Question - who was the imposter Rishi Sunak who was a bristly nasty thin-skinned git?
I met Sunak in 2020 and was genuinely impressed by his warmth and normality. The Sunak who is now Leader of the Opposition is the same man.
Once he became PM something crazy happened to him, transforming the nice Rishi into the idiot disaster Rishi.
He spoke extremely well today. Generous, gracious and intelligent. Loto suits him. He was excellent throughout.
It would be funny if he did such a good job as LotO that they beg him to stay on.
I think that’s a live possibility. But I don’t think he’ll agree to it. Another thing I have noticed is that he and Starmo seem to get on very well (now the pressure is off). The next Balls-Osborne??
Question - who was the imposter Rishi Sunak who was a bristly nasty thin-skinned git?
I met Sunak in 2020 and was genuinely impressed by his warmth and normality. The Sunak who is now Leader of the Opposition is the same man.
Once he became PM something crazy happened to him, transforming the nice Rishi into the idiot disaster Rishi.
Every Tory who loses big time and is no longer a threat gets this sort of praise heaped on them. William Hague and Tony Blair all being nice to one another after Hague resigned and Hague going on HIGNFY, Theresa May widely recognised as being a good sort attending the cricket. They might be more relaxed in manner because the pressure is off, but it tells a far bigger story about the observers than the observed. Sunak was a crap, overpromoted leader. He tried to do chummy and matey, and it was widely derided - he retreated behind a bully podium because it was a way of using his perceived merits (incumbency, good at maths) to his advantage. Staged family picnics and being 'real' in Tescos would have got him booted out quicker, as ScottP has said.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Same with my kids (23 and 16). My son is a Beatles fanatic and his favourite era of music is the 15 years from 1965 to 1980. And yet, although he has heard of elvis, he doesn't really no much of his music. Same with my daughter.
My son, 21 yesterday, adores the Beatles, has been around the museums in Liverpool and has the posters on his wall. Elvis? Who he?
I went out with a girl in the early 80s when at University who adored Elvis. But I can't really remember coming across anyone else like that. I fear that the long decline in Las Vagas and the older Elvis damaged his image. Early Elvis was electric.
I think also that, maybe more so in the UK, Elvis is now a figure of fun to many. He’s the guy stag dos dress up as, a million impersonators of various quality and seriousness ape. He’s a punchline about eating too many jellied donuts, dying on a loo. If you don’t know how groundbreaking his music was then he seems like an early Shakin Stevens. He’s a great episode of Father Ted.
Most people probably have an idea of his music but won’t really know absolute corkers like “In the Ghetto” or “Suspicious minds”.
It depends - there’s tons of young people digging back into musical history.
Robert Johnson is an in thing, according to one of my daughter’s friends
Or alternatively, if Virginia is now a marginal Trump’s vote is becoming rather inefficient and we should revisit assumptions about how far ahead Biden needs to be in the popular vote to win.
It's a cherry picked subsample
It is however something I have been wondering about for a while. Trump has seemingly improved his position in a number of blue states that he will still lose, but isn’t as far ahead as he needs to be in swing states as a result even though his headline numbers are not bad.
Of course the whole election is unusual and there are all sorts of weird and not very wonderful chances of chaos happening - not least one of the candidates actually dying from natural or er, other causes.
But at this moment, Trump is not where he needs to be to win.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Remarkably many teenagers nowadays have absolutely no idea who the Beatles are either. Many do, and many love them, but many literally have no idea who they are.
I was talking with someone recently who non-musically said "Ringo" and I said "like the Beatle", and she had no idea what I was talking about. She and her friends didn't know who The Beatles were.
To be fair I didn't know any 1930s artists when I was a teenager in the 90s and the age gap between 60s and today is no different to the 30s and the 90s.
Incidentally, Freedman’s just released book, ‘failed state’, which I am half way through, is a cracking read, for anyone interested in the various failings of our current model of governance. It touches on the sort of deeper topics we sometimes discuss in here when the site Twat isn’t around. Freedman promises to finish with a prospectus for change - which I hope lives up to the promise of his critique.
"In a particularly significant blow to President Joe Biden, prominent Democrat Adam Schiff - a California congressman running to be the state's next senator - has called on him to "pass the torch" and allow another Democrat to challenge Donald Trump in November."
Question - who was the imposter Rishi Sunak who was a bristly nasty thin-skinned git?
I met Sunak in 2020 and was genuinely impressed by his warmth and normality. The Sunak who is now Leader of the Opposition is the same man.
Once he became PM something crazy happened to him, transforming the nice Rishi into the idiot disaster Rishi.
Every Tory who loses big time and is no longer a threat gets this sort of praise heaped on them. William Hague and Tony Blair all being nice to one another after Hague resigned and Hague going on HIGNFY, Theresa May widely recognised as being a good sort attending the cricket. They might be more relaxed in manner because the pressure is off, but it tells a far bigger story about the observers than the observed. Sunak was a crap, overpromoted leader. He tried to do chummy and matey, and it was widely derided - he retreated behind a bully podium because it was a way of using his perceived merits (incumbency, good at maths) to his advantage. Staged family picnics and being 'real' in Tescos would have got him booted out quicker, as ScottP has said.
The truth is some believe or want an adversarial relationship which doesn't exist. I've not seen any mention anywhere of any personal animosity between Sunak and Starmer. One of the main causes of the Coalition was the excellent personal relationship between Cameron and Clegg.
Today was plenty of evidence most MPs got on pretty well with each other "in the clubhouse" - I saw Dowden and Rayner talking amicably and also Hunt and Reeves. I sometimes think MPs have more in common with each other than with their parties.
Question - who was the imposter Rishi Sunak who was a bristly nasty thin-skinned git?
I met Sunak in 2020 and was genuinely impressed by his warmth and normality. The Sunak who is now Leader of the Opposition is the same man.
Once he became PM something crazy happened to him, transforming the nice Rishi into the idiot disaster Rishi.
He spoke extremely well today. Generous, gracious and intelligent. Loto suits him. He was excellent throughout.
Rishi was just the latest in a series of leaders who get reshaped by CCHQ into a pastiche of their party's greatest recent hits. Labour did the same to Gordon Brown, and even now Keir Starmer is getting a bit Blairesque.
Sir Keir somehow sounds better and more statesmanlike since he has become PM. But then, so does Rishi. Best PM-Loto pairing for decades???
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Same with my kids (23 and 16). My son is a Beatles fanatic and his favourite era of music is the 15 years from 1965 to 1980. And yet, although he has heard of elvis, he doesn't really no much of his music. Same with my daughter.
Thanks for all the replies from everyone.
Looking back, it feels like Elvis was everywhere in the 1980s and early 1990s; from "There's a guy down the chip shop swears he's Elvis" (1) to Nick Cage in Honeymoon in Vegas. There were references in such cultural phenomena as Miami vice or Red Dwarf.
ISTR a local Chinese restaurant when I lived near Elephant and Castle had a Chinese Elvis impersonator that became somewhat infamous (2). But I don't see much like that nowadays.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Same with my kids (23 and 16). My son is a Beatles fanatic and his favourite era of music is the 15 years from 1965 to 1980. And yet, although he has heard of elvis, he doesn't really no much of his music. Same with my daughter.
My son, 21 yesterday, adores the Beatles, has been around the museums in Liverpool and has the posters on his wall. Elvis? Who he?
I went out with a girl in the early 80s when at University who adored Elvis. But I can't really remember coming across anyone else like that. I fear that the long decline in Las Vagas and the older Elvis damaged his image. Early Elvis was electric.
I think also that, maybe more so in the UK, Elvis is now a figure of fun to many. He’s the guy stag dos dress up as, a million impersonators of various quality and seriousness ape. He’s a punchline about eating too many jellied donuts, dying on a loo. If you don’t know how groundbreaking his music was then he seems like an early Shakin Stevens. He’s a great episode of Father Ted.
Most people probably have an idea of his music but won’t really know absolute corkers like “In the Ghetto” or “Suspicious minds”.
It depends - there’s tons of young people digging back into musical history.
Robert Johnson is an in thing, according to one of my daughter’s friends
Last Fair Deal Gone Down is a great song. He is a blues singer who sounds miserable for real, not just because the genre demands it.
Question - who was the imposter Rishi Sunak who was a bristly nasty thin-skinned git?
I met Sunak in 2020 and was genuinely impressed by his warmth and normality. The Sunak who is now Leader of the Opposition is the same man.
Once he became PM something crazy happened to him, transforming the nice Rishi into the idiot disaster Rishi.
Every Tory who loses big time and is no longer a threat gets this sort of praise heaped on them. William Hague and Tony Blair all being nice to one another after Hague resigned and Hague going on HIGNFY, Theresa May widely recognised as being a good sort attending the cricket. They might be more relaxed in manner because the pressure is off, but it tells a far bigger story about the observers than the observed. Sunak was a crap, overpromoted leader. He tried to do chummy and matey, and it was widely derided - he retreated behind a bully podium because it was a way of using his perceived merits (incumbency, good at maths) to his advantage. Staged family picnics and being 'real' in Tescos would have got him booted out quicker, as ScottP has said.
The truth is some believe or want an adversarial relationship which doesn't exist. I've not seen any mention anywhere of any personal animosity between Sunak and Starmer. One of the main causes of the Coalition was the excellent personal relationship between Cameron and Clegg.
Today was plenty of evidence most MPs got on pretty well with each other "in the clubhouse" - I saw Dowden and Rayner talking amicably and also Hunt and Reeves. I sometimes think MPs have more in common with each other than with their parties.
Was watching a BBC report on the Trump shooting yesterday.
They had a complete MAGA woman on, who’d served as an advisor in the last Trump administration, as part of it.
They were interleaving her with other interviews. After they had her talking about Jesus protecting Trump etc… the next next segment she was asked what built up this hate.
She said the media. And I thought, here we go.
But her point was actually that the leading politicians all know each other and talk to each other, civilly. And that the wild fighting stuff is for the media which demands strife.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Same with my kids (23 and 16). My son is a Beatles fanatic and his favourite era of music is the 15 years from 1965 to 1980. And yet, although he has heard of elvis, he doesn't really no much of his music. Same with my daughter.
Thanks for all the replies from everyone.
Looking back, it feels like Elvis was everywhere in the 1980s and early 1990s; from "There's a guy down the chip shop swears he's Elvis" (1) to Nick Cage in Honeymoon in Vegas. There were references in such cultural phenomena as Miami vice or Red Dwarf.
ISTR a local Chinese restaurant when I lived near Elephant and Castle had a Chinese Elvis impersonator that became somewhat infamous (2). But I don't see much like that nowadays.
Question - who was the imposter Rishi Sunak who was a bristly nasty thin-skinned git?
I met Sunak in 2020 and was genuinely impressed by his warmth and normality. The Sunak who is now Leader of the Opposition is the same man.
Once he became PM something crazy happened to him, transforming the nice Rishi into the idiot disaster Rishi.
Every Tory who loses big time and is no longer a threat gets this sort of praise heaped on them. William Hague and Tony Blair all being nice to one another after Hague resigned and Hague going on HIGNFY, Theresa May widely recognised as being a good sort attending the cricket. They might be more relaxed in manner because the pressure is off, but it tells a far bigger story about the observers than the observed. Sunak was a crap, overpromoted leader. He tried to do chummy and matey, and it was widely derided - he retreated behind a bully podium because it was a way of using his perceived merits (incumbency, good at maths) to his advantage. Staged family picnics and being 'real' in Tescos would have got him booted out quicker, as ScottP has said.
The truth is some believe or want an adversarial relationship which doesn't exist. I've not seen any mention anywhere of any personal animosity between Sunak and Starmer. One of the main causes of the Coalition was the excellent personal relationship between Cameron and Clegg.
Today was plenty of evidence most MPs got on pretty well with each other "in the clubhouse" - I saw Dowden and Rayner talking amicably and also Hunt and Reeves. I sometimes think MPs have more in common with each other than with their parties.
Was watching a BBC report on the Trump shooting yesterday.
They had a complete MAGA woman on, who’d served as an advisor in the last Trump administration, as part of it.
They were interleaving her with other interviews. After they had her talking about Jesus protecting Trump etc… the next next segment she was asked what built up this hate.
She said the media. And I thought, here we go.
