader of Columbia University’s anti-Israel Gaza Solidarity Encampment.

    He said this during a live-stream which included a meeting with the school over threatening social media posts.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,235
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    NOOM INCOMING

    Stop trying to make noom happen. It's not going to happen.
    And nor is the "Jay Rayner of Place".
    Always worth keeping in mind that Leon is a hybrid of two Fast Show characters: the Paul Whitehouse teenager who went around saying whatever was in front of him was 'brilliant!', and the Charlie Higson one who was perfectly placid and cultured until triggered into destructive depression by a single word. There is no grey in Leon's world.
    That is a brillliant observation.
    Saying I’m like “two characters in the Fast Show is a”…. *brilliant observation*?

    As long as you’re all talking about me I’m happy. I’m psychotically narcissistic. But you can surely raise the intellectual bar a bit higher than that

    The sun how now properly come out in the Breton countryside. 20C and gorgeous - this is spring. Spring at last!

    Allez!
    If it's Fast Show, I think of you more as the guy who likes to announce all the wonderful things he has done.

    "Which was nice...."

    (Although maybe not the beige polo neck....)
    If we must go down this road, I’d say I am a combination of every single character on the Fast Show

    From the posh drunk guy to the You ain’t seen me right rustic and all stations between

    I am, if you will, the Carl Bernstein of Combined and Compared Characters in a British Sketch Show and I wrote the West Side Story of Wanking on About Myself

    Now I’m in a supermarket. I need Dijon mustard
    See now you're NOT being serious. My 'this person is joking around radar' has gone off.
    Dude, the fact is I’m just outside your bandwidth
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,814

    What is going on in America?

    https://x.com/ntarnopolsky/status/1783501866418024930

    "Go back to Belarus! Go back to Poland!" yells a "pro-Palestinian" protester at Jewish students leaving Columbia University last night.

    Not sure if I agree with Pelosi about Russian agitprop involved in the demos, but there is definitely a weird feel to so my ever the propaganda and imagery being pushed by some.

    My daughter (teenagers, into all the popular causes) have commented on the weirdness of some of it. Not just racism - stuff that comes from a very different cultural filter.
    Is that not an inevitable function of multiculturalism?
    I quite agree, all those weird American-style political little movies bein g produced by the Tories to attack a democratically elected Mayor of London. Mind, it's not surprising they seem alien when they use footage of American railroad stations etc.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,098
    MattW said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    MattW said:

    Off-topic and on the Post Office.

    What are disclosure requirements for such a statutory enquiry (assuming I have the correct phrase)? Do witnesses get to see the evidence before the public display, as in a Court Case?

    Is "Angela van den Bogerd shown letter blaming PO for sub-postmaster's death" a potential Perry Mason moment in a forum such as this enquiry, or are they impossible?

    God knows. The evidence so far from those involved seems to be fulsome apology, usually read from script, and then failure to remember anything damning.
    Along with repeated claims that they were "trying to get to the bottom of it", but that "the technical issues" weren't their responsibility.
    They were generalists. Knowing something about the business would have contaminated their minds with "technical issues" rather than maintaining their "10,000 foot view".
    A core competence of the generalist is to know when and which specialists are required, and to employ them,
    A good generalist is worth a lot IMO but someone who claims they don't need to understand the detail because they are all about the "big picture" very often understands neither.

    Although you can go too far the other way as I once did. I had a job designing the functionality of an IT system and got it into my head I was a fraud because I couldn't program let alone understand how computer code actually worked. It kind of paralysed me, obsessing about that.

    Moral is you have to understand the detail at an appropriate level - and deciding where this level is where the skill comes in. Too high, you risk being a freefloating ignoramus. Too low, your head explodes and you're no good to anybody.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275
    Looks like Sunaks reset has crashed and burned .

    Two polls since his wall to wall coverage and nauseating “ war footing “ claptrap show no sign of moving the polls .

    Perhaps the Tory stooge in Manchester might come through for him .
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,061
    .
    Selebian said:

    kinabalu said:

    Carnyx said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    NOOM INCOMING

    Stop trying to make noom happen. It's not going to happen.
    And nor is the "Jay Rayner of Place".
    Noom is definitely happening because in one easy and malleable syllable it capture a complex but important concept: the experience of the sacred in place

    Even if no one else ever uses it in the history of time I shall use it here and in my head. Because it fits. And also because I am the Carolus Rex of Lexical Coinery

    Jay Rayner of Place is a jest. Tho you have just used it twice
    No I sense you were being deadly serious. You think you are the Jay Rayner of Place. I have a nose for when people are kidding around and when they're not.
    Leon of Sole, presumably?
    The god of cod.
    The rake of hake?
    The pillock of pollock.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,235

    Leon said:

    Controversial take of the day: gilets are even more satisfying to wear than hoodies

    I know. Shoot me. I DON’T CARE

    They are brilliant.
    They have a large hint of the waistcoat, affording that masculine smartness (they are much more flattering for men than women) but also extremely practical - freeing your arms, and they allow layering, you can wear things under and over

    The puffer gilet is pure genius. All that and they weigh 2 ounces and you can pack them in a tiny space and they don’t get crumpled. Superb
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,773

    Leon said:

    Controversial take of the day: gilets are even more satisfying to wear than hoodies

    I know. Shoot me. I DON’T CARE

    They are brilliant.
    I'll generally give Leon a hearing, but in this case I demur.