But her point was actually that the leading politicians all know each other and talk to each other, civilly. And that the wild fighting stuff is for the media which demands strife.
You see this at things like the ?State Opening of Parliament?. The politicians from different parties go in side-by-side, chatting amicably. I remember Osborne and Balls chatting as if they were best mates, with none of the fire you might expect. The only exception I can recall was Corbyn and Cameron.
There is much more that unites us in this country than divides us.
"In a particularly significant blow to President Joe Biden, prominent Democrat Adam Schiff - a California congressman running to be the state's next senator - has called on him to "pass the torch" and allow another Democrat to challenge Donald Trump in November."
Question - who was the imposter Rishi Sunak who was a bristly nasty thin-skinned git?
I met Sunak in 2020 and was genuinely impressed by his warmth and normality. The Sunak who is now Leader of the Opposition is the same man.
Once he became PM something crazy happened to him, transforming the nice Rishi into the idiot disaster Rishi.
Every Tory who loses big time and is no longer a threat gets this sort of praise heaped on them. William Hague and Tony Blair all being nice to one another after Hague resigned and Hague going on HIGNFY, Theresa May widely recognised as being a good sort attending the cricket. They might be more relaxed in manner because the pressure is off, but it tells a far bigger story about the observers than the observed. Sunak was a crap, overpromoted leader. He tried to do chummy and matey, and it was widely derided - he retreated behind a bully podium because it was a way of using his perceived merits (incumbency, good at maths) to his advantage. Staged family picnics and being 'real' in Tescos would have got him booted out quicker, as ScottP has said.
The truth is some believe or want an adversarial relationship which doesn't exist. I've not seen any mention anywhere of any personal animosity between Sunak and Starmer. One of the main causes of the Coalition was the excellent personal relationship between Cameron and Clegg.
Today was plenty of evidence most MPs got on pretty well with each other "in the clubhouse" - I saw Dowden and Rayner talking amicably and also Hunt and Reeves. I sometimes think MPs have more in common with each other than with their parties.
Yes, it’s clear that Dowden and Rayner - two self-made working class cabinet members - get on very well. I doubt there is as much as a cigarette paper between Hunt and Reeves on economic policy either.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Same with my kids (23 and 16). My son is a Beatles fanatic and his favourite era of music is the 15 years from 1965 to 1980. And yet, although he has heard of elvis, he doesn't really no much of his music. Same with my daughter.
Thanks for all the replies from everyone.
Looking back, it feels like Elvis was everywhere in the 1980s and early 1990s; from "There's a guy down the chip shop swears he's Elvis" (1) to Nick Cage in Honeymoon in Vegas. There were references in such cultural phenomena as Miami vice or Red Dwarf.
ISTR a local Chinese restaurant when I lived near Elephant and Castle had a Chinese Elvis impersonator that became somewhat infamous (2). But I don't see much like that nowadays.
I have been hosting an american friend and her 14 year old daughter for last couple of weeks for a holiday and was surprised because I have some oldies in my playlist that the daughter has gone home having really got into amongst other things jethro tull
"In a particularly significant blow to President Joe Biden, prominent Democrat Adam Schiff - a California congressman running to be the state's next senator - has called on him to "pass the torch" and allow another Democrat to challenge Donald Trump in November."
Regardless of what happened to Trump, and the media focussing in on that, surely Biden's position remains untenable. The Dems have spent the last month saying he's too old and infirm to continue. You can't row that back.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Same with my kids (23 and 16). My son is a Beatles fanatic and his favourite era of music is the 15 years from 1965 to 1980. And yet, although he has heard of elvis, he doesn't really no much of his music. Same with my daughter.
Thanks for all the replies from everyone.
Looking back, it feels like Elvis was everywhere in the 1980s and early 1990s; from "There's a guy down the chip shop swears he's Elvis" (1) to Nick Cage in Honeymoon in Vegas. There were references in such cultural phenomena as Miami vice or Red Dwarf.
ISTR a local Chinese restaurant when I lived near Elephant and Castle had a Chinese Elvis impersonator that became somewhat infamous (2). But I don't see much like that nowadays.
I have been hosting an american friend and her 14 year old daughter for last couple of weeks for a holiday and was surprised because I have some oldies in my playlist that the daughter has gone home having really got into amongst other things jethro tull
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Same with my kids (23 and 16). My son is a Beatles fanatic and his favourite era of music is the 15 years from 1965 to 1980. And yet, although he has heard of elvis, he doesn't really no much of his music. Same with my daughter.
Thanks for all the replies from everyone.
Looking back, it feels like Elvis was everywhere in the 1980s and early 1990s; from "There's a guy down the chip shop swears he's Elvis" (1) to Nick Cage in Honeymoon in Vegas. There were references in such cultural phenomena as Miami vice or Red Dwarf.
ISTR a local Chinese restaurant when I lived near Elephant and Castle had a Chinese Elvis impersonator that became somewhat infamous (2). But I don't see much like that nowadays.
I have been hosting an american friend and her 14 year old daughter for last couple of weeks for a holiday and was surprised because I have some oldies in my playlist that the daughter has gone home having really got into amongst other things jethro tull
Mrs J loves Jethro Tull. We once went to a concert in Southampton that had terrible acoustics, and I (not a Jethro Tull fan) could understand none of the lyrics. I did not find it pleasant.
ISTR it turned out that HurstLlama, once of this parish, was at the same concert. I hope he's okay.
I thought she was off in the US standing in front of things which didn't immediately get her moved on from? Lammy used to do that sort of thing and look at him now! I hope Truss is paying attention.
An Italian former culture minister has defended a drunk tourist who simulated having sex with a Florence statue, describing her behaviour as “as an amorous exaltation”.
The blonde woman, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, provoked an outcry after she was photographed climbing onto the statue of Bacchus.
A replica of a 16th-century original by Giambologna, the statue sits in a niche on a street near the Ponte Vecchio bridge.
Images posted on the “Welcome to Florence” Facebook page show the young woman hugging and kissing the statue and then simulating sexual positions.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Same with my kids (23 and 16). My son is a Beatles fanatic and his favourite era of music is the 15 years from 1965 to 1980. And yet, although he has heard of elvis, he doesn't really no much of his music. Same with my daughter.
Thanks for all the replies from everyone.
Looking back, it feels like Elvis was everywhere in the 1980s and early 1990s; from "There's a guy down the chip shop swears he's Elvis" (1) to Nick Cage in Honeymoon in Vegas. There were references in such cultural phenomena as Miami vice or Red Dwarf.
ISTR a local Chinese restaurant when I lived near Elephant and Castle had a Chinese Elvis impersonator that became somewhat infamous (2). But I don't see much like that nowadays.
I have been hosting an american friend and her 14 year old daughter for last couple of weeks for a holiday and was surprised because I have some oldies in my playlist that the daughter has gone home having really got into amongst other things jethro tull
Question - who was the imposter Rishi Sunak who was a bristly nasty thin-skinned git?
I met Sunak in 2020 and was genuinely impressed by his warmth and normality. The Sunak who is now Leader of the Opposition is the same man.
Once he became PM something crazy happened to him, transforming the nice Rishi into the idiot disaster Rishi.
Every Tory who loses big time and is no longer a threat gets this sort of praise heaped on them. William Hague and Tony Blair all being nice to one another after Hague resigned and Hague going on HIGNFY, Theresa May widely recognised as being a good sort attending the cricket. They might be more relaxed in manner because the pressure is off, but it tells a far bigger story about the observers than the observed. Sunak was a crap, overpromoted leader. He tried to do chummy and matey, and it was widely derided - he retreated behind a bully podium because it was a way of using his perceived merits (incumbency, good at maths) to his advantage. Staged family picnics and being 'real' in Tescos would have got him booted out quicker, as ScottP has said.
The truth is some believe or want an adversarial relationship which doesn't exist. I've not seen any mention anywhere of any personal animosity between Sunak and Starmer. One of the main causes of the Coalition was the excellent personal relationship between Cameron and Clegg.
Today was plenty of evidence most MPs got on pretty well with each other "in the clubhouse" - I saw Dowden and Rayner talking amicably and also Hunt and Reeves. I sometimes think MPs have more in common with each other than with their parties.
They do. But remember those three examples are all Tory wet faction and Labour Blairite faction. They have no real political differences.
"In a particularly significant blow to President Joe Biden, prominent Democrat Adam Schiff - a California congressman running to be the state's next senator - has called on him to "pass the torch" and allow another Democrat to challenge Donald Trump in November."
Regardless of what happened to Trump, and the media focussing in on that, surely Biden's position remains untenable. The Dems have spent the last month saying he's too old and infirm to continue. You can't row that back.
No. And why the Trump shooting has any relevance escapes me. Biden is a lay for the nomination.
Or alternatively, if Virginia is now a marginal Trump’s vote is becoming rather inefficient and we should revisit assumptions about how far ahead Biden needs to be in the popular vote to win.
It's a cherry picked subsample
In other words, standard williamglenn polling news
"In a particularly significant blow to President Joe Biden, prominent Democrat Adam Schiff - a California congressman running to be the state's next senator - has called on him to "pass the torch" and allow another Democrat to challenge Donald Trump in November."
Regardless of what happened to Trump, and the media focussing in on that, surely Biden's position remains untenable. The Dems have spent the last month saying he's too old and infirm to continue. You can't row that back.
"In a particularly significant blow to President Joe Biden, prominent Democrat Adam Schiff - a California congressman running to be the state's next senator - has called on him to "pass the torch" and allow another Democrat to challenge Donald Trump in November."
Regardless of what happened to Trump, and the media focussing in on that, surely Biden's position remains untenable. The Dems have spent the last month saying he's too old and infirm to continue. You can't row that back.
Vance compared Trump to Hitler and is now his VP pick. Haley endorsed Trump at the convention after saying plenty of terrible things about him. You can row back plenty of things.
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 2h “After the debate, swing voters have flipped. Now, 53% say they are more concerned about Biden’s age, a 12-point increase from our last survey of swing voters. Only 37% say they are more concerned about Trump’s criminal charges, an 11-point decrease.”
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 2h “After the debate, swing voters have flipped. Now, 53% say they are more concerned about Biden’s age, a 12-point increase from our last survey of swing voters. Only 37% say they are more concerned about Trump’s criminal charges, an 11-point decrease.”
An Italian former culture minister has defended a drunk tourist who simulated having sex with a Florence statue, describing her behaviour as “as an amorous exaltation”.
The blonde woman, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, provoked an outcry after she was photographed climbing onto the statue of Bacchus.
A replica of a 16th-century original by Giambologna, the statue sits in a niche on a street near the Ponte Vecchio bridge.
Images posted on the “Welcome to Florence” Facebook page show the young woman hugging and kissing the statue and then simulating sexual positions.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Same with my kids (23 and 16). My son is a Beatles fanatic and his favourite era of music is the 15 years from 1965 to 1980. And yet, although he has heard of elvis, he doesn't really no much of his music. Same with my daughter.
My son, 21 yesterday, adores the Beatles, has been around the museums in Liverpool and has the posters on his wall. Elvis? Who he?
I went out with a girl in the early 80s when at University who adored Elvis. But I can't really remember coming across anyone else like that. I fear that the long decline in Las Vagas and the older Elvis damaged his image. Early Elvis was electric.
I think also that, maybe more so in the UK, Elvis is now a figure of fun to many. He’s the guy stag dos dress up as, a million impersonators of various quality and seriousness ape. He’s a punchline about eating too many jellied donuts, dying on a loo. If you don’t know how groundbreaking his music was then he seems like an early Shakin Stevens. He’s a great episode of Father Ted.
Most people probably have an idea of his music but won’t really know absolute corkers like “In the Ghetto” or “Suspicious minds”.
I thought the really good biopic with Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker showed the problem really well. He kept Elvis doing floor shows in Las Vegas because the money kept pouring in and he had a lot of kickbacks but he destroyed him as an artist and prevented him from developing because the old Elvis made him so much money. That image of Elvis getting older, fatter and more drug dependent killed his reputation and the sexiness of his early work and image.
Gosh, Tom Parker was a real money grabber wasn't he?
The crazy thing about Elvis was that he never really understood his worth or how popular he was. He thought he had to keep doing all those shows in Vegas and be constantly touring across America, playing crappy little venues, to stay in the public eye.
In reality he could have been much more choosy about where and when he played and of course without Parker he'd have been able to do concerts across the world and he'd have been able to be much more daring in his artistic choices.
I suspect if he hadn't died so young, at some point he'd have severed ties with Tom Parker, reinvented himself and become commercial again.
Elvis in the 80s and 90s would be been interesting.
Question - who was the imposter Rishi Sunak who was a bristly nasty thin-skinned git?
I met Sunak in 2020 and was genuinely impressed by his warmth and normality. The Sunak who is now Leader of the Opposition is the same man.
Once he became PM something crazy happened to him, transforming the nice Rishi into the idiot disaster Rishi.
Every Tory who loses big time and is no longer a threat gets this sort of praise heaped on them. William Hague and Tony Blair all being nice to one another after Hague resigned and Hague going on HIGNFY, Theresa May widely recognised as being a good sort attending the cricket. They might be more relaxed in manner because the pressure is off, but it tells a far bigger story about the observers than the observed. Sunak was a crap, overpromoted leader. He tried to do chummy and matey, and it was widely derided - he retreated behind a bully podium because it was a way of using his perceived merits (incumbency, good at maths) to his advantage. Staged family picnics and being 'real' in Tescos would have got him booted out quicker, as ScottP has said.
The truth is some believe or want an adversarial relationship which doesn't exist. I've not seen any mention anywhere of any personal animosity between Sunak and Starmer. One of the main causes of the Coalition was the excellent personal relationship between Cameron and Clegg.
Today was plenty of evidence most MPs got on pretty well with each other "in the clubhouse" - I saw Dowden and Rayner talking amicably and also Hunt and Reeves. I sometimes think MPs have more in common with each other than with their parties.
They do. But remember those three examples are all Tory wet faction and Labour Blairite faction. They have no real political differences.
I thought you might deign to have a respectful absence from this site on today of all days, the tenth anniversary of Russians shooting down a civilian airliner and killing 298 people. Something you consistently shilled for Russia about.
Frank Luntz @FrankLuntz · 37m Joe Biden is losing ground to Donald Trump in 14 key states – will that be enough to force a change on the Democratic ticket?
An Italian former culture minister has defended a drunk tourist who simulated having sex with a Florence statue, describing her behaviour as “as an amorous exaltation”.
The blonde woman, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, provoked an outcry after she was photographed climbing onto the statue of Bacchus.
A replica of a 16th-century original by Giambologna, the statue sits in a niche on a street near the Ponte Vecchio bridge.
Images posted on the “Welcome to Florence” Facebook page show the young woman hugging and kissing the statue and then simulating sexual positions.
An Italian former culture minister has defended a drunk tourist who simulated having sex with a Florence statue, describing her behaviour as “as an amorous exaltation”.
The blonde woman, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, provoked an outcry after she was photographed climbing onto the statue of Bacchus.
A replica of a 16th-century original by Giambologna, the statue sits in a niche on a street near the Ponte Vecchio bridge.
Images posted on the “Welcome to Florence” Facebook page show the young woman hugging and kissing the statue and then simulating sexual positions.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Remarkably many teenagers nowadays have absolutely no idea who the Beatles are either. Many do, and many love them, but many literally have no idea who they are.
I was talking with someone recently who non-musically said "Ringo" and I said "like the Beatle", and she had no idea what I was talking about. She and her friends didn't know who The Beatles were.
To be fair I didn't know any 1930s artists when I was a teenager in the 90s and the age gap between 60s and today is no different to the 30s and the 90s.
I suppose McCartney still being invited to play big shows like Glastonbury helps keep the Beatles torch going with younger generations but it won't be long before even The Beatles begin is fade into the mists of time...
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Same with my kids (23 and 16). My son is a Beatles fanatic and his favourite era of music is the 15 years from 1965 to 1980. And yet, although he has heard of elvis, he doesn't really no much of his music. Same with my daughter.
My son, 21 yesterday, adores the Beatles, has been around the museums in Liverpool and has the posters on his wall. Elvis? Who he?
I went out with a girl in the early 80s when at University who adored Elvis. But I can't really remember coming across anyone else like that. I fear that the long decline in Las Vagas and the older Elvis damaged his image. Early Elvis was electric.
I think also that, maybe more so in the UK, Elvis is now a figure of fun to many. He’s the guy stag dos dress up as, a million impersonators of various quality and seriousness ape. He’s a punchline about eating too many jellied donuts, dying on a loo. If you don’t know how groundbreaking his music was then he seems like an early Shakin Stevens. He’s a great episode of Father Ted.
Most people probably have an idea of his music but won’t really know absolute corkers like “In the Ghetto” or “Suspicious minds”.
I thought the really good biopic with Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker showed the problem really well. He kept Elvis doing floor shows in Las Vegas because the money kept pouring in and he had a lot of kickbacks but he destroyed him as an artist and prevented him from developing because the old Elvis made him so much money. That image of Elvis getting older, fatter and more drug dependent killed his reputation and the sexiness of his early work and image.
Gosh, Tom Parker was a real money grabber wasn't he?
The crazy thing about Elvis was that he never really understood his worth or how popular he was. He thought he had to keep doing all those shows in Vegas and be constantly touring across America, playing crappy little venues, to stay in the public eye.
In reality he could have been much more choosy about where and when he played and of course without Parker he'd have been able to do concerts across the world and he'd have been able to be much more daring in his artistic choices.
I suspect if he hadn't died so young, at some point he'd have severed ties with Tom Parker, reinvented himself and become commercial again.
Elvis in the 80s and 90s would be been interesting.
"In a particularly significant blow to President Joe Biden, prominent Democrat Adam Schiff - a California congressman running to be the state's next senator - has called on him to "pass the torch" and allow another Democrat to challenge Donald Trump in November."
Regardless of what happened to Trump, and the media focussing in on that, surely Biden's position remains untenable. The Dems have spent the last month saying he's too old and infirm to continue. You can't row that back.
If he is going, then they have to get him to go before the convention in 4 weeks. They probably need it to happen in the next fortnight really, so that they can work out what the heck they do re his delegates and the succession (to Harris, probably).
That means there’s a very narrow window for the Democratic establishment to really force the issue. As each day goes by, that window closes bit by bit.
I think it’s clear he thinks he’ll ride out the coming days and at that point it’s too late.
I was convinced he would go given all the stuff that happened around and after the debate. But it is becoming less likely.
Or alternatively, if Virginia is now a marginal Trump’s vote is becoming rather inefficient and we should revisit assumptions about how far ahead Biden needs to be in the popular vote to win.
It's a cherry picked subsample
In other words, standard williamglenn polling news
Or alternatively, if Virginia is now a marginal Trump’s vote is becoming rather inefficient and we should revisit assumptions about how far ahead Biden needs to be in the popular vote to win.
It's a cherry picked subsample
In other words, standard williamglenn polling news
But which WilliamGlenn?
Wrong. You are confusing WilliamGlenn with @WilliamGlenn, an easy mistake to make admittedly. But one that you really ought to have learned to avoid by now.
Question - who was the imposter Rishi Sunak who was a bristly nasty thin-skinned git?
I met Sunak in 2020 and was genuinely impressed by his warmth and normality. The Sunak who is now Leader of the Opposition is the same man.
Once he became PM something crazy happened to him, transforming the nice Rishi into the idiot disaster Rishi.
Every Tory who loses big time and is no longer a threat gets this sort of praise heaped on them. William Hague and Tony Blair all being nice to one another after Hague resigned and Hague going on HIGNFY, Theresa May widely recognised as being a good sort attending the cricket. They might be more relaxed in manner because the pressure is off, but it tells a far bigger story about the observers than the observed. Sunak was a crap, overpromoted leader. He tried to do chummy and matey, and it was widely derided - he retreated behind a bully podium because it was a way of using his perceived merits (incumbency, good at maths) to his advantage. Staged family picnics and being 'real' in Tescos would have got him booted out quicker, as ScottP has said.
The truth is some believe or want an adversarial relationship which doesn't exist. I've not seen any mention anywhere of any personal animosity between Sunak and Starmer. One of the main causes of the Coalition was the excellent personal relationship between Cameron and Clegg.
Today was plenty of evidence most MPs got on pretty well with each other "in the clubhouse" - I saw Dowden and Rayner talking amicably and also Hunt and Reeves. I sometimes think MPs have more in common with each other than with their parties.
They do. But remember those three examples are all Tory wet faction and Labour Blairite faction. They have no real political differences.
I thought you might deign to have a respectful absence from this site on today of all days, the tenth anniversary of Russians shooting down a civilian airliner and killing 298 people. Something you consistently shilled for Russia about.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Same with my kids (23 and 16). My son is a Beatles fanatic and his favourite era of music is the 15 years from 1965 to 1980. And yet, although he has heard of elvis, he doesn't really no much of his music. Same with my daughter.
Thanks for all the replies from everyone.
Looking back, it feels like Elvis was everywhere in the 1980s and early 1990s; from "There's a guy down the chip shop swears he's Elvis" (1) to Nick Cage in Honeymoon in Vegas. There were references in such cultural phenomena as Miami vice or Red Dwarf.
ISTR a local Chinese restaurant when I lived near Elephant and Castle had a Chinese Elvis impersonator that became somewhat infamous (2). But I don't see much like that nowadays.
You had to be around when there was no Elvis and suddenly you hear a burst from Radio Luxembourg and you've "discovered" him and rock'n'roll. Ditto various other comets bursting from the airwaves (e.g. Duane, Snooks etc). And only Elvis from the 1950s counts. It was downhill after he was drafted
I've just watched Sunak's LOTO response to the King's Speech, It was good - thoughtful, not without humour, and courteous, regardless of whether one agreed with him or not. Where on earth has this come from? Why is Starmer no longer a threat to the country's security? Where has the sourness gone?
I can't help but think that if Sunak had adopted this measured, reasonable tone over the last 18 months then the GE outcome would have been significantly closer - a small Labour majority perhaps? He has been ill-advised while PM.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Same with my kids (23 and 16). My son is a Beatles fanatic and his favourite era of music is the 15 years from 1965 to 1980. And yet, although he has heard of elvis, he doesn't really no much of his music. Same with my daughter.
Thanks for all the replies from everyone.
Looking back, it feels like Elvis was everywhere in the 1980s and early 1990s; from "There's a guy down the chip shop swears he's Elvis" (1) to Nick Cage in Honeymoon in Vegas. There were references in such cultural phenomena as Miami vice or Red Dwarf.
ISTR a local Chinese restaurant when I lived near Elephant and Castle had a Chinese Elvis impersonator that became somewhat infamous (2). But I don't see much like that nowadays.
Nunhead Elvis is quite a fixture in SE15. I've run into him in many of the local pubs, and he can freqently be seen performing on the street. As a result all the kids round here know who Elvis is.
Or alternatively, if Virginia is now a marginal Trump’s vote is becoming rather inefficient and we should revisit assumptions about how far ahead Biden needs to be in the popular vote to win.
It's a cherry picked subsample
In other words, standard williamglenn polling news
But which WilliamGlenn?
Wrong. You are confusing WilliamGlenn with @WilliamGlenn, an easy mistake to make admittedly. But one that you really ought to have learned to avoid by now.
They are the same. WilliamGlenn doggedly and without a shred of nuance defended and venerated Britain's global destiny within the EU. He now does exactly the same as a right wing Atlanticist. He does both extremely well, but if there was ever a problem with his oeuvre, it's that he was totally one-note and unable to concede on any point, so a bit unsatisfactory as a debating partner. It's quite telling about the fragility of the remoanerist ego that you don't want him to gain more depth or nuance, you just want him to go back to being an EU cheerleader.
I've just watched Sunak's LOTO response to the King's Speech, It was good - thoughtful, not without humour, and courteous, regardless of whether one agreed with him or not. Where on earth has this come from? Why is Starmer no longer a threat to the country's security? Where has the sourness gone?
I can't help but think that if Sunak had adopted this measured, reasonable tone over the last 18 months then the GE outcome would have been significantly closer - a small Labour majority perhaps? He has been ill-advised while PM.
Some of the backbenchers that wanted him to be nasty lost their seats, and now he is leaving anyway
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Same with my kids (23 and 16). My son is a Beatles fanatic and his favourite era of music is the 15 years from 1965 to 1980. And yet, although he has heard of elvis, he doesn't really no much of his music. Same with my daughter.