    Actually, I will concede gilets are satisfying to wear. I had one as a child which I liked.
    However, for other purposes they are unsatisfying. I've never been in a situation where my body was cold but my arms were not. Never.
    They are also unsatisfying to say. You can't say the word without sounding like a ponce. (c.f. almost any word which ends in the 'eh' syllable, e.g. latte, cafe - which my northern tongue cannot help but mangle to caffy, latty. Not that I ever say the word latte because it is a daft drink - coffee for people who don't like coffee.)
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,344

    More from the student protests:

    https://x.com/kassydillon/status/1783640761117835745

    “Zionists don’t deserve to live.”

    Meet Khymani James, a leader of Columbia University’s anti-Israel Gaza Solidarity Encampment.

    He said this during a live-stream which included a meeting with the school over threatening social media posts.

    For all of its fighting words, I suspect it would run away from real trouble.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,814
    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Controversial take of the day: gilets are even more satisfying to wear than hoodies

    I know. Shoot me. I DON’T CARE

    They are brilliant.
    I'll generally give Leon a hearing, but in this case I demur.

    Actually, I will concede gilets are satisfying to wear. I had one as a child which I liked.
    However, for other purposes they are unsatisfying. I've never been in a situation where my body was cold but my arms were not. Never.
    They are also unsatisfying to say. You can't say the word without sounding like a ponce. (c.f. almost any word which ends in the 'eh' syllable, e.g. latte, cafe - which my northern tongue cannot help but mangle to caffy, latty. Not that I ever say the word latte because it is a daft drink - coffee for people who don't like coffee.)
    Outdoor waistcoat or jacket (UK or US) is the term.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,128
    edited April 26
    Carnyx said:

    sarissa said:

    DavidL said:

    Well.


    In pictura est puella. Puella Cornelia est. Cornelia in Italia habitat.

    Ecce Romani 1 from about 1972.

    And people say I have gone dottled! Hahahahaha!!
    I can't even remember that much. Mind you, it was a year earlier ;)
    Ecce puer. Nomen pueri est Boris. Puer flavus est. Linguam latinam discet, ut primus minister futurus sit
    Vivamus mea Lesbia
    Allegra
    Marina
    Petronella
    Anna
    Helena
    Veronica
    Jenifa
    Carrie, atque amemus
    rumoresque senum severiorum
    omnes unius aestimemus assis!
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,212
    kinabalu said:

    MattW said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    MattW said:

    Off-topic and on the Post Office.

    What are disclosure requirements for such a statutory enquiry (assuming I have the correct phrase)? Do witnesses get to see the evidence before the public display, as in a Court Case?

    Is "Angela van den Bogerd shown letter blaming PO for sub-postmaster's death" a potential Perry Mason moment in a forum such as this enquiry, or are they impossible?

    God knows. The evidence so far from those involved seems to be fulsome apology, usually read from script, and then failure to remember anything damning.
    Along with repeated claims that they were "trying to get to the bottom of it", but that "the technical issues" weren't their responsibility.
    They were generalists. Knowing something about the business would have contaminated their minds with "technical issues" rather than maintaining their "10,000 foot view".
    A core competence of the generalist is to know when and which specialists are required, and to employ them,
    A good generalist is worth a lot IMO but someone who claims they don't need to understand the detail because they are all about the "big picture" very often understands neither.

    Although you can go too far the other way as I once did. I had a job designing the functionality of an IT system and got it into my head I was a fraud because I couldn't program let alone understand how computer code actually worked. It kind of paralysed me, obsessing about that.

    Moral is you have to understand the detail at an appropriate level - and deciding where this level is where the skill comes in. Too high, you risk being a freefloating ignoramus. Too low, your head explodes and you're no good to anybody.
    "someone who claims they don't need to understand the detail because they are all about the "big picture"... "

    Is generally not worth very much. Maybe if you sell their organs for transplant...

    You have to be comfortable with the jargon, the people and have a feeling for the possibilities of the technology that you are managing. Otherwise, you can't.

    Profit is a side effect of a good business. Not the goal.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,354
    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    TimS said:

    DavidL said:

    I would be betting against this, not for it. Blair started with 273 seats. Starmer is starting sub 200, depending on how you count those that have fallen by the wayside.

    2010 was a change election against a government in chaos whose economic fantasies had been shredded. Cameron won just over 100 seats, a remarkable achievement, but, like Starmer he started a long way back. Our politics seems to become ever more volatile but I just can't see Starmer getting more seats from the Tories than Cameron did from Labour. Add on maybe 30 from the SNP and he gets a majority but in my view 420 is just fantasy.

    Do we know what the largest ever number of seat flips is in an election? I'm assuming Blair 97 must be up there but Starmer must have a good chance of beating 97 on flips.
    You'd be better asking @ydoethur questions like that but Blair won 178 seats in 1997. Cameron actually won 96 but I think some of those were from the Lib Dems. I would be genuinely amazed if Starmer beat Blair's record and that would still leave him well short of 420.
    The Cons gained 194 in 1931, and Labour lost 237.