My son, 21 yesterday, adores the Beatles, has been around the museums in Liverpool and has the posters on his wall. Elvis? Who he?
I went out with a girl in the early 80s when at University who adored Elvis. But I can't really remember coming across anyone else like that. I fear that the long decline in Las Vagas and the older Elvis damaged his image. Early Elvis was electric.
I think also that, maybe more so in the UK, Elvis is now a figure of fun to many. He’s the guy stag dos dress up as, a million impersonators of various quality and seriousness ape. He’s a punchline about eating too many jellied donuts, dying on a loo. If you don’t know how groundbreaking his music was then he seems like an early Shakin Stevens. He’s a great episode of Father Ted.
Most people probably have an idea of his music but won’t really know absolute corkers like “In the Ghetto” or “Suspicious minds”.
I thought the really good biopic with Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker showed the problem really well. He kept Elvis doing floor shows in Las Vegas because the money kept pouring in and he had a lot of kickbacks but he destroyed him as an artist and prevented him from developing because the old Elvis made him so much money. That image of Elvis getting older, fatter and more drug dependent killed his reputation and the sexiness of his early work and image.
Gosh, Tom Parker was a real money grabber wasn't he?
The crazy thing about Elvis was that he never really understood his worth or how popular he was. He thought he had to keep doing all those shows in Vegas and be constantly touring across America, playing crappy little venues, to stay in the public eye.
In reality he could have been much more choosy about where and when he played and of course without Parker he'd have been able to do concerts across the world and he'd have been able to be much more daring in his artistic choices.
I suspect if he hadn't died so young, at some point he'd have severed ties with Tom Parker, reinvented himself and become commercial again.
Elvis in the 80s and 90s would be been interesting.
Despite Colonel Parker taking Elvis for a ride, they'd probably not have broken up.
[Priscilla Presley] reiterated her positive opinion to Tom Hanks in 2022 when the actor prepared to play Parker for Elvis (2022). Hanks said, "I was anticipating hearing horror stories about this venal, cheap crook. Just the opposite. Both Priscilla and Jerry said he was a lovely man". According to Priscilla, Elvis was happy to pay Parker 50% of his earnings to manage him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Tom_Parker
I've just watched Sunak's LOTO response to the King's Speech, It was good - thoughtful, not without humour, and courteous, regardless of whether one agreed with him or not. Where on earth has this come from? Why is Starmer no longer a threat to the country's security? Where has the sourness gone?
I can't help but think that if Sunak had adopted this measured, reasonable tone over the last 18 months then the GE outcome would have been significantly closer - a small Labour majority perhaps? He has been ill-advised while PM.
If he didn't act like an idiot then the idiots behind him would have put letters into the 1922. The causes of the last election result were structural and fundamental.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Same with my kids (23 and 16). My son is a Beatles fanatic and his favourite era of music is the 15 years from 1965 to 1980. And yet, although he has heard of elvis, he doesn't really no much of his music. Same with my daughter.
My son, 21 yesterday, adores the Beatles, has been around the museums in Liverpool and has the posters on his wall. Elvis? Who he?
I went out with a girl in the early 80s when at University who adored Elvis. But I can't really remember coming across anyone else like that. I fear that the long decline in Las Vagas and the older Elvis damaged his image. Early Elvis was electric.
I think also that, maybe more so in the UK, Elvis is now a figure of fun to many. He’s the guy stag dos dress up as, a million impersonators of various quality and seriousness ape. He’s a punchline about eating too many jellied donuts, dying on a loo. If you don’t know how groundbreaking his music was then he seems like an early Shakin Stevens. He’s a great episode of Father Ted.
Most people probably have an idea of his music but won’t really know absolute corkers like “In the Ghetto” or “Suspicious minds”.
I thought the really good biopic with Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker showed the problem really well. He kept Elvis doing floor shows in Las Vegas because the money kept pouring in and he had a lot of kickbacks but he destroyed him as an artist and prevented him from developing because the old Elvis made him so much money. That image of Elvis getting older, fatter and more drug dependent killed his reputation and the sexiness of his early work and image.
Gosh, Tom Parker was a real money grabber wasn't he?
The crazy thing about Elvis was that he never really understood his worth or how popular he was. He thought he had to keep doing all those shows in Vegas and be constantly touring across America, playing crappy little venues, to stay in the public eye.
In reality he could have been much more choosy about where and when he played and of course without Parker he'd have been able to do concerts across the world and he'd have been able to be much more daring in his artistic choices.
I suspect if he hadn't died so young, at some point he'd have severed ties with Tom Parker, reinvented himself and become commercial again.
Elvis in the 80s and 90s would be been interesting.
On Elvis vs Beatles, indeed - a big difference surely is that Elvis left the building 47 years ago, whilst 2 Beatles have been active at least until recently.
IMV Prof Greaves was very hard-done by in her discovery five or so years ago. There was a distinct whiff of not-discovered-here syndrome.
Yes, she and her team made a mistake and overestimated the amount seen in the signal. But there was still too much to be easily explained by non-biological processes. Also, her team did a great job in trying to work out, and eliminate, the potential non-biological sources. It was good science - but little science is perfect.
*If* there is life, the question becomes how the ff*ck it survives there. Bacteria breeding high in the atmosphere, that developed when Venus's conditions were more conducive, and evolved to live in cooler climes high in the atmosphere?
I've just watched Sunak's LOTO response to the King's Speech, It was good - thoughtful, not without humour, and courteous, regardless of whether one agreed with him or not. Where on earth has this come from? Why is Starmer no longer a threat to the country's security? Where has the sourness gone?
I can't help but think that if Sunak had adopted this measured, reasonable tone over the last 18 months then the GE outcome would have been significantly closer - a small Labour majority perhaps? He has been ill-advised while PM.
I agree, but I don't think his party allowed that sort of approach. The problem wasn't Sunak (though he pi**ed me off with a few things); it was the nutters in the party.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Same with my kids (23 and 16). My son is a Beatles fanatic and his favourite era of music is the 15 years from 1965 to 1980. And yet, although he has heard of elvis, he doesn't really no much of his music. Same with my daughter.
Thanks for all the replies from everyone.
Looking back, it feels like Elvis was everywhere in the 1980s and early 1990s; from "There's a guy down the chip shop swears he's Elvis" (1) to Nick Cage in Honeymoon in Vegas. There were references in such cultural phenomena as Miami vice or Red Dwarf.
ISTR a local Chinese restaurant when I lived near Elephant and Castle had a Chinese Elvis impersonator that became somewhat infamous (2). But I don't see much like that nowadays.
You had to be around when there was no Elvis and suddenly you hear a burst from Radio Luxembourg and you've "discovered" him and rock'n'roll. Ditto various other comets bursting from the airwaves (e.g. Duane, Snooks etc). And only Elvis from the 1950s counts. It was downhill after he was drafted
Elvis died when he went in the army -- John Lennon, on being told of Elvis's death.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Remarkably many teenagers nowadays have absolutely no idea who the Beatles are either. Many do, and many love them, but many literally have no idea who they are.
I was talking with someone recently who non-musically said "Ringo" and I said "like the Beatle", and she had no idea what I was talking about. She and her friends didn't know who The Beatles were.
To be fair I didn't know any 1930s artists when I was a teenager in the 90s and the age gap between 60s and today is no different to the 30s and the 90s.
I suppose McCartney still being invited to play big shows like Glastonbury helps keep the Beatles torch going with younger generations but it won't be long before even The Beatles begin is fade into the mists of time...
It's interesting how relative recency means things are better known. I'm always surprised when kids know nothing about the silver screen of the 30s to 50s. Golden era Hollywood was long gone when I was a child, so I tend to think they should know about it if I do, but actually, in my childhood you still had cameos by Katherine Hepburn and Charlton Heston, Lauren Bacall and Tony Curtis on chat shows - the era was still alive.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Same with my kids (23 and 16). My son is a Beatles fanatic and his favourite era of music is the 15 years from 1965 to 1980. And yet, although he has heard of elvis, he doesn't really no much of his music. Same with my daughter.
Thanks for all the replies from everyone.
Looking back, it feels like Elvis was everywhere in the 1980s and early 1990s; from "There's a guy down the chip shop swears he's Elvis" (1) to Nick Cage in Honeymoon in Vegas. There were references in such cultural phenomena as Miami vice or Red Dwarf.
ISTR a local Chinese restaurant when I lived near Elephant and Castle had a Chinese Elvis impersonator that became somewhat infamous (2). But I don't see much like that nowadays.
You had to be around when there was no Elvis and suddenly you hear a burst from Radio Luxembourg and you've "discovered" him and rock'n'roll. Ditto various other comets bursting from the airwaves (e.g. Duane, Snooks etc). And only Elvis from the 1950s counts. It was downhill after he was drafted
At lot of people say it was all downhill after the army, but when you look at some of his work in the late 60s and early 70s, like Suspicious Minds and In The Ghetto, those songs still hold up today and are just awesome records really.
For me he had two "on periods" which were 56-58 and 68-72 and two "off periods" 59-67 and 73-77, the later of which obviously become disastrous.
Appreciate his cultural peak was at the start though when the shock of him bursting on to the scene must have been unbelievable.
Question - who was the imposter Rishi Sunak who was a bristly nasty thin-skinned git?
I met Sunak in 2020 and was genuinely impressed by his warmth and normality. The Sunak who is now Leader of the Opposition is the same man.
Once he became PM something crazy happened to him, transforming the nice Rishi into the idiot disaster Rishi.
Every Tory who loses big time and is no longer a threat gets this sort of praise heaped on them. William Hague and Tony Blair all being nice to one another after Hague resigned and Hague going on HIGNFY, Theresa May widely recognised as being a good sort attending the cricket. They might be more relaxed in manner because the pressure is off, but it tells a far bigger story about the observers than the observed. Sunak was a crap, overpromoted leader. He tried to do chummy and matey, and it was widely derided - he retreated behind a bully podium because it was a way of using his perceived merits (incumbency, good at maths) to his advantage. Staged family picnics and being 'real' in Tescos would have got him booted out quicker, as ScottP has said.
The truth is some believe or want an adversarial relationship which doesn't exist. I've not seen any mention anywhere of any personal animosity between Sunak and Starmer. One of the main causes of the Coalition was the excellent personal relationship between Cameron and Clegg.
Today was plenty of evidence most MPs got on pretty well with each other "in the clubhouse" - I saw Dowden and Rayner talking amicably and also Hunt and Reeves. I sometimes think MPs have more in common with each other than with their parties.
They do. But remember those three examples are all Tory wet faction and Labour Blairite faction. They have no real political differences.
I thought you might deign to have a respectful absence from this site on today of all days, the tenth anniversary of Russians shooting down a civilian airliner and killing 298 people. Something you consistently shilled for Russia about.
Get help.
For what?
I haven't shilled for a fascist imperialist power. I might suggest you follow your own advice, comrade.
I've just watched Sunak's LOTO response to the King's Speech, It was good - thoughtful, not without humour, and courteous, regardless of whether one agreed with him or not. Where on earth has this come from? Why is Starmer no longer a threat to the country's security? Where has the sourness gone?
I can't help but think that if Sunak had adopted this measured, reasonable tone over the last 18 months then the GE outcome would have been significantly closer - a small Labour majority perhaps? He has been ill-advised while PM.
It was Oppositionism from a government that had run out of road and ideas. It's why Sunak kept doing "fake Boris" and tried to turn PMQs into LOTOq's.
Sunak was dealt a bad hand and didn't play it well, but will be remembered slightly more positively as time goes on.
The British system is tough on former Prime Ministers. There is little role for them apart from being sulky backbenchers or pimping themselves around Hicksville country club as speaker.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Same with my kids (23 and 16). My son is a Beatles fanatic and his favourite era of music is the 15 years from 1965 to 1980. And yet, although he has heard of elvis, he doesn't really no much of his music. Same with my daughter.
My son, 21 yesterday, adores the Beatles, has been around the museums in Liverpool and has the posters on his wall. Elvis? Who he?
I went out with a girl in the early 80s when at University who adored Elvis. But I can't really remember coming across anyone else like that. I fear that the long decline in Las Vagas and the older Elvis damaged his image. Early Elvis was electric.
I think also that, maybe more so in the UK, Elvis is now a figure of fun to many. He’s the guy stag dos dress up as, a million impersonators of various quality and seriousness ape. He’s a punchline about eating too many jellied donuts, dying on a loo. If you don’t know how groundbreaking his music was then he seems like an early Shakin Stevens. He’s a great episode of Father Ted.
Most people probably have an idea of his music but won’t really know absolute corkers like “In the Ghetto” or “Suspicious minds”.
I thought the really good biopic with Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker showed the problem really well. He kept Elvis doing floor shows in Las Vegas because the money kept pouring in and he had a lot of kickbacks but he destroyed him as an artist and prevented him from developing because the old Elvis made him so much money. That image of Elvis getting older, fatter and more drug dependent killed his reputation and the sexiness of his early work and image.
Gosh, Tom Parker was a real money grabber wasn't he?
The crazy thing about Elvis was that he never really understood his worth or how popular he was. He thought he had to keep doing all those shows in Vegas and be constantly touring across America, playing crappy little venues, to stay in the public eye.
In reality he could have been much more choosy about where and when he played and of course without Parker he'd have been able to do concerts across the world and he'd have been able to be much more daring in his artistic choices.
I suspect if he hadn't died so young, at some point he'd have severed ties with Tom Parker, reinvented himself and become commercial again.
Elvis in the 80s and 90s would be been interesting.
Despite Colonel Parker taking Elvis for a ride, they'd probably not have broken up.
[Priscilla Presley] reiterated her positive opinion to Tom Hanks in 2022 when the actor prepared to play Parker for Elvis (2022). Hanks said, "I was anticipating hearing horror stories about this venal, cheap crook. Just the opposite. Both Priscilla and Jerry said he was a lovely man". According to Priscilla, Elvis was happy to pay Parker 50% of his earnings to manage him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Tom_Parker
Many performers would be fine if they trimmed their entourages. Dean Martin loved to play small venues, but felt compelled to do stadiums with Sinatra into the late 80s out of loyalty becuase Frank was declining but needed the money due to huge outgoings.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Remarkably many teenagers nowadays have absolutely no idea who the Beatles are either. Many do, and many love them, but many literally have no idea who they are.
I was talking with someone recently who non-musically said "Ringo" and I said "like the Beatle", and she had no idea what I was talking about. She and her friends didn't know who The Beatles were.
To be fair I didn't know any 1930s artists when I was a teenager in the 90s and the age gap between 60s and today is no different to the 30s and the 90s.
I suppose McCartney still being invited to play big shows like Glastonbury helps keep the Beatles torch going with younger generations but it won't be long before even The Beatles begin is fade into the mists of time...
It's interesting how relative recency means things are better known. I'm always surprised when kids know nothing about the silver screen of the 30s to 50s. Golden era Hollywood was long gone when I was a child, so I tend to think they should know about it if I do, but actually, in my childhood you still had cameos by Katherine Hepburn and Charlton Heston, Lauren Bacall and Tony Curtis on chat shows - the era was still alive.
I do not know if it was official policy but it seemed the main television channels stopped showing black and white films at some point in the 1980s.
IMV Prof Greaves was very hard-done by in her discovery five or so years ago. There was a distinct whiff of not-discovered-here syndrome.
Yes, she and her team made a mistake and overestimated the amount seen in the signal. But there was still too much to be easily explained by non-biological processes. Also, her team did a great job in trying to work out, and eliminate, the potential non-biological sources. It was good science - but little science is perfect.
*If* there is life, the question becomes how the ff*ck it survives there. Bacteria breeding high in the atmosphere, that developed when Venus's conditions were more conducive, and evolved to live in cooler climes high in the atmosphere?
Well. That is a question. At the moment we are fighting our normalcy bias, though. Ours is the only planet with life. So we tend to look for life similar to ours in similar conditions.
Question - who was the imposter Rishi Sunak who was a bristly nasty thin-skinned git?
I met Sunak in 2020 and was genuinely impressed by his warmth and normality. The Sunak who is now Leader of the Opposition is the same man.
Once he became PM something crazy happened to him, transforming the nice Rishi into the idiot disaster Rishi.
Every Tory who loses big time and is no longer a threat gets this sort of praise heaped on them. William Hague and Tony Blair all being nice to one another after Hague resigned and Hague going on HIGNFY, Theresa May widely recognised as being a good sort attending the cricket. They might be more relaxed in manner because the pressure is off, but it tells a far bigger story about the observers than the observed. Sunak was a crap, overpromoted leader. He tried to do chummy and matey, and it was widely derided - he retreated behind a bully podium because it was a way of using his perceived merits (incumbency, good at maths) to his advantage. Staged family picnics and being 'real' in Tescos would have got him booted out quicker, as ScottP has said.
The truth is some believe or want an adversarial relationship which doesn't exist. I've not seen any mention anywhere of any personal animosity between Sunak and Starmer. One of the main causes of the Coalition was the excellent personal relationship between Cameron and Clegg.
Today was plenty of evidence most MPs got on pretty well with each other "in the clubhouse" - I saw Dowden and Rayner talking amicably and also Hunt and Reeves. I sometimes think MPs have more in common with each other than with their parties.
They do. But remember those three examples are all Tory wet faction and Labour Blairite faction. They have no real political differences.
Perhaps and there's an element of people like people like themselves but I don't see why an adversarial political relationship must translate into an adversarial personal relationship.
The question is whether anyone on the Conservative side will pick up an alternate agenda and try to run with it. I keep hearing the same old mantra the Conservatives need to be conservative - fine, but I don't think anyone knows what conservatism looks like now and for the rest of the 2020s.
In any case, the Conservatives had 14 years to be conservative - what did they do with all that time?
I was told earlier they were concentrating on Europe, Covid and Ukraine. I'll take the second seriously as it was a significant public health crisis at the time but Europe was self indulgence and Ukraine didn't stop delivery of a domestic agenda.
Question - who was the imposter Rishi Sunak who was a bristly nasty thin-skinned git?
I met Sunak in 2020 and was genuinely impressed by his warmth and normality. The Sunak who is now Leader of the Opposition is the same man.
Once he became PM something crazy happened to him, transforming the nice Rishi into the idiot disaster Rishi.
Every Tory who loses big time and is no longer a threat gets this sort of praise heaped on them. William Hague and Tony Blair all being nice to one another after Hague resigned and Hague going on HIGNFY, Theresa May widely recognised as being a good sort attending the cricket. They might be more relaxed in manner because the pressure is off, but it tells a far bigger story about the observers than the observed. Sunak was a crap, overpromoted leader. He tried to do chummy and matey, and it was widely derided - he retreated behind a bully podium because it was a way of using his perceived merits (incumbency, good at maths) to his advantage. Staged family picnics and being 'real' in Tescos would have got him booted out quicker, as ScottP has said.
The truth is some believe or want an adversarial relationship which doesn't exist. I've not seen any mention anywhere of any personal animosity between Sunak and Starmer. One of the main causes of the Coalition was the excellent personal relationship between Cameron and Clegg.
Today was plenty of evidence most MPs got on pretty well with each other "in the clubhouse" - I saw Dowden and Rayner talking amicably and also Hunt and Reeves. I sometimes think MPs have more in common with each other than with their parties.
They do. But remember those three examples are all Tory wet faction and Labour Blairite faction. They have no real political differences.
I thought you might deign to have a respectful absence from this site on today of all days, the tenth anniversary of Russians shooting down a civilian airliner and killing 298 people. Something you consistently shilled for Russia about.
Get help.
For what?
I haven't shilled for a fascist imperialist power. I might suggest you follow your own advice, comrade.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Remarkably many teenagers nowadays have absolutely no idea who the Beatles are either. Many do, and many love them, but many literally have no idea who they are.
I was talking with someone recently who non-musically said "Ringo" and I said "like the Beatle", and she had no idea what I was talking about. She and her friends didn't know who The Beatles were.
To be fair I didn't know any 1930s artists when I was a teenager in the 90s and the age gap between 60s and today is no different to the 30s and the 90s.
I suppose McCartney still being invited to play big shows like Glastonbury helps keep the Beatles torch going with younger generations but it won't be long before even The Beatles begin is fade into the mists of time...
It's interesting how relative recency means things are better known. I'm always surprised when kids know nothing about the silver screen of the 30s to 50s. Golden era Hollywood was long gone when I was a child, so I tend to think they should know about it if I do, but actually, in my childhood you still had cameos by Katherine Hepburn and Charlton Heston, Lauren Bacall and Tony Curtis on chat shows - the era was still alive.
I think possibly older music is more accessible (via YouTube etc) than older movies.
These days even new movies tend to be forgotten about within a few years of their initial cinematic run.
Question - who was the imposter Rishi Sunak who was a bristly nasty thin-skinned git?
I met Sunak in 2020 and was genuinely impressed by his warmth and normality. The Sunak who is now Leader of the Opposition is the same man.
Once he became PM something crazy happened to him, transforming the nice Rishi into the idiot disaster Rishi.
He spoke extremely well today. Generous, gracious and intelligent. Loto suits him. He was excellent throughout.
It would be funny if he did such a good job as LotO that they beg him to stay on.
I think that’s a live possibility. But I don’t think he’ll agree to it. Another thing I have noticed is that he and Starmo seem to get on very well (now the pressure is off). The next Balls-Osborne??
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Remarkably many teenagers nowadays have absolutely no idea who the Beatles are either. Many do, and many love them, but many literally have no idea who they are.
I was talking with someone recently who non-musically said "Ringo" and I said "like the Beatle", and she had no idea what I was talking about. She and her friends didn't know who The Beatles were.
To be fair I didn't know any 1930s artists when I was a teenager in the 90s and the age gap between 60s and today is no different to the 30s and the 90s.
I suppose McCartney still being invited to play big shows like Glastonbury helps keep the Beatles torch going with younger generations but it won't be long before even The Beatles begin is fade into the mists of time...
It's interesting how relative recency means things are better known. I'm always surprised when kids know nothing about the silver screen of the 30s to 50s. Golden era Hollywood was long gone when I was a child, so I tend to think they should know about it if I do, but actually, in my childhood you still had cameos by Katherine Hepburn and Charlton Heston, Lauren Bacall and Tony Curtis on chat shows - the era was still alive.
In part it's because there were limited TV channels so old films were watched when they came on. They get lost in the cacophony of media choices now, except to students of film.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Remarkably many teenagers nowadays have absolutely no idea who the Beatles are either. Many do, and many love them, but many literally have no idea who they are.
I was talking with someone recently who non-musically said "Ringo" and I said "like the Beatle", and she had no idea what I was talking about. She and her friends didn't know who The Beatles were.
To be fair I didn't know any 1930s artists when I was a teenager in the 90s and the age gap between 60s and today is no different to the 30s and the 90s.
I suppose McCartney still being invited to play big shows like Glastonbury helps keep the Beatles torch going with younger generations but it won't be long before even The Beatles begin is fade into the mists of time...
It's interesting how relative recency means things are better known. I'm always surprised when kids know nothing about the silver screen of the 30s to 50s. Golden era Hollywood was long gone when I was a child, so I tend to think they should know about it if I do, but actually, in my childhood you still had cameos by Katherine Hepburn and Charlton Heston, Lauren Bacall and Tony Curtis on chat shows - the era was still alive.
In part it's because there were limited TV channels so old films were watched when they came on. They get lost in the cacophony of media choices now, except to students of film.
Black & white war films were weekday afternoon stalwarts on BBC and ITV well into the 2000s, before endless reality TV repeats.
Question - who was the imposter Rishi Sunak who was a bristly nasty thin-skinned git?
I met Sunak in 2020 and was genuinely impressed by his warmth and normality. The Sunak who is now Leader of the Opposition is the same man.
Once he became PM something crazy happened to him, transforming the nice Rishi into the idiot disaster Rishi.
Every Tory who loses big time and is no longer a threat gets this sort of praise heaped on them. William Hague and Tony Blair all being nice to one another after Hague resigned and Hague going on HIGNFY, Theresa May widely recognised as being a good sort attending the cricket. They might be more relaxed in manner because the pressure is off, but it tells a far bigger story about the observers than the observed. Sunak was a crap, overpromoted leader. He tried to do chummy and matey, and it was widely derided - he retreated behind a bully podium because it was a way of using his perceived merits (incumbency, good at maths) to his advantage. Staged family picnics and being 'real' in Tescos would have got him booted out quicker, as ScottP has said.