    Labour gained 223 in 1945, and the Cons lost 186.

    Those are the two records, I think.
    1906 was bigger - 246 losses by the Unionists, 213 gains by the Liberals (and 27 by the Labour party).

    But those two are the largest in the age of universal suffrage (since 1928).
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Controversial take of the day: gilets are even more satisfying to wear than hoodies

    I know. Shoot me. I DON’T CARE

    They are brilliant.
    They have a large hint of the waistcoat, affording that masculine smartness (they are much more flattering for men than women) but also extremely practical - freeing your arms, and they allow layering, you can wear things under and over

    The puffer gilet is pure genius. All that and they weigh 2 ounces and you can pack them in a tiny space and they don’t get crumpled. Superb
    Wait, they’ve invented a jacket that allows you to use your arms??
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,212
    Carnyx said:

    What is going on in America?

    https://x.com/ntarnopolsky/status/1783501866418024930

    "Go back to Belarus! Go back to Poland!" yells a "pro-Palestinian" protester at Jewish students leaving Columbia University last night.

    Not sure if I agree with Pelosi about Russian agitprop involved in the demos, but there is definitely a weird feel to so my ever the propaganda and imagery being pushed by some.

    My daughter (teenagers, into all the popular causes) have commented on the weirdness of some of it. Not just racism - stuff that comes from a very different cultural filter.
    Is that not an inevitable function of multiculturalism?
    I quite agree, all those weird American-style political little movies bein g produced by the Tories to attack a democratically elected Mayor of London. Mind, it's not surprising they seem alien when they use footage of American railroad stations etc.
    It's more than the usual Americanism. My elder pokes fun at the younger, who watches lots of stuff from the American.... AOC position in the world, I'd say.

    This is stuff that is being directly imported from somewhere else, into the American melting pot of culture.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275
    This election talk is absolute nonsense .

    Who in their right mind goes to the country with the current polling .
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,344
    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    sarissa said:

    DavidL said:

    Well.


    In pictura est puella. Puella Cornelia est. Cornelia in Italia habitat.

    Ecce Romani 1 from about 1972.

    And people say I have gone dottled! Hahahahaha!!
    I can't even remember that much. Mind you, it was a year earlier ;)
    Ecce puer. Nomen pueri est Boris. Puer flavus est. Linguam latinam discet, ut primus minister futurus sit
    Vivamus mea Lesbia
    Allegra
    Marina
    Petronella
    Anna
    Helena
    Veronica
    Jenifa
    Carrie, atque amemus
    rumoresque senum severiorum
    omnes unius aestimemus assis!
    pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,098

    kinabalu said:

    MattW said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    MattW said:

    Off-topic and on the Post Office.

    What are disclosure requirements for such a statutory enquiry (assuming I have the correct phrase)? Do witnesses get to see the evidence before the public display, as in a Court Case?

    Is "Angela van den Bogerd shown letter blaming PO for sub-postmaster's death" a potential Perry Mason moment in a forum such as this enquiry, or are they impossible?

    God knows. The evidence so far from those involved seems to be fulsome apology, usually read from script, and then failure to remember anything damning.
    Along with repeated claims that they were "trying to get to the bottom of it", but that "the technical issues" weren't their responsibility.
    They were generalists. Knowing something about the business would have contaminated their minds with "technical issues" rather than maintaining their "10,000 foot view".
    A core competence of the generalist is to know when and which specialists are required, and to employ them,
    A good generalist is worth a lot IMO but someone who claims they don't need to understand the detail because they are all about the "big picture" very often understands neither.

    Although you can go too far the other way as I once did. I had a job designing the functionality of an IT system and got it into my head I was a fraud because I couldn't program let alone understand how computer code actually worked. It kind of paralysed me, obsessing about that.

    Moral is you have to understand the detail at an appropriate level - and deciding where this level is where the skill comes in. Too high, you risk being a freefloating ignoramus. Too low, your head explodes and you're no good to anybody.
    "someone who claims they don't need to understand the detail because they are all about the "big picture"... "

    Is generally not worth very much. Maybe if you sell their organs for transplant...

    You have to be comfortable with the jargon, the people and have a feeling for the possibilities of the technology that you are managing. Otherwise, you can't.

    Profit is a side effect of a good business. Not the goal.
    I'm agreeing with you. There are too many generalists and not enough SMEs at the top of things.

    I was just illustrating (with personal anecdote) how the truly big skill is understanding the level at which you need to understand - and then understanding it.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,128
    edited April 26
    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    DavidL said:

    Well.


    In pictura est puella. Puella Cornelia est. Cornelia in Italia habitat.

    Ecce Romani 1 from about 1972.

    And people say I have gone dottled! Hahahahaha!!
    Does that "expelliarmus" not have an extra R ?

    Or did JKR learn her Latin at the Royal Horticultural Society?
    Witch Latin is extremely dodgy. I am sure it is deliberate and a joke by JKR. Pratchett sometimes did the same.
    Apparently coined from expello + armus, rather than a bad subjunctive or whatever. But as any fule kno it's arma, conventionally plural for weapons, armamament. Armus is back coinage, dodgy - armus is forequarter/shoulder of meat.
    First person plural subjunctive, known as a very Boris like tense - Hortatory.

    But Catullus uses the present, so there's poetic license there; probably too busy with Lesbia to work out tenses.

    Technically it should probably be "Expelliemus" !
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,767
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Controversial take of the day: gilets are even more satisfying to wear than hoodies

    I know. Shoot me. I DON’T CARE

    They are brilliant.
    They have a large hint of the waistcoat, affording that masculine smartness (they are much more flattering for men than women) but also extremely practical - freeing your arms, and they allow layering, you can wear things under and over

    The puffer gilet is pure genius. All that and they weigh 2 ounces and you can pack them in a tiny space and they don’t get crumpled. Superb
    Wearing a gilet is like putting a sign round your neck saying in large letters "I am a c***".
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,747
    nico679 said:

    This election talk is absolute nonsense .

    Who in their right mind goes to the country with the current polling .

    When did anyone last think the Tories were in their right minds?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,128
    edited April 26
    Sean_F said:

    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    sarissa said:

    DavidL said:

    Well.


    In pictura est puella. Puella Cornelia est. Cornelia in Italia habitat.

    Ecce Romani 1 from about 1972.

    And people say I have gone dottled! Hahahahaha!!
    I can't even remember that much. Mind you, it was a year earlier ;)
    Ecce puer. Nomen pueri est Boris. Puer flavus est. Linguam latinam discet, ut primus minister futurus sit
    Vivamus mea Lesbia
    Allegra
    Marina
    Petronella
    Anna
    Helena
    Veronica
    Jenifa
    Carrie, atque amemus
    rumoresque senum severiorum
    omnes unius aestimemus assis!
    pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo
    Very Cameron. Allegedly.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,544
    'Britain’s Reform UK party does not exist
    But it is all the more powerful as a result
    Bagehot"

    https://www.economist.com/britain/2024/04/24/britains-reform-uk-party-does-not-exist
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,814
    Sean_F said:

    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    sarissa said:

    DavidL said:

    Well.


    In pictura est puella. Puella Cornelia est. Cornelia in Italia habitat.

    Ecce Romani 1 from about 1972.

    And people say I have gone dottled! Hahahahaha!!
    I can't even remember that much. Mind you, it was a year earlier ;)
    Ecce puer. Nomen pueri est Boris. Puer flavus est. Linguam latinam discet, ut primus minister futurus sit
    Vivamus mea Lesbia
    Allegra
    Marina
    Petronella
    Anna
    Helena
    Veronica
    Jenifa
    Carrie, atque amemus
    rumoresque senum severiorum
    omnes unius aestimemus assis!
    pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo
    "Why can't you speak English??" - Gary Busey in "Under Siege".
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,952
    edited April 26

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Controversial take of the day: gilets are even more satisfying to wear than hoodies

    I know. Shoot me. I DON’T CARE

    They are brilliant.
    They have a large hint of the waistcoat, affording that masculine smartness (they are much more flattering for men than women) but also extremely practical - freeing your arms, and they allow layering, you can wear things under and over

    The puffer gilet is pure genius. All that and they weigh 2 ounces and you can pack them in a tiny space and they don’t get crumpled. Superb
    Wearing a gilet is like putting a sign round your neck saying in large letters "I am a c***".
    More specifically, and depending upon the type of gilet, either:

    "I am c*** that works for a hedge fund"; or
    "I am a c*** that is off to the point to point next week".

    And/or possibly/likely both.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,214
    nico679 said:

    This election talk is absolute nonsense .

    Who in their right mind goes to the country with the current polling .

    Are we totally sure Rishi is in his right mind? He did spend Monday pushing through a law saying War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery Rwanda is safe.

    I do suspect that sooner is better for the Conservatives than later. And there is nothing left for this Parliament to do, now that Rwanda is Done.

    But a mid June election? Starting with a tonking in the locals? Not even "courageous, Prime Minister" gets close.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,098
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    NOOM INCOMING

    Stop trying to make noom happen. It's not going to happen.
    And nor is the "Jay Rayner of Place".
    Always worth keeping in mind that Leon is a hybrid of two Fast Show characters: the Paul Whitehouse teenager who went around saying whatever was in front of him was 'brilliant!', and the Charlie Higson one who was perfectly placid and cultured until triggered into destructive depression by a single word. There is no grey in Leon's world.
    That is a brillliant observation.
    Saying I’m like “two characters in the Fast Show is a”…. *brilliant observation*?

    As long as you’re all talking about me I’m happy. I’m psychotically narcissistic. But you can surely raise the intellectual bar a bit higher than that

    The sun how now properly come out in the Breton countryside. 20C and gorgeous - this is spring. Spring at last!

    Allez!
    If it's Fast Show, I think of you more as the guy who likes to announce all the wonderful things he has done.

    "Which was nice...."

    (Although maybe not the beige polo neck....)
    If we must go down this road, I’d say I am a combination of every single character on the Fast Show

    From the posh drunk guy to the You ain’t seen me right rustic and all stations between

    I am, if you will, the Carl Bernstein of Combined and Compared Characters in a British Sketch Show and I wrote the West Side Story of Wanking on About Myself

    Now I’m in a supermarket. I need Dijon mustard
    See now you're NOT being serious. My 'this person is joking around radar' has gone off.
    Dude, the fact is I’m just outside your bandwidth
    Yes. And please stay there if you don't mind.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,984
    Andy_JS said:

    'Britain’s Reform UK party does not exist
    But it is all the more powerful as a result
    Bagehot"

    https://www.economist.com/britain/2024/04/24/britains-reform-uk-party-does-not-exist

    It was a good article. Ref my earlier stats post - they will fizzle away, but even when they do they'll live long in the memory of Tories.