The truth is some believe or want an adversarial relationship which doesn't exist. I've not seen any mention anywhere of any personal animosity between Sunak and Starmer. One of the main causes of the Coalition was the excellent personal relationship between Cameron and Clegg.
Today was plenty of evidence most MPs got on pretty well with each other "in the clubhouse" - I saw Dowden and Rayner talking amicably and also Hunt and Reeves. I sometimes think MPs have more in common with each other than with their parties.
They do. But remember those three examples are all Tory wet faction and Labour Blairite faction. They have no real political differences.
I thought you might deign to have a respectful absence from this site on today of all days, the tenth anniversary of Russians shooting down a civilian airliner and killing 298 people. Something you consistently shilled for Russia about.
Get help.
For what?
I haven't shilled for a fascist imperialist power. I might suggest you follow your own advice, comrade.
Because you're a complete nutball.
Nah. I'm reasonably good at detecting stupid Russian propaganda, particularly when they change their story daily. A 'complete nutball' would swallow all their stories and spread them on other media like PB.
It's a good job we don't know anyone who'd do that, isn't it?
We also had the usual old nonsense this morning about how the Conservatives had chosen three female leaderd and the first Anglo-Indian Prime Minister while Labour remain pale, male and stale.
True but let's remember what happened to the three Conservative female leaders
Thatcher, forced out by the Parliamentary Party. May, forced out by the Parliamentary Party Truss, forced out of the Parliamentary Party
Of the three, not one was defeated at the ballot box but only Thatcher won a majority (three times).
I wouldn't want to be accused of sexism so just a reminder Heath, Johnson and Duncan Smith were also thrown out by the Parliamentary Party so that's 3 all - who would be a Conservative leader?
"In a particularly significant blow to President Joe Biden, prominent Democrat Adam Schiff - a California congressman running to be the state's next senator - has called on him to "pass the torch" and allow another Democrat to challenge Donald Trump in November."
God, the intro sequence to "A View to a Kill" is really peak eighties. Neon everywhere.
"Gentlemen, a silicon integrated circuit..."
Corking, though. Barry's highly 80s score and Christopher Walken's superb performance as a psychopath make it watchable.
Would have been better with Dalton rather than Moore though. Clearly too dark for him. And the slightly silly San Fran city hall fire and fire truck chase. Can't make up it's mind over suspense or laughs.
IMV Prof Greaves was very hard-done by in her discovery five or so years ago. There was a distinct whiff of not-discovered-here syndrome.
Yes, she and her team made a mistake and overestimated the amount seen in the signal. But there was still too much to be easily explained by non-biological processes. Also, her team did a great job in trying to work out, and eliminate, the potential non-biological sources. It was good science - but little science is perfect.
*If* there is life, the question becomes how the ff*ck it survives there. Bacteria breeding high in the atmosphere, that developed when Venus's conditions were more conducive, and evolved to live in cooler climes high in the atmosphere?
Well. That is a question. At the moment we are fighting our normalcy bias, though. Ours is the only planet with life. So we tend to look for life similar to ours in similar conditions.
Over the last few decades, we've discovered 'life' in all sorts of weird places, from undersea volcanic vents to deep rock formations. In fact, 90% of biomass is in rock, and contains a fair amount of genetic diversity.
When people say 'life cannot exist on the surface of Venus', I'd say they're probably right. But there's a heck of a lot of Venus that isn't the surface. Though the subsurface temperatures will also be fairly high as the heat sinks in.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Remarkably many teenagers nowadays have absolutely no idea who the Beatles are either. Many do, and many love them, but many literally have no idea who they are.
I was talking with someone recently who non-musically said "Ringo" and I said "like the Beatle", and she had no idea what I was talking about. She and her friends didn't know who The Beatles were.
To be fair I didn't know any 1930s artists when I was a teenager in the 90s and the age gap between 60s and today is no different to the 30s and the 90s.
I suppose McCartney still being invited to play big shows like Glastonbury helps keep the Beatles torch going with younger generations but it won't be long before even The Beatles begin is fade into the mists of time...
It's interesting how relative recency means things are better known. I'm always surprised when kids know nothing about the silver screen of the 30s to 50s. Golden era Hollywood was long gone when I was a child, so I tend to think they should know about it if I do, but actually, in my childhood you still had cameos by Katherine Hepburn and Charlton Heston, Lauren Bacall and Tony Curtis on chat shows - the era was still alive.
I do not know if it was official policy but it seemed the main television channels stopped showing black and white films at some point in the 1980s.
I used to watch black and white on TV in the 1990s. Including black and white films, as well as black and white TV shows such as Lost In Space, I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched.
And on Cartoon Network I'd watch shows from decades before such as Flintstones, Jetsons, Scooby Doo, Wacky Races, Yogi Bear etc
I think the biggest change especially with TV happened this century, with the switch to digital as well as 16:9 ratio rather than the previous 4:3 ratio.
Oddly enough black and white was something people were prepared to watch/broadcast, it was having black bars on the side that seems to have really deprecated old stuff. Less of an issue for films than TV, which is why you still get some B&W films broadcast but not the shows anymore.
"In a particularly significant blow to President Joe Biden, prominent Democrat Adam Schiff - a California congressman running to be the state's next senator - has called on him to "pass the torch" and allow another Democrat to challenge Donald Trump in November."
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Remarkably many teenagers nowadays have absolutely no idea who the Beatles are either. Many do, and many love them, but many literally have no idea who they are.
I was talking with someone recently who non-musically said "Ringo" and I said "like the Beatle", and she had no idea what I was talking about. She and her friends didn't know who The Beatles were.
To be fair I didn't know any 1930s artists when I was a teenager in the 90s and the age gap between 60s and today is no different to the 30s and the 90s.
I suppose McCartney still being invited to play big shows like Glastonbury helps keep the Beatles torch going with younger generations but it won't be long before even The Beatles begin is fade into the mists of time...
It's interesting how relative recency means things are better known. I'm always surprised when kids know nothing about the silver screen of the 30s to 50s. Golden era Hollywood was long gone when I was a child, so I tend to think they should know about it if I do, but actually, in my childhood you still had cameos by Katherine Hepburn and Charlton Heston, Lauren Bacall and Tony Curtis on chat shows - the era was still alive.
I do not know if it was official policy but it seemed the main television channels stopped showing black and white films at some point in the 1980s.
I used to watch black and white on TV in the 1990s. Including black and white films, as well as black and white TV shows such as Lost In Space, I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched.
And on Cartoon Network I'd watch shows from decades before such as Flintstones, Jetsons, Scooby Doo, Wacky Races, Yogi Bear etc
I think the biggest change especially with TV happened this century, with the switch to digital as well as 16:9 ratio rather than the previous 4:3 ratio.
Oddly enough black and white was something people were prepared to watch/broadcast, it was having black bars on the side that seems to have really deprecated old stuff. Less of an issue for films than TV, which is why you still get some B&W films broadcast but not the shows anymore.
I remember in the late 80s the first telly I was allowed to have in my bedroom was a little black and white portable with a wire swivel aerial lol!
Or alternatively, if Virginia is now a marginal Trump’s vote is becoming rather inefficient and we should revisit assumptions about how far ahead Biden needs to be in the popular vote to win.
It's a cherry picked subsample
In other words, standard williamglenn polling news
But which WilliamGlenn?
Wrong. You are confusing WilliamGlenn with @WilliamGlenn, an easy mistake to make admittedly. But one that you really ought to have learned to avoid by now.
Next you’ll be confusing Zathras with Zathras. Or even Zathras. Though I’ve never heard of anyone confusing any of them with Zathras.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Remarkably many teenagers nowadays have absolutely no idea who the Beatles are either. Many do, and many love them, but many literally have no idea who they are.
I was talking with someone recently who non-musically said "Ringo" and I said "like the Beatle", and she had no idea what I was talking about. She and her friends didn't know who The Beatles were.
To be fair I didn't know any 1930s artists when I was a teenager in the 90s and the age gap between 60s and today is no different to the 30s and the 90s.
I suppose McCartney still being invited to play big shows like Glastonbury helps keep the Beatles torch going with younger generations but it won't be long before even The Beatles begin is fade into the mists of time...
It's interesting how relative recency means things are better known. I'm always surprised when kids know nothing about the silver screen of the 30s to 50s. Golden era Hollywood was long gone when I was a child, so I tend to think they should know about it if I do, but actually, in my childhood you still had cameos by Katherine Hepburn and Charlton Heston, Lauren Bacall and Tony Curtis on chat shows - the era was still alive.
I do not know if it was official policy but it seemed the main television channels stopped showing black and white films at some point in the 1980s.
I used to watch black and white on TV in the 1990s. Including black and white films, as well as black and white TV shows such as Lost In Space, I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched.
And on Cartoon Network I'd watch shows from decades before such as Flintstones, Jetsons, Scooby Doo, Wacky Races, Yogi Bear etc
I think the biggest change especially with TV happened this century, with the switch to digital as well as 16:9 ratio rather than the previous 4:3 ratio.
Oddly enough black and white was something people were prepared to watch/broadcast, it was having black bars on the side that seems to have really deprecated old stuff. Less of an issue for films than TV, which is why you still get some B&W films broadcast but not the shows anymore.
Sadly, streaming services have started simply zooming into old 4:3 content to make it fit a modern screen. Not great in sitcoms, when the joke relies on seeing an object or person at the edge of the screen.
Question - who was the imposter Rishi Sunak who was a bristly nasty thin-skinned git?
I met Sunak in 2020 and was genuinely impressed by his warmth and normality. The Sunak who is now Leader of the Opposition is the same man.
Once he became PM something crazy happened to him, transforming the nice Rishi into the idiot disaster Rishi.
Every Tory who loses big time and is no longer a threat gets this sort of praise heaped on them. William Hague and Tony Blair all being nice to one another after Hague resigned and Hague going on HIGNFY, Theresa May widely recognised as being a good sort attending the cricket. They might be more relaxed in manner because the pressure is off, but it tells a far bigger story about the observers than the observed. Sunak was a crap, overpromoted leader. He tried to do chummy and matey, and it was widely derided - he retreated behind a bully podium because it was a way of using his perceived merits (incumbency, good at maths) to his advantage. Staged family picnics and being 'real' in Tescos would have got him booted out quicker, as ScottP has said.
The truth is some believe or want an adversarial relationship which doesn't exist. I've not seen any mention anywhere of any personal animosity between Sunak and Starmer. One of the main causes of the Coalition was the excellent personal relationship between Cameron and Clegg.
Today was plenty of evidence most MPs got on pretty well with each other "in the clubhouse" - I saw Dowden and Rayner talking amicably and also Hunt and Reeves. I sometimes think MPs have more in common with each other than with their parties.
They do. But remember those three examples are all Tory wet faction and Labour Blairite faction. They have no real political differences.
Perhaps and there's an element of people like people like themselves but I don't see why an adversarial political relationship must translate into an adversarial personal relationship.
The question is whether anyone on the Conservative side will pick up an alternate agenda and try to run with it. I keep hearing the same old mantra the Conservatives need to be conservative - fine, but I don't think anyone knows what conservatism looks like now and for the rest of the 2020s.
In any case, the Conservatives had 14 years to be conservative - what did they do with all that time?
I was told earlier they were concentrating on Europe, Covid and Ukraine. I'll take the second seriously as it was a significant public health crisis at the time but Europe was self indulgence and Ukraine didn't stop delivery of a domestic agenda.
Good point well made. The short answer is that even with Bojo and Cummings' purge, CCHQ's long-standing embrace of centrism and fixing of the candidates list meant that the Tories only ever had a majority in name only. That weakness meant that the administrative state could run rings around them.
Liz was the one who tried to take on the blob, and we all know how that went - but the fact is that she had no majority standing behind her policies - half of them were backstabbing entryists.
This is quite an interesting piece on the growth of the administrative state during the Tories time in office, and what's planned under SKS.
Or alternatively, if Virginia is now a marginal Trump’s vote is becoming rather inefficient and we should revisit assumptions about how far ahead Biden needs to be in the popular vote to win.
It's a cherry picked subsample
In other words, standard williamglenn polling news
But which WilliamGlenn?
Wrong. You are confusing WilliamGlenn with @WilliamGlenn, an easy mistake to make admittedly. But one that you really ought to have learned to avoid by now.