    Reform is how a lot on the right of the conservatives dream of being if only they didn't have to do the boring government stuff. For the same reason I think it's a repository for fictional votes by poll respondents dreaming of their ideal right wing government but who, when push comes to shove, will return home to the Tories.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,984
    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Controversial take of the day: gilets are even more satisfying to wear than hoodies

    I know. Shoot me. I DON’T CARE

    They are brilliant.
    They have a large hint of the waistcoat, affording that masculine smartness (they are much more flattering for men than women) but also extremely practical - freeing your arms, and they allow layering, you can wear things under and over

    The puffer gilet is pure genius. All that and they weigh 2 ounces and you can pack them in a tiny space and they don’t get crumpled. Superb
    Wearing a gilet is like putting a sign round your neck saying in large letters "I am a c***".
    More specifically, and depending upon the type of gilet, either:

    "I am c*** that works for a hedge fund"; or
    "I am a c*** that is off to the point to point next week".

    And/or possibly/likely both.
    My son has a gilet that he's very fond of, from TKMaxx. To my knowledge he's neither a c*** nor someone who works at a hedge fund or does horsey things.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,354
    edited April 26
    nico679 said:

    This election talk is absolute nonsense .

    Who in their right mind goes to the country with the current polling .

    Lefties: "The Tories' judgement is so bad that they are ruining the country at every turn!"

    Also lefties: "An imminent election is absolute nonsense. The Tories are certain to time an election perfectly optimally! The bastards!"
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,098
    TimS said:

    Andy_JS said:

    'Britain’s Reform UK party does not exist
    But it is all the more powerful as a result
    Bagehot"

    https://www.economist.com/britain/2024/04/24/britains-reform-uk-party-does-not-exist

    It was a good article. Ref my earlier stats post - they will fizzle away, but even when they do they'll live long in the memory of Tories.

    Reform is how a lot on the right of the conservatives dream of being if only they didn't have to do the boring government stuff. For the same reason I think it's a repository for fictional votes by poll respondents dreaming of their ideal right wing government but who, when push comes to shove, will return home to the Tories.
    Is it not where many of the "voted Boris not Tory" punters have gone?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,061

    kinabalu said:

    MattW said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    MattW said:

    Off-topic and on the Post Office.

    What are disclosure requirements for such a statutory enquiry (assuming I have the correct phrase)? Do witnesses get to see the evidence before the public display, as in a Court Case?

    Is "Angela van den Bogerd shown letter blaming PO for sub-postmaster's death" a potential Perry Mason moment in a forum such as this enquiry, or are they impossible?

    God knows. The evidence so far from those involved seems to be fulsome apology, usually read from script, and then failure to remember anything damning.
    Along with repeated claims that they were "trying to get to the bottom of it", but that "the technical issues" weren't their responsibility.
    They were generalists. Knowing something about the business would have contaminated their minds with "technical issues" rather than maintaining their "10,000 foot view".
    A core competence of the generalist is to know when and which specialists are required, and to employ them,
    A good generalist is worth a lot IMO but someone who claims they don't need to understand the detail because they are all about the "big picture" very often understands neither.

    Although you can go too far the other way as I once did. I had a job designing the functionality of an IT system and got it into my head I was a fraud because I couldn't program let alone understand how computer code actually worked. It kind of paralysed me, obsessing about that.

    Moral is you have to understand the detail at an appropriate level - and deciding where this level is where the skill comes in. Too high, you risk being a freefloating ignoramus. Too low, your head explodes and you're no good to anybody.
    "someone who claims they don't need to understand the detail because they are all about the "big picture"... "

    Is generally not worth very much. Maybe if you sell their organs for transplant...

    You have to be comfortable with the jargon, the people and have a feeling for the possibilities of the technology that you are managing. Otherwise, you can't.

    Profit is a side effect of a good business. Not the goal.
    The Bogerd woman barely aspires to the moral and intellectual level of a speak your weight machine.
    Or so she presents herself in her evidence.
  • CleitophonCleitophon Posts: 480

    nico679 said:

    This election talk is absolute nonsense .

    Who in their right mind goes to the country with the current polling .

    Lefties: "The Tories' judgement is so bad that they are ruining the country at every turn!"

    Also lefties: "An imminent election is absolute nonsense. The Tories are certain to time an election perfectly optimally! The bastards!"
    The tories will only drop more the longer they wait. There is nothing to wait for even if it is bad. They have to pinch their noses and take their medicine.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,952
    TimS said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Controversial take of the day: gilets are even more satisfying to wear than hoodies

    I know. Shoot me. I DON’T CARE

    They are brilliant.
    They have a large hint of the waistcoat, affording that masculine smartness (they are much more flattering for men than women) but also extremely practical - freeing your arms, and they allow layering, you can wear things under and over

    The puffer gilet is pure genius. All that and they weigh 2 ounces and you can pack them in a tiny space and they don’t get crumpled. Superb
    Wearing a gilet is like putting a sign round your neck saying in large letters "I am a c***".
    More specifically, and depending upon the type of gilet, either:

    "I am c*** that works for a hedge fund"; or
    "I am a c*** that is off to the point to point next week".