Next you’ll be confusing Zathras with Zathras. Or even Zathras. Though I’ve never heard of anyone confusing any of them with Zathras.
'You take, Zathras die. You leave, Zathras die. Either way, it is bad for Zathras.' 'Sad life...probably have sad death. At least there's symmetry.'
Today I had a reminder of the most baffling mystery in modern Britain: why the mobile network along our mainland railway lines is so utterly shite.
If SKS can sort that then he’ll have been a successful PM.
Because they go through rural areas. It would require a specific "make the railway corridors have good reception" mandate, presumably.
It's shite in Germany and Spain too. Can't speak for other places.
It’s pretty much perfect on the Japanese Shinkansen, even in tunnels. Pretty good in Switzerland too.
I’d say it’s worse on the mainlines than in an average countryside spot in England. Presumably due to cuttings. But yes, it requires specific action to address. Which must surely be a no brainer from a GDP and productivity point of view. And the railways are full of wires, posts and towers already. Just get the MNOs to string along some mini-5G towers.
IMV Prof Greaves was very hard-done by in her discovery five or so years ago. There was a distinct whiff of not-discovered-here syndrome.
Yes, she and her team made a mistake and overestimated the amount seen in the signal. But there was still too much to be easily explained by non-biological processes. Also, her team did a great job in trying to work out, and eliminate, the potential non-biological sources. It was good science - but little science is perfect.
*If* there is life, the question becomes how the ff*ck it survives there. Bacteria breeding high in the atmosphere, that developed when Venus's conditions were more conducive, and evolved to live in cooler climes high in the atmosphere?
Well. That is a question. At the moment we are fighting our normalcy bias, though. Ours is the only planet with life. So we tend to look for life similar to ours in similar conditions.
Over the last few decades, we've discovered 'life' in all sorts of weird places, from undersea volcanic vents to deep rock formations. In fact, 90% of biomass is in rock, and contains a fair amount of genetic diversity.
When people say 'life cannot exist on the surface of Venus', I'd say they're probably right. But there's a heck of a lot of Venus that isn't the surface. Though the subsurface temperatures will also be fairly high as the heat sinks in.
There’s long been comments that the upper cloud layers on Venus are not inhospitable. To the point of suggesting floating colonies for humans there.
IMV Prof Greaves was very hard-done by in her discovery five or so years ago. There was a distinct whiff of not-discovered-here syndrome.
Yes, she and her team made a mistake and overestimated the amount seen in the signal. But there was still too much to be easily explained by non-biological processes. Also, her team did a great job in trying to work out, and eliminate, the potential non-biological sources. It was good science - but little science is perfect.
*If* there is life, the question becomes how the ff*ck it survives there. Bacteria breeding high in the atmosphere, that developed when Venus's conditions were more conducive, and evolved to live in cooler climes high in the atmosphere?
Well. That is a question. At the moment we are fighting our normalcy bias, though. Ours is the only planet with life. So we tend to look for life similar to ours in similar conditions.
Over the last few decades, we've discovered 'life' in all sorts of weird places, from undersea volcanic vents to deep rock formations. In fact, 90% of biomass is in rock, and contains a fair amount of genetic diversity.
When people say 'life cannot exist on the surface of Venus', I'd say they're probably right. But there's a heck of a lot of Venus that isn't the surface. Though the subsurface temperatures will also be fairly high as the heat sinks in.
There’s long been comments that the upper cloud layers on Venus are not inhospitable. To the point of suggesting floating colonies for humans there.
A literal "City In The Clouds" ? How cool would that be?
Question - who was the imposter Rishi Sunak who was a bristly nasty thin-skinned git?
I met Sunak in 2020 and was genuinely impressed by his warmth and normality. The Sunak who is now Leader of the Opposition is the same man.
Once he became PM something crazy happened to him, transforming the nice Rishi into the idiot disaster Rishi.
Every Tory who loses big time and is no longer a threat gets this sort of praise heaped on them. William Hague and Tony Blair all being nice to one another after Hague resigned and Hague going on HIGNFY, Theresa May widely recognised as being a good sort attending the cricket. They might be more relaxed in manner because the pressure is off, but it tells a far bigger story about the observers than the observed. Sunak was a crap, overpromoted leader. He tried to do chummy and matey, and it was widely derided - he retreated behind a bully podium because it was a way of using his perceived merits (incumbency, good at maths) to his advantage. Staged family picnics and being 'real' in Tescos would have got him booted out quicker, as ScottP has said.
The truth is some believe or want an adversarial relationship which doesn't exist. I've not seen any mention anywhere of any personal animosity between Sunak and Starmer. One of the main causes of the Coalition was the excellent personal relationship between Cameron and Clegg.
Today was plenty of evidence most MPs got on pretty well with each other "in the clubhouse" - I saw Dowden and Rayner talking amicably and also Hunt and Reeves. I sometimes think MPs have more in common with each other than with their parties.
I believe Johnson and Starmer quite genuinely despise each other. It depends on who they are whether they get on well in the clubhouse, I think.
Today I had a reminder of the most baffling mystery in modern Britain: why the mobile network along our mainland railway lines is so utterly shite.
If SKS can sort that then he’ll have been a successful PM.
Because they go through rural areas. It would require a specific "make the railway corridors have good reception" mandate, presumably.
It's shite in Germany and Spain too. Can't speak for other places.
It’s pretty much perfect on the Japanese Shinkansen, even in tunnels. Pretty good in Switzerland too.
I’d say it’s worse on the mainlines than in an average countryside spot in England. Presumably due to cuttings. But yes, it requires specific action to address. Which must surely be a no brainer from a GDP and productivity point of view. And the railways are full of wires, posts and towers already. Just get the MNOs to string along some mini-5G towers.
I love Japan, and visit most years, but they have a very high tolerance for urban (and rural) ugliness. So they'll stick a tower anywhere.
Today I had a reminder of the most baffling mystery in modern Britain: why the mobile network along our mainland railway lines is so utterly shite.
If SKS can sort that then he’ll have been a successful PM.
Because they go through rural areas. It would require a specific "make the railway corridors have good reception" mandate, presumably.
It's shite in Germany and Spain too. Can't speak for other places.
It’s pretty much perfect on the Japanese Shinkansen, even in tunnels. Pretty good in Switzerland too.
I’d say it’s worse on the mainlines than in an average countryside spot in England. Presumably due to cuttings. But yes, it requires specific action to address. Which must surely be a no brainer from a GDP and productivity point of view. And the railways are full of wires, posts and towers already. Just get the MNOs to string along some mini-5G towers.
I love Japan, and visit most years, but they have a very high tolerance for urban (and rural) ugliness. So they'll stick a tower anywhere.
God, the intro sequence to "A View to a Kill" is really peak eighties. Neon everywhere.
"Gentlemen, a silicon integrated circuit..."
Corking, though. Barry's highly 80s score and Christopher Walken's superb performance as a psychopath make it watchable.
Would have been better with Dalton rather than Moore though. Clearly too dark for him. And the slightly silly San Fran city hall fire and fire truck chase. Can't make up it's mind over suspense or laughs.
Stacey 'JAAAAMESSS' Sutton (played by Tanya Roberts) was the weak link in the film to me. Of course Moore was a bit past it, but any Moore is great. She was way to young for him and gormless with it. Beautiful though.
I think the role was really written for someone like Linda Gray. A bit more worldly-wise.
Today I had a reminder of the most baffling mystery in modern Britain: why the mobile network along our mainland railway lines is so utterly shite.
If SKS can sort that then he’ll have been a successful PM.
Because they go through rural areas. It would require a specific "make the railway corridors have good reception" mandate, presumably.
It's shite in Germany and Spain too. Can't speak for other places.
It’s pretty much perfect on the Japanese Shinkansen, even in tunnels. Pretty good in Switzerland too.
I’d say it’s worse on the mainlines than in an average countryside spot in England. Presumably due to cuttings. But yes, it requires specific action to address. Which must surely be a no brainer from a GDP and productivity point of view. And the railways are full of wires, posts and towers already. Just get the MNOs to string along some mini-5G towers.
I love Japan, and visit most years, but they have a very high tolerance for urban (and rural) ugliness. So they'll stick a tower anywhere.
But we’re talking intercity railway lines! Which are already huge linear scars through the countryside. If ever there were a place to put a few little towers it’s there.
Today I had a reminder of the most baffling mystery in modern Britain: why the mobile network along our mainland railway lines is so utterly shite.
If SKS can sort that then he’ll have been a successful PM.
Because they go through rural areas. It would require a specific "make the railway corridors have good reception" mandate, presumably.
It's shite in Germany and Spain too. Can't speak for other places.
It’s pretty much perfect on the Japanese Shinkansen, even in tunnels. Pretty good in Switzerland too.
I’d say it’s worse on the mainlines than in an average countryside spot in England. Presumably due to cuttings. But yes, it requires specific action to address. Which must surely be a no brainer from a GDP and productivity point of view. And the railways are full of wires, posts and towers already. Just get the MNOs to string along some mini-5G towers.
I love Japan, and visit most years, but they have a very high tolerance for urban (and rural) ugliness. So they'll stick a tower anywhere.
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
Remarkably many teenagers nowadays have absolutely no idea who the Beatles are either. Many do, and many love them, but many literally have no idea who they are.
I was talking with someone recently who non-musically said "Ringo" and I said "like the Beatle", and she had no idea what I was talking about. She and her friends didn't know who The Beatles were.
To be fair I didn't know any 1930s artists when I was a teenager in the 90s and the age gap between 60s and today is no different to the 30s and the 90s.
I suppose McCartney still being invited to play big shows like Glastonbury helps keep the Beatles torch going with younger generations but it won't be long before even The Beatles begin is fade into the mists of time...
It's interesting how relative recency means things are better known. I'm always surprised when kids know nothing about the silver screen of the 30s to 50s. Golden era Hollywood was long gone when I was a child, so I tend to think they should know about it if I do, but actually, in my childhood you still had cameos by Katherine Hepburn and Charlton Heston, Lauren Bacall and Tony Curtis on chat shows - the era was still alive.
I do not know if it was official policy but it seemed the main television channels stopped showing black and white films at some point in the 1980s.
I used to watch black and white on TV in the 1990s. Including black and white films, as well as black and white TV shows such as Lost In Space, I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched.
And on Cartoon Network I'd watch shows from decades before such as Flintstones, Jetsons, Scooby Doo, Wacky Races, Yogi Bear etc
I think the biggest change especially with TV happened this century, with the switch to digital as well as 16:9 ratio rather than the previous 4:3 ratio.
Oddly enough black and white was something people were prepared to watch/broadcast, it was having black bars on the side that seems to have really deprecated old stuff. Less of an issue for films than TV, which is why you still get some B&W films broadcast but not the shows anymore.
I remember in the late 80s the first telly I was allowed to have in my bedroom was a little black and white portable with a wire swivel aerial lol!
I faintly remember us having a small and dogy B&W telly with a curly aerial. And watching an episode of Whirlybirds where a helicopter crashed and burst into flames.
Just as smoke started billowing out of the back of the telly.
Thus confirming my childhood thesis that the TV full full of tiny little people acting out stories.
Question - who was the imposter Rishi Sunak who was a bristly nasty thin-skinned git?
I met Sunak in 2020 and was genuinely impressed by his warmth and normality. The Sunak who is now Leader of the Opposition is the same man.
Once he became PM something crazy happened to him, transforming the nice Rishi into the idiot disaster Rishi.
Every Tory who loses big time and is no longer a threat gets this sort of praise heaped on them. William Hague and Tony Blair all being nice to one another after Hague resigned and Hague going on HIGNFY, Theresa May widely recognised as being a good sort attending the cricket. They might be more relaxed in manner because the pressure is off, but it tells a far bigger story about the observers than the observed. Sunak was a crap, overpromoted leader. He tried to do chummy and matey, and it was widely derided - he retreated behind a bully podium because it was a way of using his perceived merits (incumbency, good at maths) to his advantage. Staged family picnics and being 'real' in Tescos would have got him booted out quicker, as ScottP has said.
The truth is some believe or want an adversarial relationship which doesn't exist. I've not seen any mention anywhere of any personal animosity between Sunak and Starmer. One of the main causes of the Coalition was the excellent personal relationship between Cameron and Clegg.
Today was plenty of evidence most MPs got on pretty well with each other "in the clubhouse" - I saw Dowden and Rayner talking amicably and also Hunt and Reeves. I sometimes think MPs have more in common with each other than with their parties.