    And/or possibly/likely both.
    My son has a gilet that he's very fond of, from TKMaxx. To my knowledge he's neither a c*** nor someone who works at a hedge fund or does horsey things.
    Your wrong. He is a c***. What's wrong with being a chap. I know it sounds a bit outdated but still.

    I mean that's what OLB meant isn't it?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,061
    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    DavidL said:

    Well.


    In pictura est puella. Puella Cornelia est. Cornelia in Italia habitat.

    Ecce Romani 1 from about 1972.

    And people say I have gone dottled! Hahahahaha!!
    Does that "expelliarmus" not have an extra R ?

    Or did JKR learn her Latin at the Royal Horticultural Society?
    Witch Latin is extremely dodgy. I am sure it is deliberate and a joke by JKR. Pratchett sometimes did the same.
    Apparently coined from expello + armus, rather than a bad subjunctive or whatever. But as any fule kno it's arma, conventionally plural for weapons, armamament. Armus is back coinage, dodgy - armus is forequarter/shoulder of meat.
    First person plural subjunctive, known as a very Boris like tense - Hortatory.

    But Catullus uses the present, so there's poetic license there; probably too busy with Lesbia to work out tenses.

    Technically it should probably be "Expelliemus" !
    The St Andrew's classics professors were entirely proficient in Latin. Not so sure about their students.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,212
    edited April 26
    TimS said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Controversial take of the day: gilets are even more satisfying to wear than hoodies

    I know. Shoot me. I DON’T CARE

    They are brilliant.
    They have a large hint of the waistcoat, affording that masculine smartness (they are much more flattering for men than women) but also extremely practical - freeing your arms, and they allow layering, you can wear things under and over

    The puffer gilet is pure genius. All that and they weigh 2 ounces and you can pack them in a tiny space and they don’t get crumpled. Superb
    Wearing a gilet is like putting a sign round your neck saying in large letters "I am a c***".
    More specifically, and depending upon the type of gilet, either:

    "I am c*** that works for a hedge fund"; or
    "I am a c*** that is off to the point to point next week".

    And/or possibly/likely both.
    My son has a gilet that he's very fond of, from TKMaxx. To my knowledge he's neither a c*** nor someone who works at a hedge fund or does horsey things.
    Which kind of C*** are these chaps?


  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,061
    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    kinabalu said:

    MattW said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    MattW said:

    Off-topic and on the Post Office.

    What are disclosure requirements for such a statutory enquiry (assuming I have the correct phrase)? Do witnesses get to see the evidence before the public display, as in a Court Case?

    Is "Angela van den Bogerd shown letter blaming PO for sub-postmaster's death" a potential Perry Mason moment in a forum such as this enquiry, or are they impossible?

    God knows. The evidence so far from those involved seems to be fulsome apology, usually read from script, and then failure to remember anything damning.
    Along with repeated claims that they were "trying to get to the bottom of it", but that "the technical issues" weren't their responsibility.
    They were generalists. Knowing something about the business would have contaminated their minds with "technical issues" rather than maintaining their "10,000 foot view".
    A core competence of the generalist is to know when and which specialists are required, and to employ them,
    A good generalist is worth a lot IMO but someone who claims they don't need to understand the detail because they are all about the "big picture" very often understands neither.

    Although you can go too far the other way as I once did. I had a job designing the functionality of an IT system and got it into my head I was a fraud because I couldn't program let alone understand how computer code actually worked. It kind of paralysed me, obsessing about that.

    Moral is you have to understand the detail at an appropriate level - and deciding where this level is where the skill comes in. Too high, you risk being a freefloating ignoramus. Too low, your head explodes and you're no good to anybody.
    "someone who claims they don't need to understand the detail because they are all about the "big picture"... "

    Is generally not worth very much. Maybe if you sell their organs for transplant...

    You have to be comfortable with the jargon, the people and have a feeling for the possibilities of the technology that you are managing. Otherwise, you can't.

    Profit is a side effect of a good business. Not the goal.
    The Bogerd woman barely aspires to the moral and intellectual level of a speak your weight machine.
    Or so she presents herself in her evidence.
    Unkind, sir.

    Speak your weight machines tell the truth.
    Only if they're so calibrated.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,212
    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    kinabalu said:

    MattW said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    MattW said:

    Off-topic and on the Post Office.

    What are disclosure requirements for such a statutory enquiry (assuming I have the correct phrase)? Do witnesses get to see the evidence before the public display, as in a Court Case?

    Is "Angela van den Bogerd shown letter blaming PO for sub-postmaster's death" a potential Perry Mason moment in a forum such as this enquiry, or are they impossible?

    God knows. The evidence so far from those involved seems to be fulsome apology, usually read from script, and then failure to remember anything damning.
    Along with repeated claims that they were "trying to get to the bottom of it", but that "the technical issues" weren't their responsibility.
    They were generalists. Knowing something about the business would have contaminated their minds with "technical issues" rather than maintaining their "10,000 foot view".
    A core competence of the generalist is to know when and which specialists are required, and to employ them,
    A good generalist is worth a lot IMO but someone who claims they don't need to understand the detail because they are all about the "big picture" very often understands neither.

    Although you can go too far the other way as I once did. I had a job designing the functionality of an IT system and got it into my head I was a fraud because I couldn't program let alone understand how computer code actually worked. It kind of paralysed me, obsessing about that.

    Moral is you have to understand the detail at an appropriate level - and deciding where this level is where the skill comes in. Too high, you risk being a freefloating ignoramus. Too low, your head explodes and you're no good to anybody.
    "someone who claims they don't need to understand the detail because they are all about the "big picture"... "

    Is generally not worth very much. Maybe if you sell their organs for transplant...

    You have to be comfortable with the jargon, the people and have a feeling for the possibilities of the technology that you are managing. Otherwise, you can't.

    Profit is a side effect of a good business. Not the goal.
    The Bogerd woman barely aspires to the moral and intellectual level of a speak your weight machine.
    Or so she presents herself in her evidence.
    Unkind, sir.

    Speak your weight machines tell the truth.
    I'm not 100% certain in the history of this, but I'd put good money on "No speak your weight machine has ever conspired to put innocent people in prison".
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,863
    MattW said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Well.


    Is this another of Johnson's bastard gets?
    It might be Boris's sister's fault. Fans of the greatest docudrama in the history of television, When Boris Met Dave, will recall Rachel saying Classics was a dead easy way of getting into Oxford. Lots of places, not much competition if 90 per cent of schools do not teach it, one imagines.
    The baffling thing is wanting to get into Oxford.
    Getting into Oxford is a prerequisite for getting out of Oxford with a plum job in the City, politics or the media. Cambridge for comedy, of course.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,061

    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    kinabalu said:

    MattW said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    MattW said:

    Off-topic and on the Post Office.

    What are disclosure requirements for such a statutory enquiry (assuming I have the correct phrase)? Do witnesses get to see the evidence before the public display, as in a Court Case?

    Is "Angela van den Bogerd shown letter blaming PO for sub-postmaster's death" a potential Perry Mason moment in a forum such as this enquiry, or are they impossible?

    God knows. The evidence so far from those involved seems to be fulsome apology, usually read from script, and then failure to remember anything damning.
    Along with repeated claims that they were "trying to get to the bottom of it", but that "the technical issues" weren't their responsibility.
    They were generalists. Knowing something about the business would have contaminated their minds with "technical issues" rather than maintaining their "10,000 foot view".
    A core competence of the generalist is to know when and which specialists are required, and to employ them,
    A good generalist is worth a lot IMO but someone who claims they don't need to understand the detail because they are all about the "big picture" very often understands neither.

    Although you can go too far the other way as I once did. I had a job designing the functionality of an IT system and got it into my head I was a fraud because I couldn't program let alone understand how computer code actually worked. It kind of paralysed me, obsessing about that.

    Moral is you have to understand the detail at an appropriate level - and deciding where this level is where the skill comes in. Too high, you risk being a freefloating ignoramus. Too low, your head explodes and you're no good to anybody.
    "someone who claims they don't need to understand the detail because they are all about the "big picture"... "

    Is generally not worth very much. Maybe if you sell their organs for transplant...

    You have to be comfortable with the jargon, the people and have a feeling for the possibilities of the technology that you are managing. Otherwise, you can't.

    Profit is a side effect of a good business. Not the goal.
    The Bogerd woman barely aspires to the moral and intellectual level of a speak your weight machine.
    Or so she presents herself in her evidence.
    Unkind, sir.

    Speak your weight machines tell the truth.
    I'm not 100% certain in the history of this, but I'd put good money on "No speak your weight machine has ever conspired to put innocent people in prison".
    Well precisely.
    She has taken the 'I was only following instructions' defence to its absurd extreme.

    Impossible to conspire if you were entirely unaware of what was going on, for well over a decade. As a senior manager.

    Which is what she's claimed for the last two days.
  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 6,813
    It would be peak Sunak to call an election on Monday. A campaign that will kick off with the Tories getting shellacked in the locals and before they can get one of their Rwanda-flights-on-which-everything-depends (in their minds anyway) away.

    So I think it all sounds entirely plausible he’ll call it on Monday.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,212
    Nigelb said:

    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    kinabalu said:

    MattW said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    MattW said:

    Off-topic and on the Post Office.

    What are disclosure requirements for such a statutory enquiry (assuming I have the correct phrase)? Do witnesses get to see the evidence before the public display, as in a Court Case?

    Is "Angela van den Bogerd shown letter blaming PO for sub-postmaster's death" a potential Perry Mason moment in a forum such as this enquiry, or are they impossible?

    God knows. The evidence so far from those involved seems to be fulsome apology, usually read from script, and then failure to remember anything damning.
    Along with repeated claims that they were "trying to get to the bottom of it", but that "the technical issues" weren't their responsibility.
    They were generalists. Knowing something about the business would have contaminated their minds with "technical issues" rather than maintaining their "10,000 foot view".
    A core competence of the generalist is to know when and which specialists are required, and to employ them,
    A good generalist is worth a lot IMO but someone who claims they don't need to understand the detail because they are all about the "big picture" very often understands neither.