They do. But remember those three examples are all Tory wet faction and Labour Blairite faction. They have no real political differences.
Perhaps and there's an element of people like people like themselves but I don't see why an adversarial political relationship must translate into an adversarial personal relationship.
The question is whether anyone on the Conservative side will pick up an alternate agenda and try to run with it. I keep hearing the same old mantra the Conservatives need to be conservative - fine, but I don't think anyone knows what conservatism looks like now and for the rest of the 2020s.
In any case, the Conservatives had 14 years to be conservative - what did they do with all that time?
I was told earlier they were concentrating on Europe, Covid and Ukraine. I'll take the second seriously as it was a significant public health crisis at the time but Europe was self indulgence and Ukraine didn't stop delivery of a domestic agenda.
Good point well made. The short answer is that even with Bojo and Cummings' purge, CCHQ's long-standing embrace of centrism and fixing of the candidates list meant that the Tories only ever had a majority in name only. That weakness meant that the administrative state could run rings around them.
Liz was the one who tried to take on the blob, and we all know how that went - but the fact is that she had no majority standing behind her policies - half of them were backstabbing entryists.
This is quite an interesting piece on the growth of the administrative state during the Tories time in office, and what's planned under SKS.
It wasn't the "Blob" because that doesn't exist. The reason Truss failed along with some others in the cabinet is more prosaic. They were shit managers and not fit for office being overpromoted for kissing the right arses.
Today I had a reminder of the most baffling mystery in modern Britain: why the mobile network along our mainland railway lines is so utterly shite.
If SKS can sort that then he’ll have been a successful PM.
Because they go through rural areas. It would require a specific "make the railway corridors have good reception" mandate, presumably.
It's shite in Germany and Spain too. Can't speak for other places.
It’s pretty much perfect on the Japanese Shinkansen, even in tunnels. Pretty good in Switzerland too.
I’d say it’s worse on the mainlines than in an average countryside spot in England. Presumably due to cuttings. But yes, it requires specific action to address. Which must surely be a no brainer from a GDP and productivity point of view. And the railways are full of wires, posts and towers already. Just get the MNOs to string along some mini-5G towers.
I love Japan, and visit most years, but they have a very high tolerance for urban (and rural) ugliness. So they'll stick a tower anywhere.
Good.
What's wrong with that?
The ugly part.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
People being able to have their own home, be able to work, be able to do what they need to do is more beautiful than keeping a superficial skin-deep pristine beauty behind which people are unable to do any of that.
Comments
Robert Johnson is an in thing, according to one of my daughter’s friends
Of course the whole election is unusual and there are all sorts of weird and not very wonderful chances of chaos happening - not least one of the candidates actually dying from natural or er, other causes.
But at this moment, Trump is not where he needs to be to win.
I was talking with someone recently who non-musically said "Ringo" and I said "like the Beatle", and she had no idea what I was talking about. She and her friends didn't know who The Beatles were.
To be fair I didn't know any 1930s artists when I was a teenager in the 90s and the age gap between 60s and today is no different to the 30s and the 90s.
You said Biden would increase his percentage win over Trump in Michigan
I said he wouldn't
Not even going to be close imo
You need a Biden withdrawal desperately in order to void the bet
Possibly due to:
"In a particularly significant blow to President Joe Biden, prominent Democrat Adam Schiff - a California congressman running to be the state's next senator - has called on him to "pass the torch" and allow another Democrat to challenge Donald Trump in November."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy9473edpeeo
Today was plenty of evidence most MPs got on pretty well with each other "in the clubhouse" - I saw Dowden and Rayner talking amicably and also Hunt and Reeves. I sometimes think MPs have more in common with each other than with their parties.
Looking back, it feels like Elvis was everywhere in the 1980s and early 1990s; from "There's a guy down the chip shop swears he's Elvis" (1) to Nick Cage in Honeymoon in Vegas. There were references in such cultural phenomena as Miami vice or Red Dwarf.
ISTR a local Chinese restaurant when I lived near Elephant and Castle had a Chinese Elvis impersonator that became somewhat infamous (2). But I don't see much like that nowadays.
(1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QccPUSTMriM
(2): https://www.flickr.com/photos/herschell/2621949106
They had a complete MAGA woman on, who’d served as an advisor in the last Trump administration, as part of it.
They were interleaving her with other interviews. After they had her talking about Jesus protecting Trump etc… the next next segment she was asked what built up this hate.
She said the media. And I thought, here we go.
But her point was actually that the leading politicians all know each other and talk to each other, civilly. And that the wild fighting stuff is for the media which demands strife.
There is much more that unites us in this country than divides us.
It's ridiculous that he's proposing to run again. Always has been.
Serious lol
ISTR it turned out that HurstLlama, once of this parish, was at the same concert. I hope he's okay.
DionysusBacchus would have approved.An Italian former culture minister has defended a drunk tourist who simulated having sex with a Florence statue, describing her behaviour as “as an amorous exaltation”.
The blonde woman, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, provoked an outcry after she was photographed climbing onto the statue of Bacchus.
A replica of a 16th-century original by Giambologna, the statue sits in a niche on a street near the Ponte Vecchio bridge.
Images posted on the “Welcome to Florence” Facebook page show the young woman hugging and kissing the statue and then simulating sexual positions.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/07/17/ex-italian-culture-minister-defends-tourist-who-mimicked-se/
https://x.com/mrharrycole/status/1813620996412453182
Looks like it was written by a petulant child, so I'm not surprised.
"Adults in the room"
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/border-checks-eu-uk-brexit-entry-b2581142.html
Pragmatism breaking out even in the EU. A new era...
@BillKristol
·
2h
“After the debate, swing voters have flipped. Now, 53% say they are more concerned about Biden’s age, a 12-point increase from our last survey of swing voters. Only 37% say they are more concerned about Trump’s criminal charges, an 11-point decrease.”
https://x.com/BillKristol
The crazy thing about Elvis was that he never really understood his worth or how popular he was. He thought he had to keep doing all those shows in Vegas and be constantly touring across America, playing crappy little venues, to stay in the public eye.
In reality he could have been much more choosy about where and when he played and of course without Parker he'd have been able to do concerts across the world and he'd have been able to be much more daring in his artistic choices.
I suspect if he hadn't died so young, at some point he'd have severed ties with Tom Parker, reinvented himself and become commercial again.
Elvis in the 80s and 90s would be been interesting.
Frank Luntz
@FrankLuntz
·
37m
Joe Biden is losing ground to Donald Trump in 14 key states – will that be enough to force a change on the Democratic ticket?
https://x.com/FrankLuntz
That means there’s a very narrow window for the Democratic establishment to really force the issue. As each day goes by, that window closes bit by bit.
I think it’s clear he thinks he’ll ride out the coming days and at that point it’s too late.
I was convinced he would go given all the stuff that happened around and after the debate. But it is becoming less likely.
I can't help but think that if Sunak had adopted this measured, reasonable tone over the last 18 months then the GE outcome would have been significantly closer - a small Labour majority perhaps? He has been ill-advised while PM.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/23/guardian-angel-mega-fan-perform-worlds-largest-elvis-festival
Is there life on Venus?
https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jul/17/signs-of-two-gases-phosphine-ammonia-in-clouds-of-venus-life
If SKS can sort that then he’ll have been a successful PM.
[Priscilla Presley] reiterated her positive opinion to Tom Hanks in 2022 when the actor prepared to play Parker for Elvis (2022). Hanks said, "I was anticipating hearing horror stories about this venal, cheap crook. Just the opposite. Both Priscilla and Jerry said he was a lovely man". According to Priscilla, Elvis was happy to pay Parker 50% of his earnings to manage him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Tom_Parker
There was a theory that Parker was wanted for murder in Europe and this is why Elvis never toured here.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10943693/Did-Elviss-tyrannical-manager-Colonel-Tom-Parker-away-murder.html
I wonder if perceptions are different in the USA?
Yes, she and her team made a mistake and overestimated the amount seen in the signal. But there was still too much to be easily explained by non-biological processes. Also, her team did a great job in trying to work out, and eliminate, the potential non-biological sources. It was good science - but little science is perfect.
*If* there is life, the question becomes how the ff*ck it survives there. Bacteria breeding high in the atmosphere, that developed when Venus's conditions were more conducive, and evolved to live in cooler climes high in the atmosphere?
It's shite in Germany and Spain too. Can't speak for other places.
At lot of people say it was all downhill after the army, but when you look at some of his work in the late 60s and early 70s, like Suspicious Minds and In The Ghetto, those songs still hold up today and are just awesome records really.
For me he had two "on periods" which were 56-58 and 68-72 and two "off periods" 59-67 and 73-77, the later of which obviously become disastrous.
Appreciate his cultural peak was at the start though when the shock of him bursting on to the scene must have been unbelievable.
I haven't shilled for a fascist imperialist power. I might suggest you follow your own advice, comrade.
Sunak was dealt a bad hand and didn't play it well, but will be remembered slightly more positively as time goes on.
The British system is tough on former Prime Ministers. There is little role for them apart from being sulky backbenchers or pimping themselves around Hicksville country club as speaker.
Ours is the only planet with life. So we tend to look for life similar to ours in similar conditions.
The question is whether anyone on the Conservative side will pick up an alternate agenda and try to run with it. I keep hearing the same old mantra the Conservatives need to be conservative - fine, but I don't think anyone knows what conservatism looks like now and for the rest of the 2020s.
In any case, the Conservatives had 14 years to be conservative - what did they do with all that time?
I was told earlier they were concentrating on Europe, Covid and Ukraine. I'll take the second seriously as it was a significant public health crisis at the time but Europe was self indulgence and Ukraine didn't stop delivery of a domestic agenda.
These days even new movies tend to be forgotten about within a few years of their initial cinematic run.
"Gentlemen, a silicon integrated circuit..."
It's a good job we don't know anyone who'd do that, isn't it?
True but let's remember what happened to the three Conservative female leaders
Thatcher, forced out by the Parliamentary Party.
May, forced out by the Parliamentary Party
Truss, forced out of the Parliamentary Party
Of the three, not one was defeated at the ballot box but only Thatcher won a majority (three times).
I wouldn't want to be accused of sexism so just a reminder Heath, Johnson and Duncan Smith were also thrown out by the Parliamentary Party so that's 3 all - who would be a Conservative leader?
He will still be the nominee.
Would have been better with Dalton rather than Moore though. Clearly too dark for him. And the slightly silly San Fran city hall fire and fire truck chase. Can't make up it's mind over suspense or laughs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_biosphere
When people say 'life cannot exist on the surface of Venus', I'd say they're probably right. But there's a heck of a lot of Venus that isn't the surface. Though the subsurface temperatures will also be fairly high as the heat sinks in.
And on Cartoon Network I'd watch shows from decades before such as Flintstones, Jetsons, Scooby Doo, Wacky Races, Yogi Bear etc
I think the biggest change especially with TV happened this century, with the switch to digital as well as 16:9 ratio rather than the previous 4:3 ratio.
Oddly enough black and white was something people were prepared to watch/broadcast, it was having black bars on the side that seems to have really deprecated old stuff. Less of an issue for films than TV, which is why you still get some B&W films broadcast but not the shows anymore.
Liz was the one who tried to take on the blob, and we all know how that went - but the fact is that she had no majority standing behind her policies - half of them were backstabbing entryists.
This is quite an interesting piece on the growth of the administrative state during the Tories time in office, and what's planned under SKS.
https://thecritic.co.uk/starmer-and-the-blob/
'Sad life...probably have sad death. At least there's symmetry.'
I’d say it’s worse on the mainlines than in an average countryside spot in England. Presumably due to cuttings. But yes, it requires specific action to address. Which must surely be a no brainer from a GDP and productivity point of view. And the railways are full of wires, posts and towers already. Just get the MNOs to string along some mini-5G towers.
Having it in tunnels is impressive.
What's wrong with that?
I think the role was really written for someone like Linda Gray. A bit more worldly-wise.
Just as smoke started billowing out of the back of the telly.
Thus confirming my childhood thesis that the TV full full of tiny little people acting out stories.
People being able to have their own home, be able to work, be able to do what they need to do is more beautiful than keeping a superficial skin-deep pristine beauty behind which people are unable to do any of that.