    Although you can go too far the other way as I once did. I had a job designing the functionality of an IT system and got it into my head I was a fraud because I couldn't program let alone understand how computer code actually worked. It kind of paralysed me, obsessing about that.

    Moral is you have to understand the detail at an appropriate level - and deciding where this level is where the skill comes in. Too high, you risk being a freefloating ignoramus. Too low, your head explodes and you're no good to anybody.
    "someone who claims they don't need to understand the detail because they are all about the "big picture"... "

    Is generally not worth very much. Maybe if you sell their organs for transplant...

    You have to be comfortable with the jargon, the people and have a feeling for the possibilities of the technology that you are managing. Otherwise, you can't.

    Profit is a side effect of a good business. Not the goal.
    The Bogerd woman barely aspires to the moral and intellectual level of a speak your weight machine.
    Or so she presents herself in her evidence.
    Unkind, sir.

    Speak your weight machines tell the truth.
    I'm not 100% certain in the history of this, but I'd put good money on "No speak your weight machine has ever conspired to put innocent people in prison".
    Well precisely.
    She has taken the 'I was only following instructions' defence to its absurd extreme.

    Impossible to conspire if you were entirely unaware of what was going on, for well over a decade. As a senior manager.

    Which is what she's claimed for the last two days.
    How to NU10K

    1) Know nothing
    2) Learn nothing
    3) Remember that you are the victim
    4) Next job, more money.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,544
    edited April 26
    O/T

    My web browser just came up with a message saying "wallet number copied and secured". Why would it do this?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,098
    Trump's team implying Pecker was squeezed by the state.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,354
    kinabalu said:

    Trump's team implying Pecker was squeezed by the state.

    Well, since Melania probably lost interest some time ago...
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,061

    Nigelb said:

    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    kinabalu said:

    MattW said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    MattW said:

    Off-topic and on the Post Office.

    What are disclosure requirements for such a statutory enquiry (assuming I have the correct phrase)? Do witnesses get to see the evidence before the public display, as in a Court Case?

    Is "Angela van den Bogerd shown letter blaming PO for sub-postmaster's death" a potential Perry Mason moment in a forum such as this enquiry, or are they impossible?

    God knows. The evidence so far from those involved seems to be fulsome apology, usually read from script, and then failure to remember anything damning.
    Along with repeated claims that they were "trying to get to the bottom of it", but that "the technical issues" weren't their responsibility.
    They were generalists. Knowing something about the business would have contaminated their minds with "technical issues" rather than maintaining their "10,000 foot view".
    A core competence of the generalist is to know when and which specialists are required, and to employ them,
    A good generalist is worth a lot IMO but someone who claims they don't need to understand the detail because they are all about the "big picture" very often understands neither.

    Although you can go too far the other way as I once did. I had a job designing the functionality of an IT system and got it into my head I was a fraud because I couldn't program let alone understand how computer code actually worked. It kind of paralysed me, obsessing about that.

    Moral is you have to understand the detail at an appropriate level - and deciding where this level is where the skill comes in. Too high, you risk being a freefloating ignoramus. Too low, your head explodes and you're no good to anybody.
    "someone who claims they don't need to understand the detail because they are all about the "big picture"... "

    Is generally not worth very much. Maybe if you sell their organs for transplant...

    You have to be comfortable with the jargon, the people and have a feeling for the possibilities of the technology that you are managing. Otherwise, you can't.

    Profit is a side effect of a good business. Not the goal.
    The Bogerd woman barely aspires to the moral and intellectual level of a speak your weight machine.
    Or so she presents herself in her evidence.
    Unkind, sir.

    Speak your weight machines tell the truth.
    I'm not 100% certain in the history of this, but I'd put good money on "No speak your weight machine has ever conspired to put innocent people in prison".
    Well precisely.
    She has taken the 'I was only following instructions' defence to its absurd extreme.

    Impossible to conspire if you were entirely unaware of what was going on, for well over a decade. As a senior manager.

    Which is what she's claimed for the last two days.
    How to NU10K

    1) Know nothing
    2) Learn nothing
    3) Remember that you are the victim
    4) Next job, more money.
    She has implicated quite a few others with her evidence. Though that will have extremely limited probative value, given the witness, it won't be entirely useless, as it puts together names and dates.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,362

    Taz said:

    MattW said:

    Off-topic and on the Post Office.

    What are disclosure requirements for such a statutory enquiry (assuming I have the correct phrase)? Do witnesses get to see the evidence before the public display, as in a Court Case?

    Is "Angela van den Bogerd shown letter blaming PO for sub-postmaster's death" a potential Perry Mason moment in a forum such as this enquiry, or are they impossible?

    God knows. The evidence so far from those involved seems to be fulsome apology, usually read from script, and then failure to remember anything damning.
    The said apology being a pro-forma non-apology. "I am really sorry that bad stuff happened to an NPC. It was nothing to do with me or any responsibility of mine..."

    Can we state, formally, that the NU10K thesis is proved? We have people who were on a million a year, who deny all knowledge of the organisation they were running.
    A classic of the "I'm sorry if you felt that" style of apology.
This discussion has been closed.